“And how did you feel?” Freud asked.

“Like I wanted to die,” I said, though until the words had left my mouth, I hadn’t known they were true.

Werther, onstage, was experiencing the same anguish. Moments earlier, he had declared his love for Charlotte in his chocolate-mousse voice—“MY HEART is FILLED WITH DELIGHT. WHAT A DREAM, TO BE CRADLED BY HER GAZE…” My insides had felt pumped through with liquid metal at this betrayal: Werther was supposed to be mine. My loneliness was unbearable. But then Charlotte’s father had entered to announce that her fiancé had returned. Werther clutched his head in despair, just as I wished to do: “REMAIN LOYAL TO YOUR OATH, CHARLOTTE—BUT I WILL DIE OF IT!” His pain rippled through the room.

In the seats, I’d closed my eyes. A high-pitched ringing sounded in my ears, almost drowning out what was happening onstage. In my mind I fixed on the image of Werther, crying out, clutching his head. It made me hot and excited, uncontainable. I imagined running up onto the stage and threading my arms underneath his long black coat and around his waist. My cheek soft against his stomach. He would put his big arms around me, curve his tall body over mine. Remembering this, I became aroused on the couch again—my eyes sprang open. Could Freud tell? I swallowed loud and dry.

“What are you thinking?” he prodded.

“You can tell,” I said, “can’t you?”

“You tell me,” he said, his voice low and suggestive to my ears. I got wetter.

“Are you sure you won’t fuck me?” I whispered.

“Fucking is escape,” he said.

“Can’t I escape?”

“Do you want to?” he said. “Or are you curious?”

It was a test. I would be curious.

“One must seek to learn something from everything,” Freud said.

I paused for a long time, waiting for the pulsation in my crotch to subside. I squeezed tight the muscles there, willing the sensation away. I allowed my mind to float back to the scene, the velvet seats, Werther’s despair and mine…

“What else do you remember?” Freud prodded.

“I remember the intermission,” I said.

When the lights came up, I’d peered into the orchestra down below. It was dark, but I could still make out the tiny heads. A kid reached up and patted his dad on the top of his head; the father grasped the kid’s forearm and I winced. But he brought the little hand to his mouth and kissed its palm, then blew raspberries into it, making his son laugh. I felt a hand on my forearm and saw that my mother, stretching across my father’s lap, was handing me a butterscotch candy. She pointed at her cheeks, hollowed out with sucking, and raised her eyebrows: she knew they were my favorite. Maybe she was apologizing for her tone earlier, with the Lyles, I reasoned, or maybe she was rewarding me for my compliance. Or maybe she just loved me the most, my mom. I took it from her elegant fingers and unwrapped it.