"My therapist suggested it. She said they make you promise to not have sex with anybody until you've known them for six months. But I don't see how that would help. If you're going to be compulsive, it seems like you could easily drag your compulsion out for six months. I know I could."
"Yeah, well, frankly, I came to the same conclusion." With a graceful slouch, Lila reached for the cup of coffee amid her implements. "Although I also saw people do a lot of growing and sharing."
 he last time Jill saw the dentist, she went to his office. She went when she knew he would just be finishing his office hours. She expected the secretary to be there, but she wasn't. When Jill saw her empty desk, she hesitated. A door opened and the dentist emerged. He looked at her with the same neutral calm he had worn when he was tearing her tooth out piece by piece.
"Hi," said Jill. "I was in the neighborhood and I thought I'd drop by."
He said he was glad to see her but that the automatic surveillance system was just about to go on, and if anyone was in the room besides him, it would arouse the hired security.
"That's okay," she said. "I just dropped by on my way to an early movie."
"Oh?" He sounded curious. "What are you seeing?"
"Just some silly thing this friend of mine's ex-wife is in. She wouldn't have sex with him for a year before they got divorced, and in the movie she's playing opposite her new girlfriend, who in the movie apparently fucks the shit out of her with a strap-on. You'd think her ex-husband would be jealous, but I guess he's just so proud of her for getting the part."
"Well, like I said, the system's about to go on."
"Yeah, okay. I just wanted to ask you something." She got distracted by the cup of cold coffee on the secretary's desk, its red lipstick impress weak and melancholy in the harsh office light. The dentist followed her eye, and they both stared at the cup. "The last time you were at my house, why did you say I thought I was so perverted, when I'm really not?"
"I don't remember saying that."
"You did. You said you'd seen things I couldn't even imagine, and I just wondered--"
"I don't remember, but I'm sure it didn't mean anything." He removed his white coat with such agitation he got his wrist stuck in one sleeve.
"But people usually mean--"
"I don't mean anything! I'm a very simple person! I'm bland and I have a low level of emotional vibrancy and I like it that way!" He wrested his wrist free, then frantically fooled with his tie.
"But--"
"Why are you always saying these strange things to me? What do you want? Why are you always talking about sex?"
"I'm not talking about sex right now. I--"
"I didn't say you were! But you--you're--I'm just trying to be--"
To her grief, she saw it was true: he was apoplectic with fear.
Oh, honey, she thought. Oh, darling.
"Call me tomorrow," he said thickly. "I can't talk anymore now."
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