My mom takes my sister Miriel downstairs, through a door I've never noticed. I wait a while, then follow. At the bottom, in a round crypt, find Miriel stripped to bra and panties, manacled to the bench in a Jacuzzi. In the hot tub her underwear is nearly transparent. I feel an erection starting as I look at my sexy little sister. Look away, embarrassed.

My father comes down the secret stair. He asks "what is this?" I answer sourly "It's the family jail." I'm mad at him for willful ignorance. I guessed. We all guessed. He's looked the other way... and he does again. Simply ogles his daughter a while, though he won't actually grope her with a witness watching him. So he goes back upstairs, leaving her shackled in the tub.

Miriel says "I feel dirty. They put something in the water, an antibiotic or a disinfectant, but I think it causes cancer. I can feel my skin reacting... My folks don't want me to have sex, so they did this so I'd be disgusting. Everyone else thinks if I took off my dirty underwear I'd be clean and naked and start fresh. But I won't. I'd look nice but I'd be worse off, cuz my skin would still be contaminated with this invisible toxic film and no one would know!"

Lots of insight. Lots of talk talk talk...

But I don't find a way to break her shackles and rinse her off! Or myself.

Insight's fine. But it's action time.

NOTE IN THE MORNING

In psychodrama today, my friend Nancy talked about the cancer she's fighting. I have a crush on Nancy. My sister Miriel and I are both much like Nancy: gifted, insecure, and fundamentally femme, too femme for our own good. For our own health, at least. And the dream makes it clear where that came from...

NOTE 44 YEARS LATER

Rereading this dream now, I have to add that the toxic soap was literal. Turns out Miriel and I both have the genetic disorder Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, which among other hazards makes us unusually chemosensitive. Most soaps make my skin burn; I just shower in hot water. She's had skin cancer, though so far I'm cancer-free.

I also suspect a pun I missed at the time. Remember how they denounced traitors and oppressors in the French Revolution? "J'accuse!" Or spelled Italian style... Jacuzzi.

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