Patient Three (II): Camila Suárez

The diagnosis I made of Tito roamed my mind. Camila Suarez was coming for her second session with me, and I felt that what applied to Tito in therapeutic terms could work on her too, and vice-versa. After all, both of them were in the no-man’s-land between lying and delusion. Needless to say, psychology will never be an exact science. But nothing is ever not worth trying, at least for me.

Mr. Suarez dropped his daughter off a few minutes before the appointment. I let her in but asked the parent to leave us. Camila sat down on the couch and beamed at me. I smiled politely back while I took my place and beckoned her to start. The lass remained silent for a few seconds before claiming she didn’t understand what the fuss was about. She liked cars. She loved cars. That did not make her a freak.

I concurred in principle, suggesting that her displeasure would be indeed justified if it were strictly as she said. But, as our previous session had revealed, her professed love for the vehicles was not simply a case of “‘Wow, that’s a nice car’ and that’s it”, but rather a sort of obsession with them, with a certain anthropomorphisation of the thing itself.

Camila retorted claiming I was being silly. She reminded me that she had said in the first session that she knew cars were mechanical things. “It’s not like they’re transformer robots like in the films”, she spat. I sighed with relief. She then added that she felt she could connect with them anyway. I invited her to share how she did it. First, she would find a car that allured her. The colour, the headlights, the curves of the bodywork. I mused ironically that sports cars were not that abundant where we lived. She replied, acidly, that there was more to life than Lamborghinis or Ferraris. She had dated (her words, not mine) a blue Nissan minivan, which had given her a “family dad” vibe. I stared, stupefied.

I took down notes as she went on. I enquired what happened after. How did she approach the car? Was there a physical dimension to these affairs? Had she had any trouble with their respective owners? Serenely, Camila provided her outlook to every question I posed. She denied outright the thought of rom-com-styled scenes of “meeting up” with the vehicle. Yes, there was a physicality to it all. She touched and caressed the metal body, but no, she did not have sex with the car. Once again, I sighed relieved. The mere thought of it had made me shiver. As for problems with the owners? Every once in a while she’d gotten told off by someone or had even tripped the alarm. She took that as a “sign of disinterest” from the car itself. Go figure.

In the end, and somewhat anticlimactically, Camila’s issue with cars ended up being just a fad that wore off the moment she met a boy who really enamoured her. We, that is, the parents and me, never got to find out if she had lied for attention or genuinely shared her affections with the four-wheelers. But we were all thrilled she got on with someone alive and of her same species. I couldn’t help being amused after seeing the boyfriend’s car when she was picked up after the last session we had. The kid had come in a very old, tiny, rust-clad little boogie, apparently worth millions in the collectors market. The girl clearly had a knack for finding the right cars. Who would’ve thought?