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uniqueness .”
    But it IS perversity, Hazel thought, remembering the noxious yet ecstatic dream. “I don’t really want him to love me, anyway. He’ll wind up getting hurt, and I’d feel bad about that.”
    “Ah, someone else on the horizon, then...”
    Hazel remained silent for a long pause. “I just want to forget about men during this trip. Pretend they don’t exist.”
    “That might not be too easy. Frank’ll be joining us tomorrow.”
    “Tomorrow? I thought he was there now.”
    “Not at the cabin. He’s out camping and hiking.”
    Hazel tried not to let the sudden inner-exhilaration show. If he won’t be there till tomorrow...then Sonia and I’ll be alone together tonight. “I haven’t camped since Girl Scouts—hated it.”
    “Hazel!” Sonia squealed. “ You were a Girl Scout?”
    “Well, yeah.”
    “I just can’t picture that...”
    Yeah, but I can picture you. In bed. With me, Hazel teased herself with the thought. Just like last December...” And I was a terrible Girl Scout too.”
    Sonia grinned. “In what way?”
    “I...,” but then Hazel caught herself. I can’t possibly tell her that. “Smoking cigarettes and stuff,” she lied. “Smuggling dirty romance novels.” In truth, though, at twelve years old, Hazel had seduced several of the other girls. She’d shown them how to masturbate, she’d demonstrated cunnilingus. My God, if I’d been caught...If they’d told my father... She shivered.
    “I don’t know why,” Sonia remarked. Breeze from the window tossed her perfect black hair around, “but I was trying to think of that word the other day, after the three-fifteen class. You’d already left—”
    “What word?”
    “The word that you always mention, that the counselor applied to you. Not fetishism, but...”
    “Paraphilia,” Hazel informed. “The direction of sexual interest towards objects, non-coital sex acts, or sexual stimulation under unconventional circumstances. It’s a bit more complex than fetishism; it’s more compulsive, or so they say. But ‘non-obstructive paraphilia’ is what I have, so it’s not considered clinical and therefore not a syndrome that requires therapy.”
    “Non-obstructive?” Sonia questioned.
    “It’s like the difference between someone who drinks too much socially and a clinical alcoholic. An alcoholic is controlled by booze. It obstructs his ability to function at work and maintain an operable social and domestic life. Eventually the alcohol addiction costs him his job, family, friends, finances, and all that. But in non-obstructive paraphilia, people still function successfully. That’s me,” but even as Hazel rendered the explanation she knew she was being less than truthful. She functioned “normally,” and was successful in her assistant teaching post, but deep-down her obsessions periodically boiled over into something nearly aberrant. She knew this. It even got to the point that she was so uncomfortable and ashamed of some of her obsessions that she eventually downplayed them to the short-lived therapist last year. I was too afraid she’d give me a clinical diagnosis...
    “But, Sonia, why on earth would you be thinking of that?”
    Sonia’s smile constricted like someone admitting to something they weren’t too proud of. “But you said paraphilia is rare among women?”
    “Yeah, very rare–believe me, I’ve read as much about it as most shrinks. Paraphilia affects ninety-five percent men, and five percent women.” Hazel shot a reproving frown. “Now answer my question.”
    Sonia sighed. “Well I’ve got one too, then, that’s all I meant.”
    The comment strangely sped Hazel’s heart. “What?”
    “I don’t want to say!”
    “Bullshit!” Hazel raised her voice. “I’ve told you all my groaty stuff! That’s not fair!”
    “It’s just a...visual thing, well...sort of.”
    “Sonia, if you don’t tell me, I’m gonna pull over and leave you on the road, pregnant or not!”
    “All right...”