But God, straddling that stupid toilet, I just wanted to fuck. So bad. And there was no one in this shithole. Elliot would know; he’d see the swell on me. I’d do something impulsive, and I’d have to stay.

But I needed it, and I wasn’t using the word “need” loosely.

I was about to get up and just go figure it out when I decided to give in to impulse. I slid my middle finger over my clit.

I gasped. The shade slapped against the window again, and something fell. I’d forgotten how good that was, how electric. My finger and my clit reacted at the same time, and I was blindsided by it.

The bathroom door opened. I jerked my hand up and opened my eyes.

Mark, the orderly with the tattoo, said, “Whatcha doing?”

“I’m in the bathroom, asshole.”

He stood there, taking up the doorframe. He had Jack’s paper towel in his hand, a few yellow petals poking out. “Bedroom door was closed.”

“Maybe you know why now?”

“Sure do.” He still didn’t move

My eyes drifted where they always did when I felt that constant throb between my legs. He had a cock, and if it wasn’t hard, I’d be a monkey’s uncle. I could take that thing. It would have to be a secret for all of how many hours? I’d go to my session, clear shit up, get rubberstamped, and get the fuck over to Deacon, aye-sap.

“There aren’t cameras in the bathrooms, are there?”

He looked me up and down, eyes lingering on my bare legs and the triangle where they met. “On the doorway. Everything up to the toilet.”

“Too bad. I was feeling like a fuckdoll.” Newly emboldened, I stroked my belly with an extended finger.

“Five minutes, pretty thing.”

“Three’s all I got.”

He winked at me. “Stay right where you are.” He clicked the door shut behind him.

I had twenty minutes. Maybe I could be two minutes late to the session. I had no idea who reported lateness or at what point they’d come looking for me. I wasn’t interested in getting found with Mark.

I sat back and let my fingers rediscover pleasure. I didn’t think about anything, just focused on what I was feeling. I teased the swell out so that when a real living, breathing cock entered the room, I could get the job done. I needed it, and with every pulse of need, I shifted my finger over my clit. Sweet, overwhelming delight. Thoughtless anticipation, the tremble of life, a precipice into the chasm of forgetting.

And he was back.

“What did you do?”

“My buddy’s at the monitors.” He closed the door. “Get down, psycho.”

He took me by the back of the head and pulled me to my knees. I yanked his waistband down and pulled out his cock. It smelled antiseptic and stung my tongue when I licked it.

“Oh God, yes, you little fucking whore. Take it all.”

I looked up at him, making my eyes big and wide. I let him slide his dick over my tongue and down my open throat. He held me there a second longer than I thought I could stand it.

I stood up. “Just fuck me. Use me. I’ll be your horny slut. Your fuckdoll whore.”

He turned me and pushed me against the toilet. I braced myself on the tank. He got a condom on while I stared at the tiles. I hoped he didn’t try anal. That was always nice, but I wouldn’t come without help, and I suspected he wasn’t a big helper. He jammed it in my pussy and held onto my hips, pumping in and out. I angled my body so his shaft rubbed my clit, and I felt the orgasm coming.

“Oh, fuck you, you little rich slut. You like it like this, don’t you? You like it when I fuck you like this.”

“I’m a whore. Fuck me like a whore. Yes, fuck me like a rich little whore.” I knew I was saying the right things. They turned me on, and they made him slam me harder. I felt the swirl of my climax.

Everything was there. Skin on skin. Tick. Prone, exposed to a stranger. Tick. No commitments, no intimacy. Tick. A little risk thrown in for good measure. Tick, tick, tick.

There was the thing I’d forgotten.

The boredom. The space between the hunt for sex and the orgasm, and even the orgasm, half the time. Tedious.

I wanted to come and get it the fuck over with. The seconds in between were not savored but reviled. They were an unworthy means to a worthy end. His grunts were annoying. His dirty talk held no meaning. I didn’t want to look at him, so I bent over. He thought I was a slut, so he called me a slut. Boring.

I pushed against him. “Harder, fucker. Bury it. Break it off.”

He slapped my ass and pounded me. “Shut up, bitch.”

His balls slapped my clit, and his dick plowed against it. I was going to come. I felt it in my muscles, and when they tensed and clenched, it was a release, not a joy. Just a job well done.

He came with an oof, and I rolled my eyes.

He stroked my back from neck to ass. “Baby—”

“Get out. I have shit to do.”

“Why’s it gotta be like that?” He got the condom off and rolled it up in toilet paper.

I stood up. “How else should it be?”

“You don’t want me to be nice?”

“You thought you were the one using me? Funny.”

“You some kinda weirdo?”

“You’re in a mental ward, dude. Come on. Get the fuck out of my bathroom.”

Condom stowed in his pocket, pants zipped, girl disinterested, he got the hint and opened the door. He was almost out, but being a man, he needed the last word.

“Slut.”

“Last session,” Elliot said. “How do you feel?”

He looked relaxed, clean-shaven, happy. I hadn’t realized how troubled he’d looked during our last session.

“I’m okay. Are you going to let me go?”

“I can only make a recommendation. After this session, I’ll type it up, and we’ll meet with Frances and your lawyer. Give me an hour after we’re done. Your mother and lawyer are already here.”

I sit on the couch. “Are we doing hypnosis again today?”

He shrugged. “Sure, if you’re up for it. I’d like to try to find more recent memories. Track back to the last thing you remember.”

I laid back. “We tried this before.”

“Maybe things have changed.” He sat next to me and got out his pen.

I wished I could have met him under different circumstances. When he was a seminarian, before I was a happy little fuckdoll, when things could have been kind of normal. That absurd sense of humor would drive me insane while my affluenza frustrated him.

“Things have changed,” I said, though I couldn’t define them.

“Keep your eyes on the tip of the pen.”

Are you relaxed?

I am. I feel a freedom I hadn’t felt before. I feel hopeful and generous, sweet and melancholy. Emboldened and encouraged, ready to start a new journey, a life after this incident.

I want you to think about the ride here, to Westonwood. Can you remember that?

I don’t. It’s not even a blur; it’s blank.

Go back a little further. To the stables. You were given a shot. Do you remember the pain in your arm?

The black goes grey, and I feel something in my arm, as if I’m being poked with a rigid finger. I feel something else, a pounding in my chest, a confusion that I’m separate from. I can’t tell what’s happening, besides the feeling of being restrained.

Go back further. Before the shot.

I don’t want to. I feel the resistance binding me to my forgetfulness, the comfort of not knowing. If I lean into it, just a little, maybe I can see what happened without feeling it. Maybe I can observe coldly, like a reporter noting facts for relevance, not profundity. If I let myself accept that fear, I’ll know. So I relax into where the rope of my fear pulls and binds me, dropping into some unknown graphite-colored place in my head. I expect to go back in my memory a minute, two minutes, half an hour, but intuitively, though I can’t tell the whens and wheres, I know I’ve gone back further.