Where's the hypnotist?

Noone's seen Michael for days, says Gareth. Over the past week I've delighted in the cruel singsong of Gareth's courtesy toward me but today, the errant hypnotist's behaviour means Gareth and I are suddenly brothers. But as we stand in the kitchen, laughing away at the terrible or trivial things that may have happened, I am filled with a gloom and a sudden, desperate need for my son.

There was no answer. I pictured Thom shopping with his mother. I saw him senseless with boredom as she hauls him from one centre of procurement to another until, finally, I realised that was my childhood, not his.

Luckily, the Erotic Print Society had sent me a postcard of Scalbert's The Bathers, and as I stared at the standing nude, I wondered if her lithe and trim, almost twentieth century figure, resembled in any way the body of Helen, two doors away. I had a very real urge to burst into her room and clutch her arse. I'm still unsure if it was the urge, or the suppression of, that convinced me I was unravelling.

The London course starts in two days.

I've done no reading, no preparation. And I'm libidinally erratic. Entirely diffuse.