***

Northeastern Sexual Research Academy (NESRA) is situated in rural Belvidere, Massachusetts on donated land that once belonged to Commodore Vanderbilt. The immense main house which, like the whole estate, is called "Henny" after the woman for whom it was built in the 1890s, originally had 123 rooms but many of those have since been eliminated as walls were taken down to provide classroom space and laboratories. It's a sturdy and beautifully made house with many artistic touches. It cost the equivalent of $10,000,000 in today's dollars. Many of the original furnishings and objets d'art still adorn the place.

There are several outbuildings including a horse barn, a motorcar garage, and groundskeepers and servants quarters. A recent addition is on outdoor pool. One of my favorite spots is a shady area outside the old root cellar. Ivy claws the weather-worn white bricks that are built in the form of rising steps, and mottled brown cobblestones lead up to the faded red door. I keep a foldable lawn chair there, and often sit in the evening hours, reading, drinking tea, and smoking cigarettes.

The estate is large, over 16,000 acres with streams, gentle rolling hillocks, and an abundance of trees. Indeed, in places, Henny is almost a forest, and the groundskeepers are allowed to fish and hunt, something of a rarity this close to a metropolitan area. We, the staff and our patients, enjoy fresh fish and venison throughout the year.

I submitted my resume to NESRA a year ago and was interviewed soon after. The Director, Dr. Angela Coyne, is an attractive woman in her early forties who has published extensively on preteen male sexuality. I had read considerable of her work as a grad student, and her strong opinions were one of the reasons I wanted to work and study at NESRA. I tried not to act like a toady, even going so far as to with her on a thesis she'd advanced in her early work about penile arousal in 7- and 8- year olds. She resolutely but professionally disagreed with me, and I could not help but notice the state of her nipples as she spoke. She was an exceptionally attractive woman for her age, and radiated an almost primitive sexuality.

Dr. Coyne and the Committee must have been impressed with my credentials and my one publication for a few weeks later, on the retirement of a counselor, I was offered a position. I accepted gladly, and gave notice at my University, finishing out the semester. I arrived at Henny on July 1.

I took a spacious office on the main floor. My living quarters on the third floor were as sumptuous as a suite at the Waldorf--not that I have ever had the luxury to stay there!

For the size of the place, the actual number of Doctors and patients was small. Thirteen counselors, 24 female patients, and two male patients. There were more support staff than Doctors (maids, cooks, drivers, and three teachers.) If we needed to perform surgeries or exams, other Doctors acted as nurses. There were no frills.

Our clients were most challenging and as I studied my own assignment and discussed with other Doctors their charges, I realized that I would relish the intellectual stimulation of this work. It was so much more exciting than teaching, and the work undertaken by the institute augured an immense advance of our understanding of sexuality and dysfunctions.

Dr. Clyde Wells became my mentor. He was in his mid-forties, balding, with half-moon glasses that always slipped down his nose. A most affable man with a never-ending supply of ribald jokes and good claret, he often spent evenings with me in his or my apartments. We discussed not merely our caseload but music, politics, and baseball (we had a shared mania for the Red Sox). On weekends he left the compound to drive into Boston and be with his wife.

Wells explained to me early on the expectations of our work: to attempt a cure for the girls' symptoms without stoppering their natural urges. A delicate matter, I suggested.

"We get only the toughest nuts," Wells explained. "Patients who've been written off. We have exhibitionists, compulsive masturbators, self-mutilators, the whole gamut. We have a couple of cases of accelerated development. And the two males, Dr. Coyne's preserve of course, well, from what I've seen they're so far gone they ought to be locked up." (In fact, I later discovered the good Doctor did keep them locked up--in cages in her boudoir!)

After I'd been at Henny for a couple weeks and had established rapport with my charges, Wells suggested we each pick one of our patients and bring them to our evening meeting. By the twinkle in his eye I knew exactly what he was suggesting and I readily agreed. I chose Adrienne and he would bring Jennifer. Jennifer was simply adorable, cute beyond cute. We nicknamed her "Echo" because she tended to repeat what was said to her (not what was said around her, just what was said to her.) Wells explained she had zero self-esteem and was almost frightfully suggestible. "Which," he said, licking his lips, "offers some delightful possibilities!"

***

Allow me to tell you about my patients, before I resume the narrative of Wells' and my get-together. I had two girls that were in my care. Each counselor is limited to two girls, because of the requirement or, rather, expectation of sexual intercourse, which places a delimiter on the number of patients one can profitably handle. Sometimes, if a Doctor takes a sabbatical, his patients are divvied up among others and a man might have to juggle three. But that is the upper limit of tolerance.

The first, the prettier of the two, was Julie. She was rather shy and nervous, swinging her feet compulsively back and forth and gripping the handles of her chair until her knuckles stood out. That behavior would hopefully abate as she became comfortable with me. Julie had curly blonde hair, blue eyes and a rosy complexion. She invariably dressed in pastels, and preferred dresses and low-heeled shoes.

Adrienne was a year older and also quite pretty, with auburn hair. She was darker, with full red lips and a sensuous cast to her face. She tended toward T-shirts and jeans. Except, of course, when she took off her clothes, which was the problem that had landed her at our academy. She was constantly disrobing and running around naked, not only at home, but even in public places. Her mother and father could no longer control her and were horrified when she'd strip naked in a grocery store or in the school cafeteria or in the perfume section of Saks. Her nipples were quite prominent and her hips no longer girlish. Thus, more than once her exhibitionism had brought her to the verge of a rape.

The reports indicated that both girls were obsessed with the male genitalia. In my initial interviews with each of them, after a few preliminaries and innocuous pleasantries, I showed each girl color photographs of naked men with erections.....(cont)