On Christmas night, Alex Aston forced his only son onto an airplane and took him back to New York.
Hundreds-of-meters-tall skyscrapers crowded the center of the city, the most prosperous metropolis in the world, more modern than anywhere in any other country. Yet as Aston returned, he did not feel that he belonged to New York at all.
He had been born here, grown up here, and spent so many years of his life here. As a man in finance and heir to the Aston family, he ought to return someday. But the place now seemed utterly strange.
Sean was not here. That meant Aston did not belong here either. This was not his home.
The car drove all the way back to the estate.
The elderly butler was shocked when he saw the young master brought home so suddenly, his arms twisted behind his back by several former soldiers.
Alex’s taste in decorating the New York estate was even more extravagant—or, rather, more horrifying.
The legs of tables and chairs were carved into angels and even human figures. Those “people” had handsome, lifelike faces, as though born into distinguished families and raised with the finest education. Alex Aston had made them hold up his tables and chairs.
Enormous, exquisite chandeliers hung from the mouths of angels or people. The reliefs set into the ceiling gritted their teeth around the lamps, providing light for the Aston family.
Alex ordered his men to throw his son into the hunting room.
It was called a room, but it was really a vast, broad corridor.
One wall displayed Alex Aston’s hunting trophies: whole tiger and lion pelts, an entire bearskin, elephant tusks, a shark skeleton, and preserved crocodiles.
On the opposite wall was his collection of weapons: keen swords, daggers, enormous crossbows, spears, an array of guns… the most advanced instruments of slaughter from across the world.
Aston had no doubt his father had killed people. Perhaps with his own hands, perhaps through others. Who could say?
The men forced Aston to his knees. The butler brought a chair, and Alex sat down, leaning against the back with his long legs crossed. “Kingsley, I’m very disappointed.”
Aston’s blond hair fell forward. He did not so much as glance at him.
Alex spoke again. “Kingsley, do you know what the stupidest kind of person looks like?”
Aston behaved as though he had heard nothing.
Alex lectured him. “Someone who has everything others could never attain in a lifetime, only to destroy it all with his own hands.”
Alex stood, visibly pained. “You have the highest standing, the finest life, the greatest talent, the best education… yet you don’t know how to cherish any of it. We’ve spent all these years making you, Kingsley Aston, into a man respected and admired by everyone. And you’ve chosen to throw yourself down and roll in the mud!”
His voice reverberated along the corridor. “You’re weak, depraved. You can’t even control yourself!”
“Your name is Aston,” Alex said. “Do you have any idea how many generations it took your family to reach this position? Do you know that everyone in the world wants to stand where you stand? Are you going to destroy the Aston name and everything generations have accumulated?”
Receiving no answer, he approached his son. “Kingsley, you’re a joke! You’re turning the Aston name into a joke too! I gave you life, raised you, educated you. I didn’t do all that for you to become this!”
He bent over Aston, staring into his face like a venomous snake. “And those companies you secretly bought several years ago—was that for him, too?”
At last Aston stirred.
Alex circled his son as if seeing him for the first time. “That fox Bill got outfoxed by you. You offered to buy a stake in one of his companies at a high price. He got greedy for once and accepted. And then? Once you were inside, you engineered an opportunity, steered them into making a mess, replaced their old financial system with your own, one only your people could operate… Then you repeated the trick, replacing everything piece by piece until Bill had no choice but to sell you the company at a ridiculously low price.”
Alex paused. “And there was Charlie’s company. If Bill is a fox, Charlie is a jackal. You saw how much Charlie liked pomp and ceremony, so you bought the bastard titles and honors of every kind and used company funds to construct a grand new headquarters, naming the building after him… Once he’d lost everyone’s support, you had the shareholders drive him out and welcome you as his replacement. He had no choice but to transfer all his shares to you.”
Alex finally came to a halt in front of his son again. “You now have at least five extremely valuable American companies under your control.”
There was admiration in his voice. “Kingsley, you’re formidable. At twenty-six, I was nothing like you. I couldn’t have done what you’ve done.”
Then sorrow returned. “You were certainly taught well. It’s just such a pity… there was an unfortunate flaw in your nature. You’re homosexual. And just like all those other homosexuals, you have unnatural, dreadful sexual appetites. Promiscuous, unrestrained, obsessed with the flesh… Perhaps you were born that way.”
Aston looked at him coldly.
“You planned everything in secret,” Alex said. “You even rented a place under a false identity to hide it from me. If your cousin hadn’t happened to see the two of you in San Francisco two weeks ago, you’d truly have grown wings and flown away.”
At that, he looked grieved again. “We immediately asked a friend of mine to investigate. You know him too—the senior FBI agent in California. He was full of praise for you. Your arrangements were nearly flawless. Even with the FBI involved, it took them a full two weeks to uncover the slightest clue.”
So that was it… Aston thought. The accident had come much too early.
“Kingsley, you’ve taken this game far too seriously.” Alex seized his son’s hair and forced his head up. “But it ends here. Tell me—promise me—that you won’t go on with it. I’m certain you still can. You have extraordinary strength of mind, Kingsley. This time the two of us will stand by you, overcome this nature, and return you to normal. We’ll be there for you.”
Aston only gave a laugh. “Of course I’ll go on with it. Until the day I die.”
“You won’t,” Alex said. “I’ve thought about it again. Kingsley, you’re still too young. You’re in a rebellious phase. You’re only trying to defy me… This has nothing to do with that man. It’s about me. It’s not about you and him at all. It’s about you and me.”
This time Aston could not suppress his laughter. “Wake up. You’re not worth a single hair on his head. If I could save either you or one strand of Sean’s hair, I’d save the hair.”
After more than twenty years of painstaking cultivation, hearing such words from the son he had raised finally sent Alex into a rage.
He believed he had never wronged his son in any way. He had given him life, status, money, servants, education, resources…
He strode to the wall and snatched down a horsewhip. It cracked through the air with a tremendous snap. Step by step he approached Aston. “Kingsley, you know this whip. It can tame even the fiercest horse. No matter how wild it once was, a beating will make it bow its head and submit.”
It was true. Even the most spirited horses would eventually lower their necks in perfect obedience merely upon hearing its crack.
Alex had brought it back from somewhere in Europe. Once it had belonged to a field marshal. It had passed through war and slaughter, through generations, drinking the blood of countless creatures.
Whip in hand, Alex moved behind his only son. “Promise me you’ll abandon him. The night I found out, I spread the word that you, Kingsley Aston, were planning to marry. Several illustrious families have already contacted me to express their interest. Tell me—are you willing to get married?”
“In your dreams,” Aston said.
Alex brought the whip down across his son’s back. “You will agree!” he roared.
He signaled the men holding Aston to release him, and began lashing him wildly. “Idiot!” “Worthless fool!”
The whip struck his body, tearing his white shirt apart in an instant. Red welts blazed across his back like tracks of fire. Alex cared nothing for anyone. The whip sometimes struck even the two men restraining Aston, drawing blood at once; though both had served in the military, they could not suppress cries of pain. Aston, who suffered the vast majority of the lashes alone, never made a sound.
When his son’s back had been flayed, Alex came around to face him, his voice cold as a serpent’s. “Answer me again. Tell me: are—you—willing—to—marry?”
Aston gave a small, amused laugh. Alex ordered the two men to pull his only son higher onto his knees, then continued whipping him from the front.
The expensive shirt had become rags. Suddenly Alex noticed a hint of color showing through the torn fabric over the muscles of his son’s lower abdomen.
Alex stopped. He went forward and yanked the shirt aside. His hairy fingers pulled off Aston’s belt and tossed it to the floor. He ordered a servant to undo Aston’s button and lower the waistband, exposing the muscle on the right side of his lower abdomen.
Aston struggled several times but could not break free. The right side of his lower belly was exposed.
Alex stared.
It was a tattoo.
The first character was Chinese!
That man’s surname?
The word after it was in English: Sean—
Plainly, the name of that Chinese man.
Aston was delighted and laughed aloud. “Marriage? How am I supposed to marry? Drag me into bed like this? Hold me down and make me have sex? When the other person gets into bed with me, she’ll see it. I love a Chinese man. I’ve had a man’s name tattooed on my body, right here.”
He had gotten the tattoo the year they became a couple, over the stab scar on the right side of his abdomen. He had not wanted Sean to feel sad whenever he saw that wound, so he’d covered the scar with Sean’s name.
He had tattooed Seany’s name there: a Chinese surname and a man’s given name. It did not shame him. It only filled him with love.
Sean liked to kiss it, too.
Seeing the tattoo made Alex still more furious. He ordered the men to release his son and began lashing indiscriminately and savagely at the tattoo itself.
The sound of the whip cutting the air was terrifying. Alex swore he would strike the tattoo until it was unrecognizable, whip it from his son’s body, leave the flesh bloodied and split, until after it healed no one could make out the letters.
Aston lay on the floor, covering the characters with his hands, protecting that name desperately and refusing to let Alex strike it. He disregarded every other part of himself. The corner of his mouth tilted upward, and astonishingly, he was still smiling.
It was a mad smile.
Alex could not bear to be ignored by his own son. As he whipped him, he shouted, “You don’t deserve to be my son! He’s a man! He’s Chinese!”
“I don’t care what kind of person he is,” Aston replied.
No matter what Sean was, Aston would love him. Even if Seany turned into a cat, a dog, a flower, or a blade of grass, he would love him.
Alex did not hear it. He was still venting his fury.
Finally, the people around them said, “Mr. Aston…! The young master… the young master really can’t take any more… Please stop…! Mr. Aston!!!”
Over the following days, Alex brought in a psychiatrist to “treat” his only son—with electric shocks.
Electric-shock aversion “therapy” was a common method of “treating” people like him in that era.
Again and again they administered shocks, using the highest current the body could withstand, hoping to make the patient associate the person he loved with unbearable agony and thus develop fear, rejection, and hatred for them.
After every “treatment,” Alex asked his son again, “Are you willing to get married now?”
Aston always answered, “In your dreams.”
And every time, regardless of how long they subjected him to the current, those carrying out the procedure discovered that when the name was brought up again, his expression was not one of terror or rejection. It was still… a gentle smile.
As if the thought of that person made any pain bearable.
The punishment continued until Aston fainted for the second time.
After several more days of “treatment,” he collapsed for a third time.
When Aston woke once more, Alex was standing beside his bed.
This time Alex wore another cold mask.
He looked down at his son with arrogant disdain. That face remained incomparably handsome, the dream of every young lady in New York’s highest circles, and yet…
His heart ached. He tried to speak gently. “Kingsley, you’re ill. You were born with it. We need to cure you.”
His patience was exhausted. He no longer wished to play games with his only son.
Icy blue eyes shifted toward him and watched.
Waiting to see what new trick this father of his had invented.
Alex’s voice brightened, full of joy. “Kingsley, have you heard of Dr. Freeman? Names really do have power. His surname is Freeman, and he truly can bring hope. He can perform corrective surgery, a complete correction! Unlike castration, there are no side effects. It’s a miracle of modern medicine! No, Kingsley, you cannot be castrated. My child, we’ll have this operation, correct the problem, conquer the disease. Once you’ve returned to normal, you’ll thank me. I’ll have saved you, and saved the Aston family.”
He had already spoken to Dr. Freeman.
Dr. Freeman had said that, if even the electric shocks had no effect, his son was a severe case, perfectly suited to the “radical cure” that had become popular over the last few years.
The operation was so famous it seemed like magic. Of course Alex had heard of it, and had been researching it for several days.
The procedure, developed in 1936 by the Portuguese neurosurgeon António Egas Moniz, was called “prefrontal leucotomy.” It could supposedly stabilize the emotions of psychiatric patients and return them to normal.
Its inventor Moniz was enormously respected around the world. In his published paper he openly declared that “the operation is simple, safe, and reliable.”
The paper attracted worldwide attention as soon as it was published.
That same year, the American doctor Freeman began performing the same procedure.
Over five years, Dr. Freeman had carried out hundreds of operations, all with excellent results. The medical profession and the media were vigorously promoting it.
Just recently they had released figures: “Sixty-three percent of patients improved, twenty-three percent remained unchanged, and only fourteen percent became worse.”
The procedure spread rapidly. Countless authorities declared it “the only definitive cure for those psychiatric patients and homosexuals.” Rumor had it that Moniz was very likely to receive the Nobel Prize in Medicine. Dr. Freeman was now exceptionally difficult to book, but Alex Aston had his connections.
Only last month, even the Kennedy family’s youngest daughter had undergone the operation!
She was a Kennedy! A family that might well produce a president!
Afterward, the young woman, who had supposedly been “ill” all along, was even able to teach at a secondary school.
Elio’s Notes: The book presents claims about prefrontal leucotomy and the Kennedy family as they were promoted or believed in this scene, but they must not be mistaken for verified outcomes or medical advice. Rosemary Kennedy, the family’s eldest daughter, underwent a lobotomy in November 1941 and suffered catastrophic, lasting disability; she did not become a schoolteacher afterward. Moniz introduced the procedure in the mid-1930s and was later awarded the 1949 Nobel Prize. Sources: U.S. National Park Service, Nobel Prize.
As the news spread, enthusiasm and near-fanatic admiration for the operation reached new heights.
When Dr. Freeman heard that Alex’s only son required surgery, he was overjoyed. This would be a publicity opportunity second only to the Kennedy case. He agreed to bring the operation forward to just a few days later.
“Dr. Freeman and the Aston family physicians have already drawn up a foolproof surgical plan for you,” Alex said. “He promises to take extraordinary care, with absolutely no side effects. He won’t drill holes. He’ll open the skull and very carefully, gently sever the white-matter nerve fibers connecting your prefrontal lobes to the other regions of your brain. Just a little, one millimeter. Nothing as rough and crude as what he does with other patients! It’s safe, completely safe. It won’t affect other brain regions. Your intelligence, your memories… everything will be preserved. Afterward, you’ll be normal again. We’ll only have… cured your disease, cured your extreme emotions.”
Fear flashed in Aston’s eyes.
“Kingsley.” Alex caressed his only son’s handsome jawline with loving fingers. “Only because you’re my son, born an Aston, can you have this operation. You should thank me. You should thank your family name.”
After a pause, he added, “I’ll never stand by and let my son sink into depravity and ruin. I’m the most responsible father in the world… Kingsley, don’t be afraid. I will save you. I’ll save you with the most advanced medical treatment.”