Chapter 45: Opening Up

January 24, 1981

On the drive over I pondered options.

I left the note at home. I didn’t want to share it yet, but I would if I thought it would help Candice. Candice already felt that I’d betrayed her, even if she knew why. Could I add another betrayal and have a chance at even being friends? Would it be a betrayal? And, if I had the choice of being friends with a broken Candice or being hated by a happy, recovered Candice, I’d take the second option every time.

Angie held my hand the whole way, of course, and as we walked in.

We checked in with Doctor Stanton’s receptionist and settled into her waiting room. Reading lights, thick magazines, comfortable chairs. A room built for people who would be doing a lot of waiting.

Just before 2pm, a door opened. A middle-aged woman with light brown hair and glasses on a chain looked out. She was wearing a professional-looking cream blouse and a dark blue skirt. “Steve Marshall?”

I stood up, walked over, offered my hand. She shook it, then led me back into an office. Besides her desk with a chair facing it, she had several other chairs and a couch, allowing conversations without the desk in the way.

“Sit anywhere you’d like.”

I picked a nice chair away from the desk. She sat opposite me, as I’d expected. She had a folder and a clipboard with her.

“I’m glad you were able, and willing, to talk. As I said over the phone, my name is Jane Stanton, and I’m a psychologist. I’m the primary therapist working with Candice Matthews. Everything we say in this meeting is completely confidential, unless it concerns issues of current health and safety or illegality. Relationships between age-appropriate couples as young as your age are confidential. Specifically, both parties need to be at least fourteen and there can’t be more than a two-year gap in order for it to be legal. Obviously, you and Candice qualify. If I couldn’t keep those relationships confidential, I would receive little cooperation.”

I nodded. “I understand, Doctor. Under what circumstances would you share anything I revealed with anyone else?”

She looked surprised, but smiled. “If it’s relevant to Candice’s treatment, I would reveal the information but not the source to those who are caring for her. If it’s not relevant to her treatment, the only circumstances I’d reveal it to anyone would be if I was legally mandated to do so. That boils down to cases where you’d be a threat to harm someone else or yourself or where there was a reasonable suspicion of abuse, rape, incest, anything in that area. That includes statutory rape, but as I mentioned, any hypothetical behavior between you and Candice would be legal and therefore not reportable. Under no circumstances could I, for instance, reveal anything between you two to your parents, Candice’s parents, or anyone else, as long as it was legal and non-abusive. Doing so would be detrimental to her therapy, so I’d hate to get into that position.”

I nodded. “I understand, Doctor. So, if — and I’m not doing this, you understand...” She smiled, nodding. “ ... but if I said that Candice and I had done something physical, that would be completely confidential and would not be reportable.”

“Exactly. Also, while Candice is a minor, she is under the supervision of a facility, not under her parents’ care. They are still her parents, but in particular ... my confidentiality obligations are to her, through those entrusted to care for her, not to her parents. They aren’t thrilled with it — few parents are — but they understand that Candice and her friends might be unwilling to discuss things if it would get back to them.”

“Thanks, Doctor. That makes a big difference. I take privacy seriously, and there are things I’ve pledged not to reveal. I’m willing to share a lot of even those things, if it’s for reasons like this, and if what I say stays confidential, but otherwise we’d just be staring at each other a lot.”

She laughed. “I believe I like you. So, you’re not the sort of guy who tells his friends all about the latest conquest.”

I bit my lip. “To the best of my knowledge, I’ve never discussed in the slightest detail what I’ve done ... conquest-wise ... with anyone male. And only a few females.”

“I’m a female. And I’ll be blunt. Were you and Candice intimate?”

“You mean, did we have intercourse?”

She smiled, tapping her pencil a bit. “I do mean that.”

I considered my answer. I found myself trusting Dr. Stanton. I was pretty certain she would need to have this information to work with Candice; treating her as if she’d lost her virginity in Colorado to a stranger felt wrong. Obviously, this could blow up in my face, but if so, so be it. I’d take the consequences, whatever they were.

“Yes. On a number of occasions.”

“Manual? Oral? Vaginal? Anal?”

“Yes.”

“All of them?” She looked a bit surprised.

“Yes.”

“Well, that’s more than I’ve gotten out of Candice. By a considerable margin. Interesting. I have to ask this, even though I know what you’d have to say. She was a willing participant?”

“She flirted with me first, Doctor, and initiated nearly everything. I repeatedly made it clear I’d be happy to delay, and the settings were always such that she had a simple way to opt out.”

“I’m not at all surprised that she flirted with you first. Were you protected?”

“Condoms every time for vaginal intercourse. Nothing for the others. But, until this happened, I had no inkling that she might have had contact with anyone else, and I was a virgin prior to Candice, and haven’t been with anyone since we lost our virginity together. And I’m pretty sure she was physically a virgin, or at least, that her hymen was pretty much intact.”

“Not for anal?”

“That happened once, and, no. She was insistent that she wanted to go without.”

Doctor Stanton nodded, tapping her pen on her folder. “She is adamant that she lost her virginity on the ski trip. Her parents believe that to be the case, based on the situation and her responses.”

“Yeah, she told me she set that up both to force the issue of revealing that she was sexually active and to draw suspicion away from me.” I didn’t doubt that Dr. Stanton would guess that ‘she told me’ must mean some other communication. I wondered if she would push that.

“Why would she do that? You were boyfriend and girlfriend and her parents genuinely like you. I’d say more than that, now that you did what you did to keep her alive.”

“Well ... of course, she had no idea that would happen. Had things gone according to plan, they would have hated me; I would have been all wrapped up in her ... loss of innocence. And she wouldn’t have been there to say anything about it. By drawing suspicion away, I think she was hoping they wouldn’t go after me. Also ... um ... the situation in which we could have privacy would implicitly implicate several other couples as also being sexually active. I’m sure she didn’t want to affect the others.” Dr. Stanton nodded along with that.

“When did you and Candice lose your virginity?”

“October 19^th.”

“You’re sure of the date?”

This was trickier ground. If we’d been intimate, where? Making up a story about some alternate location would risk things looking bad. Dr. Stanton had no motivation for coming after study group, and would damage her professional reputation if she did so. It’d be bad — but it’d be mutually assured destruction. She didn’t know that I could fight back effectively — well, assuming the Super Bowl went as I expected it to — but that didn’t matter. I would.

“If I explain the circumstances, it’ll be confidential? The location and so forth? It’ll help in discussing things, and it doesn’t cross any of the reporting lines you mentioned.”

“Yes. As long as it doesn’t cross those lines, I’ll keep everything confidential, whether or not it’s directly related to Candice.”

I nodded. “We have a study group that meets a couple times a week. In the house where we meet, there’s a bedroom with privacy available to us. It was there, during study group, so the date is clear.”

“Interesting. So, there are witnesses?”

I snickered. She smiled. “I mean, that you two left together voluntarily, came back together, that sort of thing. I didn’t mean people standing over the bed.”

“Yes. It’s a rule that we don’t discuss what happens when we’re in private. I know for a fact that the girls routinely talk amongst themselves about it, so it’s more a rule for the guys and for public conversation. We didn’t mention it to anyone at any point, though the look on our faces was probably clear. I’m sure the girls all discussed it, though.”

“I’d like to talk to someone who saw that.”

“You will. In an hour.”

“Your sister is in the same study group?” She blinked in surprise.

“Yeah. She founded it along with me.”

“So, she’s aware of your liaisons, and vice versa?”

“Yes.”

“That’s unusual for a brother and sister.”

“We’re very close friends. We share most everything.”

“Have you always been this close? I’m just curious here. We’re diverting away from Candice, but I have to ask. Most brothers and sisters in your age range are at each other’s throats. Or the brother is super-vigilant about his sister. Or both. How do you come to be so close and be accepting when your sister is going off to do ... private things ... with a boy?”

“Tricky question.” I laughed. “I’ve always been close with my sister, and closer recently.”

“I’m missing something here, I’m certain.”

“Angie has been my sister for about nine months, Doctor. We were on good terms from the start, but following my hospitalization for a concussion in July, we’ve gotten very close.”

“Fascinating. A late adoption? Of a teenager? With no issues?”

“Angie’s formerly ... well ... still? ... phrasing is awkward ... anyway, was, is, my cousin. Her dad died, her biological mother was ... unsuitable ... and she moved down here with us. After a short waiting period, they allowed my parents to adopt her. After that, we’ve used the word ‘sister’ exclusively.”

“Even more fascinating. And she’s come through all that trauma well?”

“I’m not a professional, but I think so. She’s happy, straight A’s, loves Mom and Dad, very close with me, plenty of friends.”

“So, you’re, biologically speaking, cousins, not brother and sister?”

“Biologically we’re nothing, Doctor. I’m adopted, as an infant.”

“Interesting. And your other siblings?”

“It’s just Angie and I.”

“You went from an only child to having a sister about the same age and didn’t have a significant fight?”

I shrugged. “We both feel like it was destiny. Like we had a missing piece where a sibling was supposed to go.”

She shook her head. “I wish I could bottle what you have and give it to all the kids who can’t even sit through a dinner without fighting.”

“Interestingly, all the kids we’re close friends with have good sibling relationships, Candice included. Oh, there are squabbles, but they’re minor. Within our study group, we also have triplets. Two boys — identical — and a girl, obviously fraternal. They aren’t as close as we are, I don’t think, but they’re quite close. And, obviously, comfortable with a certain level of knowledge, or guesswork, anyway.”

“Now I want to do a study of you and Angie,” she chuckled. “My conversation with her just got much more interesting. Thank you. Let’s get back to Candice, before I run us out of time. So, you and she lost your virginity together on October 19^th?”

“Vaginally. Manually, much earlier; oral, earlier. Anal considerably later.”

She nodded. “I meant vaginally. How many times after?”

“Ummm ... let’s say about once a week until Thanksgiving and two times after.”

“And she was fine each time.”

“I thought so at the time, until the last few.”

“What changed?”

“Subtle things. Hints that something was bothering her. I’m sorry, it’s hard for me to answer that, because I’m very wrapped up in 20/20 hindsight. I had a couple periods where I can remember thinking something seemed off, but then she’d go back to her usual self and I’d figure it was nothing. It’s much easier now to go back and magnify the little things.”

“Such as?”

“Wanting to be held down. Not forced, but, playing at being forced. Wanting to be spanked. Liking me to be a bit rough, pinching for instance. Wanting to have sex in positions where I wasn’t looking into her eyes. Being uncomfortable when I said she was perfect or wonderful. Saying she didn’t deserve me.”

She nodded, opened the folder, made a few notes. “I wouldn’t blame yourself via hindsight. Many people enjoy things getting just a trifle rough, as long as it’s in play. Fantasies about being ... controlled ... are very common. The last few are much more interesting, and consistent with what I know of her. But even together, for nine of out of ten girls, those would just be perfectly normal teenage insecurity. Now, though, seen through what you know now... ?”

“Was her externalizing the conflict she was going through internally.”

Doctor Stanton laughed and made another few notes. “Few teenagers would put it that way.”

“Hey, I’m a straight-A student, too. And I’ve been doing some reading on this since Candice’s breakdown.”

“I’m going to loop back to something you said. You didn’t play at forcing her into anything? Anywhere where an ambiguity might have let her feel forced, even though you meant it innocently? I’m not accusing you of anything — we’re just progressing along that hindsight.”