October 14, 2006--Saturday Story: I Married Lydia--Part Four

In Part Three, Lloyd Zazlo had the second of his three sessions with the eminent Orgonomist, Dr. Arthur Luven. As Lloyd’s fiancé Lydia had intimated, Dr. Luven promptly wheeled out the Orgone Energy Accumulator; and, after presenting a brief lesson on Wilhelm Reich’s theories about Orgone Energy and the orgasm itself, he had Lloyd take off all his clothes before helping to stuff him into the undersized Box. Telling Lloyd that though he would find it to be pitch black in there, if all the forces were in alignment, he might have the ecstatic experience of spotting blue light from the Orgone Energy that permeates the cosmos. And ecstatic it was because, in addition to seeing the light and hearing the Music of the Spheres, Lloyd experienced a remarkable tumescence, one that found immediate release once he stepped back into the blinding light of the doctor’s chambers. He could not wait to report to Lydia, actually to provide her with a demonstration; but she was otherwise occupied writing her Psych paper and had her roommate Helga debrief Lloyd and take notes of his experiences since she planned to incorporate them in her own research.

Thus, in Part Four, we encounter Lloyd once again with Dr. Luven and . . . .

The following Tuesday I found myself back in Dr. Luven’s waiting room, excitedly anticipating my third and final session. I was hoping there would be enough time to talk with him about the many things I had been thinking about since last week. From all that had happened, I could barely sleep and had not been able to concentrate on my classes. In addition, I was especially pent up and frustrated since Lydia had refused to see me before I had completed all three sessions, saying, “Before I let you see me, much less touch me, you need to complete your side of the bargain.” So there I was waiting to complete it.

Thus when Dr. Luven ushered me into his office, after first checking to see that the Orgone Accumulator was back behind its curtain, even before taking my place on the stool, I blurted out, “Dr. Luven, last week was amazing.” I paced around the room without looking at him, as if talking to myself, “After what occurred here, especially in the Accumulator and then in your office, well first of all I am embarrassed by that and what I did to you and want to apologize; but then when I went back to my room, and though I tried to talk with my fiancé, you know Lydia, and even show her what happened, Helga, her roommate told me she was busy writing a paper about Orgonomy and wanted to include in it everything that happened to me; and though I knew I wasn’t supposed to talk about that or anything else that goes on between you and me, I was so excited that I couldn’t restrain myself, though I know I should have; still I told Helga, do you know about her from Lydia, she’s a Neo-Freudian, but in spite of that I told her everything on the telephone even with her boyfriend listening on the extension; I supposed it was OK to do that since he’s a pre-med too and will be studying to be a shrink, I mean a psychiatrist, at NYU; and even with him there I told Helga about what I experienced and she took notes and told me that Lydia was going to use them in her paper; but in spite of that, I need to be honest with you, I didn’t care because I feel certain now, after just two sessions with you, based on what happened last week, that when I see Lydia again, I’ll be able to get her there--‘there’ is how she describes it; you of course know what I mean since that’s what your practice and your whole life are all about—getting there, and that she’ll then agree to get married; and so I don’t know how to thank you enough for all that you did for me; and . . . .”

“Sit down right there,” Dr. Luven interrupted, cutting me off and pointing at the stool. I was taken aback by how stern he sounded after all the good news I was sharing with him! “Some good things did happen last week, that I will grant you,” he said, “but there is much, much more to accomplish; and we have very little time left to us. I do not want to waste any of it by having to listen to any more of what you have to report. Frankly, it is not helpful. Not helpful at all. Actually, quite the contrary. Bioenergetics is not about talking—I leave that to the Freudians,” he sneered, “including the so-called ‘neo’-version. Here we work on the mind through the body.” Feeling chastised, I began to deflate and slumped on the stool, self-conscious that my posture might be regressing into its former question-mark configuration.

“I do not believe in or work miracles” he continued, “in spite of what some would say about me, but I do believe in hard work. Relentless hard word.” He paused very briefly and said, sounding very clinical, “Now, please again, take off your clothes. But you can this time keep on your briefs. I need to look at your body as we do our work. And I do not want a replay or what happened the other day.” I thought I saw the inkling of a smile, which eased my sense of upset; but he quickly suppressed it when he noticed that I had detected it.

I did as I was directed, this time stacking my clothing on a side table since Dr. Luven emphatically told me not to put them on the bed.
“Stand over there, close to the light.” I did as he said and moved to the corner of the room where I took my place by the standing lamp near the cot. He put on his glasses, huge black-rimmed bifocals, which magnified his gleaming black eyes. “Good. Right there.” He approached me and stood about a yard away. The top of his electrically-charged head reaching to no higher than my rib cage. I was near the shuttered window, but it still let in a draft and I began to shiver. “You recall how I told you from my initial examination of the blockages in your body that there was evidence of your being cut off from many of man’s most basic feelings?” I began my familiar nodding, in part to generate some body heat. “Good. Happiness and sadness, joy and love, anger and of course sensuality, yes? You remember?” I did and so indicated.

“Last week we began to deal with sensuality, with some promising outcomes—about which you appear to be very pleased with yourself.” I shook my head as if to contradict him. But he ignored me and said, “Today we will commence an even more difficult task—the release of anger.”

He sensed that I seemed puzzled by that, as if I had said, “But that’s not why I am here, is it? I thought it was to release my Orgastic Potency and that I had made a pretty good down payment on that last week? Why then are we talking about anger?” Of course I said nothing.

He moved even closer to me. So near that I could feel his breath warming my chest. He tipped the lampshade so that more light poured onto my upper body, and without so much of a warning with his hands he began to explore my torso. First he inserted them into my armpits; and as I attempted not to squirm, he palpated what I assumed from my pre-med studies were my lymph nodes; then raising his hands to my shoulders, he ran them down the length of my arms, pausing at seemingly significant intervals to squeeze them, kneading my bi- and triceps as if searching within for knots or evidence of what I imagined to be blockages.

When satisfied that he had detected whatever it was that he was seeking, he slid his hands toward the center of my chest, working them, when they met, one atop the other, down the length of my sternum, thumping here and there not unlike what my childhood pediatrician had done whenever I contracted the croup. He was, though, unlike my childhood doctor, not interested in whatever the echoes from my lungs might reveal about infections lurking there, but rather, I suspected, was probing for places where the physical manifestations of tension might reside.

And when he arrived at the base of my rib cage, at the site of my tenth rib, just above my floating ribs, in Latin, the costae spuriae, the false or spurious tenth rib, behind which my diaphragm was sheltered, at that most critical of orgonomic locations, where I knew from both Dr. Luven and Lydia the most powerful blockages were often hidden, there he truly went to work.

His powerful yet nimble fingers rapidly explored every centimeter of my belly, moving first in tight circles from side to side across my quivering flesh, pressing in here and there. Then he crisscrossed my stomach in a pattern of long diagonals that bisected my abdomen, which if he had left tracks might later have revealed that they had inscribed there the shape of the mystical pentagon. But about that, since there was no lingering evidence, I of course could not be certain.

He next worked his fingers well up under my ribs, as if seeking to grab hold of the diaphragm itself in order to, with his own hands, feel and measure its rhythmic expansion and contraction--to assess the quality of my inhales and exhales. This was so excruciatingly painful that, try as I did, I could not stifle a scream; and to control the bolts of pain that rocketed through my body, I stood as high up on my toes as possible without toppling over, hoping that perhaps that would alleviate the pain or minimally signal him to relent. But he pressed on, plunging in even deeper among my organs; and to calm me, said, “We are almost there. This is very good, very helpful. You will see. It is painful, yes, but soon you will appreciate all that I am doing for you.”

All I could think as I gasped for breath and while perspiration engulfed me was that the best way he could help me would be to leave me alone, let me get dressed, send me on my way, declaring me cured. Or, if not cured, at least as having fulfilled my obligations to Lydia.

But just as I was about to pass out from a combination of hyperventilation and agony, with one hand he reached into the pocket of his tee shirt and took from it what looked like a marking pen. He put the capped end in his mouth, bit into it, and pulled it open, all the while moving closer to me and holding onto to my lowest rib with his other hand. He spit out the cap and it rattled across the floor. “Here,” he said, “right here. This is what I have been searching for.” And with the marking pen, he drew a two-inch long black ellipse right beneath where he was still clamped on to me. “This is the site we will attack today. As if we are an invading army. Right there,” he jabbed his index finger into the demarked enemy territory, “Where much of your pent-up anger resides.”

I yowled like an alley cat, which startling him, causing him to twitch reflexively and thereby at last release me. I stumbled backwards and fell onto the cot, panting. “Good,” he said, “sit there for a moment.” I was dying and he considered this “good”? “We need to talk for a few moments.” I was soaking wet and gulping for air, remembering that just a short time ago he had mockingly said that he didn’t believe in talking, just “working.” I was quickly losing my remaining respect for him, for the “Great Man,” but was happy to have his hands off of me. Every minute of talk would bring us closer to 3:40 when this final session would thankfully end.

“I have found much of your accumulated anger, hiding there, right there,” he jabbed me again, staining his finger in the still-drying ink that was running down into my navel along with the pooling sweat. “The body is a remarkable thing,” he said in a dramatic hush, “both in its power and beauty yet also in its capacity to deceive and destroy. One part divine; another fallible and, yes, sadly at times depraved. It allows us to experience the ecstatic and to transcend, while at the same time endlessly reminding us of our baser nature. It is all written there, across your body.” I covered myself with my arms concerned that he would continue to scrawl all over me with his marking pen.

“We will now proceed to do battle with that deceiving part, right there!” He attempted to jab me for the third time but I was ready for him this time and contracted myself, armadillo-like, into a defensive ball. Seeing that, he roared with laughter, “You see, you see! How the body cringes to protect its defenses. To hide its infamy. But we will overcome that!” Pleased with himself, with his self-proclaimed intrepidness, he clapped his hands together with such force that they emitted a thunderous sound so violent that it rocked me back on my haunches.

“And so we begin,” he sang out as he sprang toward me with his eyes ablaze.

I pushed myself across the bed so quickly and forcefully that I slammed into the wall. The leather absorbed much of the impact. I pulled my legs up to my chest to protect myself from further assault and said, with more vigor than I imagined myself capable, “Begin what, Dr. Luven?”

This startled him, freezing him in mid-leap. “To of course unblock the anger,” he responded and added in a quizzical tone. “Isn’t that what we have been discussing?”

“That’s what you have been talking about. Not me. There has been no discussion.” Where was this resistance to him coming from I wondered? Was it because I was beginning to find his theories and methods suspect, was it coming from the pain that still wracked my innards, or was it again the product, as he would probably say, of more “avoidance”?

But whatever its source, I pressed on, continuing to surprise myself, “In fact,” I asserted indignantly, “I’m not angry about anything. At least not angry in the way you talk about it.” He stood there looking at me skeptically, not saying a word, waiting, as shrinks always do, for me to tangle myself up. Which I proceeded to do.

“Yes, there are some things that annoy and bother me. But they are little things, really small things like my parents always pressuring me about my grades or telling me which of my friends they dislike or Lydia only wanting to visit them once a month, which also upsets them. That bothers me I’ll admit, but it doesn’t make me angry,” I almost sneered, “not angry by your definition.” He continued to stand there, silent and smiling, staring at me with his arms folded across his chest. “So I don’t see why you keep saying that I’m all knotted up with anger and that suppressed rage is at the heart of my problem. My problem, again to be honest with you, has been to get Lydia to be satisfied. And after what happened to me here last week I’m convinced I can do it; and . . .”

Again, he cut me off before I could finish my thought and said, gentler than I would have imagined considering the circumstances, “As much as I would prefer not to, it is usually unnecessary, it does look as if we do have to spend some more time talking. But that is all right,” he looked at his watch, “We have that time.” He turned away from me to roll the stool over to the bed. He sat down on it and leaned toward me. I remained pressed against the wall with my legs still in their defensive position. He smiled softly, “Occasionally even Reich had to talk.”

I didn’t say a word, suspecting that as with all therapists he would wait me out. I was determined to say nothing. The clock was ticking and in only twenty-five more minutes the session would be over and I would be free of him. But, unexpectedly, he began, “The diaphragm, as you know from your studies, is controlled by the Phrenic Nerve, yes?” I did not nod but he continued without pause, “What little we know of the etymology of phrenic is quite revealing. It is from the Greek and means both heart and mind. From a time when the heart was thought to be the source of both thought and feeling. Though today we know better, this concept, this intuition of the ancient Greeks is still important. It, as you know,” he was I felt certain manipulating me by including me in this way, by pretending that I was not just a pathetic patient of his but a peer, perhaps even an emerging medical colleague. Though tempted to be thus seduced, I managed to resist and simply stared back at him, not averting my eyes, knowing that psychotherapists read signs of weakness or strength, and I was attempting to radiate the latter, from body language such as one’s ability to unwaveringly hold a gaze.

“As you know,” he continued, easily maintaining my gaze, “the Western tradition that the mind and body are separate entities, or biological functions has been successfully challenged by not just Reich and his students.” He knew I would know that he was here making reference to himself. I did not however give any signs of acknowledgement while holding my breath, knowing there were only about twenty minutes to go.
“There have been many experiments, again not just by Wilhelm, yes, that show the inseparability of consciousness, physiology, thought, and emotion. That they are in fact one. There is more and more evidence of this kind, no, from the latest studies of the brain.” He tapped his prefrontal lobes, the neurological source for human motivation, which I was drawing upon with all my will, so much so that I could almost feel my synapses sparking!

I knew he was right about that and suspected that I probably did give some subtle sign that I was about to begin to nod back at him. I do think, though, that I must have successfully intercepted that because he modified his tone still further in reaction to my own lack of responsiveness.

If at the time I had been in more control of my own raging emotions, I would feel more secure now in saying that he, incredibly, seemed to began to beseech me, “We have spend intimate time together, haven’t we Lloyd?” I didn’t move. “Last week, at our last session, as you were saying earlier, something remarkable happened. Am I quoting you correctly?” At that I broke down and gave him one full shake of my head.

“If that is true,” he leaned further forward to peer even more deeply at me, “and if from that and from your own studies you know of this mind-body continuum, and from your experience in the Accumulator where you reported that you did see the Energy, yes, though you were not certain of its color . . . ”

“It might have been blue,” I blurted out. “As I told you, I’m color blind.” What was I doing, engaging him, after all my, until-then, hard won restraint?

“Yes, you did tell me. I of course remember.” He reached out and, though I twitched reflexively,so took my hand in his, “So what would be wrong about trusting me again? We have very little time left,” he glanced again at his watch, “Maybe no more than twenty minutes.” According to the clock on his desk it looked to me more like maybe seventeen minutes. He ended sessions very promptly, even in mid-sentence. I had been counting on that. “Although my next patient cancelled so if we need it we can have more time today.” At that I inhaled so much saliva that I began to cough and choke.

“Let me get you some water,” he said, jumping up. Which he did, from a pitcher also on his desk. He stood by the bed and, for the first time, in spite of his size, since I was slumped on it, he towered over me.

“Thank you,” I said, “I’m feeling better now; but I can’t stay longer. I have a make-up Organic Chemistry lab I have to complete.”

“I understand; you told me you haven’t been able to study since our last session.” I was surprised by that as well—that he had remembered. “But before you begin to get dressed let me make one last appeal to you. I want to show you before you go, to demonstrate to you, and also to do some more work with you, I want you to see and feel, especially feel, even more of this somatic connection to our emotional life. OK?”

I looked up at him, I suppose now in a way that indicated I would grant that appeal. He had, after all, been careful to say “our” and not “your” emotional life. “So please, again stand up. I suspect the pain from the examination has subsided?” It had. “Good,” he said as I uncoiled and got to my feet, though resuming my shivering. “Please now, turn to the bed.” I did. “And on it you will find that old tennis racket.” I had in fact been sitting on it. “Please pick it up.” Again, as previously, I did as instructed; there could not be more than ten minutes left so I did not feel I had again only succumbed to his spell—I was simply going along with him, counting down the time.

“Not that way, you will not be playing tennis,” though my back was to him, I felt certain he smiled at that, “So hold it in both hands,” which I did. “Ach, yes, like that.” I couldn’t begin to imagine what would be next.

“And now, it is very simple, I want you to use the racket to strike the bed.”

“To what?” I asked, twisting to look back at him.

“Just to hit the bed with it. Nothing more.”

“Once?”

“Initially, yes. To see how you do. To see what you might feel.”

So I did as he instructed, raising the racket to just above my head and swinging it down toward the cot where it thumped against the mattress.

“Excellent. Did you feel anything?”

“Nothing really. What should I be feeling?”
Not answering, he said, “Once more then. This time please do it more powerfully.”

Which I did, giving the bed a good slam. So much so that I felt the force of the percussion jolt up my arms, into my shoulders, and from there down to my chest.

“If you can, I now want you to do that three consecutive times, each time with more force, all right?”

Without further encouragement I began, not knowing what had gotten into me, to beat the bed ferociously. By the third swing I was gasping for breath because the cot’s resistance made this hard work. I was sweating again.

“Finally,” he said, with a hint of excitement “since we are almost there,” I noted that reference to there, “we can end after you do it six more times, with each stroke just as hard of the last one. You will do this for me please?”

“Yes,” I panted without hesitation. And even before recovering from the previous three swings, I attacked that bed with such fury that I thought I would shred its threadbare mattress. But this did not stop me because whatever force I was imparting to the bed was being transmitted right back up into my body with such a reciprocally equal-and-opposite reaction, a living demonstration right out my study of mechanics in Physics, that by only the second strike the pulses moving through my body, and there is no other way to adequately describe this, had moved to the very center of my being, attacking it with such precision that all feeling became focused right there at the site of the oval Dr. Luven had inked on my diaphragm!

And by the seventh or eight stroke, I was so captured, actually intoxicated by what I was doing that I raced right passed what should have been the sixth and conclusive swing, the one that would have released me forever from Dr, Luven’s care, that I lost count and totally gave myself over to battering the bed.

Between the explosive percussion of the racket on the mattress, I thought I heard him in the background humming to himself. It sounded like something from a Schubert string quartet I had heard in my sophomore Music Appreciation class. But I could not be sure because I was deafened by the blood pounding in my ears.

In spite of the thunder in my head, did I somehow still manage to hear Dr. Luven ask, “What about your parents? Is there anything about them that makes you feel anger?” Or was I imagining that?

And did I scream as I struck the bed with enough force to rock me back onto my bare heels, “I hate it when they make me feel I am their possession. When they tell me that they are living their lives for me.” Slam. “When they list all the things they have denied themselves so that I can have a different life, a life unlike theirs. I hate them when they then make me feel guilty about this. Telling me when I do well it is because of all they have done for me. All that they have sacrificed for me.” Slam.

“Good,” I might have heard Dr. Luven say. And did he then ask, “And what about Lydia?"

I did at this, even if imagined, smash the cot so hard that the mattress exploded into a shower of ticking. I hardly paused to notice. “I hate her too with her ‘getting there’ and her perfect orgasm! The last time she made me fuck her so hard that my cock bled.” Slam. “And of course she didn’t come, that frigid cunt. And she was so mad at me. At me!" Slam. “That she wouldn’t talk to me for a week. To me!" Slam. “Me, with my bloody cock!” Slam.

“I think that is enough,” Dr. Luven, I am sure, said. “You now know, you have demonstrated, above all you now feel the lessons, the truth of Bioenergetics.”

But I kept hammering the bed with the racket. I couldn’t care less about Bioenergetics or Orgone Energy or Reich or Luven for that matter. I continued to flail away, screaming, “Shit! Shit! Shit!” The mattress was in shreds. I was ironically getting there!

“You need to stop now, Lloyd,” he insisted, “You have completed your work.” From his tone I felt understanding and, was it present, love. I, though, kept striking the bed, but with lessening intensity.

But when he added, “Your time is up. The session is over. You have to leave,” he was now sounding very different. He was again being his former clinical self. How could he, I thought, after all we had gone through together? After the gentle talk; the seeming compassion; the perceived colleagueship; and, yes, the touching—there had been that too.
In that instant I realized I had, out of weakness and self-deception, misattributed his behavior. I had been taken in, duped by his well-honed analytical techniques, mistaking them for concern and affection because of my insecurity and self doubts. I had succumbed to the tricks of his trade that were so craftily designed to take advantage of someone so insatiably needy. Someone just like me.

Though I was disgusted, more with myself than with him, I still allowed him to embrace me when he moved to take hold of me. Because it seemed, I hoped, that he wanted to restrain as well as cradle me. From this, for at least that moment, it appeared that perhaps my suspicions about him might have been ill-founded—maybe he did in fact care about me, that he was being compassionate because of what I had suffered.
And so, as he held me, I ceased striking the bed and, taking advantage of being in his arms, sobbed uncontrollably, watching as my tears dripped down onto his tangled hair.

He, though, quickly untangled himself from my wet clutches and handed me my clothing. Embarrassed now by the nakedness of my body and by the flow of emotions that were so evidently somatically connected to it, proving all of his theories, I hastily pulled them on and, without looking at him again, ever again, turned to leave.

“Wait,” he said to my back, “There is one more thing.” I didn’t move; I just stood there facing the door. “Should I mail my bill to your dormitory or to your parents’ apartment in Brooklyn?”

Without looking back at him, I shouted, with considerable earthly energy, “Go fuck yourself!” And slammed the door so hard that, in spite of its padding, I heard what I was certain was the glass-covered picture of Wilhelm Reich shattering on the floor.

* * *
To be concluded next Saturday . . . .