“When I met you, I knew I’d found something special—my case study. I had been posting those ads for cheap therapy for months. My dad used to say, if you wait long enough, evil always shows up. I think you can give me what I deserve. You’re at the center of my book, Ted. Don’t worry, no one will ever know it’s you. I’ll change your name—Ed Flagman or something. I just need you to be honest with me—really honest.”

“What do you want me to say?” I wish he would stop talking. I’m going to have to do something I don’t like.

“Let’s start at the beginning,” he says. “The girl, Lauren, or Olivia, whatever you like to call her. Is she the first?”

“The first what?”

“The first of your ‘daughters,’” he says. I can hear the quote marks around the word. “Is that the right word? Daughters? Wives? Or maybe you just call them kittens…”

“You’re so dumb,” I say, furious. “I thought I was the dumb one!” But he’s smart enough to be dangerous.

His bloodshot eyes narrow. “Why do you go to that bar, Ted?” he asks. “For your cat?”

I take him in my arms. “Don’t try to tell me what I am,” I whisper in his ear. He gives a terrified belch. I hug him and hug him, panting and gripping tighter until I feel the sawing crack of his ribcage and the bug man seems to turn to water. His hand unclenches. Two small objects fall onto the table, catching the light. It is a pair of cufflinks, silver, inlaid with stone as red as blood, picked out gleaming under the neon. I stare at them for a moment. “You’re just a thief,” I say into his ear, squeezing. “You steal everything—even thoughts. You can’t even write your own book.” He moans.

There is a shout from behind me and someone comes out of the store; the sleepy man who sold us the beer.

I drop the bug man and he slumps onto the table. I run across the road into the welcoming arms of the woods. Branches whip my face, I stumble, ankle-deep in leaf mold. More than once I fall but I don’t stop, I push myself up on the slippery forest floor and I run and run toward home. The roar builds, stacking up in my throat, but I don’t let it out, not yet.