Chapter 1

I have a neurological disorder. A year ago I broke my leg in a car crash. After the surgery, a clot reached my brain and caused a stroke. The brain damage crossed up a bunch of basic survival drives, my neurologist Dr. Sato says. Since then, when I smell or taste vanilla, it triggers in me a compulsion to have sex, as soon as possible. It’s not like just being really horny - it’s that I can’t get the goal of sex out of my head, and any attempt to ignore or evade it causes me ever-increasing discomfort.

The first time it happened, I had no idea anything was wrong; we didn’t know about the stroke yet. One minute I was eating a cupcake, and the next I was entering my little brother’s room and locking the door behind me. Lucas was in eighth grade at the time. He had been lying on his bed reading a book when I entered. “What’s up, Katie?” He asked. I didn’t answer - I just sat on the bed and put one hand on his thigh, while unbuttoning my blouse with the other. He was paralyzed with a shocked look on his face, so I guided his hand to my breast, and grabbed his crotch.

“Come on, let’s do it!” I said. “It’ll be so much fun. Nobody ever needs to know.”

He shoved me off of the bed. I landed on my butt on the floor. He stood over me. “Katie, what the hell is wrong with you?” I sat up and tried to move my hands to his thighs again, but he slapped them away. “Katie, you’re not acting normal. Something’s wrong,” he said. I stood up, in a daze, and left. I went back to my bedroom and masturbated for hours.

I don’t think my brain was fully wired-up when that happened: I don’t think I would have given up so easily if that had happened today, even after all of my counseling. Lucas never told anyone about it until much later, when I was in the mental hospital. We’ve both discussed it in detail since then, with Dr. Sato and Dr. Brown.