I spent my adolescence in New Jersey hoping and praying for a woman, a female body I could join with. But I had been shy, and as my lust grew, stoked by a natural feeding of hormones and vitamins, the fictionalized account of wife-swapping read to a bunk of teenage boys by a well-liked counselor at summer camp, close encounters with pornography picked up from a local barbershop by my father and hidden next to his copy of the Joy of Sex in a wicker basket to the side of my parents’ bed, so did my disconnection with the object of that lust. I was surrounded by females; in high school, Maura Purcell, of the tight jeans, dark hair, randy disposition and penchant for bad boy burnouts, my friend in Literature class. I gladly helped her cheat on tests, supplying her with the answer to the meaning of redemption in Milton’s Paradise Lost, the role of the whale in Moby Dick, what stately pleasure dome Kubla Khan did visit. All for her smile and friendship, her close attention. But I wanted more, much more, of course. Much more from Gracie Kay, my prom date and best friend, but never sexual partner, a hoped-for joint explorer in the ways of the flesh. The same with Sarah Klein, a fellow editor on the school paper, a girl I hovered over during editing days, reading copy over her thin shoulders, her sweatered breasts and the curl in her hair framing the copy of the newspaper layout on the table below. I wanted them all, to close the gap between their bodies and voices, our conversations, and the beat at the back of my brain, the solid thwump as regular and necessary as my heartbeat, filling my head with images of naked breasts, rising mons, rough pubic hair sitting atop the focus of all my dreams. With each masturbatory stroke, with each glance of bra as a girl bent over, with every fevered encounter I wanted more, I wanted the real thing. But asking for something so important, so forbidden, I thought, so strongly in my interests, seemed impossible, too fraught with danger. There must be a way to get it, though I did not seem to possess the skills, some magic confidence, the experience, some overarching natural charisma that would bring me together with the object of my desires. Part of the problem, I realized much later, was an unvoiced idea that girls must be convinced to have sex, that it was not something they wanted just as much as boys. The foolishness of that idea was discovered in college, when some wit and a bit of charm worked well enough to convince me falsely of a confidence I had no right to possess. I finally closed the deal, and continued to close it with as many women as possible. Oddly, though, what I sought then shifted, moved beyond me once again. It was particular women I wanted, the most beautiful and unavailable creatures on campus. Jackie in Intro to Shakespeare. Ingrid in Ibsen. And I didn’t just want to have sex, I wanted a relationship. I wanted them to refer to me as their boyfriend, to call me to come and pick them up if it was getting late and they were still at the library, to come to me in my dorm room late at night after drinking with their friends, alcohol on their breath, me on their minds. To curl up in pajamas in my arms, to ask me to deliver soup to them when they were sick, to come home with me at Thanksgiving to show off to the relatives and walk around town, hoping to bump into former high school classmates: Look what I have now, look at what I have become. But it never happened. I saw women, but did not love them, and did not want to be with them for long. Or I may have loved them but did not want to admit it, or understand what it meant; I preferred the safer side of sex and companionship, the distance kept to guard against disappointment or the raw emotions of life. I had grown up fantasizing, and while it began as a replacement for the real thing, it grew into protection from it. Soon after the break-up, I began seeing a psychiatrist. Intensively, three days a week. It seemed like the thing to do after I found myself having a little difficulty adjusting to life after Torrance broke up with me. Well, saying "a little difficulty" is like calling the explosion over Nagasaki a bit of a bang. It's ironic that I could be so blindsided by emotions because the breakdown had been brewing for about twenty-seven years, the extent of my life. Though I personally do not believe the bad crept into my brain until puberty. My psychiatrist probably has ideas of his own. The underlying reasons behind the breakdown are still mostly a mystery to me, though it's clear it was triggered by Torrance crushing my very soul, stepping on the notion of myself and my place in this world, rendering my ego a deflated balloon lying in the mud and being stepped on by cockroaches and other bugs. I think that pretty clearly defines it. When Torrance broke up with me, I cried. And continued, in bursts and jags, in my apartment alone with the lights off, on the subway, in my office at work, and finally, driven by an atavistic need for the protection of childhood, at Penn Station, on the Morris-Essex train line out to Madison, New Jersey, in my father’s car as he took me from the station to the house, and finally in the protective cocoon of my parents’ living room. This was not a pretty thing. Definitely not a pretty thing for a University of Michigan graduate approaching his late twenties who always counted on self-confidence and high expectations to bring him into some suitable station in this life. I was reduced to the emotions of a love-spurned fourteen year-old girl. Which is nothing against fourteen year-old girls. But I was no longer a teenage boy. And I certainly was not a teenage girl. So it was a bit distressing to act like one. My parents thought so. My friends thought so. My coworkers and employers probably thought so, though they didn't say anything. Perhaps even bus drivers thought so. So I took my parents’ advice and I went to a shrink. The strange thing is I went to the shrink for my pain over Torrance leaving me, but after some recovery, found a whole host of other problems. Like going to a doctor for a hangnail and finding your bladder swollen, a deficient pancreas, some unusual chemical activity in your brain and a trick knee. My shrink, the man who stepped into my life of relentless anxiety and restored a certain amount of sanity and calm, is a board certified M.D. An educated man. Not some crank or quack or snake oil salesman. Not a psychologist. Not even a therapist, armed with only an M.A. The man is a doctor. The government has authorized him to write prescriptions. He has the ability to give people drugs and insurance companies will pay for it. My shrink, this über Dad, this Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade balloon of a father figure, has a full head of black hair which is graying and a trim gray beard which accentuates his lips into two rubbery red tubes. He is a tall, well dressed man who favors expensive and well tailored sports jackets and pants. He is reassuringly proper without being stuffy. His looks would be appropriate and admired at a stockholders' meeting or a popular restaurant. And he would look excellent standing by my bed in my hospital room as I screamed my brains out. We have a relationship. He guarantees me a certain amount of time each week and we chat. I talk about myself, he listens. In several years I will be better. And then I will never see him again. Unless I relapse. If he dies before the completion of my therapy it will be bad for both of us. My saintly psychiatrist is the apple of my eye. At the end of our sessions he tolls the maddening words "Well, our time is up." It's like parting with a friend without a handshake or hug, like getting screwed and booted out. But at least I have the reassurance that I know when I'll see him next. My shrink is usually very attentive, sitting up straight in his black leather chair, a passive, open expression on his face. Only occasionally does he relax, actually spreading his feet over his ottoman and putting his hands behind his head. I wonder what I say at these moments that gets him so comfortable. My doctor's office is a comfortable place. It is quiet, the only sound a gentle swoosh of an air conditioner. It is cool, but not cold. Everything is comfortable. The chair I sit in is comfy, an old heavily cushioned green easy chair, one you would find in a children's book, a cat curled in the seat. I face my psychiatrist, five feet away; I'm sure he could detect a lunge before I could reach him. My shrink has big liquid eyes like the most sympathetic Bambi. Bambi with deep understanding and very high rates. This is my doctor, my sweet good psychiatrist. The man who will help me heal my disturbed self. Or at least charge me $120 an hour on the way towards this goal. Of course the healing may be delayed, as the doctor is leaving in a few days for his annual summer vacation. Does this bother me? Not at all. More power to him. I hope he enjoys himself, the bastard.