The Psychologist

by Wayne Mansfield

  The Psychologist

  By Wayne Mansfield

  Published by JMS Books LLC

  Visit jms-books.com for more information.

  Copyright 2019 Wayne Mansfield

  ISBN 9781634868242

  Cover Design: Written Ink Designs | written-ink.com

  Image(s) used under a Standard Royalty-Free License.

  All rights reserved.

  WARNING: This book is not transferable. It is for your own personal use. If it is sold, shared, or given away, it is an infringement of the copyright of this work and violators will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

  No portion of this book may be transmitted or reproduced in any form, or by any means, without permission in writing from the publisher, with the exception of brief excerpts used for the purposes of review.

  This book is for ADULT AUDIENCES ONLY. It may contain sexually explicit scenes and graphic language which might be considered offensive by some readers. Please store your files where they cannot be accessed by minors.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are solely the product of the author’s imagination and/or are used fictitiously, though reference may be made to actual historical events or existing locations. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  * * * *

  The Psychologist

  By Wayne Mansfield

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 1

  Caleb had had visions of his psychologist as being older and distinguished- looking. Perhaps greying at the sides, but handsome nevertheless. He’d imagined blue eyes that sparkled as the man sat in his chair, watching Caleb for giveaway signs before turning to the pad on his lap where he would make notes. He’d imagined a man who kept fit, who took pride in his appearance and wore one of those jackets with patches on the sleeves. A little dated in the twenty-first century, but when Caleb thought of psychologists, he always imaged them wearing such a jacket.

  Yet Richard Johannsen was none of those things. His hair was sandy blond and somewhere between curly and wavy. He had brown eyes and wore a moustache, which hid his top lip. And while he wasn’t unpleasant to look at, there was nothing classically handsome about him. Perhaps that was for the best. Caleb was there for therapy, not for romance.

  “Can you tell me why you’ve come to see me today?” Richard began.

  Caleb shifted uncomfortably in his chair. On the half-hour drive to the psychologist’s office, he’d anticipated this question and had constructed what he thought was a pretty good answer. But now, with the gaze of the psychologist upon him, his carefully planned words had disappeared from existence.

  “In a nutshell, I want to be happy.”

  “And what do you think is preventing that from happening?”

  Caleb baulked at the question. Surely if he knew what was preventing him from being happy, he could keep the hundred and eighty dollars per session in the bank and do something about it himself.

  The psychologist must have sensed his thoughts. “Let me rephrase that. Tell me why you’re unhappy.”

  A better question.

  “I guess I started out in life feeling pretty good about myself. I had a pretty positive self-image built, word by word, by my mother’s praise and encouragement. When I was six, I began school and there, almost immediately, began the deconstruction of all my mother’s hard work. The other children had no qualms about telling me I was different and that this difference, which was an utter mystery to me, made me in some way inferior.

  “After many years of being subjected to name-calling, teasing, and bullying, by both students and teachers, I began to believe what they said. That I was less than everyone else, inferior, until it seeped into my soul and became my truth. And since I believed I wasn’t good enough, that’s what manifested in my life. I couldn’t form lasting relationships of any type, with anyone. This in turn reinforced the idea that I was unworthy, not deserving, not good enough. Eventually I just gave up trying and resigned myself to the fact I’d never be happy.”

  Richard nodded. “And do you think not being happy has become a habit?”

  Caleb wondered if the psychologist’s questions were more than they seemed. He wondered whether they were as innocent as they appeared, or if they had been carefully constructed in order to extract more from him than he realised. That thought was immediately replaced by another. So what? That’s what he was there for, wasn’t it? What would be the point of paying all that money just to hide things from a man who was going to try and help him?

  Caleb carefully considered his reply. “I don’t think so. I’ve basically lost the knack of it.”

  “The knack of it?”

  “Yes. It seems to me that most people don’t have to do anything to be happy, they just are happy. I can remember times when I was happy. I didn’t have to do anything. I was happy and that was that. And…over time…I’ve lost that knack of just being happy.”

  Richard nodded. “Okay. Let’s take a look at what you’ve said. Tell me about a time when you were happy. Describe your life at that time to me.”

  “I was younger. I used to go out a lot. You know, to nightclubs and parties and openings. I didn’t have much money, but somehow I managed. God knows I couldn’t afford to do it now.” He sighed and smiled. “It was the happiest time of my life, actually.”

  “What made those activities enjoyable for you?”

  “Meeting people. Getting drunk. Looking for sex. Finding it.”

  Richard’s expression remained unchanged at Caleb’s revelations.

  “Gossiping with friends the next day about everything that had happened the night before. Planning the next night out. Being a part of life.”

  “Any why is this stage of your life any different?”

  “I’ve grown up.”

  “You’re only thirty-two. You’ve got years to go before you’re ready for a retirement home.”

  Caleb, buoyed by his reminiscences of a misspent youth, felt a familiar grey cloud drift over him. “You don’t understand. My life is different now. Those things are impossible.”

  “Why?”

  Caleb felt a flash of annoyance. “Because I’m older and wiser. Because I don’t have the same amount of disposable cash. Because those things just don’t interest me anymore. I lived in nightclubs for fourteen years. They bore me now.”

  “Can’t you do other things with your friends?”

  “I didn’t have many to begin with. Not real friends. With most of them, we gradually lost touch with each other. Work took over. I didn’t have much time for them and we grew apart. I take responsibility for that. It was no one’s fault but my own. It’s like I was telling you, I’ve never been good at maintaining any sort of relationship.”

  “You and your friends grew apart because you worked too much?”

  Caleb realised how frail his argument sounded, but it was true. Mostly. “Yes and no. I probably used work as an excuse. They still enjoyed going to nightclubs and endless parties, and I grew out of it. I thought most people did. I wanted more out of life, so when it didn’t arrive, and I no longer had anyone to do anything with, I threw myself into work. At first it wasn’t a problem. I was making lots of money. But then one day I realised I wasn’t happy and I hadn’t been for a long time. I missed being happy. Not the things I did that used to make me happy, but the feeling. The sense of joy I used to feel.”

  “And what about partners? Boyfriends?”

  The question made Caleb squirm. “Like I sa
id, I’m not capable of having a boyfriend.”

  “Perhaps you haven’t found the right man.”

  Caleb shrugged. “I’m not likely to, either. Who’s going to want all this baggage?”

  Richard, who had been writing furiously, flipped the page and rested the pad on his lap. “First of all, Caleb, there is value in everybody, so we’ll have no more of that negative self-talk. Secondly, that’s almost the end of the session. For homework, I want you to do something that makes you happy. Even for a little while. Something you haven’t done for a long time.”

  Caleb nodded and wondered at how fast the time had gone, and at how much better he felt for having shared his inner-most thoughts and feelings.

  “I want you to tell me how it went next time we meet.”

  Caleb smiled warmly at the psychologist. He had a feeling he was going to enjoy these appointments.

  Chapter 2

  “I went to the beach,” said Caleb. “The nude beach, actually.”

  Richard smiled. “And that made you happy?”

  “Yes, it did. I’d forgotten how happy the beach makes me. The fresh air. The feeling of the sun beating down on my bare flesh. The cool water. I enjoy walking along the beach, discovering what the sea has washed up. I found a starfish. I’d never seen one before. Not a real one.”

  “Why the nude beach?”

  “Habit, I suppose. I used to go there all the time. In my early twenties. Besides, I think I look better naked than in a swimsuit.” He realised he was smiling. It seemed that even the memory of the beach made him happy. “I’m going back this weekend, too. In fact, I’m going to try to get there every weekend.”

  “That’s great. Now before we begin, your homework for next week is to find something in addition to the beach that makes you happy. You can go to the beach as well, but I want you to do something else you enjoy.”

  Caleb nodded and immediately began to consider his options.

  “But that’s for later,” said Richard. “Today I want to explore the root of your belief that you are nothing, which is not true, of course. I want you to tell me some of the things you’ve experienced. Some of the things that have shaped this belief.”

  Caleb swallowed hard.

  The psychologist obviously noticed. “I know it’s going to be difficult, but by expressing these things, you release them. Expunge them.”

  “Do you mean things at school?”

  “At school. At work. In life.”

  Caleb thought a moment. “At school it was mainly names. I never really knew what the names meant. I just knew they weren’t very nice.”

  “How did that make you feel?”

  Caleb felt a small crease form between his brows. “Well, more than realising they were being nasty to me was the fact I didn’t know what I’d done to deserve it. I was a nice person. I treated everyone with respect, as I’d been raised to do. I was baffled as to why I was being singled out. Naturally it hurt, although I did my best not to show it.”

  Richard’s hand was flying across the page as Caleb spoke. “Go on.”

  “Random things I can remember. Ummm. The kids hiding my school bag. It must have been hilarious to watch me searching high and low for it. Once I found it on the roof of the school. My teacher had to get the grounds keeper to get a ladder to climb up and retrieve it. Erm, I was always the last to be chosen on teams. Once, the teacher made me captain, and everyone I chose groaned as I called their name.”

  There were so many examples vying for Caleb’s attention, it was difficult choosing which ones to give voice to.

  “There was lots of pushing and shoving. Punches. My work getting defaced, sometimes while I was doing it. One of the kids would scribble over my writing, and me being a perfectionist, had to rewrite everything. My lunch was often stolen from out of my school bag, so I’d have to go hungry. I had no money to buy anything from the school canteen. I was blamed for things I didn’t do, and because the other kids had friends who would support them, and I had no one, I was often punished for things someone else had done. I think the teachers enjoyed it as much as the students. Once I was made to stay in at every break for a whole week and copy out the dictionary because someone had put a drawing pin on the teacher’s chair. When he asked who had done it, everyone pointed at me.”

  Caleb’s eyes began to water as he remembered the associated feelings.

  “I had things thrown at me—balls, sticks, stones, books. I was even given the silent treatment. That lasted two weeks before they got bored with it.”

  “Who gave you the silent treatment?”

  “My classmates. None of them would speak to me. They’d make a point to hold conversations around me and exclude me. They’d even say things about me and then ignore me if I responded. ‘Did you hear something?’ That sort of thing.”

  Richard continued to write, turning the page as there was so much to take down.

  “I had gum stuck on my chair. In high school, I had my locker graffitied. Horrible caricatures and nasty comments. I found dog shit in there once.” At that thought, the tears came. “How can people be so mean?”

  Richard pushed a box of tissues across the coffee table that separated them.

  “I’m sorry to hear you had to endure so much.” He put down his pad and pen. “Why do you think they singled you out?”

  “I don’t know. Because I was different, I suppose.”

  “How were you different?”

  “I was gay. I didn’t know it then, but there must have been something about me they could see that I couldn’t. They knew I was inferior to them and I guess, like wild animals, they attacked me because I was weaker.”

  “Do you think being gay makes you inferior?”

  Caleb sniffed back his tears and pondered the question. “In some ways.”

  “In which ways?”

  “I can’t have children. Well, not in the normal way.”

  “Many heterosexual couples can’t have children the ‘normal’ way. That doesn’t mean a thing. How else?”

  “Gay people don’t have the same rights as straight people.”

  “That’s changing. Gay and lesbian people certainly have many more rights today than they had even twenty years ago. Things are progressing.” Richard crossed one leg over the other. “Besides, I meant, how does being gay make you inferior—within yourself?”

  Caleb found it a difficult question to answer. “I guess I feel inferior because I’ve been told for so much of my life that I was.”

  “By other people?”

  Caleb felt a flash of irritation. “Yes, by other people. And you should know, as a psychologist, that when you hear something often enough, you begin to believe it.”

  Richard held up a hand to placate Caleb. “I don’t mean to upset you. I mean to make you think about things in a different way. For example, could the children at school have teased you because they feared your difference? Or because they were jealous of it. I mean, think about it. You have a whole playground full of children—all the boys behaving one way and all the girls behaving another way, doing exactly what’s expected of them. Now, I don’t mean to be sexist by any means, but for argument’s sake, who knows how many of the boys secretly wanted to join in the girl’s games, and how many girls secretly wanted to join in with the boys? Or perhaps they wanted to do something completely different. How would they view someone who didn’t conform the way they felt they had to? They’d be jealous. They’d want to attack the person who dared to be different.”

  It was as if a light had been turned on inside Caleb. Richard was right. Or at least, his argument sounded logical.

  “There’s more than one way of looking at any situation. We’re so convinced our solutions are the only solutions that when we’re shown a different point of view, we wonder why we didn’t ever think of it ourselves.”

  A grin flowered on Caleb’s face. He gazed at Richard, seeing him in whole new light.

  He was an attractive man. How could Caleb have missed
that? Richard had perfect teeth, a defined jaw, and nice cheekbones. His five-o’clock shadow darkened his lower jaw, and Caleb imagined that if Richard were to grow a beard, it would be thick and full.

  Then there were his nipples, which could be seen pressing against his shirt, forming two barely perceptible lumps beneath the otherwise smooth, crisply-ironed garment. He wondered if, underneath that shirt, the man’s chest was hairy. And whether his cock was. And his arse.

  “I can see you agree with me,” said Richard, interrupting Caleb’s musings. “So I want you to think about what we talked about today. Ponder it. For homework this week, aside from doing something besides going to the beach that makes you happy, I want you to compile a list. I want a list of all your positive characteristics and a list of your negative characteristics. There’s only one rule. The list of positives has to be longer than the list of negatives.”

  Caleb nodded, and as Richard got to his feet, so did Caleb.

  “And I’ll see you at the same time next week?”

  “Yes,” said Caleb as he felt Richard’s hand come to rest in the small of his back. “I look forward to it.”

  Chapter 3

  The first thing Caleb had to do at his next session was to read out the lists he had compiled.

  “Positive: Honest, friendly, hard-working, diligent, perfectionist, clean, neat, loyal, trustworthy, good sense of humour, kind to animals, environmentally aware, reasonably intelligent, educated, good at gardening, good at cooking, respectful of others and their property, law abiding, tactful.

  “Negative: Impatient, sometimes intolerant, easily bored, not good at relationships, not good at maths, can be judgemental (especially about myself), not usually punctual, can be lazy, pedantic, critical. Is that the same as judgemental? Anyway, what else? I think that’s it. Oh, one more—unhappy.”

  “Thank you. That was quite extensive. Was it an easy task?” asked Richard.

  Caleb had to be honest. “The list of positive points was difficult, especially since it had to be a longer list than the negatives.”