After all, the world even looked like a different place. She would see couples in the grocery store, in restaurants, waiting for the bus, and immediately she would work to categorize them. She would search for clues—the woman signaled the waiter, the man pushed the shopping cart. She would flash on images of them naked, see the blonde woman with the pink handbag on top of the man at the coffee shop. You were either one or the other, and it reminded her of how, after she had lost her virginity, she had wandered around school and saw only virgins and non-virgins. Back then, the possibility that anyone else would think these violent thoughts, let alone act on them, was inconceivable, and she tried to keep focused on whatever bare-chested teenage boy was kissing her neck or caressing her belly. But even her first time, this had been difficult. She had been fifteen and at her mother’s holiday party, and had come out of the bathroom to find the high school senior that her mother paid to drive her to school waiting for her. He was a tall, blond boy, a basketball player who only grunted at her to get in or out of the car, but here he was—Scotch in one hand, cigarette in the other—and waiting for her. “You’re hot,” he said. She felt flattered and scared, and she tried to look cool, flipped her long hair and asked where he got the drink. He tilted it to her mouth until she felt it burn its way down her throat, and then set it on the carpet, ground the cigarette into the glass, and pushed her into the bathroom. She could feel her adrenaline spike, and when he thrust his tongue into her mouth and his hand between her legs, she startled and pushed him away, but he came back quickly. “Come on, baby,” he said. “I promise I’ll be gentle.” He was drunk and clearly incapable of being gentle, and the thought both excited and scared her. “No,” she said and went for the door, but he grabbed her, ran his fingers through her hair, and told her to just do it, and the more forceful he became, the more she softened, until it was she who maneuvered herself onto the sink, stripped off her panties, and pulled him to her. She watched the whole thing in the mirror above the toilet, ignoring the slicing pain she felt between her legs, trying to keep her head empty, trying to focus on his hands on her ass, but soon she felt her mind drifting to the dark box in her mind, and the harder she tried to pull it back, the harder it pried at the lid, until eventually the images came rushing out—thick leather belts and hard wood paddles, swift slaps on bare skin, legs bound and spread—this is what bad girls got, this is what they deserved. The thoughts forced themselves on her. They were invading little gremlins, but she was the willing victim.