“When I said that, Oswald, the old buzzard rolled his eyes up at the ceiling and smiled a thin supercilious smile. ‘Fantasy, fantasy,’ he said, ‘all is fantasy.’
“‘What makes you think you’re so right and I’m so wrong?’ I asked him.
“‘Allow me to explain a little further,’ he said, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands across his tummy. ‘In your subconscious mind, my dear fräulein, you believe that the masculine organ is a machine-gun–’
“‘That’s just about what it is so far as I’m concerned!’ I cried. ‘It’s a lethal weapon!’
“‘Exactly,’ he said. ‘Now vee are getting somewhere. And you also believe that any man who points it at you is going to pull the trigger and riddle you with bullets.’
“‘Not bullets,’ I said. ‘Something else.’
“‘So you run avay,’ he said. ‘You reject all men. You hide from them. You sit all alone through the nights–’
“‘I do not sit alone,’ I said. ‘I sit with my lovely old Doberman pinscher, Fritzy.’
“‘Male or female?’ he snapped.
“‘Fritzy’s a male.’
“‘Vorse than ever,’ he said. ‘Do you with this Doberman pinscher indulge in sexual relations?’
“‘Don’t be so daft, Doctor Freud. Who do you think I am?’
“‘You run avay from men,’ he said. ‘You run avay from dogs. You run avay from anything that an organ has. . . .’
“‘I’ve never heard such codswallop in all my life!’ I cried. ‘I am not frightened of anyone’s organ! I do not think it’s a machine-gun! I think it’s a bloody nuisance, that’s all! I’m fed up with it! I’ve had enough!’
“‘Do you like carrots, fräulein?’ he asked me suddenly.
“‘Carrots?’ I said. ‘Good God. Not particularly, no. If I do have them I usually dice them. I chop them up.’
“‘Vot about cucumbers, fräulein?’
“‘Pretty tasteless,’ I said. ‘I prefer them pickled.’
“‘Ja ja,’ he said, writing all this down on my record sheet. ‘It may interest you to know, fräulein, that the carrot and the cucumber are both very powerful sexuality symbols. They represent the masculine phallic member. And you are vishing either to chop it up or to pickle it!’
“I tell you, Oswald,” Yasmin said to me, “it was as much as I could do to stop myself screaming with laughter. And to think people actually believe this horseshit.”
“He believes it himself,” I said.
“I know he does. He sat there writing it all down on a large sheet of paper. Then he said, ‘And vot also have you got to tell me, fräulein?’
“‘I can tell you what I think is wrong with me,’ I said.
“‘Proceed, please.’
“‘I believe I have a little dynamo inside me,’ I said, ‘and this dynamo goes whizzing round and round and gives off a terrific charge of sexual electricity.’
“‘Very interesting,’ he said, scribbling away. ‘Continue, please.’
“‘This sexual electricity is of such high voltage,’ I said, ‘that as soon as a man comes close to me, it jumps across the gap from me to him and it jiggers him up.’
“‘Vot is meaning, please, “jiggers him up”?’
“‘It means it excites him,’ I said. ‘It electrifies his private parts. It makes them red hot. And that’s when he starts to go crazy and he jumps on me. Don’t you believe me, Doctor Freud?’
“‘This is a serious case,’ the old geezer said. ‘It is going to take many psychoanalytical sessions on the couch to make you normal.’
“Now all this time, Oswald,” Yasmin said to me, “I was keeping an eye on my watch. And when eight minutes had gone by, I said to him, ‘Please don’t rape me, Doctor Freud. You ought to be above that sort of thing.’
“‘Do not be ridiculous, fräulein,’ he said. ‘You are hallucinating again.’
“‘But my electricity!’ I cried. ‘It’s going to jigger you up! I know it is! It’s going to jump across from me to you and electrify your private parts! Your pizzle will become red hot! You will rip my clothes off! You will have your way with me!’
“‘Stop this hysterical shoutings at once,’ he snapped, and he got up from his desk and came and stood near where I was lying on the couch. ‘Here I am,’ he said, spreading out his arms. ‘I am not harming you, am I? I am not trying to jump upon you, yes?’