（Silence.）
JAMIE KNIGHT: I…uh…
SHAY: Don’t worry. I wasn’t expecting you to say yes.
That’s the thing. He got us each in different ways. By the next weekend, Clem had agreed to go back to Don’s house and spend the night. She said he’d called her privately, told her he knew her family had never understood her, and because of that, she’d developed this instinct for doubt and cynicism, and ironically, it was those very defense mechanisms that would guarantee she’d always be alone. He offered to help her learn acceptance and humility. After he was done, she’d be whole.
I knew under her hard shell, Clem was secretly soft. She’d always felt uncomfortable in her own skin, worried she was too much, and Don must have sensed it. He clearly struck a chord, because she stopped dying her hair, and by the time we went to see him again, her roots were showing.
Laurel was different. She’d been Don’s from the start. She hung on every word, kept saying he reminded her of her dad, the way he talked, the fact that he was a family man. All week after his dinner party, she kept touching her burned hand, even though it made her eyes tear. I think she wanted to relive the moment.
（Throat clearing.）
JAMIE: And for you, the attraction was…？
SHAY: How about I tell you what happened, then you tell me.
The first night, Friday, seemed perfect. Don didn’t have to force us. We cooked dinner together, the three of us and Rachel, and afterward he mixed us martinis and tried to teach us how to bop, but we were terrible at it and pretty much collapsed laughing. When it was time for bed, he showed each of us to our own rooms, and they were beautiful, canopy beds and big bay windows. The next morning when we woke, he told us since we were staying the weekend, it would be nice to help him clean a little. It seemed like a thoughtful thing to do, and we wanted to please him. You know that feeling when you’re a kid and you’re trying to make your parents proud? It was the same feeling, like we’d reverted back to being young.
We scrubbed the bathroom tile on our hands and knees. Put our heads in the oven and cleaned grease from every corner. Stood on ladders and dusted fans. Don moved from room to room with us, watching the whole time. It was exhilarating to feel his eyes on me. I was aware of each movement, every time I stretched or brushed my hair from my face. My skin actually tingled.
I felt sure he was watching me the whole time, that I was the real reason he’d wanted us to clean, so he could have an excuse to stare. I held him in the palm of my hand. Eventually he wouldn’t be able to help himself. He’d have to make an excuse, pull me out of the room, and touch me. We were playing a game, he and I.
Feel free to laugh. I was on my hands and knees cleaning for so long I could barely stand, and I thought I was the one in control.
But Don was pleased with us, and his pleasure was something you could get drunk on. No one in the universe is more charming than Don Rockwell when he’s happy. That night, he poured us more bottles of wine. He said we were learning our first lesson, humility and service in praxis, and the more we worked, the more the virtues would sink into our bodies. But since we were college women, scholars, we also had to engage our brains. He arranged us in a circle in the living room and, one by one, had us read aloud from a small stack of books. What he called the great works. Aristotle’s Politics, Rousseau’s Emile, Schopenhauer’s “On Women,” Kant’s Anthropology. I recognized the names from my lit classes, so I thought Don must be right that they were geniuses.
JAMIE: I used to think you were a genius, you know. You were the best writer in school. I used to get jealous.
SHAY: Yeah, well, look what good that did me. I didn’t know it that night, but it would be more than a year before I read any other books. I can still recite the passages. Do you want to hear?
JAMIE: You can really do it?
SHAY: Aristotle: “The male is by nature superior and the female inferior; the male ruler and the female subject.” Rousseau: “Women must be thwarted from an early age. They must be exercised to constraint, so that it costs them nothing to stifle all their fantasies to submit them to the will of others. They must receive the decisions of fathers and husbands like that of the church.” Schopenhauer: “Women are childish, frivolous, and shortsighted… By nature, meant to obey.” Kant: “A woman’s primary means of domination is her ability to master her husband’s desire for her.”