Hysteria

Jessica Gross

AN UNNAMED PRESS BOOK

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Unnamed Press, and the colophon, are registered trademarks of Unnamed Media LLC.

ISBN: 978-1951213121

eISBN: 978-1951213138

Library of Congress Control Number available upon request.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are wholly fictional or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover Art by Xiao Wang

Designed and Typeset by Jaya Nicely

Manufactured in the United States of America by Versa Press, Inc.

Distributed by Publishers Group West

First Edition

HYSTERIA

a novel

JESSICA GROSS

The Unnamed Press

Los Angeles, CA

For my parents

and my analyst

Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Acknowledgments

About the Author

HYSTERIA

Chapter 1

I had come so many times staring at the latticework of my radiator that I wondered if I could orgasm from that pattern alone. It was the first thing I saw when I blinked myself into the room: those interlocking carved shapes. There, if I squinted, were the hot bars of its center. And there was the old wooden dresser, which my parents had sent off with me, and the streaked mirror propped on top. My cheap curtains looked ethereal in this particular slant of light, gauzy and white. Beyond it, the slender window opened out onto the roof: no breeze.

Blood pressed against the underside of my skull. I pictured the top of it lifting off and shooting into the air, a geyser of blood propelling it up into the clouds; then, in the remaining bowl of my head, my naked brain, sad and lonely. I shifted onto my back, stared at the spinning ceiling, peeling paint, and took inventory, as I did the moment each day I released sleep and reentered an existence on earth. On a rare day, I could scour the day before and discover that I had nothing to repent for. The images came in flashes: the face of my student, dilated with fear—she had fallen asleep at her desk, how dare she, and I’d rapped the desk right next to her ear, shocking her awake; then, the acidic rush of shame—an uptown bar, happy hour after school, cracked leather, broken jukebox, peanut shells coating the floor—two margaritas? three? the lips of the glasses caked in salt—and then the Indian restaurant downtown, holiday lights blaring from every wall though it was autumn, handle of vodka and bottle of cheap red wine in the center of the table—and, afterward, the party. I had said I wouldn’t sleep with him. He was my roommate’s brother: off-limits. He would walk me home, I had decided, and then I’d say goodbye. I touched the insides of my thighs, where the points of his hips had rammed into me, likely leaving me bruised. Yes, the events of yesterday would need to be repented for. Today I would be good. I would lock myself up if I had to.