How had my session with Freud begun? I remembered pulling his blanket up to my chest, Freud breathing steadily behind me…I had told him about the opera…his hands had been on my head—I had bit him!—me!—I won your pain—you will obey me—I know what you want, he had said, or had he?—

Stop! I threaded one hand through the hair at the nape of my neck, so that I could pull hard without anyone seeing. Hidden, my face betraying nothing, the comforting rush of pain. One of the men in line got his order and threaded his way out of the room, brushing against my elbow, so I dropped my arm and instead pressed my crotch into the hard plastic of my seat—Why do you think you needed to do that? But Freud hadn’t been criticizing me, had he; wasn’t it a gift that I had found a way to soothe myself?

The burrito was ready. I paid and went out to the street, sat on the curb to eat. It was a gift, maybe, but wasn’t it an illness, too? What did it mean that I couldn’t feel shitty for a minute without touching myself? What did it mean that I could come only when I was alone? Or—with Freud. It was the first time I had ever come in front of a man. Again I pictured myself draped over the arm of the couch, touching myself, smacking myself, my face contorted, probably, into something appalling—I chewed faster—I had come in front of him, I had told him about my father, how had I told him so much?—you wanted your father to touch you so badly that you would do anything—

A man walked by on the opposite side of the street, thick shoulders, meaty face. I couldn’t see him clearly from this angle, but I was almost certain that he wore a mustache, walrus-like and heinous. Langham. Thx for pretending nothing happened, the fucking prick, Langham—

I swallowed a big bite, too quick, and “Fuck you!” I shouted across the street, a fleck of bean shooting out of my mouth. He didn’t turn. “Fuck! You! You fucking prick! Langham! Fuck you!”

He still hadn’t looked at me, so I stood, chucked the last few bites of the burrito in the trash, and brushed the dirt off my ass as I ran across the street.

“Hey! Langham! Hey! Fuck you!”

As I got closer, I began to have a sinking feeling, but I was on a conveyor belt, I couldn’t stop, and then—fuck you fuck you fuck you—he turned around, and no, it wasn’t him, it wasn’t Langham at all.

What else had I imagined?

But the thought was too much to bear—I grabbed for my phone, and this time, I turned it on.