Mandated (eBook)

Chapter 1

Dr. Claire Starley eased her car along the icy driveway as she searched for a place to park. She found it near the end of the long lot, next to a snow bank, likely left by the morning’s snow plow. With the encroachment of the snow, she found the parking spaces to be narrower than they might have been otherwise, and was forced to wedge her compact sedan between a hulking pickup truck and a boxy SUV. It was all she could do to keep from slipping on the ice underfoot as she squeezed through the scarce sliver of space between her door and the driver’s seat. Her breath billowed in chalky white clouds as she gathered her briefcase from the back seat and placed it atop the trunk.

With concern, she noted that the snow had picked up again. It fell now as fluttery little cotton balls, piling prodigiously over the uneven landscape.

What if I get stranded here? she wondered, and the thought filled her with a hollow kind of dread – hollow because she feared only the headache of having to call a snow plow, not the unfounded fear of having to spend the night in this troubling place.

She slammed closed her sedan’s back door with a chilling, metallic thwack. She blew into her fists for warmth, then rubbed her hands together. Where did I leave my gloves? she wondered. She grabbed her briefcase and slid it under her arm, jamming her hands into the pockets of her knee-length winter coat. And then she turned and faced a place she had been dreading since she first received Dr. Pryor’s letter.

She stood facing the basement entrance to an old Victorian house that appeared to have been renovated into offices for various professionals. It stood, bathed in snowy darkness, save for a single arc of soft lamplight that projected from a post near the

north-facing front door. Dr. Pryor’s letter had explicitly instructed her not to enter through this door. She would need to paw through the night in search of the door on the eastern façade of the building – the one she now faced. This door would lead directly to the basement, the letter had explained. There, she would find the men.

Claire removed the letter from her pocket and checked the address again. This was the place.

She shuffled through the parking lot, which already had begun to cake with fresh snow, and stalked sideways down the icy steps into the basement room, careful not to slip. Why, she wondered, hadn’t the office been equipped with more exterior lighting? She took a deep breath when she found the door.

What am I doing here? she asked herself for the hundredth time.

She stood now in the freezing dark, her teeth chattering and her mind reeling with doubt. She was a professional. A therapist. And a fairly bright one, at that. How could she find herself, at an experienced thirty-eight years old, standing figuratively at the threshold of a new career and literally at the basement door of a house that looked as though it had previously been occupied by the Addams family?

“It’s only one session,” she muttered between clenched teeth. “Just one session to see if this is worth pursuing. And then you can get on with your life.”

With that, she pushed through the cold, heavy door and stepped into a small, flat room bathed with yellow light and reeking of mildew. There she found warmth and a small huddle of men milling around, none paying her any mind. She drew a breath to speak, but before she could say anything, a squat, balding man in his mid-fifties approached her with a broad smile and eyes full of intent.

“Ah, Dr. Starley!” he said. “Welcome, welcome.” He offered his hand for her to shake, which she did tentatively as she sized him up.

“You must be Tom,” she said. She noticed that what hair he did possess he had grown long enough to be tied behind his head into a ponytail. He had the look and dress of a peaceful man.

She brought forth what she hoped was a warm smile. “Please call me Claire.”

For the first time, the other men noticed her. Four pairs of eyes turned in her direction, and Claire felt her face flush.

“Let me introduce you to the others,” Tom said, loudly enough for the entire group to hear. “Gentlemen, this is Dr. Claire Starley. She’ll be assisting me in our sessions from now on.”

Claire considered correcting her colleague, explaining that this would be a temporary sit-in at best, but then thought better of it. Men such as these, she knew, would be dependent on a rather tenuous balance of consistency. Introducing the possibility of inconsistency would only disrupt the session. Instead, she nodded and waved. She pulled her briefcase from beneath her arm and set it on the floor beside her feet. She began to remove her coat, as the others had, and hung it on a hook by the door. She then took the nearest seat in the circular arrangement of chairs and offered a professional smile and nod to each of the men, all four of them still standing and milling around, talking among themselves.

Claire had worked with men like these before but not many. Despite her professional exposure to such men, she had expected them to look more menacing, but all of them looked much like any other men she knew; short or tall, fit or lumpy, and abundantly unassuming. Two of them had trouble holding eye contact with her, but the other two did not. It was the ones who didn’t have trouble that disturbed her the most.

“Why don’t we all have a seat and you can introduce yourselves to Dr. Starley,” Tom said to the group. To Claire, he added, “In this group, everyone is expected to follow a specific protocol. They will all state their name, their crime, their length of time in treatment, and their current treatment assignment.”

Claire nodded, reached for her briefcase, and removed a large notebook, which she placed in her lap. She then retrieved her pen, which was clipped securely on the inside of her briefcase. She considered turning on her handheld tape recorder, but didn’t know whether the men had provided written permission for their session to be recorded.

Tom instructed the man at the end of the semicircle to begin.

The man sat up straight in his chair and smoothed his shirt nervously. Claire placed him in his early thirties, his full head of blond hair framing a piercing set of eyes the color of blue marbles. “My name is John,” he said. “I’m here because I was convicted of a sex crime. I’ve been in treatment for about three months now and I’m working on my full disclosure packet.”

“Now, John,” Tom said, “you already know what I’m going to say. That’s not how we do things around here. Were you just convicted of a sex crime or did you commit one? And what exactly did you do? Start over again, please.”

John took a deep breath and ran his palms over the front of his shirt again. “My name is John and I committed a sex crime. I touched my niece, and the judge mandated me to come to this treatment program.”

Tom shook his head, though his patience clearly remained. “Be specific. How and where did you touch your niece?”

Claire felt her face warm. She had never seen anything like this. It confused her.

John flushed and looked at the floor. “I touched my niece on her panties, close to her upper legs.”

Still, Tom proceeded to prod. “John, I have the police report right here. Let me just read your niece’s statement.”

John made a face in protest. “No, Tom, please—”

Tom cut off his client with a wave of his hand. He began to read. “My mom, little brother, and I were visiting Uncle John at Thanksgiving time. We had been eating, watching football, playing games, and were finishing the day by watching a movie. Everyone but me and Uncle John was tired and had gone to bed. We wanted to watch the rest of the movie.”

Claire’s eyes darted from Tom to John, who looked like a child caught stealing.

Tom continued reading in an almost mechanical fashion. “I was cold, and Uncle John said he would share his blanket with me. I snuggled under the blanket next to Uncle John. I got warm and fell asleep.

“When I woke up, Uncle John had his hand down my jeans and was rubbing my private part through my panties. I was scared and I didn’t know what to do, so I pretended I was still asleep. Then he began to slide his hand under my panties and put one finger inside me. I got even more scared and jumped off the couch. I told Uncle John I was going to sleep with my mother.”

John made a strange noise from his belly. Claire realized in that moment that she had stopped breathing.

Tom kept reading. “He told me not to tell anyone about what happened under the blanket, but I knew he wasn’t supposed to touch me in my private place. So the next day, on the way home, I told my mother. She pulled the car to the side of the road and called Uncle John on her cell phone. He said I must have been dreaming, but my mom knew he was lying and called the police.”

When Tom looked up from the letter, the room fell cripplingly silent. All eyes were fixed on John.

“So, John,” Tom said, “let’s try this again. And don’t leave out any details.” “Okay,” John said flatly. He waved a nonchalant hand at the stack of papers resting on Tom’s lap. “I did what she said.”

Tom smiled with professional warmth. “Much better. But I need...