Lying on the Couch Read Online Free Page B

her fantasies about me, about rubbing my sperm over her face or putting it into chocolate chip cookies—how do you think it made me feel? Look at me! Two canes, getting worse, ugly—my face being swallowed up in my own wrinkles, my body flabby, falling apart.
    "I admit it. I'm only human. It began to get to me. I thought of her when I got dressed on the days we had a session. What kind of shirt to wear? She hated broad stripes—made me look too self-satisfied, she said. And which aftershave lotion? She liked Royall Lyme better than Mennen, and I'd vacillate each time over which

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    one to use. Generally I'd splash on the Royall Lyme. One day at her tennis club, she met one of my colleagues—a nerd, a real narcissist who's always been competitive with me—and as soon as she heard he had some connection to me, she got him to talk about me. His connection to me turned her on, and she immediately went home with him. Imagine, this schnook gets laid by this great-looking woman and doesn't know it's because of me. And I can't tell him. Pissed me off.
    "But having strong feelings about a patient is one thing. Acting on them is another. And I fought against it—I analyzed myself continually, I consulted with a couple of friends on an ongoing basis, and I tried to deal with it in the sessions. Time after time I told her there was no way in hell I would ever have sex with her, that I wouldn't ever again be able to feel good about myself if I did. I told her that she needed a good, caring therapist much more than she needed an aging, crippled lover. But I did acknowledge my attraction to her. I told her I didn't want her sitting so close to me because the physical contact stimulated me and rendered me less effective as a therapist. I took an authoritarian posture: I insisted that my long-range vision was better than hers, that I knew things about her therapy that she couldn't yet know.
    "Yes, yes, you can turn the recorder back on. I think I've answered your question about my feelings. So, we went along like this for over a year, struggling against outbreaks of symptoms. She'd have many slips, but on the whole we were doing well. I knew this was no cure. I was only 'containing' her, providing a holding environment, keeping her safe from session to session. But I could hear the clock ticking; she was growing restless and fatigued.
    "And then one day she came in looking all worn out. Some new, very clean stuff was on the streets, and she admitted she was very close to scoring some heroin. 'I can't keep living a life of total frustration,' she said. 'I'm trying like hell to make this work, but I'm running out of steam. I know me, I know me, I know how I operate. You're keeping me alive and I want to work with you. I think I can do it. But / need some incentive! Yes, yes, Seymour, I know what you're getting ready to say: I know your lines by heart. You're going to say that I already have an incentive, that my incentive is a better life, feeling better about myself, not trying to kill myself, self-respect. But that stuff is not enough. It's too far away. Too airy. I need to touch it. I need to touch it!'

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    "I started to say something placating, but she cut me off. Her desperation had escalated and out of it came a desperate proposition. 'Seymour, work with me. My way. I beg you. If I stay clean for a year—really clean, you know what I mean: no drugs, no purging, no bar scenes, no cutting, no nothing —then reward me! Give me some incentive! Promise to take me to Hawaii for a week. And take me there as man and woman—not shrink and sap. Don't smile, Seymour, I'm serious—dead serious. I need this. Seymour, for once, put my needs ahead of the rules. Work with me on this.'
    "Take her to Hawaii for a week! You smile, Ernest; so did I. Preposterous! I did as you would have done: I laughed it off. I tried to dismiss it as I had dismissed all of her previous corrupting propositions. But