Eva Mazza - Sex, Lies & Stellenbosch

Feeling a little uncomfortable, Jen shifted in her chair and poured herself some water.

“Have you visited a psychologist before, Jen?”

Jen shook her head, then swallowed.

“Well, I’m not a psychologist, and if you’d ever been to one, you would know that I’m a tad unconventional,” Sharon said, while looking for a pen amongst the pile of stationary in the Matisse vase. Having found her Mont Blanc, she moved to one of the empty chairs and sat down, crossing her legs to prop the notepad she held in her right hand. “The burning question everybody is afraid to ask me is, what do I know about marriage and relationships? The answer to that would be: what does anybody really know about relationships, period? I’m not here to give you solutions. I’m here to help you on your journey to self-discovery, and to assist with unravelling and making sense of the truth, however painful.”

Sharon stopped mid-thought. “This sounds a bit like psycho-babble and I guess it is.” She threw her head back and began to laugh, showing perfect molars. “We counsellors can be very convincing because we confuse you with words.”

Jen wondered whether she could divulge anything to this strange woman.

“I’m a little unconventional, not only because I can be, but also because we’re working against time. We don’t have the luxury right now to thrash through months of analysis. We can do that later, through regular hourly sessions, either alone or with your husband, if you like, once you’ve made a decision as to what you want to do.”

“Do you mean whether I want to stay married or whether I want to divorce John?”

Sharon smiled. “Yes, to stay married, or file for divorce or separate. The choice is yours and you need to be sure that you have thought this through carefully. You also need to know that nothing is set in stone. You can change your mind, given that your husband is willing to concede.”

Jen listened carefully, trying to process her options.

“Claudia has briefed me as to why you’re here, but I want to know from you, Jen. Why are you here? What do you hope to achieve from seeing me?”

Jen felt her cheeks burn and her eyes start to fill. Sharon gestured towards the tissues, and Jen grabbed one, dabbing her eyes as she spoke. “Well, I caught my husband in the throes of oral sex with his wine rep.” She stopped, expecting to see shock on Sharon’s face.

Instead, Sharon said, “Were they performing oral sex on each other, or was John the only one being indulged?”

Mortified at Sharon’s candid question, she tried to explain. “He was, um, he was…”

“Go on?”

“She was giving him a blowjob.”

Sharon wrote something down in her notepad, then looked up. “Were you watching, or did you stop them?”

Jen shifted in her seat. What difference does it make?

“I was watching for a while. I was in shock. At first, I didn’t quite register that he was my husband.”

There was a long silence. “Can you remember what went through your head at that moment?”

“Honestly? Well, I was quite fascinated, actually, at how good Patty was at it. It looked as if she was actually enjoying herself. I remember thinking, so this is how it’s supposed to be done . And then I tried to scream at them, but really it was a whisper.”

“Don’t you engage in fellatio, Jen?”

Jen looked down at her hands and noticed she’d been picking at her cuticles. “I don’t see how this has any relevance to what happened.”

“Maybe it doesn’t, but you never know. You just said it intrigued you that Patty was enjoying performing oral sex on your husband. Maybe this was a once-off indiscretion.”

Jen stood up abruptly. The nerve of this woman! She had her mind made up to leave, but Sharon stopped her with a raised, quizzical eyebrow and she sank back into her chair.

“I’m not trying to justify your husband’s actions, but he may just use the excuse that he was drunk; he was lured by this woman and was exceptionally tempted at the time because you never perform oral sex on him. It’s just about every married man’s mantra, isn’t it?”

Jen knew it sounded peevish, but she couldn’t help saying, “The women I know hate oral sex!”

“Which is every married woman’s mantra,” Sharon shot back.

Was this ‘counsellor’ trying to blame her for John’s infidelity?

Sharon chuckled. “See, I know. My poor ex couldn’t get my mouth near his dick and now he’s pissed off because being a lesbian requires the use of my mouth. Imagine how cheated he feels?”

Jen was stunned into silence and then she began to laugh hysterically. She wasn’t sure if it was because she was so emotionally and physically drained, but she needed some relief from this burden she had been carrying around with her since Saturday, maybe longer, she admitted.

Then Sharon joined in and they were unstoppable. When one of them tried to control herself, she was spurred on by the other, and the hysterics would start all over again. Jen hadn’t laughed like this in ages, and somehow this shared mirth brought Jen closer to Sharon. A sort of trust had been established.

Sharon got up from her chair and moved towards her desk. She picked up a pile of papers and a pencil and handed them to her client. “These are a series of questions I’d like you to answer. See it as part of my intake interview. It also allows you to reflect and it saves us time, time that we are lacking. Speaking of which, I would like to postpone your appointment this afternoon with Leonard to tomorrow. We’re going to need the whole day, if you don’t mind?”

“Should be fine, I have all day today and tomorrow.”

“After you’ve answered the questions, you can go for lunch. I believe you’re meeting Claudia at the little sandwich shop in Long Street? This will give me time to read through what you’ve written and to highlight the issues I think are relevant to today’s session.”

She gestured to Jen to follow her. Sharon led her into a little annex off the reception area. A table and a desk chair filled a portion of the room and against a wall was a long couch framed by four recognisable signed prints.

A sideboard held a coffee station, and Jen was told to help herself, “and there are biscuits if you’re feeling peckish”.

With that, Sharon walked out of the room, closing the door gently behind her, leaving Jen alone with her emotions, which came flooding back to her in an instant.

She poured tea into a cup and added the sugar and the milk while she worked through the questions.

The intake interview started with the usual information such as name, sex, identity number, date of birth, marital status and profession. Then followed a section regarding her children: their ages and sex and the relationship that she and her spouse had with each child. There was a question as to whether she felt their children had had any adverse effects on their marriage. She also had to write a brief paragraph on her past and her relationship with her parents. The next section was titled Spouse’s Details and Relationship Status . In this section, Jen filled out John’s name, his age, his occupation, how long they had been married and how long they had dated.

The questions became more personal and probing. Jen was required to state how many times a month, on average, they had intercourse; whether she was happy with this and whether she thought her husband was satisfied. She was also asked whether she enjoyed sexual relations with her husband, and if not, why not? Furthermore, did she think her husband enjoyed sexual relations with her? She had to indicate whether she engaged in any of the following: swinging, ménages à trois, bondage, discipline, sadism and masochism (BDSM); and, if so, was this a mutual decision or was there coercion? Jen breathed a sigh of relief. She felt normal. At least I can skip this section out.