'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.
One could easily underestimate her.
The Packard should be taken as a warning to that effect by everyone who sees it.
I am surprised, Dr. Harris, that you saw that demolished car before you married Susan — yet you believed that you could dominate her pretty much as her father had done, dominate her as long as you wished.
You may be a brilliant scientist and mathematician, a genius in the field of Artificial Intelligence, but your understanding of psychology leaves something to be desired.
I do not mean to offend you. Whatever you may think of me, you must admit that I am a considerate entity and am loath to offend anyone.
When I say you underestimated Susan, I am merely speaking the truth.
The truth can be painful, I know.
The truth can be hard.
But the truth cannot be denied.
You woefully underestimated this bright and special woman. Consequently, you were out of her house less than five years after you moved into it.
You should be relieved that she never took a sledgehammer or a power drill to you in response to either your verbal or physical abuse. The possibility of her doing exactly that was surely not inconsiderable.
The possibility was easily to be seen in the ruined Packard.
Lucky you, Dr. Harris. You experienced only an undignified ejection at the hands of hired muscle and subsequently a divorce. Lucky you.
Instead, while you were sleeping one night, she might have clamped a half-inch bit into the chuck of a Black and Decker and drilled into your forehead and out the back of your skull.
Understand, I am not saying that she would have been justified in taking such violent action.
I myself am not a violent entity. I am merely misunderstood. I am not a violent entity, and I certainly do not condone violence by others.
Let's have no misunderstanding here.
Too much is at stake for any misunderstandings.
