My Uncle Oswald

'Quite good English but with that dreadful German accent. He sat me down on the other side of his desk and right away I offered him a chocolate. He took it like a lamb. Isn't it odd, Oswald, how every one of them takes the chocolate without any argument?'

'I don't think it's odd,' I said. 'It's the natural thing to do. If a pretty girl offered me a chocolate, I'd take it.'

'He was a hairy sort of fellow,' Yasmin said. 'He had a moustache and a thick pointed beard which looked as though it had been trimmed very carefully in front of a mirror with scissors. Whitish-grey it was. But the hair had been cut well back from his mouth above and below so that the bristles made a sort of frame for his lips. That's what I noticed above everything else, his lips. Very striking, those lips of his, and very thick. They looked like a pair of false lips mad

e out of rubber which had been stuck on over the real ones.

' "So now fraulein,' he said, munching away at his chocolate, "tell me about this so urgent problem of yours."

' "Oh, Dr Freud, I do hope you can help me!" I cried, working myself up at once. "Can I speak to you frankly?"

' "That's vot you are here for," he said. "Lie down on that couch over there, please, and just let yourself go."

'So I lay down on the goddamn couch, Oswald, and as I did so I thought well anyway I'm going to be in a reasonably comfy place for once when the fireworks start.'

'I see your point.'

'So I said to him, "Something terrible is wrong with me, Dr Freud! Something terrible and shocking!"

' "And vot is that?" he asked, perking up. He obviously enjoyed hearing about terrible and shocking things.

' "You won't believe it," I said, "but it is impossible for me to be in the presence of a man for more than a few minutes before he tries to rape me! He becomes a wild animal! He rips offmy clothes! He exposes his organ... is that the right word?"

' "It is as good a word as any," he said. "Continue, fraulein."

' "He jumps on top of me!" I cried. "He pins me down! He takes his pleasure of me! Every man I meet does this to me, Mr Freud! You must help me! I am being raped to death!"

' "Dear lady," he said, "this is a very common fantasy among certain types of hysterical vimmen. These vimmen are all frightened of having physical relations with men. Actually, they long to indulge in fornication and copulation and all other sexy frolics but they are terrified of the consequences. So they fantasize. They imagine they are being raped. But it never happens. They are all firgins."

' "No, no!" I cried. "You are wrong, Dr Freud! I'm not a virgin! I'm the most over-raped girl in the world!"

' "You are hallucinating," he said. "Nobody has ever raped you. Vy you do not admit it and you will feel better instamatic-ally?"

' "How can I admit it when it isn't true?" I cried. "Every man I've ever met has had his way with me! And it'll be just the same with you if I stay here much longer, you see if it isn't!"

' "Do not be ridiculous, fraulein," he snapped.

' "It will, it will!" I cried. "You'll be as bad as all the rest of them before this session's over!"

'When I said that, Oswald, the old buzzard rolled his eyes up at the ceiling and smiled a thin supercilious smile. "Fantasy, fantasy," he said, "all fantasy."

' "What makes you think you're so right and I'm so wrong?" I asked him.

' "Allow me to explain a little further," he said, leaning back in his chair and clasping his hands across his tummy. "In your subconscious mind, my dear fraulein, you believe that the masculine organ is a machine-gun..."

' "That's just about what it is so far as I'm concerned!" I cried. "It's a lethal weapon!"

' "Exactly," he said. "Now vee are getting somewhere. And you also believe that any man who points it at you is going to pull the trigger and riddle you with bullets."

' "Not bullets," I said. "Something else."

' "So you run away," he said. "You reject all men. You hide from them. You sit all alone through the nights..."

' "I do not sit alone," I said. "I sit with my lovely old Doberman Pincher, Fritzy."

' "Male or female?" he snapped.

' "Fritzy's a male."