"Not exactly," Phil corrected and went on to describe the little heel bumps of the fetlocks and the slim pseudo-wrists of the pasterns.
"But otherwise she was formed exactly like a normal girl?—except for the faun ears?"
"No," Phil said frowningly after a moment. "Her thighs were a bit heavy and powerful looking, as if made for galloping long distances. Her arms were sort of long, though it didn't occur to me then. And the upper part of her body was thrown forward a bit, if you know what I mean, and it was balanced by quite a little rump. But not what you'd call hippy."
"Magnificent!" the analyst crowed. "Phil, you not only have equipped your vision with accurate horse-legs, but you have made some of the necessary compensations in the rest of the anatomy that such a mode of locomotion would involve in a biped." He sat there beaming a bit vacantly, as if lost in admiration for the creative powers of the all-resourceful unconscious.
"Yes, but what does it indicate about my mind?" Phil asked. He would have felt annoyed if he had not been so anxious. "What's wrong with me?"
Dr. Romadka shook off his reverie with a smile that begged pardon for it. "What's wrong with America?" he asked wryly. "It's much too early for me to arrive at any conclusions, Phil, or rather to help you arrive at your own. Of course, the visual projection created by your unconscious has some interesting references."
"What are they?" Phil asked. "I may not have made it clear, but I'm worried about this. I can't get it out of my mind."
Dr. Romadka smiled, shrugged. "Perhaps a spot of interpreting would relieve you," he agreed. "Though you must remember it's just impromptu analysis, may be quite wrong. Here goes. The first things that come to mind are such elements as dread of sexual experience and the attempt to invest it with terror, effort to feminize yourself by conceiving a savagely-hoofed love object, an attempt to link sex with a trampling and punishing beast, perhaps as self-punishment for your voyeurism—all of these fitting in nicely with the classical mythology about the nymphs and their natural love companions the goat-hoofed satyrs—also the horse-hoofed centaurs, who were frequently, you may remember, teachers of men." The analyst frowned. "It's barely possible you were visually projecting the desire to be taught about love. However," he went on, "I imagine that as usual the hidden significances are the more important ones. May I make a spot guess about you?"
Phil nodded.
"Are you a white-collar worker in close competition with robots?"