The door was open a crack, and I could make out Freud, lying almost supine in his chair, feet propped on the desk in front of him, head cocked to the side. I knocked. He licked the tip of his middle finger and used it to dog-ear the page of his book, which he closed and placed on the desk. He removed his reading glasses and placed them on top of the book, then finally rose out of the chair and made his way toward the door. At his approach, I began to sweat. My jacket was overwarm for the morning. I fiddled with the napkin, still in my pocket; it was beginning to disintegrate under my fingers’ constant probing. Had he meant come back whenever you want? Or had he just meant come back one time? But he had said it again last night, hadn’t he, when I’d left the bar—or had I imagined that? I hadn’t taken the napkin out and looked at it in hours and wondered with a hit of panic whether his words were still etched there. I thought about leaving, but he was three feet away, now two, now one, now creaking open the office door. He looked impassive, neither delighted nor disappointed, impressed nor unimpressed, and definitely not surprised.

“Good morning,” he said. “Come in.”

He stood aside and I entered, took in the room: cozy, full of books on wooden shelves with glass-paned doors, an armchair, a low broad couch. A small window looked out onto a tree, just beginning to turn. There was an intricate old rug covering the wood floor. Antiques everywhere. One, hung on the wall, was a bas-relief of a woman walking, her robes flowing around her. There was a painting of a woman, half fainted against the man behind her, who propped her up in his arms. Another man stood next to them, lecturing to a roomful of note-taking spectators, all men in suits, as though she were a specimen for study. They were doctors, perhaps; I wondered what had befallen her. Beneath the painting was Freud’s desk chair, odd and even unsightly: a curved semicircle of wooden armrest supported only by a padded bar running down from the middle.

“It was designed by a friend, to suit my reading habits,” he said.

“And they let you bring it in here?”

“Why not?”

I glanced at him and in a rush remembered pushing him last night—the firmness of his chest, his hand on my wrist. I felt the twist between my legs—fuck me—then, swiftly, the shame—If you sleep with me, you’ll have to dispose of me—my men, being poured down the drain, shredded to oblivion—

I felt dizzy. I closed my eyes. My dad standing in the doorway, That’s very short, the garish carpet, a nauseous swell—

“Could I lie down?” I said.

He gestured toward the couch, then sank into the armchair behind it.