Dolph stands up.

"As we can see from this exercise, even some of our most-- specific-- "-- she glances at Alexander-- "shames are shared by other people. We often want to suffer with our shames alone, but true intimacy with other men means sharing the things we're ashamed of. Same-sex attraction only grows in a field of shame."

Christine can glance at Raine all she wants, she still made an effort to participate honestly. (She is deeply deeply dubious about same-sex attraction only growing in a field of shame, because as far as she knows she has never been ashamed of herself, but she's not going to start that conversation.) 

Alexander has his second eating-disorder therapy session on Saturday. Christine ignores all attempts to redirect the topic away from Alexander's eating. She goes over his record and praises him for eating more. The purpose of the session is primarily to agree on what the triggers and causes of Alexander's eating disorder are.

He is not going to agree that it was caused by his homosexuality and he is very sure that Christine is not going to agree that it wasn't. This session seems kind of pointless. He doesn't say that. 

"Lev's been helping," he says, instead of that. 

"I'm glad," she says. "Would you say a perceived lack of social support is one of the triggers for your eating disorder?"

"Depends on what you mean by a perceived lack of social support," he says, which isn't no. 

"If you feel like you don't have someone to talk to about your problems who will accept you, you might eat less?"

"...that's part of it," he says, because it is. 

"What else do you think is part of it?"

".....it's at least partially about control," he says, very carefully. "I don't get to decide what kind of clothes I wear and I don't get to decide what name I use, but I get to decide what I put in my body. Except for how now I don't." 

Christine notes down "sense of control." 

The chart Christine creates does not contain the word "homosexuality" and does mostly contain things Alexander agrees with at least a little.

...better than she'd expected. 

And on Sunday Alexander has his one-on-one.

"Have you thought more about the issue of names?"

"I have a list of things that are not girl's names in English that work for me!" 

She hands Christine the piece of paper; the list is Minnow, Rain, Ghost, Phoenix, Millay, Aiko, Lynx. She's a little dubious about Phoenix and Rain is of course a pipe dream, and none of them are boy's names, but hey, it's visibly putting effort into a compromise. And none of them are Alexander. 

"I'm so glad you decided to compromise! Would you be all right with Ghost?"

"My favorite is Minnow but I would not have included Ghost if I wasn't okay with it." 

"Excellent, Ghost!" She shuffles papers. "So, perhaps we should talk more about your relationship with Lev."

She nods and looks at Christine expectantly. 

"You said in a previous session that you're finding your relationship with him very helpful."

"Yeah. Eating because I felt like probably I should didn't work and eating because there'd be consequences if I didn't didn't work but it turns out that eating because my friend is right there worrying about me totally does." 

'It sounds like you're progressing well in developing nonsexual intimacy with other men."

"It does seem that way." Never mind the event that precipitated this friendship. 

"I'm sure we can all agree," she says mildly, "that it would be unfortunate if I had to tell Lev's parents that he is homosexually active."

"That would indeed be unfortunate." She wasn't going to have sex with him anyway, she's slutty, not stupid. She does not say this.