Rafael Yglesias - Dr. Neruda's Cure for Evil

The next day, much to Andy’s dismay, Stick announced he would be attending the convention. Andy had looked forward to being the sole representative.

Intensifying Stick’s innate pattern of excessive vigilance led naturally to exploring his anal fears of aging and weakness, and also to probing his homophobic modesty — another symptom of sadism. I took tennis lessons to sharpen my game and bought myself a new racquet. For a while I concentrated on playing my best. Stick became accustomed to our beating the men he found for opponents. Within a few weeks, I had sufficient control to contrive that we lose the second set in a way that seemed to imply Stick was tiring. Playing the net behind his serve it was a simple matter, by not poaching as aggressively as usual, or by making my volleys an easier get for our opponents, to arrange that our defeats seemed to happen because his serve was less effective.

Three losses of this kind and Stick complained. “After we get one win under our belts, we stop concentrating.”

I said, “I don’t think that’s the reason.”

He was in a shower stall at the Wall Street Racquet Club, talking to me by shouting over the noise of the running water. I was toweling off. He dawdled when undressing, waiting until I was in a stall before he stripped. He always brought his own kelly green towel with him to the club, although they supplied clean white ones, not as large or as thick as his, but sufficient. I assumed this was a mild version of the sadist’s fear of germs. There were hooks on the outside of the shower door to hang a towel, but he always entered with his lower half wrapped up, to conceal his privates all the way, despite the fact that carrying the towel inside meant it would get wet. “What did you say?” he called.

“I know why we’re losing the second set,” I said, moving beside the stall door. “You’re getting tired. Your serves lose power and I can’t get as clean a volley on their returns.”

“Bullshit,” he said.

I said nothing. When the silence had lasted long enough to be uncomfortable, I yanked the shower door open.

Stick backed against the tiles, chest smeared with soap, eyes blinking from the rain of water. I stared at his genitals (of course, there was nothing remarkable about them, they were of normal size) and said, “Is my sweatband in here?”

“You didn’t use this shower,” he complained.

“Sorry,” I slammed the stall door. I had seen the secret, so I made my judgment, “I’m pretty sure you’re getting tired in the second set. Maybe it’s my volleying, but I think your serve is too short.”

He chose not to continue the argument. He liked to eat after playing and that same evening afforded an opportunity for further infiltration of his subconscious. He showed a rare curiosity about my work with children. Appearing to ramble, I told a story about a boy who was anally abused. I didn’t have to invent it; unfortunately, my work provided many examples. I used Jeffrey Y, from one of my published case histories, who was repeatedly sodomized by his father and his uncle.

Stick’s one question about Jeffrey Y’s case was revealing, although not a surprise. “Do they usually end up becoming homosexual?” he asked.

I told a half-truth. “Once a boy has been anally stimulated, especially between the ages of five and ten, there’s a good chance he will continue to want,” and here I was deliberately crude, “to be fucked up the ass.”

He surprised me, not for the first time, and it was a warning that I had to be careful with him. I had provoked him, anyway, that night with the shower stall invasion. He stared into my eyes; his looked black and dead. He said, “Halley told me your mother had sex with you when you were a boy. What does that do to a man?”

He meant to devastate me with this sideways revelation that Halley had told him my “secret.” Of course my incest story came from my first dinner with her, not our recent encounters. I was taken aback, nevertheless. It was another reminder that I shouldn’t underestimate the depth of their connection. I don’t know how well I covered with my face, but my spoken answer was quick and effective. “It makes you a very confident man. It’s every boy’s dream, after all.”

[I hope I don’t have to explain why the above is a ridiculous lie. If Copley was enough of a scholar to check, he would have known from my book on incest that I was full of it. The latter didn’t overly worry me: in reverse therapy, if I may so label my new technique, Stick discovering I was untrustworthy might work to our advantage. He was probing for my weakness. That is the dynamic of this new therapy for an unneurotic sadist. We repeat the ancient drama: Copley searches for a way to defeat me, hoping for the same ending rather than a new one; while I, instead of replacing the villain with a caring parent, play my role better than the original.]

“Every boys dream?” he repeated, squinting and frowning. The lines of his face wrinkled with pain. I almost felt sorry for him.

“I never had any performance anxiety with girls, never worried about the size of my penis, and I never had to worry about competition with my father. I was a winner in the Oedipal game very early on, so I didn’t have anything to prove.”

He was disappointed at the result of his counterattack. He sipped his herbal tea. His eyes and attention wandered off, forgetting our battle. “I guess all boys worry about the size of their cock,” he said quietly, more to himself.

“Not all. Not even the majority,” I commented grimly. He looked up, startled. “Only the ones with small penises,” I said. Stick winced. I laughed, reached over and kneaded his shoulder. He disliked male-to-male physical contact — for obvious reasons, given his father. I took every opportunity to invade that barrier. “Just a little shrink humor. Of course everybody does,” I patted him. “It’s natural.”

I frustrated his bribes, threats, tests and ambushes of employees on the one hand, and I aided or provoked their ambitions and demands on the other. There were too many instances to catalogue; besides, they are repetitious. The examples I’ve provided should suffice. I ended Jack’s obsession with Halley by reinforcing his wife, Halley being one of the ways Stick knew someone was safely in his grasp. I encouraged Andy’s development as a manager, both with his own men and by introducing him to Jack and the other salesmen, just as I had once encouraged Gene to try for more responsibility, only this time — and this was also true in my defense of the Truman marriage — I had a diversion to keep them safe. The diversion was me. Copley was convinced I was the threat to his control of the company, by virtue of my relationship with Edgar, not Andy’s growing confidence and maturity. Halley was convinced we were having a love affair; so was Stick and that meant I was under control. In this first, and most crucial stage of therapy, only by presenting myself as a potential victim could I hope to be their healer.

This brings us to an aspect of the treatment it is crucial I warn other practitioners about. Two dangers exist in reverse therapy that, although they have corollaries in traditional psychoanalysis, are more present and intense. The first should be familiar, namely countertransference: I had to struggle to avoid forming a real attachment to Halley and I had to be careful not to want to harm Stick. The second danger, which unfortunately I did not fully anticipate, is that, since the treatment moves toward disintegration of the patient’s personality rather than greater control, caution must be taken not to push the patient into outright psychosis.

Halley was the tougher assignment in terms of countertransference. I don’t mean to make a vulgar joke of it, but my sexual frustration alone would have tested the patience of a saint — the pleasure was all one-sided and it was a mockery of lovemaking. I don’t suppose I need to explain how I found relief for my physical forbearance, and I won’t pretend fondling Halley was all work. The emotional frustration was another matter. I underestimated its danger. Although I limited physical contact with Halley to two nights a week of incest fantasy and my role demanded, when we were in public, that I treat her with stiff formality, almost contempt, nevertheless I had to (in order to play the part of lover/father) telephone her every day and maintain a deep emotional connection.