Page 17 of Total Exposure

“The cameras will help you. Twenty-four hours a day someone will be watching you.”

“Who?” I ask, too quickly. A chill runs up my spine at the thought, but I can’t decide if the tingling is pain, or cold, or what.

“You don’t need to know who. It’s anonymous. Who the watcher is isn’t important. The fact that someone will be watching, and you know they’re watching, that’s what’s important.”

“My watcher,” I say. “They’ll see me all the time?”

“Yes. All the time while you’re in treatment.”

“They’ll follow me if I leave the house?”

“Yes, if you’re in treatment. If you leave the program, all surveillance will stop immediately.”

I swallow hard. “So I can opt out at any time?”

“Of course. I already told you, this is all consensual.”

I sit there for many minutes, dreaming of the life I might have if this works. A week? Is it possible I could cure myself in a week? After all this time, after all that money spent, and all those visits to Lucinda, not to mention all the miserable years I’ve spent up here in this apartment, hiding from the world, now I learn I can cure myself in seven days? With cameras?

“This is real?” I ask.

She squeezes my hand. “I swear, it’s real, Evangeline. I think it can help you. You just need to commit to it. Surrender to the plan and see it through. I can’t make promises because the outcome all depends on you, not me. Not the watcher, but you. So you have to decide… can you do this?”

Lucinda, to her credit, waits as I think it all through.

I picture the performance. The applause. Playing music again. “I’ll need a violin,” I whisper. “To get ready.”

“Yes.” Lucinda laughs. “You will. And you do realize that you were never going to go through with this show, right?”

“What?” I gasp. “Yes, of course I was. Why would I plan a performance and not follow through?”

“Because you were looking for a way out, Evangeline. And the performance was your excuse. How do you think you’ll play the violin in front of a sold-out crowd in two and a half weeks if you haven’t picked one up in over ten years?”

I think about that for a little bit. Is she right? Was this all an act of self-sabotage? Was getting better just a trigger to get worse? “I’m a prodigy,” I say. “I never learned the violin. I just… always knew it.”

“You were a child prodigy, Evangeline. Now you’re just another adult who needs to work hard at things. You decided thirteen years ago to withdraw from society. You neglected your imagination and stopped expressing yourself. You found solace in the predictable and boring. In hiding away and pretending that attention was painful.”

“It is!” I insist. “You have no idea what you’re talking about!”

“Evangeline, I’m a fucking doctor, OK? I have a Ph.D. I’m board-certified in psychoanalysis.”

“You’re a fucking sex therapist!”

“No,” she says, her calm demeanor wavering slightly. “I use sex as part of my therapy. There’s a big difference. I don’t treat people with sex problems. I guide patients and sex is one tool I use to help them recover. In your case, we will not be using sex as therapy. I told you that a long time ago. We will use a completely anonymous watcher with cameras. That’s it. So forget about the sex.”

We sit there quietly for a little bit. I put my sunglasses back on and withdraw my hand from hers. “Friday?” I ask.

“Yes.”

“You had this planned?”

“Yes. It’s all been set up for you.”

“You knew I was failing?”

She smiles, takes both my hands in her to give them a squeeze, and says, “I saw it coming from the first time I met you. Moving past hurtful things that trigger a response as debilitating as yours isn’t easy, Evangeline. Yes, I always knew you’d fail. But I also knew you had what it takes to get better. I’m treating you because I believe in you. You’re not my typical case. You know that.”

“I know,” I say softly. “You’ve done a lot for me. And I appreciate it.”