I sat in the passenger seat of my mother's air-conditioned SUV and complained about the fact that I didn't have a vehicle of my own. I had taken the written test, taken the driving test, passed and got my driver's license. I was getting frustrated at the fact that I didn't have a car of my own.
"Graduate from high school and your father will buy you a car," my mother said, "He considers a high school diploma to be the bare minimum proof that you're responsible enough for vehicle ownership."
I blew an errant strand of hair out of my face and pouted. "I graduate in two days. I got the grades and everything. I've been an excellent student this year."
"So, you shouldn't have long to wait, should you?" my mother asked.
I love my parents, but I've been in a grumpy mood lately, so I've been complaining about almost everything in my life. For the past four weeks I've been having these truly elaborate and disturbing sexual dreams. I've been starting to suspect that there's something wrong with me.
That's why I made an appointment with Doctor Ackerman. She's a psychiatrist that specializes in helping teenagers deal with the traditional sorts traumas and stresses that teenagers deal with. It would be far too embarrassing to discuss my dreams with my parents or my sister or even my friends. These dreams blatantly pornographic and indecent. The only way I could talk to anyone about this stuff is if they were a stranger with a guarantee that they'd be discrete and when it was all over, I could go way and never see them again.
* * *
Doctor Ackerman clung to an old stereotype of having her patients lie on a couch while they recounted their problems to her. I don't get that, why would lying down make it any easier to talk about your problems than sitting down? Or standing up?
Anyway, I told her that I'd been having dreams of the mega-disturbing variety and she asked a bunch of open-ended questions, encouraging me to share as many details about my disturbing dreams as possible.
"Okay," I said, and I let out a huge sigh and tensed as I recounted a plethora of details.
"Every single one of these dreams features this scary woman, I don't know who she is, but she's tall, she has sea green eyes, long, crimson-copper hair, she has a lithe, athletic build, and when she looks directly at you, the look on her face is severe and intimidating."
"You say you don't know who she is," the psychiatrist commented, "but who do you feel she represents?"
"No idea," I responded, "She's totally cruel, and the most sexually deviant person ever. I've never known anybody in real life that was such a perv."
"And how many sexual deviants and pervs have you known in your lifetime?" Doctor Ackerman asked, I noticed that she said "pervs" instead of "perverts, mimicking my own words, despite higher education. It was an obvious attempt to make herself seem like she could relate to me on my own level.
"Um, none," I replied.
"So, none of your previous sexual partners were deviant in any way?"
I had to stifle a laugh.
"I've never had any sexual partners," I explained, "I've only went on one date in my life and that was with Jeffery Lemon. I mean, he's super-cute and all, probably the cutest boy in school, but he was so awkward and nervous, he never even kissed me."
There were a few seconds where neither Doctor Ackerman nor I said anything. I think she was stunned to find out I was a virgin. I know, I know, it's atypical these days for someone my age to still be a virgin. Most of the girls I went to school with lost their virginity at age fifteen or sixteen. And there I was sexually inexperienced at age eighteen.
"You've never even kissed a boy," she said, sounding somewhat surprised, "What about girls?"
I chewed on my lower lip for a few seconds before answering. I mean, technically I had kissed a girl before, but I didn't think it should count.
"Well, there was this one time at a Halloween party," I said, "I made out with Barbara Jacobs, but that shouldn't count."
"Shouldn't count?"
"I had dressed up as Cosima Niehaus," I explained, "The only reason I kissed Barbara was because I was in character. It was the sort of thing Cosima would have done. I took drama and when I play a role, I totally commit to it."
"This Cosima is some sort of lesbian then?"
"From the TV show, Orphan Black, you've never seen it?"
She'd never seen Orphan Black, so I had to explain about Cosima and Sarah and all the other clones, and how Cosima is this brilliant science nerd with a 147 IQ. I mean, she's also a lesbian, but I feel that women need to stop idolizing the Kardashians and need to embrace intelligent people as role models.
"So, the only reason you kissed Barbara was because you were playing a role?" Doctor Ackerman asked.
"It was Halloween," I replied, "The whole point of Halloween is to be somebody you're not. I spent one night as Cosima Niehaus. When Barb started flirting with me, it wasn't me who responded. It was Cosima. I totally embraced my role. It's what a good actress does. I totally got inside Cosima's head and reacted the way she would've."
"I see," Doctor Ackerman said in that totally neutral, non-threatening tone of voice that all psychiatrists seem to use when talking to patients, "Tell me about Barbara, what sort of person is she?"
Barbara is a total sweetheart. She's much more social than I am, and she's usually the one who gets me to go to events like Halloween parties. She was also the one who encouraged me to go out with Jeffery Lemon. She's always trying to get me to be more social and have more fun.