“She had an M.D. and a Ph.D., but that just shows they’ll give those degrees to any bonehead who puts in the time. She was a fake who wanted to hypnotize me and put false memories into my head. She actually thought she had hypnotized me and started suggesting all kinds of sexual things my father had snuck into my room and done to me when I was three. She was, like, a volunteer hypnotic pornographer. Serious child porn. Ugly.” Pat shuddered. “My parents kept making me go back until I finally told my dad what that bitch was trying to get me to ‘remember’ he had done to me.”

“But you hung on to the vocabulary.”

“Whenever people go off on how I don’t like to be glad-handed or stroked, she comes to mind. Being an introvert isn’t a pathology, you know.”

“I know,” said Danny. “I don’t like to be touched either.” He thought back to the way Lana had accosted him when he first came to Stone’s house, and he realized that he hadn’t spoken the actual truth. He hadn’t liked Lana touching him at the moment, because it was such a surprise and because he didn’t like her having control over him. But his body very much liked being touched, and he still remembered that encounter with Lana. He remembered it a lot, and he had imagined several different endings to the event that he much preferred to the way it had actually ended.

But he knew that was nothing more than the impulse of his DNA to replicate itself. In fact, like Pat, he didn’t like to have people touch him. At least not without an invitation. “I have no idea why I did that,” said Danny, “and I’m sorry. I’m also sorry your parents didn’t get you, and I’m sorry the shrink was a schmuck. Can we please get on to whatever you actually came for?”

Pat turned red again and curled up onto the couch, turning her body partly away from him. He had never seen her look vulnerable before. “What am I doing? Why am I saying these things?”

“Really. Please,” said Danny. “Tell me what you came for.”

“I’m worried about you,” she finally said. Still not looking at him. Still embarrassed. “You’re so. So.”

“Stupid?” Danny prompted.

“Yes,” she said. “Not school-stupid, not even people-stupid. I mean, you’re actually very clever and kind of sweet and I think you don’t have a malicious bone in your body, though your sense of humor is sometimes kind of on the mean side.”

“Senses of humor usually are,” said Danny. “But I see your point. Thanks for the counsel.”