The Lust Lizard of Melancholy Cove

explosion. Val, what's wrong with me? All I want to do is, you know, do it."
    "And you feel that you might do something impulsive?"
    Chloe put on her cynical Goth-girl face. "If you mean something like buffing the muffin while I'm at work, yes, Dr. Riordan, I'm a little worried. Can't you adjust my medication or something?"
    There it was. In the past, that would have been the answer, increase the Prozac to eighty milligrams, about four times the dose for the average depressed patient and let the side effect of reduced libido do the work. Val had used the method to treat a nymphomaniac when she was an intern and it had worked marvelously.But what now? Duct tape oven mitts to her receptionist's hands? Although her typing probably wouldn't suffer much, it might make the patients nervous.
    Val said. "Chloe, masturbation is a natural thing. Everyone does it.But obviously there are appropriate times and places. Perhaps you should just cut back. Allow yourself to masturbate as a reward for controlling your urges.
    Chioe's face went slack. "Cut down? I'm worried about driving home safely. I have a stick shift. I need both hands to drive, but I don't think I'm going to have them. Do you have a patch you can prescribe, like they do for smoking?"
    "A patch?"Val suppressed a laugh. She imagined a twitching, moaning line of people around the block at the pharmacy, there to pick up their prescriptions for the orgasm patch. It would make heroin look like Gummi Bears. "No, there's no patch, Chloe. You're just going to have to try to control yourself. I have a feeling that this is a side effect of your medication. It should pass in a day or two. I want to hear more about this dream of yours. We'll talk tomorrow, okay."
    Chloe stood, obviously not satisfied with the help her therapist was offering, which was none. "I'll try."
    She left the office, closing the door behind her.
    Val let her head fall to the desk.Jesus, Joseph, and Mary, why didn't I go into pathology?she thought.
    It would be so peaceful sitting around, boiling up beakers of urine and culturing bugs. No wackos. No stress. Okay, occasionally you'd be exposed to some deadly anthrax spores, but at least otherpeople's sex lives stay in the bedroom and the tabloids where they belong.
    Her appointment with Martin and Lisbeth Luder rose in her head. They were in their seventies, had been in counseling because they hadn't had a decent conversation since 1958, and today they had come in and dumped a half hour of explicit sexual narrative on her, an account of perversions they'd indulged in the night before, starting at around 2 A.M. The visual conjured in Val's mind – all that parched, wrinkled flesh in furious friction – culminated in flames, as if some giant cosmic Boy Scout had decided to rub two old people together to make a fire. The worst of it, the absolute worst of it, is that she'd found herself getting turned on while listening. She'd had to change her panties between appointments four times today.
    She considered pouring herself a hefty tumbler of brandy and settling down in front of the television, but that wasn't going to do it. Batteries; she needed four C-cell batteries and she needed them now. Then it was time to dig through her lingerie drawers and find a long-forgotten friend – and hope that it still worked.
    Molly Long past dark and Molly was still staring though the gap in the curtains at the trailer that ate the kid.
    The problem with being nuts, she thought, is that you don't always feel as if you're nuts. Sometimes, in fact, you feel perfectly sane, and there just happens to be a trailer-shaped dragon crouching in the lot next door. Not that she was ready to go out and proclaim that fact to anyone, because no matter how sane you feel, some stuff just sounds too crazy. So she watched, still wearing her Warrior Babe outfit hoping someone else would come along and notice. Around eight someone did.
    She saw Theophilus Crowe going from door to door in the park. He came into view two trailers down at the Morales home, spoke briefly with Mr. Morales at the door, then headed for the dragon trailer.
    Molly was torn. She liked Theo. Yes, he'd taken her to County once or twice, but he'd always been kind to her – warned her about the guy in the day room who cheated at Parcheesi by eating the marbles.
    And he never spoke to her like she was a crazy woman. Theo was a fan.
    As Theo was raising his black Maglite to tap on the dragon trailer's door, Molly saw the