“No.” Shad’s response was immediate and there was even some emotional force behind it.

Dulsie felt as though she’d been holding her breath for the last minute, and relief swept through her as she drew in a lungful of air. All right, he hadn’t done anything wrong. But still that eerie sensation writhed within her as Dulsie tried to better grasp what had just happened.

“How is it – that is – how can you get something like that?” Some of the strength had returned to her voice, but Dulsie noticed she now felt a little weak in the knees.

“I don’t know.” Shad was flat again. “Nobody knows.”

“What do you know?”

“I know it started by the time I was twelve. I know I lived with it every day until college. I know it was a particularly pervasive manifestation.”

“A what?”

Shad’s gaze rose slightly but he still didn’t make eye contact. “It’s not the same for everyone. Some people have it with a regular sex drive and some people have it with other problems and some people have it ... like I did. It was exclusive. I ... wasn’t attracted to any adult women.”

Dulsie stared at him as their history flashed through her memory. When their relationship started to grow closer, he had always been the perfect gentleman. It wasn’t until they were engaged Shad did a bit of a “Mr. Hyde” turn. Although he always immediately obeyed her “Stop,” Dulsie quickly figured out he assigned her with full responsibility of saving anything for their wedding night. If she understood him correctly, Shad shouldn’t be as interested in her as he had proven himself to be for over six years. Then she remembered a little fact about herself, and the eeriness rippled through Dulsie again.

“But you were attracted to me because I reminded you of a child?”

“Not anymore.”

“Not anymore?”

“It started one day you were at my apartment. You told that joke about the girl who fell in the mud hole, and you imitated a little girl. I ... had a response to that.” Shad’s voice was not quite so monotone, but it remained low and hushed. “It was a response to the wrong stimulus, but at least you were actually an adult woman. You were the first adult. You’ve been the only adult....” His voice trailed away as Shad’s gaze returned to the floor.

Dulsie continued to stare at him as she tried to piece together what Shad was saying. The memory that was so obviously burned into his brain was elusive for her. Dulsie wasn’t even sure what the joke was Shad had referred to. But this event apparently happened shortly after she started college. So that could only mean –

“That was why you started going out with me?”

There was a flicker in his eyes as Shad removed the carrying case from his shoulder and took a step toward the couch to deposit it there. “At first I hoped to use that memory to help condition me toward preferring adult women. It didn’t work, and what I didn’t foresee was that focusing on you in that way would make me ... want to be with you.” Shad seemed to stare at the far end of the couch. “I had a choice. I either had to get over you or win you over. I chose the second option because....” A tremor of tenderness stirred in his voice. “It seemed like it was meant to be.”

Dulsie wished those words could have lifted the weight from her heart, but she was still trying to comprehend how Shad could be the way he was. “How did you manage to hide it so well? Why didn’t I notice something wrong?”

“I believed it was abolished. There came a point that I realized ... a few weeks had passed where I wasn’t having those impulses anymore. We had just started actually going out, and time went on and it never came back. By the time we were engaged I was convinced it was gone.” Shad’s voice cracked a little. “So I never told you.”

Dulsie could tell this revelation was even harder on Shad than when he recounted years ago some of the abusive events of his childhood. Back then he’d been able to keep his emotions perfectly neutral, as though Shad was sharing a story that he actually found a little boring about somebody else. The breakthroughs of emotion Shad was experiencing now proved how hard he was struggling to keep them at bay. When they were kids Dulsie had started to good-naturedly refer to him as Spock because she had been mystified by his reserved behavior. The confirmation Shad had been abused helped to explain that, and suddenly Dulsie remembered there was much about his childhood he still hadn’t told her.

Her voice became hoarse as Dulsie found herself contemplating that yet another act of evil had been perpetrated against Shad. “So did you ... could this be ... were you molested as a child?”

Shad’s focus remained on the end of the couch, and for several seconds he was as still and as quiet as a stone statue. When he finally spoke, only Shad’s mouth moved, and his tone was low.

“It hasn’t been proven that childhood molestation leads to pedophilia.” The fact he tried to skirt her question confirmed what happened even before Shad added the next statements. “Don’t worry, you’re safe. I got myself tested for everything. They all came back clean.”

Her heart ached from more than just the crushing weight. And her sympathy for him only made Dulsie’s next question even harder to ask.

“So ... is it only girls? Or do you also ... what about boys?”

“Only girls.” Shad was as still and emotionless as she’d ever seen him. “Four to six years old.”

Dulsie was starting to feel a little sick to her stomach. Why did he have to be like this? Of all the psychosis and neurosis out there, why did Shad have to be stricken with something so abhorrent? Of all the abuse he’d suffered as a child, why was it only the molestation seemed to stick to him?

“Why girls?” Dulsie could hardly believe she was trying so hard to understand something she found incredibly detestable. “Weren’t you molested by men?”

Shad actually seemed to twitch. Then after a few more seconds of silence he replied in a maintained monotone.

“What happened to me may not be the root of the problem. For all I know, I could have been born this way. I’m not exactly descended from people who would be regarded as pillars of the community.”

A tremor of nausea crept through her again. But Dulsie had to keep seeking answers.

“So what happened to make it come back after all this time?”

Shad inhaled a long, deep breath while his gaze rolled upward slightly as though he’d found something of interest on the wall. Dulsie stepped a little forward and to one side because she could see there was emotion breaking through in his eyes. It wasn’t pain this time, and it wasn’t exactly panic, but it did remind her of the gleam in an animal’s eyes when it sought escape. More seconds passed, and then the mask fell back into place.

“I found one of them.”

Her spine prickled. “What do you mean? Who did you find?”

“The man ... who was with us the longest. I spoke with him.”

Disbelief struck Dulsie again. “You spoke with a man who molested you?”

“I wanted to find out if he had reformed.”

“And?”

“He hasn’t.”

A flicker of rage passed through her. “Prosecute him.”

“I can’t. The statute of limitations is up.”

“Go to the police. Tell them what he did and that they need to investigate him.”

“It doesn’t work that way. I need evidence.”

Dulsie was stunned. She knew that defying the killing letter of the law was the basis for Shad’s decision to become an attorney, but she still found it difficult to believe that the law was more interested in protecting an abuser’s rights because one of his victims had grown too old, yet the perpetrator could continue to obtain fresh victims. And now Shad believed that his frustration at being unable to press charges against the man initiated the recurrence of his ... condition. That led to another question.