There is no such thing as sexual intercourse. Of course, Lacan was talking of language, and being a tease, too. Yet this line, upon which I once wrote an essay, came to haunt me again this morning, ruining my breakfast. And so, done with the late quartets, I left for work, deciding Lacan's line was also rather silly, almost pompous. This, in turn, lent a purpose, a firmness and an unmistakable virility to my stride. My arms swung with a spontaneity, a gusto. I was crushing the face of the great psychiatrist under my feet, and even if my arms could not repeat that spontaneity, I entered work with a pounding ego. Of course Gareth, who has spent his adult life crushing or seducing the male ego, could have destroyed me with a glance, so I swept up the stairs and burst into Helen's room, ready to bury my head into her bosom. And so it is, wars end. However, Helen had called in sick so I slammed her door shut. I spent the rest of the day alone with the residue of my inflation, relieved only by the memory of Tintoretto, a woman revealing her breasts and the relief, therein, to be reminded of the relentless, the unrelenting hydraulics of it.