Suddenly I found my voice.

“I don’t think I’m supposed to be here,” I said.

At my words a sudden sharp shift took place—a little crack in the vertebrae of the situation—and Kirstie turned to look at me for the first time.

“Well,” she said, sneering. “Who knows what that’s supposed to mean?”

I should try to explain, I thought. It’s important to be precise.

“It’s just that,” I began—but already I could feel it slipping away from me.

“It’s just that,” said the woman in the bath, in a high and bleating voice that was meant to be an imitation of my own. She wrung the washcloth out with a violent twist, and it seemed to me, improbable as it was, that she was now the guest lecturer.

“It’s just that,” she began again, “you’re not sure what you’re doing here, and you’d like very much to, but you’re not sure if … Is that right? Trust me, we know all about you and your unique challenges. We had hoped for someone with a little more oomph to them, someone a little more self-directed, but you were what we got. Still, we did have your general instability working for us. How lucky it was that you happened to show your hand in such a timely fashion. He assured us we were making the right choice.”

She set the washcloth down beside her with a wet slap.

“Are you in a hurry, Mr. Shriver?” asked the guest lecturer.

I shook my head no.

“Good,” she replied. “These things don’t get arranged just like that, you know.”

We were talking about something else now; that was clear. The tone of her voice had changed.

“See that candle?” she said, and for the first time I noticed a candle on the edge of the tub, a squat, peach-colored candle studded all over with seashells.

What an ugly candle, I thought. How was it that I hadn’t noticed it before?

“Look at it,” said the guest lecturer. “At the flame.”

Obediently, I looked at the pale orange, dancing flame.

The lights in the room began to flicker and fade, until only the candle stayed lit. Then the bathwater, instead of behaving the way bathwater usually does, began to toss and pucker like a miniature sea. Tiny waves were breaking on the shore of the woman’s white belly and lapping at the undersides of her breasts.

The flame wavered, grew slight and sputtered, and finally went out. The room was plunged into pitch-blackness.

Into the darkness, a new voice spoke.

“What are you doing in here?” it asked. This voice was a woman’s, too. “You know I don’t like it when you follow me around like a little dog.”

I had, it seemed to me, some protest, but whatever it was it died on my lips; it dried up in my throat.