Francis Levy - Seven Days in Rio

“Now that I think about it,” I continued to ramble, “what is to be found in an asshole or a cunt? I was never satisfied by the attainment of the love object. Once I was licking her ass, I felt strangely bereft. All I was aware of was the mixture of shit and Handy Wipe, like the stench of camphor in a musty closet. Once you gain access to a body part, it loses its symbolic value. Only when it is taken away, as it was when Brittany disappeared into the crowd at the club, does the nimbus that had endowed her organs with otherworldly magic return. I felt like I was in search of the Holy Grail, but now that I am back here in analysis, the feeling is beginning to subside. I’m beginning to realize that Brittany was just a whore. There is something very suspicious about freedom. Nature made breasts, assholes, and cunts to be sacred, and when they are freely exhibited and easily attainable they simply become flesh and bone. There is a certain democratization that goes on at the Copacabana, where the girls walk around topless. After all, the nipple is just calcified skin. The private parts lose their aristocratic quality. The breast, for example, is the child’s first sexual object, so it’s no wonder that when a grown man finally sees a woman’s breast he goes nuts. It’s the powerful pull of infantile sexuality in its adult form.”

I must say I felt very proud of myself as I finished this little dissertation. I was sure that China would be impressed with the sophistication of my analytic insight, and I was ready and willing to give her credit for having educated me.

“So your mother is just made of skin and flesh and bones like everyone else?” China inquired, raising her eyebrows dispassionately. Somehow her comment reminded me of Shylock’s “pound of flesh” in The Merchant of Venice , and I imagined my mother taking off her girdle and having her flesh — her breasts, vagina, her stomach — weighed on a scale. I had a sudden urge to get on the next flight back to New York, to leave the Tiffanys and Brittanys of Rio, even to leave my China, and abruptly terminate the analysis. It was apparent that China either hadn’t been listening or hadn’t understood a word I’d said, because I was making precisely the opposite point: my mother wasn’t just skin and bones, any more than China was. It was the way in which the personality infused all this flesh that made a breast more than just a breast. China wasn’t just a vagina. Her vagina had symbolic resonance, at least until she had made her brutally insensitive remark. My irritation would soon pass, but for a second I regarded China as no more than a cunt.

She must have been aware of how much her comment upset me, because she dropped her veneer of analytic neutrality and used the remote to lower the volume on her television, despite the fact that she was watching a very important playoff between Brazil and Argentina.

“I think we need to discuss the fee,” she said. I felt it was an odd choice to bring up the subject of money when I was in the middle of an emotional discussion about my mother’s body. Unfortunately, my time was up. When we began a new session, I immediately explained to China how upset I was with her for discussing fees at a time when I was feeling so fragile. “You’re always discussing your mother,” she shot back, “even when you think you’re not.” Then she added, “We’ll continue next time.” At that moment I felt a rush of contempt for China. I couldn’t imagine how we had ever become doctor and patient, much less lovers.

“I hate this Oedipal stuff. It’s psychobabble,” I blurted. “You know the Sandinistas ? Well, you sound like a Jargonista. It’s always the same stuff with loving the mother and hating the father. My father wasn’t even in the picture. He was no match for me. It was all about my mother and me. I thought that Lacanians were supposed to be more linguistically orientated. I thought we would be talking about post-structuralists like Barthes, Foucault, and Kristeva. This is the same stale stuff that the classic Freudians were peddling back in the ’50s, to go with the Danish modern furniture in the waiting rooms. Sure I loved my mother. Everyone wants to fuck his mother. You don’t have to be a patient in psychoanalysis to learn that. I’m actually quite functional. I love women and I simply need to find the right whore to settle down with.”

“Do you mind if I suck your cock?” China interjected placidly.

“Sure, but I insist on paying.”

China didn’t bother to respond as she got down on her knees and started to unzip my fly. When she finally got my dick out, she paused for a moment to listen to a roar from the Brazilian soccer fans on the television, as their goalie made an improbable save. Then she placed me in her mouth.

“You’re very eloquent,” she said. The words were muffled by the fact that my penis was between her lips, so it would have been dishonest for me to return the compliment. China really knew how to suck a cock, and unlike some Tiffanys she looked you straight in the eye as she did it. Her eyes were actually welling up as she stared at me, as if she were experiencing some powerful emotion.

Perhaps more was happening for her than the simple application of a blowjob. I have to say that I remained curiously rational, despite the oceanic pre-Oedipal feelings that she was stirring up in me. I was painfully aware that my desire was due to the powerful transference that had taken place, and that, like many an analytic patient before me, I had simply fallen in love with my analyst. This is something that is generally more prevalent with women patients, who fall in love with their handsome or fatherly male analysts. But it’s perfectly natural for a man to turn his mother figure into a whore. The fact that by blowing my brains out China was giving up her veneer of analytic neutrality complicated matters, but still, all the feelings that were transpiring between us were an inevitable part of the analytic work, and in fact totally appropriate at this stage of the process.

“I just find that you are the most interesting patient I have ever had. You are very special,” China said, momentarily ejecting me from her mouth like a DVD. I noted that she was very special too, particularly in regard to her ability to perform psychoanalysis and fellatio at the same time.

“I thought you weren’t supposed to say things like that. Every patient always thinks they are special and has a fantasy that the analyst likes him more than all the others.”

“But what if I told you that a part of our analysis might be the recognition that you are very special to me, and that I have fallen in love with you.”

“But I just want you to be my whore. I want to continue paying you for the sex as well as the analysis.”

“I never said you weren’t going to pay.”

In many ways I was the typical sex tourist. I had come to Rio for the whores, not for love. I’d never even thought of paying for love, but perhaps that was just another way of looking at marriage. You pay a whore for sex and a wife for love. I still had a hunch I was going to be better off paying the whore for sex. Lots of guys I know got married and paid for love, without getting any sex in the bargain.

“I have begun to realize that I have fallen in love with you even if you are my patient,” China reiterated. Our session ended just a few seconds later. Normally, I would have been troubled if an analyst dropped such a heavy revelation on me at the end of the session, but in this case all I had to do was walk out of the hotel room, wait ten seconds, then ring the buzzer and come back in.

“Don’t you have to work on your counter-transference before you know if you really love me,” I began.

“You’re using a lot of big words. Why don’t you just tell me how you feel?”