A Deadly Affection by Cuyler Overholt Page A

academic exercise. “We have before us an unmarried girl, carrying a bastard in her womb. On the one hand, she is deeply ashamed of her illicit sexual activity and the pregnancy it has initiated. On the other, she can’t help but feel some natural affection for the infant growing within her.”
    â€œProducing,” Mayhew chimed in, “an irreconcilable conflict: one part of her wants to love and protect the child, while another wants to destroy the symbol of her shame.”
    â€œAnd so,” Bogard continued, slapping his palm against his blotter, “she projects her destructive urges onto the doctor who delivers it, bringing us right back where we were before: with this fantasy wherein the doctor forces her to give the child up against her wishes, allowing her to deny her own hatred for the baby at the same time she rids herself of it!” They beamed at each other over the desktop.
    â€œBut isn’t it possible that her story is true?” I interjected. “After all, men do take sexual advantage of women every day. It seems quite plausible to me that she had this baby and wanted to keep it, but was forced to give it up.”
    â€œOf course it’s possible, my dear,” Professor Bogard said, “but in the absence of any corroborating evidence, it mustn’t be assumed.” Peering at me over his spectacles, he added, “Remember, it isn’t only the patient’s story that must be questioned. The psychotherapist must constantly examine his own objectivity as well. It isn’t unusual for a patient’s experience to trigger memories and emotions in the therapist that could distort his understanding of the issues.”
    I shrank in my chair as the meaning of his words sank in. “I’m aware of that possibility,” I said stiffly, hoping Mayhew didn’t detect my discomfort.
    â€œBeing aware and seeing it in ourselves are often two different things,” the professor said mildly, inspecting a fingernail.
    My ears were so hot I thought they must be glowing like horseshoes on a forge. I hadn’t suffered the same misfortune as Eliza, but as the professor knew, I had come close—so close that just thinking about it still made me blush to the roots of my hair. I’d told Professor Bogard about it one evening at school, while we were reviewing an article on control of the sexual impulse in male juveniles. I’d attempted a joke—a caustic allusion to the randy young seducer in Donne’s “The Flea”—which the professor, typically, had refused to take at face value. After much teasing, I’d finally confessed the whole story, striving for a tone of sophisticated nonchalance that was very different from what I’d felt.
    I had told him about Simon Shaw. Just thinking the name, even now, was like stirring a bucket of muddy water. The first image to rise up was of the lock of dark hair that used to fall over one eye when he tilted his head, as he tended to do on sight of me. Next came his coat: a man-size garment of shearling-lined suede, baggy on his young frame and stained around the cuffs from hard use. It had smelled of sweet leather and sweat and something bitter, like acorns, and when he wrapped it around me the night I snuck down to the stable, it was as cozy as a lap robe on a midwinter sleigh ride.
    The mantel clock chimed the hour. “I’m afraid we’re out of time,” the professor said. “Much as I love Louis, I don’t trust him to hold our table for very long. Is there anything else we need to discuss, my dear?”
    I edged forward on my seat. He couldn’t go yet; he hadn’t told me what to do. “I’m still not sure how to proceed with my patient. I wouldn’t want my inexperience to hamper her treatment.”
    â€œDon’t worry. You know much more than you think you do,” he cheerfully assured me, collecting his pipe and tobacco. “Besides, the