New Wife: Dick Ten

[Dr. Ten’s journal, using it/its pronouns for Ten.]

08/09/1953:

My spouse has returned from its month-long, self-improvement seminar. This should be a moment of happiness for all of us. Carl and Linda missed their mother. I had missed it and the time we spend together watching the model trains. I wanted it to see the new Fleischmann Ho Electric Locomotive No. 1335-g I had bought while it was away. I have spent time with Mr. [Twelve] and he appreciated the new train, but he is often unwell and needs to sleep. As for the other husbands, they make me tired.

When my spouse came back, it told me about Mrs. [Eight] and it finding a bobcat and feeding the animal bacon, which my spouse enjoyed since I’m a sadly not a cat lover. Perhaps I will change my mind. It had a lot of fun with the girls, more fun than it expected. I was interested in what exact vitamins it was given, but it was not told. I was most concerned with the lacuna in the interviews in the second week. What was this hypnosis? I do not know about hypnosis except as a stage stunt, and wanted to know more, but it could not give me this information.

It is also acting very agitated. I told it that Nada was finally working while it was away, but it is insisting on cleaning everything. It is working on polishing all our fine silverware right now, though we have not used them since it has gone to the seminar. This is troubling behavior.

I am thinking back to when I started seeing Shirley. I admired its mathematical skills, the finest in the office from a female or a male, and its height was intriguing. I had my share of females who were interested in me but I did not want a partner who was interested in sex or passion. Though many people “joke” about females not being interested in sex, I have found they often are. I look forward to Kinsey’s next book on the human female. As for me, I lack whatever evolutionary feature causes humans to not be disgusted with sex. Shirley seemed to be a match for me.

Mother wanted me to look into Shirley’s background. She did not trust Shirley and its claim that it could not remember its past. So I did my own scientific investigation. I went to Shirley’s neighborhood, in Congress Heights. I discovered that the neighbors spoke poorly of its family. The father and the seven brothers treated Shirley terribly. Shirley often had bruises, if it was not too unwell to open the door. They even said, at times, the father sold his daughter into prostitution. No legal action was ever taken against the father, since he was the brother of a police officer. I suspect that Shirley killed its family. In that case, I think it did nothing wrong. In any case, I still wanted Shirley as a spouse. I wrote up a false report and gave it to Mother.

I thought that the past could be forgotten. I feel like Shirley became a new person when it showed up on its aunt’s doorstep. Like a computer with all its punch cards destroyed. Yet, perhaps during its time with Dr. Engelbert, it has found something that should have been buried. I wish I had not let Shirley go with him.

I am suspicious of this Dr. Engelbert. His behavior during the experimental seminar sounds questionable. Shirley talks about him clasping his hands on his crotch as they were injected with this “vitamin.” I tried to talk to Dr. Engelbert about the specifics of his experiment, but he has said it is a matter of psychology that I would not get as a computer scientist. He said he was apolitical and only joined the National Socialists to continue his scientific work. But can that be trusted?

I will continue to observe Shirley and note my observations in this journal.