Francis Levy - Erotomania - A Romance

After several complaints and a threatening lawyer's letter, we both realized we needed to see someone, and I found a counselor who specialized in the problems of couples whose sex lives are too good. Usually people seek marital counseling when they have issues like unfaithfulness, lack of desire, impotence, or frigidity. We needed to seek help because our sexual attraction to each other was so powerful that it might harm the environment. We were like a tornado or a hurricane: When we were fucking we didn't know what we were doing and we tended to eradicate anything or anyone that crossed our path. The counselor's name was Martin Shapiro. He'd been a career military man who had honed his skills in couples counseling while serving in Vietnam. He'd been the highest-ranking Jewish marriage counselor in the history of the United States Army. He'd attained the level of Brigadier General. And even though he was an MD psychoanalyst by training, he was still addressed as General Shapiro.

Talk about warring couples, the first session we had with him, he told us the story of the Special Forces captain who was married to a high-level member of the Viet Cong. As unbelievable as it may sound, Shapiro claimed he was able to create a trusting relationship between a couple who, though they would literally be firing on each other during the day, desired the kind of domestic arrangement where they could cook for each other and make passionate love after returning home in the evening. That wasn't our problem. We weren't adversarial (except when we talked)-we were explosive. Our sexuality, General Shapiro claimed, had something in common with the fusion reaction that created the hydrogen bomb.

1 tried to describe the unique conditions under which Monica and I had first met in order to give General Shapiro a real feeling for the roots of our relationship and what it was like, but before I even got another word out, he cut me off. My understanding is that therapists usually like patients to come forth, but I immediately got the feeling that however truthful General Shapiro's observations were, he was more interested in being the one to do the talking and more interested in relating our experiences to his own. Shapiro seemed to subscribe to the notion that patients were like children who should be seen, but not heard.

"A hydrogen bomb is detonated by a smaller nuclear device like an atom bomb. Once the chain reaction starts, there's no stopping it. That's what I see here. Independently, the two of you are harmless bits of organic matter, but putting you two together, you become lethal. Waterbeds break, neighbors are frightened, you find yourselves wandering in the streets not knowing who you are. The question is what sets you off, what's your atom bomb? Once we can defuse that, then we can explore what goes on between the two of you."

We looked at each other. General Shapiro could see we were worried.

"If it ain't broke, I say don't fix it." Monica started to get up from her chair. She hadn't wanted to go to Shapiro in the first place. It was I who'd insisted, realizing that our dwelling insurance premium would increase if our explosive sex continued to cause accidents for which we would have to file claims.

"You're afraid of change," he said. He was totally bald, but when he gave an insight, he brushed his hand along his scalp as if he still possessed hair. General Shapiro looked bereaved. He plainly regarded Monica's hesitancy about the treatment as an attack, and worse, an attempt to interrupt his chain of thought.

"How do you know what I am? You barely know me."

Shapiro and 1 looked at each other. In spite of Shapiro's dictatorial style it was also apparent that he made sense. Plainly, Monica was resistant.

"He's not saying we are going to lose all the fun we have, he's just saying we can make it better. We don't necessarily have to pay a price for pleasure. In this last instance, it was 51500 with the deductible!"

"Yes, and there is this other problem. What you're having is the equivalent of anonymous sex, of a succession of one-night stands." Shapiro was totally right, but even I wondered how he had been able to reach such definitive conclusions, considering how little chance he had given either Monica or I to complete a real patient interview

"Excuse me, General Shapiro, but what right do you have to talk to us this way?" Monica said.

"Marty," he corrected.

"You're being crude. It's not professional."

"1'm trying to help."

"This way of talking isn't helping me."

"You two complain that your sex literally blows your minds. I'm trying to get you to see you can have wonderful sex without deleterious side effects."

I liked General Shapiro, but Monica couldn't stand his presumptuous manner. Shapiro and I both tried to explain that she was mistaking the messenger for the message. She said she hated him, but was it really him or what he was saying? I sagely nodded-as if I were somehow exempt from similar feelingsbut I too was worried. We seemed to have the perfect chemistry. Why change a formula that had worked?

The reason became more apparent one night soon after our second meeting with Shapiro, when I was thrusting so hard into her that I actually broke a floorboard. The waterbed started to groan, and 1 knew if the bed broke its water again, the floor might buckle and even cave in. Monica, who was still alternately screaming out her usual, "luck me up the ass, oh, let me put my lips on your stinking hard joint motherfucker," and, "Where am 1?" didn't understand when I slid out of bed, running for a huge roll of duct tape 1 kept around for just such emergencies. Luckily 1 had already dropped my load, and though my brains were fried, 1 had an uncharacteristic grip on reality due to my fear of our waterbed crashing onto the floor below Isn't it amazing how challenging situations bring a person to his senses? As usual, Monica didn't remember anything. In fact, the only thing she said when I came up behind her in the bathroom as she was brushing her teeth before bed was, "Would you mind licking my asshole? I still have a little itch."

"We need to talk." How many times had I already invoked those words! We really didn't need to talk; it never did any good anyway, but 1 couldn't beat around the bush when human lives were at stake. Now we had a new problem on our hands because 1 had seen reality while Monica was still convinced that we could go on the way we were, without having any effect on others.

As the old saying goes, it takes what it takes, and it wasn't until we had done damage to the structure of the building that Monica was brought to her knees. She still didn't like Shapiro and continued to stonewall in our sessions, but she plainly needed him. Monica's one of those people who will never say she needs help, and she never admits she's gotten it, even when someone has been helpful. But the day the Department of Buildings got into the act and the big flatbeds pulled up with huge wooden beams that would be the new structure for one side of our building, Monica looked as if she was ready for anything. There was only one other tenant in the building besides the couple downstairs, an elderly woman who hadn't seen a prick in decades, and we all were put up in the local Motel 6 while the repairs were done. Anyone who'd lived in that building knew who the source of the trouble was. The young couple downstairs was understanding, but the elderly woman screamed at us in the most vile manner as we registered for our room.

"1 did my share of fucking." She was waving her finger. "But you're a little cunt, miss. And you…" She pointed to me. "You seem like a very nice young man, but so was John Dillinger. You've got to put your dick back in your holster. Didn't the two of you ever hear of sublimation. I used to teach art history. Sublimation's when you take some of your sexual energies and turn them into art. Think of all the greatness that would lie ahead of you if you stopped trying to be the Black Stallion, young man. You're interested in theater sets. You could be the next Ingo Jones. And I wouldn't have to worry about the ceiling falling down every time I got into bed."