I didn’t respond.
“That’s why I split that time he was here,” Jill went on. “I figured it was all going to be about making me behave.”
Another moment of silence passed. Somewhere outside my cracked-open window, a dog was barking.
“Eric, did Dad hit her or something?”
“Who?” I asked.
“Mom,” she said, sounding somewhat exasperated. “She looked nuts the next day. Like… just really loony.”
I pulled the covers up to my chin. “I should go to sleep now,” I told her.
She waited. I heard her tongue move across her lips. “Just watch out for that guy, Eric,” she said. “Seriously. You don’t have to do what Dad says. You don’t have to listen to anybody.”
Jill stood up and, seemingly as an afterthought, patted my curled-up form through the blankets. A momentary impulse almost made me ask her to stay, but I kept my mouth shut. Seconds later, she was gone.
The second of my weekly meetings with Doctor Stiles proceeded in much the same way as the first, with the Doctor testing my adherence to his code of conduct, and punishing me with sudden vehemence when I strayed from it. The third week, he slapped me only once, and that merely when the chair beneath me creaked — a circumstance arguably beyond my control. By the fourth week, it was nearly summer, and Doctor Stiles had the windows of his office open, and a spring in his step. I sat, as he had commanded me, in the straight-backed wooden chair, and I had begun to experience what would eventually, in later years, come to be a familiar sense of anxious well-being. I was comfortably suspended in a web of interlocking strands of obligation, strength, and bureaucratic mastery. I was tense, alert, and on the verge of contentment. Doctor Stiles waited long minutes before he spoke, during which I stared straight ahead, at the curled yellow warrior poster on the back of the door. That poster — which I would later learn depicted Achilles’ defeat of Hector at the siege of Troy — had become the linchpin of my inner calm, the mast that I had learned to lash myself to when the ship of my tutelage encountered stormy seas.
It was around this time, I believe, that I began to feel different from the people around me. I had never been close to any of my classmates at school, but after a few weeks in Doctor Stiles’s presence, I began to take notice of their apparent lack of self-control, their irrational responses to simple problems, their disrespect for their teachers. But my feelings were more complicated than that: the teachers themselves came under my scrutiny as well, and I could not help but notice the inexpertise with which they wielded their authority. By comparison, Doctor Stiles was a master of consistency and restraint. Though I appreciated my teachers’ praise of my newly adopted poise, obedience, and serenity, I had begun to realize that they were weak leaders, easily swayed by their emotions, easily manipulated by their charges. At times, when the only response they could muster to a rowdy classroom was a deep, tired sigh, I pitied them.
Now Doctor Stiles broke the silence of his office. “Eric, I have something I wish to tell you today.”
I remained still, concentrating on the crumpled form of Hector at Achilles’ feet.
The Professor crossed the room and stood before me. “Please stand up,” he said, “and sit in the leather chair.”
I did as I was told, without registering the surprise I felt. The Doctor took my place in the wooden chair, leaning back without fear of the chair’s collapse, despite its unnerving creak. He threw one long leg over the other in a fluid, almost feminine motion, and one might have thought, to look at him, that he was more at ease there than in the soft and sturdy chair I now occupied. I gazed at him in silent anticipation.
“Perhaps you know that I am without wife or child,” the Doctor began. “My daughter died of an illness some years ago, and my wife, by a cruel coincidence, also died soon after.
“My daughter was named Rachel,” he went on, “and she was preoccupied with the notion of living in a castle. I suppose this is the case with many girls, but in Rachel’s case, the desire was very intense, and I felt duty-bound, as her father, to provide her with the same. In addition to my salary here at the college, I am fortunate to possess considerable family wealth, and I set out to create a home for my family that would fulfill my daughter’s wishes. Based on a drawing she made of the castle she envisioned, I designed a dwelling, a small castle, and hired contractors and builders to help me make it a reality. I chose a secluded, wooded area on our property, a clearing at the base of a large rock outcropping, and began construction. That was seven years ago.
“This might be difficult for you to understand, Eric, but my wife — and yes, even my daughter — did not appreciate my plans. At first they did, of course — there is a romantic charm to the idea of building a castle, in this day and age. But the project soon came to obsess me, and I lost sight of the very people whose lives I hoped to enhance with it. I spent most of my time at the building site, particularly in the summer, when the weather was fine and the college was not in session. My daughter cried herself to sleep some nights, and my wife eventually ceased conjugal relations with me.”
He paused, and frowned at me. “Do you know what that means, Eric?”
I did not speak.
“You may speak.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Tell me what it means.”
“It means sexual intercourse?”
Doctor Stiles scowled at my interrogative tone. I knew that I was on thin ice, and might soon be struck. I knew very little about sex, my mother having sketchily explained it to me after I inadvertently caught a glimpse of her in bed with my father.
“Do you believe that it means sexual intercourse, or not, Eric?”
“It does mean sexual intercourse, sir.”
“Do you know what sexual intercourse is?”
I knew that I had to be decisive. “Yes, sir.”
“Eric, tell me what sexual intercourse is.”
“It’s a man and a woman,” I said. “And they… they have no clothes on, and are together in bed. And it makes her pregnant. Sir.”
I felt certain now that he would slap me, but instead, a small smile appeared to play at his lips. He let out a long breath that I had not noticed him drawing, and continued his story as though he had never paused.
“It is an unfortunate fact, Eric,” he said, “that people’s desires are irrational. My daughter wanted a castle, and my wife wanted me to please my daughter. But neither considered the incidental costs of the fulfillment of such a desire, and it was this cost — my absence from their lives — that they had failed to imagine. This did not prevent them from complaining about it, however.
“My wife and I never resolved our differences over this issue, Eric, but Rachel and I did. When she was in her sickbed, she used to gaze out the window at the rock under which her castle was being constructed. She kept her drawing of the castle taped to the wall beside the window, and she imagined what it would look like when it was finished. Unfortunately, she was never to see the completed structure. She died of her illness while I was at work upon it.”
Doctor Stiles gazed at me hungrily. I remained perfectly still.
“Eric, though my family is gone, my castle is finished. Its purpose, until now, was uncertain. But you have given me the inspiration to put it to use. I want to tell you that you have shown tremendous potential in these sessions, and I would like to continue them with you, at my castle. The tests of personal control and endurance you have been given here, you have passed with flying colors. You could become a young man of tremendous strength and loyalty, and a great leader. I would like you, Eric, to spend the summer in my castle.”