I rose hollow-eyed and gaunt of face. Assisted by marijuana-but no alcohol-I had managed to perform. It had helped to put up a mirror so I could be sure no homo would steal in while I lay naked and exposed. I had somehow satisfied the girls while wrapped around with the soft haze of grass. Personally I had not felt much. The "joy of sex" was getting dim for me these days.

The only advantageous thing about this morning was that I had no headache. But now that last night's pot had worn off, the awful whirlpool of terror was spinning in my guts.

Shakily, I got a bhong going and took half a dozen puffs. Instead of calming me, it accentuated my panic.

I had a bad half hour before I could get my hands to stop shaking and prepare some strong coffee. I drank it. My hands shook worse.

A bright voice seared my soul. "Hello, Inky. I just stopped by on my way to school. Boy, am I learning how to (bleep)!"

She was standing there in her ponytail, flat-heeled oxfords and socks around her ankles. She looked at her Mickey Mouse watch. "I've got a few minutes. I could give you a demonstration."

"I didn't know your last name was 'Whopper,'" I said idiotically. What I had meant to say was "You set me up, you filthy, blackmailing (bleep)!" But I had to be careful.

"Oh, yes," she said. "My parents were very famous. But I don't like to have to trade on their name and sound conceited. They used to rush from coast to coast running all the Mafia organizations. They were the biggest hit team in the business until they were sent to the gas chamber in California for murdering the governor. They really lived up to their name. And now that we have been formally introduced, how about lying back and letting me show you this new muscle. You sort of start it with your heel. You put your foot on the fellow's... here, I'll take off my shoe and sock...."

"Teenie, before the Gods, I feel very nervous and upset. You better run along to school, Teenie." What I meant to say was "You set me up, you filthy, blackmailing (bleep)!"

"Oh, you can't get rid of me that easy. I was early today. Here, try some bubble gum. That sometimes eases the strain. It's a sort of substitute for going down on boys the way the psychologist had me do every day. I miss being his assistant, you know."

I chewed the bubble gum. It tasted like plastic.

"Now that you have it gooey, you pull it across your front teeth and blow and make a bubble. Jesus, not like that. I swear to Pete, Inky, you act like you never grew up in a civilized place." She worked her fingers in my mouth, had me blow. The bubble got very big.

It popped suddenly.

I had strips of bubble gum all over my face.

She laughed gaily.

"You'll be late for school, Teenie," I said. I meant to say "You set me up, you rotten, blackmailing (bleep), and I would give half my life expectancy-which might not be long, due to you-to kill you where you stand." I didn't say it.

"Well, I gotta be going," she said. "Oh, by the way, you asked me the other day if the Chinese men were doing it to me. I want to set your mind at rest, Inky. Would you believe it that three of them are homos? They wouldn't touch a woman with a ten-foot pole, even if they were that long, which they aren't. I caught them in a daisy chain last evening and told the Hong Kong whore and she just said 'Really?' and went in to watch. So I'm in no danger, Inky. I'm saving it all up to (bleep) you. Ta-ta." And off she went.

The shot about homos had gone straight to the center of my terrified stomach.

I sat there.

The pattern of the spring sun lay in bars upon the floor.

Bars.

Crobe's viewer flickered. He was having a conference with two other psychiatrists. A young boy, about twelve, was strapped down on an operating table: his eyes were wide with terror. He was gagged with a block of wood and surgical gauze.

One of the psychiatrists said, "It is no use. Not only does he insist it is wrong to steal, he won't join any of the gangs that do." He was nursing a bandaged hand.

"Totally antisocial," said the other psychiatrist. "A deviant. Too smart-(bleep) for his own good."

"He's hopeless," said the first psychiatrist. "His parents first sent him to me when he was five years old and now, seven years later, he refuses to make any progress. He won't buy drugs from his teachers and, despite repeated electric shocks, refuses utterly to exhibit neurotic tendencies."

"Never make it through college," said the other psy­chiatrist, shaking his head sadly.

"But now he has the nerve," said the first psychiatrist, "to refuse to talk! Whenever I ungag him he just screams that he's afraid of us."

"Vy dun't you zay zo in de virst blace?" said Crobe. "Dis gonference 'as gone on doo long awready."

"Well, I told you in the first place," said the original psychiatrist, "that it was a terror syndrome. I just brought him in so you could operate. I can't. I hurt my hand beating him."

The boy was trying desperately to escape the straps, writhing from side to side, trying to force words through his gag.

The second psychiatrist said, "Be quiet," and with an expert fist, punched the boy on the button. The youngster collapsed.

Crobe beckoned and two husky male nurses raced up. One was carrying needles and drugs and the other pushed in an electric-shock machine.

The one with drugs pumped a syringe full into the boy's veins. The other one fixed the shock machine to the sides of his head.

Sparks flew and smoke rose up from the electrodes.

The two psychiatrists smiled and nodded to Crobe.

The first one said, "I am sure you can do it like I showed you on that woman. It's really a simple operation: merely cutting the vagus nerve."

"That will cure it. He won't be afraid of anything anymore. Vagotomies are wonderful," said the second psy­chiatrist.

Crobe grabbed a knife and opened up the boy's stom­ach. Blood flew. Using a fingernail, he located the nerve in question. He took a pair of fingernail scissors and cut a section out of it.

The first psychiatrist took the section away from him and looked at it. "Vagus nerve all right," he said. "But these things can be sneaky. It might grow again. Give me that drill."

Working professionally, the first psychiatrist bored a hole in the unconscious boy's skull. Then he reached in with the fingernail scissors and snipped. "That cuts the nerve off between the medulla oblongata and the body. We must be thorough."

The second psychiatrist said, "Wait a minute. It could accidentally get connected up again there, too. Give me that lancet."

He examined the boy's throat. "I read once that the vagus nerve also passed alongside the jugular. This is a good time to find out."

He made an incision.

The knife must have slipped. Air frothed through the cut, a gout of red bubbles.

"Oh, (bleep)," said the second psychiatrist. "I must have missed. But I'll get it." The knife plunged in again.

A fountain of blood sprayed them.

"(Bleep)!" said the second psychiatrist. "Now I've gone and cost you a patient."

"Never mind," said the first psychiatrist, "the parents were already bankrupt paying my bills. No loss, old man."

"Dank you for joing me how to do it," said Crobe.

"You owe us one," said the second psychiatrist, as he and his colleague walked out. "See you at lunch, Crobe, old boy."

I shook my head over Crobe. He was just an ordinary psychiatrist now. He wasn't even cutting up the corpse to use the perfectly good parts in cellology.

My attention wandered back to the subject of Teenie. She had just told me another fanciful version of her parents. And I doubted very much what she had said about a respectable businesswoman like the Hong Kong whore.

Wait a minute. There was a pattern to this. An excellent student of psychology like myself should be able to sort it out. Then it hit me: Teenie was a pathological liar!