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Last night we had still another in a succession of intense encounters that left me exhausted. During foreplay, or at least my version of it, she suddenly pushed me away, and stared at the ceiling. "Why do you keep your eyes closed when you make love to me?" she asked.
My erection instantly subsided. Oh, here we go again. More questions. Like a stern professor she probes, and I am obliged to respond. Her idea of romance.
"Well, to be honest I keep my eyes closed because I want to create the illusion of hiding."
"Why?"
"I'm no longer an Adonis."
Actually I didn't give a damn about how I looked, I was more worried that I would become too aware of what she looked like. But I'm a gentleman, after all, and I would never dream of alluding to the faint liver spots on the backs of her hands, or the lack of definition in her thigh muscles, or the dryness of her skin, or the rough calluses on her heels. Or her hands. Which were not as slim and elegant as those of Elizabeth, my favorite ex-wife.
And that was it. Dr. Joan suspected I was keeping my eyes closed because I was fantasizing being back in the arms of my beloved Elizabeth. Which was not really the case. I hadn't been thinking of Elizabeth lately, I was merely looking forward to getting laid. But I couldn't say that, could I?
Then Dr. Joan turned the conversation toward the topic of my lovemaking techniques. Did I know that if a man touches a woman's genitals too early it's a total turn-off? Did I know that a woman requires at least 20 minutes of non-genital foreplay before she's ready?
The questions embarrassed me, because Dr. Joan had told me several times that "most men are lousy lovers," and I always thought she excluded me in that negative estimation of hers. Over the years I'd never gotten any complaints. Until then.
But then I thought, well, all right. I'll be happy to give Dr. Joan whatever the hell she wants. And there's one thing a man can be absolutely sure of, and that is whatever you think a woman likes or wants or needs, it will turn out to be precisely what she does not like or want or need. And she'll keep this information a secret, so when the truth finally comes out you can reflect on how long you've been such a stupid son of a bitch.
Half an hour later I gently stroked her hip--careful not to get genital--and she said, "I can't do this."
I stopped. I said nothing.
"Let's just go to sleep, all right?" she said.
"Okay."
"We'll survive this, right?"
And I said, "Sure."
But at that moment I wasn't sure at all. I lay there for a long time and finally drifted off but then awoke in the darkness. She was asleep, faintly snoring. The room was hot, oppressive, suffocating. I went to the bathroom to take a leak. I let my stream hit the water directly, whereas before I was careful to aim at the side of the bowl so as not to make a noise that Ms. Freud might hear beyond the closed door and then ask me what I meant by all that noisy behavior.
I opened the window, and inhaled the frigid winter air. I stood there until I began to shiver. I closed the window, went back to the bedroom. I hoped she'd wake up because I was ready to talk some more about what had just happened between us. I suppose what I really wanted was to get some relief from the tightness in my chest, the strange anxiety that had its grip on me. But she did not stir.
In the morning I awoke with a massive erection. She was motionless beside me, but I slowly, deliberately caressed her back and gave her bare shoulder gentle kisses. Very gradually she responded with gentle movements and little whimpering sounds. Twenty minutes later she guided my hand down and I fingered her slippery clit. I went down and tongued her to a series of small orgasms, then I shoved my cock into her and pumped hard and then pulled out, and straddled her, and beckoned her to take me in her mouth. She sucked me eagerly but gently until I came. And I went back down and tongued her to orgasm, and then once again I pushed my cock into her and came for the second time.
She went to the bathroom, returned with a hot, wet washcloth and towel and ministered to my sticky belly and cock, then patted me dry. "You know, James, I greatly admire your ability to act on what you think is right, despite your fear I won't particularly like it."
I paused one, two, three beats. "Doing so is important to me," I replied.
Dr. Joan suggested we go to the bistro for breakfast. I said okay.
We didn't say much during the drive in her Mercedes to Bryn Mawr, and we were quiet as we waited for our eggs, hash browns, ham and coffee. She put her purse in her lap, and got out her little notebook and wrote a few impatient lines in it. Then put it away. Then lit a cigarette. Took a deep drag, and stared out the window at the passing traffic on Lancaster Avenue. I reached over, put my hand over hers. She pulled it away, rose, and said, "Excuse me, but I need to go to the bathroom."
She came back ten minutes later, sat down. Gave me a smile. But it quickly faded.
"You know," I said, "it's hard for me to believe that just half an hour ago we were in bed naked, fucking out brains out."
"Why do you say that?"
"Because right now you're acting like a stranger, and it's disturbing."
She gave me a cold stare. "Don't you DARE try to pathologize this."
At that moment I learned when a shrink starts turning nouns into verbs, you're in deep shit.
