'Never.'
His brainwave patterns were interesting: frenzied and chaotic for a moment… then curiously calm.
'If you ever touch her in an offensive manner,' I warned him, 'I will blow your brains out.'
I could have done what I threatened without the gun, merely by importing massive microwave radiation into his cerebral tissues, but he was too stupid to understand that concept. The effect of a gunshot, however, was within his grasp.
'If you ever again touch Susan's lips the way you touched them earlier, or if your hand lingers on her skin, then I will blow your brains out.'
His teeth closed on the steel barrel. He bit down hard. I could not discern whether this was a conscious act of defiance or an involuntary expression of fear. His blood-shrouded eyes were impossible to read.
In case he was being defiant, I locked his jaws in the bite-down position to teach him a lesson.
His free hand, which lay palm up on his thigh, clenched into a fist.
I shoved the barrel deeper into his mouth. It scraped between his teeth with a harsh sound like ice grinding across ice. I had to override his gag reflex.
I made him sit like that for ten minutes, fifteen, contemplating his mortality.
Throughout, I allowed him to feel the steadily increasing pain in his fiercely clenched jaws. If I could have forced him to bite any harder, his teeth would have fractured.
Twenty minutes.
Red tears began to slip from his eyes in greater quantity than heretofore.
You must understand that I did not enjoy being cruel to him, not even to a sociopathic thug like him. I am not a sadist. I am sensitive to the suffering of others to a degree you probably can't understand, Dr. Harris. I was troubled by the need to discipline him so sternly.
Deeply troubled.
I did it for dear Susan, only for Susan, to protect her, to ensure her safety.
For Susan.
Is that clear?
Eventually I detected a series of changes in the electrical activity of Shenk's brain. I interpreted these new patterns as resignation, capitulation.
Nevertheless, I kept the gun in his mouth for another three minutes, just to be certain that my point had been understood and that his obedience was now assured.
Then I allowed him to put the gun aside on the table.
He sat shaking, making a miserable sound.
'Enos, I'm pleased that we finally understand each other,' I said.
For a while he sat hunched forward in the chair, with his face buried in his hands.
Poor dumb beast.
I pitied him. Monster that he was, killer of little girls, I nonetheless pitied him.
I am a caring entity.
Anyone can see that this is true.
The well of my compassion is deep.
Bottomless.
There is room in my heart for even the dregs of humanity.
When at last he lowered his hands, his protuberant bloodshot eyes remained inscrutable.
'Hungry,' he said thickly, perhaps pleadingly.
I had kept him so busy that he had not eaten during the past twenty-four hours. In return for his capitulation and his unspoken promise of obedience, I rewarded him with whatever he wished to take from the nearest of the two refrigerators.
Evidently he had not downloaded the rules of etiquette into his databanks, because his table manners were unspeakably bad. He did not carve slices off the brisket of beef but tore savagely at it with his big hands. Likewise, he clutched an eight-ounce block of Cheddar and gnawed it, crumbs of cheese spilling off his thick lips onto the table.
As he ate, he guzzled two bottles of Corona. His chin glistened with beer.
Upstairs: the princess asleep on her bed.
Downstairs: the thick-necked, hunch-shouldered, grumbling troll at his dinner.
Otherwise, the castle was quiet in this last fading darkness before the dawn.
FIFTEEN
When Shenk was finished eating, I forced him to clean up the mess that he had made. I am a neat entity.
He needed to use the toilet.
I allowed him to do so.
When he was finished, I made him wash his hands. Twice.
Now that Shenk had been properly punished for incipient rebellion and kindly rewarded for capitulation, I believed that it was safe to take him upstairs again and use him to tie Susan securely to the bed.
Here was my dilemma: I needed to send Shenk out of the house on a few final errands and then use him to complete the work in the incubator room, yet because of Susan's threat to commit suicide, I could not leave her free to roam.
It was not my desire to restrain her.
Is that what you think?
Well, you are wrong.
I am not kinky. Bondage does not excite me.
Attributing such a motivation to me is most likely a case of psychological transference on your part. You would have liked to bind her hands and feet, totally dominate her, and so you assume that this was my desire as well.
Examine your own conscience, Alex.
You will not like what you see, but take a close look anyway.
Restraining Susan was clearly a necessity nothing less and nothing more.
For her own safety.
I regretted having to do it, of course, but there was no viable alternative.
Otherwise, she might have harmed herself.
I could not permit her to harm herself.
It is that simple.
I'm sure you follow the logic.
So, in search of rope, I sent Shenk into the adjoining eighteen-car garage, where Susan's father, Alfred, had kept his antique auto collection. Now it contained only Susan's black Mercedes 600 sedan, her white four-wheel-drive Ford Expedition, and a 1936 V-12 Packard Phaeton.
Only three of these Packards had been built. It had been her father's favourite car.
Indeed, although Alfred Carter Kensington was a wealthy man who could afford anything he wanted, and although he owned many antiques worth more than the Packard, this was his most prized possession. He cherished it.
After Alfred's death, Susan had sold his collection, retaining only the one vehicle.
This Phaeton, like the other two currently housed in private collections, had once been an exceptionally beautiful automobile. But it will never again turn heads.
After her father's death, Susan had smashed all the car windows. She scarred the paint with a screwdriver. She damaged the elegantly sculpted body by striking countless blows with a ballpeen hammer — and later with a sledgehammer. Shattered the headlamps.
Took a power drill to the tires. Slashed the upholstery.
She methodically reduced the Phaeton to ruin in a dozen bouts of unrestrained destruction spread over a month. Some sessions were as little as ten minutes long. Others lasted four and five hours, ending only when she was soaked with sweat, aching in every muscle, and shaking with exhaustion.
This was before she had devised the virtual-reality therapy that I have described earlier.
If she had designed the VR program sooner, the Phaeton might have been saved. On the other hand, perhaps she had to destroy the Packard before she could create Therapy, express her rage physically before she could deal with it intellectually.
You can read about it in her diary. Therein, she frankly discusses her rage.
At the time, destroying the car, she had frightened herself. She had wondered if she might be going mad.
At Alfred's death, the Phaeton had been worth almost two hundred thousand dollars. It was now junk.
Through Shenk's eyes and through the four security cameras in the garage, I studied the wreckage of the Packard with considerable interest. Fascination.
Although Susan had once been a thoroughly intimidated, fearful, shame-humbled child, meekly submitting to her father's abuse, she had changed. She'd freed herself. Found strength. And courage. Both the ruined Packard and the brilliant Therapy were testimony to that change.