I realise now I cannot process traumatic events. My divorce. Being used for personal gratification. Getting fired.
I just park my emotions to one side until something else happens. Something worse, usually, that works on me, chewing on me. Until there's nothing left.
Since I was fired on the spot, I now spend my days sitting at home, waiting for the time to pick up Chloe from school.
There's nothing else. Not right now.
I feel so much rage and grief, one directed towards the outside world that I despise and want annihilated, the other directed towards myself, which is both pitiful and revolting in equal measures.
The world keeps going, with or without me. I disappear, nobody notices. I am useless, and I feel the injustice of this situation. Why me?
But, as I sulk about my condition, I see myself from the outside and agree with everyone else: useless.
Eventually, I drag myself to another appointment with Doctor Connor. I go out of habit, but part of me is starting to hope she can cure me. If I give up on trying to be the smart ass. If I am hones and answer questions truthfully. Maybe, just maybe, I can be cured.
Maybe, one day, I will be able to function like everyone else. Then, I will be able show my daughter how to live. I can make meaningful contributions to the life of others. I will not question every chore that's necessary to common life, but I will simply get on with it. Like the rest.
I walk into the office.
Doctor Connor gives me a quick look. Obviously (at least, I hope it's obvious), she can read my pain on my face. I want her to ask; I want her to care; I want her to fix me.
I sit down on the usual chair.
She sits on hers, across the desk, and opens the folder with the notes about me. I realise there's not much there. A couple of sheets of paper, half scribbled on.
Fine. Clearly, that's what I amount to.
I look at the therapist for a moment. She wears her hair up and she is framed in a tweed jacket. Behind her, the wall of diplomas. All very professional. I envy this woman: she wakes up every morning knowing who she is and what her purpose in life is.
I want to articulate all this. Until now, I used to think I could not show her my true self because a professional diagnosis from her would make me truly the worst possible version of me: depressed, ineffectual, unlovable. But now, I don't think it can be any worse.
So, I sit down, ready to say everything she's been asking to hear for months.
'How are you feeling today?' she asks.
I tell her everything. The divorce, how Cynthia came into my life, then Yvonne and finally Rachel. How they came and went without really caring whether it was me or anyone else. I tell her about Alice, the only person who had offered a semblance of true friendship without expecting anything in return, and how I had pushed her away. I tell her about the encounter with Miss Pulver and Miss Clancy, and finally, I tell her how I lost my job. I tell her how it was all my fault, after all. I tell her how worthless I feel.
She writes her notes. No more and no less than usual.
'So?' I ask, feeling empty inside, but not cleaned by this confession.
Doctor Connor lifts her eyes from her notes and wipes her glasses on a tissue.
'Well,' she begins, 'I actually think that it was very nice of you to spend time with those women in a non-judgmental way. It shows altruism and empathy. You see, they must have a hard time hiding such primal cravings from the world. You allowed them to live their fantasies, as I said, without judging. It takes a special person.'
I stare at her not totally connecting her comments to my present situation.
The doctor stands up and sits on the edge of her desk, next to me.
'I have never met someone who truly accepts others for who they are… Never.'
I stare at her.
'If you agree,' she continues, 'I have a little proposition. Slightly unorthodox, I admit.'
'Sure,' I say, still waiting for the magical cure. Today, I could even take one of those pills that scared me so much at the beginning of my treatment.
'We're lucky,' she says. 'You're the last appointment of the day. We have some time. Now, why don't we sit on the sofa, over there. There's something I want to show you.'
I walk to the large, orange couch on the back wall, and sit down. The cushions are firm but comfortable. I run my fingers on the coarse fabric, which seems expensive, but, at the same time, makes you think of home, unlike the leather chairs near the desk that feel impersonal.
Doctor Connor sits next to me.
'It's been hard for you, hasn't it?' she asks, her distant and clinical demeanour finally melting into an expression of understanding.
I nod. Yes. Only now, I realise how hard it's been. I have lost not only my marriage, my family, but also myself.
'You see,' she continues, 'you're not alone. What you're feeling is normal, and connecting to people can be the first step towards feeling accepted. Even I… You may laugh: patients always imagine their therapist to have risen to great heights of self-actualisation. But even I struggle with these feelings, sometimes.'
Doctor Connor smiles. She pauses for a moment, as if she has lost her train of thought.
'Let me level with you,' she says. 'Can I?'
'Of course,' I say, feeling that a slight change of topic, after my outpouring of grief, might be needed.
She smiles. She raises a hand to her head and undoes her bun, then she shakes her hair briefly to let it fall evenly on her shoulders.
'See, I'm just like you: a normal person. I'm not different to you, but you have something that makes me envy you,' she says.
'Do I?'
I'm incredulous. Why would anyone envy me?
'What you've experienced with these women. I,' she scoffs, self-deprecatinlyg, 'I cannot be so honest with anyone. Every time I tried, I got pushed away. We, as humans, are not always prepared to let others be themselves…'
I guess I can see her point.
'Can I show you something?' she asks.
I nod. Of course.
She removes her tween jacket and her glasses. With her hair down and in her white top, I can tell she's younger than I had estimated. She can't be more than twenty-seven or twenty-eight. Just a young woman, fresh out of uni, trying to make her mark. No wonder she feels the need to show the world a mask that barely resembles her.
'This is confidential,' she says, 'but I feel we can trust each other.'
I nod again.
She smiles.
Doctor Connor then removes her top. She pauses for a moment. Finally, she gives me a timid smile.
'See?' she says pointing at her pierced navel.
Again, she pauses, wondering whether to go on.
'That's not all, I'm afraid,' she says.
She finds some resolve, and I watch her remove her bra.
I stare at her small, perky breasts. She has tiny nipples. They're both pierced.
She gives the two rings a little joking pull.
'What do you think?' she asks. 'Is it normal for anyone to enjoy a little pain? Shouldn't it be more natural to run away from it?'
The doctor watches me for a moment.
'I wouldn't know,' I say.
'Nobody does,' she says, 'but the textbooks I studied on… They have taught me to hate myself a bit. I even masturbate. Up until the early Seventies, this was considered a dysfunction. My professors, when quizzed on the topic, often told us it was debatable whether it's a healthy expression of sexuality, as it can easily slide into an obsession that distracts us from healthy relationships with others. And yet, I masturbate. All the time. What do you think?'
'I think everyone does…' I suggest.
'I wonder if this makes it ipso facto natural, or simply a very common disease. You see, what you've been doing with those women may not be considered as normal, desirable behaviour, but you yourself have told me that you and those women could connect through these activities. Through these perversions, you have been able to have a healthier, more honest relationship with these women than their families and friends have been able to establish by practising acceptable behaviour.'
'I guess it's a little fucked.'
She shivers a little (I can see goosebumps on her breasts) and laughs. It's not a polite laugh a medical doctor might give a patient. She laughs a very honest laugh, which I find irresistible: as she does so, she scrunches up her nose and she snorts a little.
'Sorry,' she says covering her mouth. 'Anyway, I think it's important for you to recognise these things.' She pauses again. Then, she continues: 'It's not all, you know.'
She stands up and quickly unzips her skirt. It's a little tight, and she has to wiggle about to let it fall. As she does this little dance, her nipple rings swing and catch the light.
Doctor Connor is wearing no undies.
I look at her pussy. The carefully trimmed bush is the same dark auburn, fox-like shade of her hair.
She parts her pubes and shows me the rod that pierces her clit.
'See? Common, I know, but healthy?'
I'm a little embarrassed by this confession and, certainly, by her nudity.
'Oh, don't worry,' she says, maybe misinterpreting the reason for my silence. 'The door is locked, and there are no more patients outside. Now,' she continues, changing her tone a little, 'why don't we try something. Why don't we connect a bit more, you and I? Would you like that?'
She takes my hand, and I stand up. She brings my fingers to her nipple.
'Pull it,' she says.
I give it a little pull.
'Mmh… Why don't you try harder?' she asks.
'Are you sure it's a good idea?' I ask, a little apprehensive.
'We won't do anything you don't like, but,' she says moving closer and putting a hand on my crotch, 'I can tell you're curious.'
I am hard, and the fact humiliates me somehow.
'See? You've been taught one lesson all your life, but your body is saying something else,' she says.
I look into her eyes, which are expectant. I look at her lips, her small white teeth that bite on the lower lip, her nose that wrinkles when she laughs.
She is beautiful. Her lithe body, the small breasts that can fit in your mouth, and those long legs excite me. But what excites me most is that she's a professional woman, often serious, who is now dying to let go.
I give her nipple another pull.
'Aaah!' she cries. 'Yes!' She catches her breath. 'Thank you.'
'What about this one?' I saw lowering my hand and searching for the metal that cuts through her clit.
'Oh, fuck!' she says, as I pull it.
I sit down on the sofa, and I look at her standing in front of me. Without lifting my eyes off her, I undo my pants, and the top of my dick peaks through.
'Let me see it,' she says.
She kneels before me and lowers my pants further.
She smiles ruefully and looks up to me:
'I can see why women like you.'
I feel myself blushing.
Doctor Connor takes my dick in her hand.
'Man, and you're not even fully hard… Let's see…'
She begins to stroke it, gently and slowly. She gives the tip a little kiss. Her small hand is cool against my cock. I watch her give my dick another kiss, then another. She keeps kissing, going down an inch every time. She reaches the balls and gives them a thorough, noisy lick.
My dick is now fully engorged, and I feel a strong desire to fuck my therapist, especially after opening up to her without any inhibition. I want her to feel me inside her. I discover how much I want to make her come. I discover this as if I had been wanting to do it for a long time.
Doctor Connor looks up to me, squinting a little to focus on my face:
'I need you to promise not to judge me.'
I nod eagerly. I just want her to spread her legs and I want to put my dick inside her.
'Then lie down,' she says.
I do as she says, stroking my penis, as I look at her.
She's standing next to the sofa and is touching herself.
'Let's see if it fits,' Doctor Connor says when she feels ready.
She climbs on top of me and slowly lowers herself on my dick. She's a split hair away from the tip when she pauses.
'Fuck. I'm a little scared, you know? My last boyfriend was over a year ago, and I'm a little out of practice.'
I ask her if she wants to try another position.
She shakes her head. This is what she wants. She spits in her hand and lubricates herself a little longer. He thigh muscles quiver as she holds this squatting position.
'Ok, I'm ready. Just go slowly,' she says.
She lowers herself.
Her tummy twitches a few times, and her face contorts herself for a moment.
'Fuck! This is big,' she says, her eyes closed.
Then, she places her hands on my chest. She takes a few breaths.
I'm dying to start fucking her, but I don't move.
'Yeah,' she whispers. 'Go.'
I begin to move my pelvis up and down, but in this position she's the one controlling the motions. I feel her piercing rubbing against my pube. She begins to move back and forth.
'Mmm…' she moans, 'better…'
I delicately place my hands on her lower back, feeling the smooth skin, the delicate contour of her body, the ribcage, the abdominal muscles, the small, firm ass.
She lowers herself to offer her breasts to my lips.
I take one in my mouth. I suck it, and I play with the ring using my tongue.
Doctor Connor is now moving freely on my dick. She moans as she stares into my eyes to let me know she likes it.
'I missed this…' she says.
I have to submit to her pace. I am dying to go faster, but she is the one in control. She moves up and down on my dick and eventually slides back and forth to stimulate the clit. Then, she rides me, going a little harder. Now and then she exhales noisily, then she holds her breath again, focusing on her impending orgasm.
I enjoy the feeling of her butt cheeks slapping on my thighs as she goes up and down on me, of her pubic hair prickling me now and then, and I enjoy the sight of her small breasts move in quick bursts with every change of direction. I am now ready to come.
The Doctor stares at me, her face flushed.
'I'm coming…' she whispers, her voice choked up, 'Almost there… Now, now…'
Then, she raises herself.
My dick slides off her vagina.
Doctor Connor is squatting above me and is rubbing her clit furiously.
'Yes, yes, yes, yes… Aaaaaaaahhh!'
Then, she begins to piss on me. She watches the jet stream out and begins to rub herself even harder, so that she begins to splash everywhere.
'Fuck!' she screams. 'Oh, my God, I'm coming so haaaaaard!'
After the initial surprise, I reach for my dick, which is drenched with her juices and her urine, and begin to masturbate to get to a conclusion, but she's already on it with her mouth.
She puts her lips against the tip of my dick and begins to suck on it, while masturbating the shaft forcefully.
'Oh, fuck!' I groan.
I nearly double over as I feel my sperm rush through the urethra and squirt out. I come hard, and I feel each spray as it splashes inside the doctor's small mouth.
'Mmmh!' she says in appreciation.
Doctor Connor raises her face and smiles at me:
'Sorry, I couldn't fit it all in my mouth.'
That's probably not the thing to focus on when saying sorry. I mean: this woman pissed on me.
'Oh my,' she says standing up and survey the scene. 'What a mess we've made…'
We?
'I will have to steam clean the cushions.'
I wipe myself as best as I can with some tissues off a Kleenex box she keeps on her desk, but the paper rips and stick to my wet skin in sticky threads. I stare at the negative print of my body drawn on the couch with urine. I guess I will have to get home smelling of this woman's piss.
She comes up to me and gives me a big hug.
'Everybody else would have found me disgusting. But this… this is what I like. This is how I get off.'
I smile. To each their own.
'Happy to be of assistance,' I say a little confused. This was certainly unusual, but, after all, my orgasm was incredible too.
I get home without having found the beginning to an answer to my condition. Maybe, this is the role life has for me after all. I have to learn that I am not the main character in my life: I am simply a supporting figure to other people's stories. I have to learn to like being their instrument: after all, the doctor showed me I can gain a lot of pleasure from this position too.
There's a part of me though that, after a very hot and very long shower, and a lot of soap, rebels against this notion. I walk back and forth in the apartment. What is it that I want? And who do I want to be?
If I decide to be the guy at whose door you rock up unannounced when you need a fine tune, so be it. If I want to be the guy you piss on while you orgasm, so be it. But it needs to be my choice.
Right now, what I want is… Taking out the garbage every night, having to remember anniversaries, meeting the in-laws. I want to do the things that I used to complain about but that make a relationship. I want the commitment, the routine, the little annoyances that signify that your life is normal. I want the challenge of loving someone despite everything going wrong, and I want to be loved back in spite of my shortcomings. I want what I could have had with Sarah, but that we couldn't work out together.
I laugh to myself. No… I don't want Sarah. Definitely not. But I want what could have been. I was ready for it then, and I'm ready for it now.
I stare at my bookshelf, and I see the book.
'It helped me a lot, you know.'
I hear Alice's voice. The only friendly voice that seems to guide me to a good place, while everyone else steers me towards their own gain.
I grab the book feeling stupid. Self-help books. I always scoffed at them. So pretentious, so full of common places. I flip through the pages without reading anything in particular.
I'm sure there isn't a chapter about being urinated on by your therapist. I'd love to see that TED talk. Now, it sinks in: the only person who was supposed to help me, my therapist, pissed on me. I mean… It's a great story, but… I have no words for what that makes me feel. Which is complicated because I liked it. A lot. I just resent the fact that I am nowhere near a solution. I am still stuck, just in a worse position than before: still divorced, still without a purpose, but now unemployed and with a lower self-esteem than I thought possible.
Fine. 'Foreword…'
I'm skipping this.
'Preface.'
Skip.
'Chapter One…'
I begin to read. Now and then, I skip ahead a few pages, but then I go back to read what I missed. I don't know if any of this is helpful in any way. It is truly banal stuff, but holding this token of friendship from Alice seems important now.
Now and then, I smell my fingers as I flip the pages to make sure I've washed off any trace of Doctor Connor from my skin. Professional indeed, I think with a smirk.