by Patrick Bard
Sometimes he thinks he’s gotten the short end of the stick.
He doesn’t want to talk anymore. Or only to his shrink.
And even then, he has trouble.
40
It’s not similar to what Lucas has seen in the movies. He isn’t lying on a couch, and the shrink isn’t behind him, nodding every so often like a bobble-head dog so as not to appear asleep.
Clara Desnoyers is seated facing him, in her office. It’s a modern room, impersonal, about the size of his bedroom in Lèves, with a stupid plaster Buddha on a shelf for a Zen look, and lots of books.
Lucas hasn’t unclenched his teeth since he entered the office. He simply took an inventory of the space, letting his eyes wander from one object to another.
“You mustn’t feel guilty for what happened, Lucas,” Dr. Desnoyers says, breaking the silence. “I’m not here to judge you, I’m here to help you. Is it because I’m a woman that you don’t want to talk? Would it be easier with a man?”
“Maybe. I don’t know,” Lucas grumbles.
Dr. Desnoyers uncrosses her arms and legs and bends closer.
“And what if I told you that it isn’t just a problem that guys have?”
Lucas stares at her in disbelief. “Do you mean there are chicks, huh, I mean, girls with the same problem? Girls who are hooked on pornos?”
The doctor smiles at him, revealing perfectly aligned teeth. Her expression remains sorrowful.
“Well, the majority are boys. But those who view massive amounts of porn aren’t all perverts. They’re just stuck in the virtual world. I had a young woman who became a cybersex addict at the age of sixteen. She started watching it out of curiosity, reasoning that she was doing what everyone else was. She continued out of boredom. Little by little, she withdrew from the world, almost without realizing it. She too was ashamed. A boyfriend got her to watch the first films, but they broke up when she could no longer make love to him. She hardly knew who she was anymore. Her sexuality had been taken over by the web.”
“Just like that?” Lucas asks, finally curious.
“Sexuality rests on three elements: libido, desire, arousal.”
Doubtful, Lucas scratches an imaginary zit on his cheek.
“I don’t really see the difference,” he says. “Aren’t they pretty much the same?”
“You get aroused when you watch a video, right?”
Feeling uncomfortable, Lucas shifts from one butt cheek to the other.
“Well…” He hesitates, feeling he’s on a slippery slope.
“It’s normal, Lucas. Pornography relies on that: arousal. It’s the goal. The pleasure attached to masturbation is first and foremost connected to arousal.”
This time Lucas furrows his brow.
“Do you mean I’m addicted to masturbation? Is that possible?” he wants to know.
“Of course it’s possible, Lucas. From a strictly medical viewpoint, we could diagnose your condition as an addiction to sex via cyber-assisted masturbation.”
“It’s bad to masturbate, I know.”
Dr. Desnoyers laughs. “Of course it isn’t if you’re not addicted,” she says. “It’s not bad at all. Someone who drinks a glass of alcohol from time to time isn’t an alcoholic. Same for online games or anything else. It can be nice. But knowing what you like and how to manage it are both indispensable in order to set limits.”
Lucas thinks about the doctor’s response before asking, “How many times a day is normal?”
“It doesn’t work that way.” Dr. Desnoyers shakes her head, her loose hair brushing her shoulders. “It’s not like there’s a national average. It’s different for everyone. Each person has a different sex drive. It’s just that when it takes over your days and nights, and you do nothing but that, it begins to be a problem.”
Lucas gives a sarcastic laugh. “If only it were just one problem! What about desire and the other thing you said?”
“Libido? The libido is something else—it’s a person’s sexual energy. And desire is something that gets focused on someone. Someone who really exists.”
For the first time in months, Lucas thinks about Samira, the girl he sent his nude selfie to.
“Real people frighten me,” he admits.
“You told me that you’ve never had sex with a girl, right?”
Lucas nods.
“You’ll understand better when you do, but roughly, since porn only gets someone aroused, the virtual stuff takes over and gradually isolates the viewer. When you’re in front of your screen, you’re passive. You become dependent without realizing it because you’re not ingesting anything, not smoking anything, not buying anything. It’s not a drug. It’s an addiction with no real product. A virtual addiction. The real product is just a series of pixels, ones and zeros that are coded in HTML.”
“The real product is me. What I don’t understand is why we get addicted. What is dependence, exactly? And addiction? I mean, what is it scientifically, in my brain?”
Dr. Desnoyers’s eyes half close and crow’s-feet appear at her temples as she attempts an explanation.
“Every product that causes human beings to become dependent has one common element: it increases the level of available dopamine in a region of the brain called the reward pathway, which is supposed to modulate pleasure.”
Lucas digests the information. “So if I’m understanding this, whatever the substance—drugs, alcohol, work, sex, gambling, food, cigarettes—we get addicted to one thing. And that’s…whatever it is you said.”
“Dopamine? Yes, if you like. That’s a bit condensed, but yes, humans are addicted to pleasure.”
“I don’t see anything bad about that.”
“Except when it kills you, Lucas. You’ve got to have a handle on the substance and how to use it.”
“Okay. But why, for example, did I become addicted to cybersex? Why wasn’t normal life enough for me?”
“Are you asking if there was something missing in your life—some void that you were trying to fill? Is that what you mean?” Dr. Desnoyers asks. “I don’t have the answer to that question. You’ve got to find that out for yourself.”
“And…the girl you mentioned…,” Lucas says, hesitating, “did she find a way out?”
“When I met her she was seriously considering suicide.”
Lucas ponders the shrink’s response and says, “Like me.”
“Like you, yes, but she found a way to get better. And so will you. Today she’s married, working, and has two children.”
“Cool.”
Another moment of silence, and then Lucas speaks up.
“Watching the videos calms me down. It soothes me. At least I’m in control. Not like when I’m with real people.” He sighs. “But it destroyed my life. And my parents’ lives too.”
He sniffles, furiously wipes his wet eyes with his closed fist, and gets up to leave the room.
41
To mark the end of the workshop, Troadec scheduled an additional morning class—just before the weekly Friday social. Lucas isn’t in the know, but Dr. Flohic hatched a plan with Troadec and the workshop participants to celebrate Lucas’s birthday during the non-cocktail hour. It’s a surprise and everyone has kept quiet about it.
The last class exercise consists of an essay inspired from a childhood photo. For the occasion, they received special permission from the center to use the computers. The photos were gathered from the families via email and were printed on paper.
Before the class writes anything, all the photos are passed around the group.
Brice, looking chubby, is laughing in front of a Christmas tree, at the foot of which are piles of presents. Manon stands in front of a sailboat on what seems to be a fishing wharf. She looks to be seven or eight years old. She’s wearing a pink one-piece bathing suit and terry-cloth shorts. She
’s smiling and her two front teeth are missing. An adult who’s out of the frame holds her hand. Juliette is at the shoreline of a pond or lake, her bottom in the water, a mustard-yellow sun hat on her head. She’s no more than three years old. As for Eloise, she’s posing starry-eyed next to a Santa Claus. A stuffed bear dangles from her hand. Impossible to say where the photo was taken.
“Do you remember this?” Lucas asks her.
“I’m not sure,” she lies. “I must have been around five.”
She snatches Lucas’s photo as it comes out of the printer.
“Whoa! Too funny!”
Lucas is sprawled in the snow. He just fell down. It’s his first time on skis. He’s nine years old. His father stands next to him, doubled over with laughter. He’s trying to help Lucas up. Lucas remembers this well. His mother snapped the photo. She was back home and feeling better. It was their first winter in the mountains.
When Marie emailed the snapshot, she wrote I love you at the end.
Lucas was only able to type one word in response: Thanks.
Eloise hands over the photo. He places it in front of him and looks at it. It’s hard to connect the happy little boy whose face is smeared with snow with his life today.
Troadec briefs the writers. He seems to know what he’s doing.
“Okay, time to begin. You’re going to write this essay in two steps. First, you’ll describe what you see. Second, what you recollect about the photo. You might not remember anything because you were too young. Doesn’t matter. Just tell us which childhood memories surface when you look at the image. When we’re done, you’ll read your essays out loud. Don’t be afraid. It’s very possible that you’ll be overwhelmed with emotion when you read. No one will hold it against you. If you start crying, well, it’s not important. Again, we’re not here to judge. We’re just sharing.”
42
The only sound that can be heard is the scratching of pens on paper, along with the rhythmic gusts of wind that whip against the bay window. Lucas lifts his head from the paper. His thoughts get lost in the seagull he sees fighting against squalls as it allows itself to be carried on the rising air current, its wings outstretched and still.
Lucas never skied again after that initial time. He couldn’t stay upright. He preferred the sled, and besides, they never returned to the winter resort. Instead, they would go on summer vacations by the beach. He had nearly forgotten. Still, he vividly remembers that wintertime in the snow, and the memory comes surging back. The smell of the pine trees around the chalet they had rented. The chairlift gently swaying in the breeze as he sat securely bookended by his parents.
He was loved, protected, and snug between them.
He was innocent.
He was unaware of the treasure that was his for a few years more.
That’s what he writes. That’s what he reads, bravely standing like a little soldier even as his voice cracks and he swallows back tears to get to the end. He sits down. The eyes of the other participants redden.
It’s their turn to read. Their words ooze with the nostalgia of childhood, of a former carefree time filled with games, tantrums and insignificant sorrows, candy apples and cotton candy, brightly colored toys and unseemly noises. The nostalgia of that time when what hurt stewed long and deep inside, where what disabled had not yet surfaced in the subconscious. A world supposedly protected by loving adults who they still so much wanted to resemble.
Adults who now, and so often in vain, they do everything not to resemble.
When it’s Eloise’s turn, she shakes her head vigorously.
“Come on,” Troadec encourages her.
But his caring tone implies that he knows she won’t read, and he won’t insist. He’s there to heal, not to inflict pain.
43
Édouard shows up at the gathering. He’s wearing a flashy FC Guingamp soccer T-shirt. The cooking workshop baked the cake. The Friday Happy Hour may be alcohol-free, but the glasses filled with green, yellow, and orange fruit juices look inviting. Little paper umbrellas and straws add a decorative touch. Still shaken up by the last writing exercise, Lucas dragged his feet getting to the dining hall.
He never suspected a thing, not even when Édouard shook his hand with a goofy look on his face.
He never suspected a thing—until someone lowered the blinds and shut off the fluorescent lights, and Brice, Manon, Juliette, Eloise, and Édouard were joined by Dr. Flohic, Troadec, and Clara Desnoyers, and all of them surrounded him singing “Happy Birthday,” and Fatou, José, and someone named Kevin arrived carrying an enormous strawberry cake topped with seventeen birthday candles, all of them lit.
And then the ground beneath Lucas began to sway. Back home, birthdays weren’t cause for much celebration, maybe because of his mother’s extended medical absences and all the additional housework his father had to shoulder. They had no close family to help. Lucas never really thought about it before today. What’s certain is that he’s never celebrated his birthday like this and hasn’t blown out any candles since the end of grade school. He can’t remember seeing his parents do that for their own birthdays either. The whole thing takes his breath away, and he forces himself to swallow the big lump in his throat so that he can speak and at least thank everyone, and that’s about all he can get out as he holds back tears mingled with laughter, and for the first time since coming to Poseidon, there is nowhere else he would rather be. Dr. Flohic has taken out his phone to snap a picture. He smiles and, in a sweeping gesture, invites Lucas to come closer to the cake. A hush descends upon the room, broken ever so slightly by Juliette’s nervous giggles.
Lucas inhales a big gulp of air and blows out all seventeen candles in one breath. Everyone claps. The lights come on again. His workshop companions rush to hug him. They’ve each prepared a short poem on the theme of happiness, another surprise spearheaded by Troadec. The teacher hands Lucas a small wrapped package.
“This is a collection of my poems. Don’t feel obligated to read any if you don’t want to, but at least check out the dedication. It’s a surprise.”
Eloise is the only one who hasn’t stepped closer. As she draws nearer now, she gives Lucas an envelope.
“For you to read,” she tells him.
Then she gives him a hug, just like the others have done, and Lucas feels an electric jolt, something he wasn’t expecting. He steps back abruptly. Eloise looks at him.
Something tells Lucas that she also felt the jolt. He knows it by the way she turns away from him with regret.
Music starts to play. Lucas looks around to see who’s responsible. It’s Dr. Flohic. The bass makes the walls vibrate. Everyone begins dancing, except those who hungrily dig into the cake and drink the fruit juice cocktails.
Lucas lets Manon lead him around the tables and chairs that have been pushed to the side to create a dance floor. Quickly, he scans the room for Eloise but doesn’t spot her. His hand still grips the envelope she gave him. He folds it, puts it away in the pocket of his sweats, and gives himself over to the music.
44
The afternoon flies by. One by one, the partygoers go back to their rooms or out on the terrace to smoke. Smoking is frowned upon, but they are allowed to do it. Lucas doesn’t see Eloise among them. He approaches her door but does not hear any noise from inside. He doesn’t dare knock. He goes into his room and drops his gifts on the bed, then remembers what Troadec had told him: At least check out the dedication. He strokes the gray cover, gray like the sea, with his thumb, and makes out the title: Heartbeat. He opens the cover to the title page and easily scans the poet’s elegant cursive handwriting.
For Lucas, whose heart beats fast for the Atlantic Ocean. Happy birthday!
Troadec had taped a ticket onto the page. Lucas detaches it. It’s for an excursion on an old sailboat, in Saint-Quay-Portrieux. He has no idea where the port is located, but his heart does start
beating fast. He hopes it’s not too far away. Not in the mood to read, he closes the collection. Suddenly he can’t stay still. He decides to go back to the dining hall but everyone is long gone. Only the remains of the party are left on the tables.
The residents who go home each weekend are already gathering their belongings.
At loose ends, Lucas thinks about swimming some laps when he feels the envelope he stuffed in his pocket. Eloise’s gift.
He abandons the idea of swimming. The soles of his sneakers squeak against the linoleum floor of the hallway as he remembers their quick, awkward hug and the shiver that jolted through his body. He goes to his bedroom again and closes the door. He sits on the edge of his bed and takes the envelope from his pocket. He opens it with care.
The envelope contains two sheets of paper, neatly folded in thirds. The first sheet is the image of Eloise he saw in class earlier in the day, the one of her and her stuffed bear and Santa Claus.
The second sheet is covered in a messy scrawl that slants one way, then another. He has to read some portions twice, but he finally gets to the end.
Of course I remember this photo. I was only five years old, but there is no way I’d ever forget. No way at all. My grandma had given me a stuffed bear for my birthday, the bear in the picture. I was never without him. That day, we went to the center of town with my dad. Nicolas didn’t come with us because he had a stomach bug and stayed in bed. There was a Santa Claus at the main department store. Dad wanted to take me to see him. If I remember correctly, that’s because Dad was already hardly ever coming over to see us. So you can imagine how excited I was to go see Santa when he suggested it. I can still feel my hand in my dad’s as we walked all the way downtown. In my other hand, I held my stuffed bear, but I wouldn’t have let go of my father’s hand for anything in the world. We finally got to the front of the line. I won’t describe Santa Claus ’cause we all know what he looks like, but I still believed he was real, so seeing him made a big impression on me. When my turn came, he asked me to make a wish and he promised me that he’d make it come true. I hesitated a long time. On one hand, I wanted my bear to talk so the two of us could have real conversations together. On the other hand, I wanted my dad to stay with us forever. I hesitated and hesitated and, in the end, I finally wished for my bear to talk and my dad took the photo of me with Santa.