“I guess I’m just frustrated. I mean, I gave her everything, but she just doesn’t put out enough. So I have to fuck around on her. I have needs.”
“Do your needs include the half-dozen prostitute party you were throwing when the police arrived? Because to me, Jim, that seems excessive. To me, that seems like you have sexual desires that can’t really be contained in convention. It’s a sexual addiction, Jim. And if you are going to break it, you need to be stronger than it.”
“It was five, not six, Dr. Hartman.”
“Either way. One, I could understand. Two, ok, it seems a little unnecessary, but I can comprehend that. Anything past that is just your addiction. When was the last time you masturbated?”
“In the car. On the way here.”
“Jesus. Ok, what have we been going over here, Jim? You go to extremes because you are not controlling your urges properly. If you don’t control them, you end up with six, sorry, five prostitutes in a motel room. Then Carrie finds out, leaves you and then you find yourself in my office not of your own free will, Jim, but because the Judge and the Prosecutor recognize that you have a problem. And if you don’t address it, it just extrapolates from there. You need to practice controlling those urges. That means using those exercises and waiting it out instead of gratifying yourself every time you experience an erection. It’s not healthy. What if someone saw you? What if an officer saw you and considered that indecent exposure. It’d be a whole lot more trouble for you, Jim.” Dr. Hartman leaned back in his chair and ran his thumbs down the creases in his slacks. He paused to fiddle with his glasses before the abrupt beeping caused him to twitch out of his chair. The man sitting in the over-stuffed recliner bolted upright, and Dr. Hartman sighed as he saw the outline of an erection: “Jim, that’s our time today. Next week. In the meantime, I recommend you practice those exercises on the way home, Ok?”
The sun streamed through the blinds as Dr. Leonard Hartman rubbed his temple, rustling the greying hairs that occasionally fell over his reading glasses. Like a red-hot poker, he felt the headache begin to creep across the side of his head as he hastily rustled through his desk, picking out a prescription bottle and knocking back two of the pills out of it. He poured a glass from the decanter next to the DSM, the heavy book upright against two stone owl bookends. He swallowed the amber liquid in one quick gulp before setting the glass down and pouring water out of a pitcher next to the decanter. His paused to study his face in the reflection of a picture frame depicting a young blonde woman standing in the surf. He carefully traced the crow’s feet at the corner of his right eye, mumbling to himself, quiet and low, and barely audible: “Where did it all go?” When the door opened behind him he jumped out of the chair, sending the picture frame clattering to the floor. He bent over and picked it up, carefully setting it back on his desk before acknowledging the young man standing in the doorway. “Jacob? Dr. Leonard Hartman. Please come in,” he said as he extended his hand out, taking Matherby’s reluctant handshake. “Have a seat.”
