“With Tim?” I asked hopefully, wanting to avoid the issue.
“Your sexual feelings toward me.”
“I don't have any sexual feelings at all toward you,” I said flatly.
“It's okay, Rachel. You might be afraid that somehow, if you get in touch with them, you'll end up rejected or exploited. But there's a middle ground. It doesn't have to end up that way. Still you're afraid of how I'll handle these feelings, afraid to trust that there can be a satisfactory outcome without the nightmare scenarios you envision, the trap you see.”
“I told you,” I repeatedly firmly. “I don't have the slightest sexual interest in you.”
“Not as an adult, but you do as a child.”
We continued this circular argument for the remainder of the session, Dr. Padgett maintaining that I had sexual feelings toward him and that it was important that I get in touch with them. Me steadfastly insisting that he didn't know what he was talking about. Meanwhile I could feel the tingling sensation between my legs as I wondered if the sex issue was ever going to go away.
It's springtime, and I'd gone to session in a cream cotton dress, long and flowing beneath my waist, clinging tightly to my well-developed breasts. I'd spent quite some time applying my makeup, assessing myself in the full-length mirror, for once feeling pleased with what I saw—not disgusted by fat, but proud of my curves.
We'd been discussing issues of my childhood, the sadness that I had never been able to enjoy my femininity. The melancholy was bittersweet, the recollections painful. But the sense of connection with Dr. Padgett was strong enough to make it bearable. The pain of memory was intertwined with the warmth of feeling loved and cared about.
“You look beautiful today,” he says. “Very feminine.”
“You really think so?” I ask him, beaming with pride.
“Yes, I really do.”
“I'm glad I've gained the weight back. I've got curves now, breasts. Do you like them too?”
“They are beautiful.”
I begin to feel aroused, a longing to be touched, a frustration in knowing that I can't be.
And then he rises from his chair and settles beside me on the couch.
“I know this has been a difficult session for you. Would you like to lay your head on my lap and relax?”
“Yes,” I say, thrilled by the warmth of his body.
He begins stroking my hair, relaxing me so much, his calming touch a lullaby as I struggle to keep my eyes open.
“It's okay,” he says. “You don't have to say anything. Just close your eyes. Relax. Enjoy.”
Soon his hands wander to my thighs, caressing the curves of my hips, and then settle on my breasts. A gentle, soothing touch, not at all aggressive or clumsy.
“But Dr. Padgett,” I begin to sit up, overwhelmed by the pleasure, afraid of where this might lead, “should we be doing this?”
“Relax,” he says. “Just enjoy. Nothing bad will happen. Just sit back and feel the pleasure.”
He continues stroking my breasts, his hands so gentle, the warmth of his soft fingertips touching my hard nipples through the cotton dress, the erotic pleasure seemingly infinite.
As the session ends, I explode into climax. Satisfied, content, I prepare to leave, already anxiously awaiting the next session.
“You are a beautiful woman,” he says as I walk out the door. “Exquisitely feminine.”
“Aren't you supposed to be meeting a client at nine?” I saw Tim standing above me, already dressed for work in a blue suit and tie.
I looked at the clock. Eight o'clock in the morning. How long had I been dreaming? I could feel the wetness between my legs, the vestiges of the dream. I was embarrassed and more than a little guilt-ridden that I had been dreaming about another man yet resentful that Tim had tried to wake me up. “It's been a bitch getting you up this morning,” Tim said. “But you looked so content I didn't want to wake you up any earlier than I absolutely had to. It must have been a good dream.”
I was usually very open with Tim about my dreams and about what happened in sessions. But I could not bring myself to tell him about this erotic dream with Dr. Padgett, especially when Tim had been so patient about my complete lack of sexual desire in our marriage.
I was relieved when he left. The arousal of the dream stubbornly lingered, so distracting that I masturbated myself to climax in the shower, guilty at having done so. Tim was the one who deserved the pleasure, not me.
Reluctant as I was, I knew I was going to have to tell Dr. Padgett about this dream.
I regretted that I had agreed to reduce the number of weekly sessions. Financially it had been a good idea, and I had been able to devote more time to my business. But now it was hell having to wait an extra day to discuss what I knew I needed to discuss.
On Wednesday night I was gripped by the same dream, awakening to find Tim already gone to an early breakfast appointment. This time I chose not to masturbate. I walked into session frustrated, overwhelmed by my arousal, dreading having to tell Dr. Padgett that he had indeed been right about my sexual feelings toward him.
By the time I took my place in the chair, I could barely stand it as I burned with the desire to masturbate right then and there, my back slightly arched, my pulse racing, my breathing quick.
I'd often wondered during the past two years where the sexual desires that used to be unquenchable had gone. Had I turned irrevocably frigid? As embarrassed as I was to be feeling like this, a part of me was pleased that my ability to feel sexual pleasure was not dead.
“I had a dream last night,” I started, and told Dr. Padgett the details. As the story went on, I realized I was embellishing it somewhat, savoring it, taking on the vernacular of airbrushed erotica, a woman's poetic version of a Penthouse story. My already burning desire was increasing as I noticed my hips subtly moving back and forth, my legs crossed and rubbing slightly, stimulating myself even further.
The guilt was gone. I didn't want to hold myself back. I didn't want it to stop. Dr. Padgett listened intently, interested, but not giving any visible reaction.
“I guess you were right,” I concluded, a bit surprised at the sultry and seductive tone of my voice but still not wanting to stop it.
“What are your feelings about this?” he asked, cautiously objective.
“Oh God,” I said, the subtle rock of my hips becoming increasingly less subtle. “I forgot just how incredible it feels to be this turned on. I'm not frigid anymore. I'm really not frigid!”
He listened silently with still no visible reaction. Then again, he wasn't stopping me either. My back began to arch more; my head was slightly back; I could feel my eyelids droop a bit, forming the classic bedroom eyes of seduction.
My God, Rachel! You're playing with fire. You're not just sharing your feelings, you're trying to seduce the man.
“You wouldn't believe how badly I used to need sex,” I continued, my voice even huskier, my breasts thrust out slightly. “All the time. I couldn't go a day without it. When I'd go to a party, it was all I could think about. It consumed me—like I feel right now. I could do anything right now, you know, anything. I need it right now. God, do I need sex right now!”
No comment from Dr. Padgett. Was he turned on and hiding it? Was he disgusted and hiding it? I couldn't tell from his facial expression. Discreetly I glanced at his crotch to see if he was aroused as well. I couldn't tell unless I stared, and I wasn't about to stare. Even sexually he was a blank screen.
“Dr. Padgett,” I said a bit timidly, “I'm afraid I might have an orgasm.”
“It's okay, Rachel. I won't judge you if you do or you don't.”
“You know,” I said. “I am really good in bed.”
The text of the personality profile flashed in my mind. Seductive. Yes, I was seductive. A seductive borderline. Nymphomaniac by pathology.
A part of me knew this was getting out of hand, but I figured that since Dr. Padgett had been the one to bring up sex in the first place, he was get
ting what he asked for. After all I was a mental patient. What did he expect?
By now my body was in complete erotic motion. I'd crossed my arms over my chest, discreetly—but not invisibly—rubbing my left nipple with my right thumb.
“I was a slut, Dr. Padgett,” I told him, the breathlessness of my voice more apparent, “a real nymphomaniac. I ached for it.” I was just on the cusp of an orgasm when he interrupted.
“Rachel,” he said, “you aren't feeling anymore. You're acting out. The adult isn't present anymore. It's the child co-opting the adult's body.”
The climax didn't happen. I was irritated by his interruption, frustrated as my passion ebbed and my impending orgasm retreated.
A flashback from childhood overwhelmed me. I'd been six years old, sitting in Dad's chair, a blanket on my lap, a flashlight in between my legs, rubbing against it, getting lost in the pleasure. Dad had bellowed at me, shocking me out of my bliss.
What the hell are you doing? Shame on you!
A spanking had followed, the sting of his belt against my behind, the pain mixed with the tingling pleasure between my legs. I'd needed to pee but was afraid of what would happen if I did. Agony. Ecstasy.
Banished to my bedroom by my father later that evening, I'd replayed the entire scene in my mind, silently gasping as I rubbed myself to relief in the darkness, deeply ashamed but unable to stop.
“Rachel,” Dr. Padgett said gently, “these are the child's feelings, not the adult's. You have to remember that. As a small child, your sexual feelings were as intense as an adult's, but you didn't know what sex was. There's no shame in that. It's important to remember that these aren't the feelings of the grown married woman but the little girl within.”
I uncrossed my arms and dropped them to my side. Sheepishly I uncrossed my legs as well. Dr. Padgett had to have known what I was doing but found a way to stop me without scolding me. The intensity of the arousal faded, then dissipated.
“It's natural for a young girl to have sexual feelings for her father. It's nothing to be ashamed of. A good father can handle these feelings without shaming his daughter, without making her feel rejected, while still realizing that he is the adult, the one who has to be in control of himself and trustworthy. It's all a part of growing up, of a little girl's feelings of love for her father that grow into maturity as she does.
“Unfortunately you never had the opportunity to experience this naturally and safely, without shame.”
He was right, and I knew it. The adult part of me knew the ramifications of having sex with a therapist. I was married. He was married. As he was a surrogate father of sorts, it would be like incest; it would shatter me. My intense arousal, my attempts at seduction, were those of the child within, a child residing in a body that was no longer hers to control.
I was still curious about what it would be like to make love to him but relieved that he hadn't exploited the situation.
In the crescendo of the moment, had he chosen to take advantage of the circumstances of my arousal, he easily could have done so. But he hadn't. Still there was a vague feeling of rejection.
“Dr. Padgett,” I asked him. “I want you to be honest about one thing. Do you find me, the adult, attractive?”
“I'm a normal, healthy man,” he answered carefully. “I see what everyone else sees. As you've already said, there have always been men who've been attracted to you. Why would I see anything differently than they do?”
It was an indirect answer, not quite the of-course-you're-attractive response I'd been looking for, yet an answer nonetheless. And I knew why he had to answer the question as he had.
“Do you think I'm feminine?” I asked.
“Do you think you're feminine?” he asked in response.
I thought about it for a minute.
“Yes, I do.”
“How do you feel about that?”
“I think that maybe, someday, I could come to like it,” I answered sincerely.
He smiled at me, looking into my eyes as I beamed back. We sat like that for a few moments, neither of us saying a word. Neither of us had to. I had let down one of the last barriers, had let go, and trusted him.
And true to his promise, I had emerged feeling neither exploited nor rejected. My heart was filled with the same passionate intensity that had flooded my erogenous zones earlier in the session. So this was what letting go felt like.
“That's about time for today,” he broke the silence.
On the way out the door, I stopped one last time to look in his eyes, to drink in the pleasure of feeling safe and connected.
I had walked, blindfolded, off the plank of trust and landed safely.
We would devote more sessions to discussing sexuality, acceptance of my own feminine body image, the self-destructive legacy, and my regrets about the promiscuity of my past. But the door to sexual issues had been opened wide now, a great fear overcome.
The little girl was growing up.
Chapter 26
There'd been many a teenage boy in my high school days, many a steamy night inside a car on a dimly lit street. I remembered a teenage boy in the struggle of his desires against my own ambivalent resistance. C'mon, you know you like it. I can't have sex before I'm married; it just isn't right. Then you shouldn't have led me on like that!
We would abruptly release from heated embrace, he'd turn the key hastily in the ignition, and the car would fill with the smoldering silence of his anger and my guilt as we would drive home wordlessly.
Home alone afterward, I would feel ashamed, not because I had let a boy bring me past the heat of passion, but because the boy had been right to chastise me. I had led him on. I hadn't been fair. I had tortured him.
The truth was that longing wasn't sexual. I wanted to be the entire focus of any person I was obsessed with. My incessant hunger for attention had been a part of my life for as long as I could remember. The burning heartache of emptiness obsessed me even when my peers had been taken with Barbie dolls and coloring books. I knew even then that these constant feelings were not normal. I had been deeply ashamed of them, not daring to breathe them to another soul, particularly to the objects of my longing.
As the years passed, my longings had taken on a sexual component. Perhaps in the seventies era of free love and the Cosmopolitan woman, they'd been easier to accept. On a far deeper level, I thought my desire to be the center of attention, usually from an older man, was worse than sexual promiscuity.
When the object of my longing—the teacher, the coach, the boss—was present in a room, I geared everything to that person. I contrived every word, action, inflection, and facial expression for him. Does he see me laughing? Does he see how funny everybody thinks I am?
Now Dr. Padgett was, undoubtedly, the most compelling and long-lasting object of my fantasies in my entire lifetime. In many ways my relationship with him was a dream come true. For the fifty minutes I was with him in a given session, I was the center of attention with all others excluded. Everything focused on me. I did not have to wonder, as I had with the others, if he could see my every expression, could hear my every word, was paying attention. I knew without a doubt that he was. Indeed such intense focus on all aspects of my feelings and emotions were the means and purpose of therapy.
With Dr. Padgett, as with the others, I attempted to give the message that I didn't care what he thought and had tried every possible venue of rebellion. Yet he had refused to be driven away. He wished to probe even deeper, to know more about me than I wanted to reveal. In ways it had been easier to maintain my fantasies from a distance. The secret longing for attention was becoming harder to sustain.
Finally it became obvious to me what Dr. Padgett meant by “letting go.” The sexual aspects were secondary. Window dressing. They were a distraction from the real dilemma that faced me—allowing him to know just how much I needed him, just how much he consumed my thoughts and fantasies.
To be open with my feelings, I would have to abandon the cloak of sec
recy and to trust him with my vulnerability. I would have to have faith that he would not reject or ridicule my intense longing nor parallel it with a needy vulnerability of his own—one I could not handle.
Revealing my sexual feelings was easy in comparison.
It took a few sessions and much internal debate before I could share my newfound revelations with him. The frustrations of withholding them outweighed my fear of vulnerability until I couldn't bear the emotional battle any longer.
It was a snowy day in mid-December, just one week before his scheduled vacation. My hands were shaking as I shared my painfully embarrassing secret, revealing the cowering little girl behind the I-don't-give-a-shit facade, my lifetime of fantasy objects who never knew of my obsessions.
“It's the same thing with you,” I concluded. “Only worse. I've never felt it this intensely in my life before. I hate it.”
“It's worse to feel love than hatred?” he asked, eyebrows raised.
“But this isn't love, Dr. Padgett. Can't you understand?” I pleaded. “This is obsession, plain and simple. It's more than infatuation. It's not normal. I've always known it's not normal. It's downright pathological!”
“And it bothers you because you don't think it's normal?”
“Of course it does. It always has. It's embarrassing, don't you see? It's sick. Normal kids never felt the way I felt. I know they never did. And normal adults never feel this way.”
“They're feelings, Rachel. That's all. Just feelings. You may be ashamed of them, but I'm not.”
“Well, then you should be! You should be very ashamed of them!”
“Why? Because you are? We've already uncovered a lot of your feelings that you've been ashamed of and shown you've had no reason to be ashamed of them. Because your parents would be ashamed of them? We've been down that road too. Those are distorted yardsticks. We can't rely on them.”
“I don't care,” I insisted. “Those have been about other feelings. Maybe I've been wrong about them, or maybe my parents were wrong. But this is different. Some things are still shameful. Some things are just plain wrong.”
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