September 30, 2006--Saturday Story: "I Married Lydia"--Part Two

In Part One, Lloyd Zazlo, a Columbia junior-pre-med-English-major, reencountered Lydia Liebhaben, a Barnard student and modern dancer from East Paterson, New Jersey. The previous year they had had a disastrous date--when he tried to kiss her good night, she snarled at him, wishing he had gone instead to his “native” Brooklyn College. They met unexpectedly nine months later by the edge of Saranac Lake and immediately became lovers. Less, in truth, in pursuit of love than, for her, the perfect orgasm. Lloyd did well enough in that regard so that she allowed their “relationship” to continue through his senior year when they began to talk about getting married—for both the cash and in order to have a better bed.

In Part Two we discover Lydia and Lloyd . . . .

We were having sex when the phone rang. Panting, Lydia said, “Don’t answer it. I’m almost there.”

“I have too. It could be important.” The phone continued to ring. But I kept thrusting.

“But I just had a small one; and if you keep it up I’m sure I can get there.” That’s how she referred to it—“getting there.” The ringing stopped but began again after a moment, sounding even more urgent.

“I think I should answer it. I’m waiting for a call from one of my professors. About a paper that’s due on Thursday.” It was Tuesday and we had been at it for nineteen minutes. That’s how I referred to it—as “at it.” I had been keeping track of the duration on my new clock radio. The number tabs flipped, and it was now twenty minutes.

I reached across Lydia’s body and grabbed the phone. She held onto my hips to make sure I kept the pumping going. Which I did as I said, “Yes?”

It was my father. I covered the receiver and mouthed to Lydia, who was moving in perfect synchronization, “It’s my father.” She made a face but held onto me even more insistently.

“No, dad,” I said, “we didn’t hear back yet if your sister Madeline will be coming to the wedding.” Lydia began to moan. I held my hand over the mouthpiece so her cries would not be heard back in Brooklyn. “I know,” I said back to him, “if she does you and mom will be over the limit that the Liebhabens set for how many you can invite.” I yelped because Lydia had dug her fingers into my ass as her writhing intensified.

“It’s nothing, dad,” he had heard me, “I just bumped my head on the night table.” He asked if I was all right. “Thanks. No, it’s nothing serious.” I mouthed to Lydia again that maybe she could slow down. For Christ’s sake, I was talking to her future father-in-law! She shook her head and resumed her moaning. Twenty-three minutes had elapsed.

“I’ll ask them if you can add a few more to your invitation list. But you know, they’re paying for it so I’m not sure it’ll work.”

I heard him begin to yell at my mother, who was clearly standing near the phone, “Those cheap bastards! I told you this whole thing was a mistake. They should realize that Lloyd’s a pre-med so they’ll get a good return on their investment.” Though the connection was crackling, it was an interborough call—a version of long distance—I could still pick up his sarcasm.

Lydia began to slam her hands rhythmically against my threadbare mattress. I slipped a pillow over her face to stifle what sounded like the beginning of whimpering. But still my father asked, “What’s going on over there? It doesn’t sound like studying.” The number on the clock flipped again, signaling that twenty-six minutes had passed.

“I don’t know dad, the connection’s lousy, but the people living next door sound as if they’re having a fight.”

“I told you not to move out of the dormitory into that flophouse.” I had moved to the single-room-occupancy College Residence Hotel on Broadway and 110th Street primarily to provide Lydia and me with the privacy to do what we were currently doing. “The whole building is filled up with Puerto Ricans. The last time I was there every name on the mailbox list was Rodriquez-this or Lopez-that.”

“That’s not true, dad. There are also two other guys from Columbia living here.” I was glad not to be talking about the wedding set for June 18th, four months from now. I also hoped he was not hearing Lydia, who though she might have been suffocating, was pounding on the wall that separated us from Luis Rodriquez’s room.

“Let that cheapskate Shelly Liebhaben know that he son-in-law-to-be is going to be a doctor. He’ll know what that means.” I hadn’t as yet found the courage to tell my parents that I wasn’t going to medical school; that I planned instead to enroll in a masters program in literature. I realized that I needed to do that soon—before graduation, which was just months away.

But I was distracted again by the clock which ticked, indicating that it was about to be twenty-eight minutes—a new personal best for Lydia and me. Though she was slowing down from either fatigue or lack of oxygen.

“It sounds as if those Lopez people, or whatever their name is, have at least stopped fighting.”

Feeling as if I had again managed to hide the fact that Lydia was with me, much less what we were up to, I raced to get off the phone. “I’ll see what I can do. But Lydia tells me that her father has not been having a good year with his business.”

“Tell it to the marines,” he said and slammed down the phone.

Lydia was soaking wet. And inert. I checked to see if she was still breathing, using some of the pre-med skills I was about to jettison. Luckily she was, but quiet shallowly, considering what she had put herself through. I had begun to worry what I might say to the police. And of course to both sets of parents. Particularly mine. I thought maybe I could weave together what happened to her with the pre-med business.

I noticed that she was mouthing words but I could barely understand them. I bent closer so that my right ear was right by her mouth. Furiously, she snapped at it, biting so hard that I could feel it beginning to bleed. This was not rough love play. It was clearly from frustration and rage. “I don’t know what to do with you!” she had recovered enough to scream at me, “I’ve never had sex before with anyone like you.” This was the first I learned that I was not her first. “You’re useless! How many times have I told you it’s all about the clitoris?” She always pronounced it so deliberately, as if it was made up of four syllables.

She swung her head violently from side to side. I still lay on top of her. “Get off me!” she commanded. I literally became airborne as I unstuck myself from her pasty bone-thin body. She pulled the sheets up to cover herself and looked at me, not saying a word. Just holding me in an angry glare.

Then she said more softly, but with quietly intensified rage, “Since you won’t eat me or fuck me in the ass, which I know will get me there, there’s only one more thing you will do or the whole thing’s off. Over! Kaput!” She slashed the side of her hand across her throat for emphasis. Since I was terrified by her threats, and because so many from my family had already been told to hold the date for the wedding, I held my breath, waiting to hear what that one more thing was.

“You’re making an appointment to see my psychiatrist. Maybe after a few sessions with him you’ll know what to do with that useless thing hanging between your legs and with what’s wagging in your mouth.” I felt both shrinking to Pigmy size.

* * *

So the following week I found myself trembling in the waiting room of Dr. Arthur Luven, the city’s leading Orgonomist. The wedding invitations needed to be mailed out in a month but Lydia was holding the entire event hostage to my agreeing to have three sessions with him.

Luven had studied in Berlin and New York with Wilhelm Reich himself, who in turn had been a student and colleague of Freud’s in Vienna. Thus the pedigrees were outstanding, but the poster advertising Luven’s book, The Betrayal of the Orgasm, with the quote, “Honoring the body through the bioenergetics of cosmic energy—W. Reich,” suggested that just three fifty-minute sessions would be insufficient, considering the magnitude of the problem—getting Lydia there. But I was pledged to keep our agreement and at least show up. The wedding depended on it.

The door to Dr. Luven’s office opened. I noticed that it was padded on the inside and at once realized why since the client he was cradling in his arms, as he helped her shuffle to the outer door, was crying, actually sobbing so convulsively that if it had been just the normal door no one would have been willing to sit in the waiting room listening to it—they would for certain flee, even at the risk of jeopardizing the opportunity to, in his care, regain their sanity. On the other hand, I was also pleased to see that foam rubber tacked there since who knew what I might be going through by session two or three?

After launching her toward the elevator, the doctor turned to me. I put down Ogonomy Today, in which he was prominently listed as Senior Contributing Editor, and extracted myself from the velvet chair. I towered over him. My six-four made his five-two look insignificant. Though even thus foreshortened, I was struck by the fact that he seemed to be almost all head. Actually, all hair.

From the gray-streaked wires that sprang from the top of his skull as if it had been struck by lightening to the eyebrows which sprouted like tangled briar and, above all, because of that moustache which appeared to have been woven from a horse’s mane, from this mass of hair I, for a moment, did not notice that he was wearing a brown tee shirt with a gold Ying-Yang symbol blazoned on it, what looked like leather hiking shots, and Franciscan-Monk sandals on his bare feet. This at a time when all doctors, even when on holiday, wore suits and ties and black Oxfords.

When he ever so slowly raised that head to lock onto my eyes, his penetrating gaze radiated so much heat that I immediately began to tear. Could this be, I wondered, my first blast of Orgone Energy? But while blotting my eyes I managed to stammer, “I’m Lloyd Zazlo. Lydia Liebhaben’s fiancé. She sent me to see you.”

“Yes, I know about you.” With the tincture of a German accent that he must have acquired while studying with Reich in Berlin, from Lydia I knew he had been born and raised on Long island, on the South Shore, the I know and the you sounded ominous.

I understood of course that whatever Lydia might have told him about me would not have been positive. If it had been, why then would I be there in his clutches? I also knew that whatever help I might receive would not be assisted by my thinking about myself as in his clutches. I needed to feel I wanted to be there, that I wanted his help. But since he had gripped my right bicep so firmly that no blood was able to flow to my fingers and they thus immediately began to tingle and then go numb, I was very much literally in his clutches. Held that way, he led, perhaps more accurately, he pulled me into his chambers. And they were that—chambers. Gloomy ones.

As I became adjusted to the filtered light, I saw that everything in his office was fabricated from leather. The walls were covered in it as was the furniture, including the top of his desk. Even his telephone sat in a leather-tooled cradle. And they were a perfect complement to his shorts and sandals. So much so, as if camouflaged, that he effectively disappeared when he took his place behind his embossed and brass-studded desk. While the rest of him was absorbed into the leather atmosphere, his face was visible, in spite of the fact that it was covered with that electrified hair, illuminated by the whiteness of his teeth, which below his moustache, threw off light like a pulsating strobe.

He made a tent of his hands, leaning toward where I sat on a stool on the opposite side of his desk (I was to learn that his techniques were not about engendering comfort), saying nothing, totally still, as if he in this way was deciphering the mysteries encrypted in my soul, or psyche, or wherever.

Afraid to move my head, but using my peripheral vision, I saw that his book shelves contained not just a library of expected Orgonomy texts, including many in German, but interspersed among the books were grotesque carved wood and straw masks from Africa, the Americas, and the Pacific Islands. Lydia had told me that Dr. Luven possessed a world-famous collection of Pre-Columbian sculpture. That he specialized in Xipe effigies, charred clay figures of the shaman who presided over the ceremonies and offerings to the Aztec god of spring, priests who were always represented as dressed in the skins of sacrificed and flayed victims. Thus garbed was the one I spotted on a table that stood next to the only piece of furniture that felt incongruous—a small unmade camp bed on which there appeared to be a battered tennis racket.

I was snapped out of my reverie when Dr. Luven said, “Now I think we will begin.”

“Sure. Whatever you say.” I tried to lighten the mood by chirping, “That’s why I’m here!”

Not in any way amused, Dr. Luven directed, “Go, stand over there. Next to the light.” He pointed to side of the room by the cot and effigy. “And take off your shirt and trousers.” I looked at him questioningly before getting up. I knew he was a doctor, an MD, but he was a psychiatrist so why did I need to take off my clothes? “For now,” he added, “you can keep the rest on.”

By my rising so slowly I imagine he sensed my puzzlement and reluctance. “Don’t worry,” he snorted, “I won’t hurt you or ask you to bend over.” At that he smiled, “I want to examine your blockages.”

“My what, Dr. Luven?” I had moved over to where he wanted me to stand and was slowly unbuttoning my shirt. I did notice that it was in fact a tennis racket.

“While you’re doing that, since you are obviously ignorant about bioenergetics, I will give you a brief, a very brief lesson. We do not have that much time. You should buy the book. It’s very good. I recommend it. It’s on sale at Salters up by Columbia.”

I slipped off my shoes and began to unzip my fly. I could already feel his eyes on my chest. “Bioenergetic psychotherapists,” he began, “believe that there is a connection between the mind and the body. What affects the body affects the mind; and what affects the mind does the same to the body. The defenses you use to handle pain and the stresses of life--rationalizations, denials, and suppressions--are reflected in the physical patterns of your body.” I had dropped my pants and they lay around my ankles. I was not ready to kick them away just in case there was a fire and I needed to bolt for the street.

“I can already see in your body, even through that sweaty undershirt, that your breathing, revealed by the shallow movement of your diaphragm, exposes your, forgive me for being so direct, your inept attempts to deal with pain.” Hearing this I took two quick, hopefully very visible deep breaths but became so dizzy that I almost fainted and thus immediately returned to my normal, inepter pattern.

“These defenses, these somatic blockages of yours manifest themselves in your body in ways that inhibit self-expression. I have been trained to discover them through careful observation. That’s why I have you standing there shivering.” Through the half-light I thought I detected another smile. “I can locate these defenses from the quality of your handshake, which by the way was quite revealing: your posture, truncated and clearly adopted by you to cut your head off from your diaphragm (very common in cases such as this); the tone of your voice, totally uncertain, almost a whisper; the way you move, in your case shamble would better categorize it—to help you I need to be frank with you; and from the amount of energy you radiate, especially that, which again in your situation needs to have its wattage increased.” At that I saw his teeth throb.

As a result of my increasing nervousness, I surreptitiously sniffed the air hoping that the office next door was beginning to catch fire and the alarm would soon sound. I was sensing that I would need three years and not just my agreed-upon three sessions to deal with all of my blockages, handshake, and also my diaphragm. As if reading my mind, which I assumed he was quite capable of doing—how difficult was that to do in comparison to turning up my wattage--he assured me, just as I was about to dissolve into despair, “Do not be discouraged by my analysis. All of these things I have seen before and been trained to observe.” At that he nodded toward a photograph of his mentor, Wilhelm Reich, adding, “And cure.”

I began to breathe again. I sensed perhaps in more depth. Could it possibly be that I was already making progress? “We have time to deal with all of this. In fact, I have had a cancellation for tomorrow so please return here to me then. And after that we will still have one more time together. I know just what to do to you.”

I shuttered at the to do to you.

“And you can now please pull up your trousers.”

* * *

Back at the College Residence Hotel I immediately called Lydia who was in her dorm room at Barnard. To report to her as she had instructed me to do.

“He wants to see me again tomorrow.” I thought it wise not to initiate anything about what Dr. Luven had said about my handshake or shamble. This was consistent with what Lydia typically told me after her sessions with Dr. Luven—she shared nothing. Whenever I asked what happened with Dr. Luven, she cut me right off, saying what goes on between a psychiatrist and client was confidential.

But in spite of this, she probed, “So what did he say is wrong with you?”

“Well, you know, that’s supposed to remain between just Dr. Luven and me.”

“Look, we know why you’re seeing him. We both understand what’s wrong with you. But I also need to hear what he said so I can know what to expect from you. I don’t plan on waiting forever. You know very well what this is about. So enough with the playing coy. I don’t have all night. I have a paper due tomorrow.”

“I’m not sure Lyd that I should be telling you anything. Won’t it interfere with my treatment? I mean, it’s pretty private stuff.”

“OK,” she said, she would have none of my evasions, “So he had you take off your clothes. What’s the big deal with that? It’s the only way he can do his analysis. He always works with me in my underwear. Or naked.” I tried to block that image from my mind. “So what did he say about your breathing? I’ve always thought that was at the center of your problem. In fact, that’s what my paper’s about—somatic blockages. In your case, I’m sure that’s where the primary impediment is. He needs to break that down.”

At the thought of his breaking that down, and that Lydia might be writing about my diaphragm, I felt my breathing begin to regress back toward shallowness. I needed to tell her something so I said, “I like his office. It’s very interesting. Everything’s leather. And like you said there are all those statues. He’s so short and has all that hair.”

“Just as I imagined,” she shot back, “Now I also have to deal with avoidance. Here I am trying to save our relationship and all you can talk about are his eyebrows. Pathetic.” I didn’t respond, but she added with a dismissive sigh, “I have to go. I need to get back to work.”

I obviously needed to say more. “Wait. He also told me that he can help me. Cure me.” I heard her snort.

“I’ve been going to Arthur for five years and you think he can ‘cure’ you in just three sessions?” I could hear her laughing and muttering something to her roommate Helga. Helga had her own psychiatrist, not an Orgonomist but a Cognitive therapist; and though they had long fights about psychoanalytic theory, they were obviously now united in their amusement at my situation. “I can’t wait to hear what happens tomorrow,” she continued, more I sensed for Helga’s pleasure than out of any concern for me. “Maybe he’ll put you in his Orgone Box and bake you a little.” At that, in the background, Helga shrieked. And Lydia hung up.

Shaken by what appeared to be Lydia’s lack of understanding, I lay on my bed and fretted while watching the last light from the other side of the Hudson migrate across the opposite wall. And from next door, bleeding through that wall, I heard Luis Rodriquez playing cords on his guitar. And beginning to sing, as plaintively as was my mood—

Tu amor, tu inmenso amor me llena de alegria
Tu amor, tu inmenso amor es mas que compania

It took me some time but eventually I concluded that I deserved more than understanding from Lydia—it was not unreasonable to even expect a little sympathy. What I was going through, was being compelled to go through, was not easy for me. More than anyone else, Lydia should realize how difficult it was for me to be so exposed. With Dr. Luven, or Arthur, to be so literally exposed. To be forced to stand there half-naked, maybe next time like Lydia fully naked, while he dissected me with his eyes. That’s what it felt like—like being cut open.

OK, she was a dancer and being examined that way was familiar to her. But I was never comfortable talking showers in locker rooms. I thus thought, screw it, I’m not going back there tomorrow! Even if it means Lydia calling off the wedding. I would find a way to explain it to my parents—not about Dr. Luven of course, I was paying him with my own money. And while I was at it I would slip into the conversation that I wasn’t going to medical school. I’d get it all over with at once—no wedding, no becoming a doctor.

But just as I was becoming comfortable with my decision to end things, remembrances of naked Lydia flooded my mind. Not the Lydia in Dr. Luven’s chambers, but rather with me, right here in this room and, from earlier, under those balsam trees, in the moonlight, beside Saranac Lake. Though I had been failing to get her fully “there,” we had come close a few times.

Luis continued to sing about amor, as if he felt the turmoil just next door—

Tu amor, tu fiel amor es siempre a mi lado
Tu amor es mas que amor, tu amor es un mila

Lydia had always wanted to be with me, pushed me to keep trying to satisfy her and with that came to find me interesting and amusing. She believed in my prospects, in fact she had encouraged me to give up on the medicine fantasy, more my parents’ than mine, and to pursue my more substantial interest in literature. My passion, she called it. “Follow your passion,” she had counseled.

And Lydia had been my first fully physical lover, even more so than my German baroness, Sigrid from my sophomore year—Lydia had given herself to me with total, unquestioning abandon and had brought me into her suburban world of comfort and certainty and her city world of art and culture. Both places I longed to inhabit. And thus I wanted to do better, to find a way to make things work and get married, even at City Hall if it came to that.

So I vowed to return to Arthur’s office the next day; and if he required it, take off all my clothes and, if necessary, even climb into the Orgone Box! Whatever that was.

Tu amor es mas que amor . . . Luis whispered.

* * *

To be continued . . . .