The Seducers

by Martin Shepard

  He responded with a low moan.

  Ludicrous, that’s what it was. Lying here on a leather couch, sensing her skin sticking to the upholstery, being fucked by an older married man, paying for this service, and feeling nothing. Thoughts of sitting in a taxi caught in a traffic jam, watching the meter tick, tick, tick, and going absolutely nowhere.

  A glance at his desk told her there were only fifteen minutes left of her final Wednesday of the summer. Clichés poured into her mind. “Last chance to beat the other couple.…” “Three strikes and you’re out,” and again self-derogation for permitting the banal to emerge. Yet it was her third and last attempt—at least for a month—for Analytic August was upon them; that time of year when therapists took vacations and symptoms were forced to behave themselves.

  Arlene tried to focus. “Get out of your anticipations and into the present,” Jonas once advised. “That’s the prescription for sexual satisfaction.”

  Okay. Her back was on the couch, her pelvis thrust forward, her legs wrapped loosely about his waist, her right hand absently stroking his back, her left arm lying limply to her side. His head was tucked between her neck and shoulder, his weight supported by his arms and elbows, his hips rising and falling in a soft, undulating pattern. The stubble on his cheek felt like sandpaper against her chin.

  Her respirations were regular now, by an act of will. His seemed effortless as she listened to the short inspirations and longer, sighing expirations that changed in intensity according to his level of arousal which, in fact, depended on her own activities. When she breathed heavily, grabbed him tightly, or rolled her hips, he would moan, sigh, shudder. If she went limp he regained composure.

  A puppeteer, that’s what she was, working the strings of this marionette. Tighten her thighs and he groans and intensifies the pace. Loosen them and he slows down. She played with that for a while, experimenting with the invisible cords that ran from her legs and her fingers directly to his hips. The sense of power was enjoyable. Then another thought occurred. If she moved too passionately he would spend himself, and where would that leave her?

  Frightening herself, she locked him, momentarily, deep inside her. Then, embarrassed at this display of strength, she released her four-limbed grip as other images formed. She was a black widow spider toying with her doomed mate, an Amazon besting some puny male, a whore plying her trade, a patient back on her analyst’s couch.

  So much for getting into the moment. It had led her full circle into nothingness. She was lying with a strange creature, knew that an empty space within her body was being filled by him, and yet felt empty. Conjugation without contact. Space ships docking in the lifeless void.

  Despair seized her and she cried a tearful “Noooo.” Jonas froze.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, concern in his voice. “Did I hurt you?”

  “No. I’m all right,” she answered, her voice quivering.

  “Do you want to stop?”

  “No. No. Musn’t stop,” she sobbed.

  He returned to his work, moving even more gently than before.

  His gentleness was appealing at first but became increasingly bothersome. If he hadn’t a gentle spirit she would never have considered sleeping with him. Were physical gentleness absent, she’d not have come back for more. Their first mating was important. No doubt on that score. It taught her that pain was not a consequence of a man’s lust. But where was the great pleasure? It wasn’t in their second session of lovemaking. That proved a disappointment, for nothing new came of it. Where was the melting? Where were the pealing bells? Where were the rockets that were supposed to go off?

  It was, instead, simply a rerun. Like watching Gone With the Wind on “The Late Show” after seeing it the week before in a theater. Except that the predictability of sight, sound, mood and scenario could not induce dreamy stupefaction, for the television set was in someone else’s home. She couldn’t just drift into a sleepy, timeless reverie, for at the appointed hour she had to dress and leave.

  Here she was again and here, again, was the gentle Jonas. Being so tender, treating her like fragile tissue, trying not to cause any pain. No! She was not an eggshell. She locked her arms tightly around his neck, took a deep breath and slammed her hips forward just as he was coming down. The pain from her bruise was eclipsed by the shock of his pubis meeting hers; by the sudden distension of her insides as his blunt, hard member filled her. She winced but tightened her grip, swung her hips back, and again crashed them into him. It was back to the starting point; to the same pains she felt when ravished as a child. Only now, she was in control.

  “Easy,” he whispered. “Relax. Gentle.”

  To hell with gentle. Gentle meant a motion she could barely feel. Gentle meant anesthesia. Better pain than nothingness. He had cured her of her fearfulness with gentle but introduced her to frigidity.

  Jonas struggled to get free. He could not quite understand what was happening, tried to break the iron grip she had around his neck and about his waist.

  “I don’t want to hurt you,” he said.

  His words ricocheted through her mind. Was he kind or hollow? An actor or did he really care? How could she reconcile his softness with his detachment? In the office, talk, off with the clothes, exit, next patient. What sincerity could there be amidst such sterile scheduling?

  She bit his shoulder.

  Jonas yowled and tried to pull away, but her clenched teeth would not part. He squeezed her lower lip and yanked it down, pulled up and noticed the blood trickling over his arm.

  “What is it you want?”

  In answer she grabbed his hair and drew his head toward hers, forced her tongue into the furthest recesses of his mouth, and twisted sidewise. The rider was about to be ridden.

  He could not get free nor could he play easy. Their loving embrace was transformed into a battle. Two Greco-Roman wrestlers, glistening in sweat, locked in one another’s grasp.

  Arlene’s soft silence gave way to grunts and cries as she forced herself upon him. Then he finally got the message. With a surge of power he broke the brunt of her assault and pounded into her, matching her thrusts with equal power and equal ferocity until their rhythms were in forceful harmony.

  And then there was that incredible moment. At the point of friction a small wave started inside her and moved outward. Then another, radiating throughout her body. Gone was imagery. Thought was losing out to sensation. Her body tingled. Swaying, pumping movements of grace and power beyond her control overwhelmed her, crystallizing into a final heaving convulsion, a piercing wail, and a melting beyond description.

  Satisfied as never before, she lay there in a languorous haze. “Feline” was the first word to come back to her. Where were the knotted ropes that ran through her body? Where tensions normally were, silken threads appeared. How could Jonas get up so quickly? Would she ever be able to stand again? Sinew and bone seemed replaced by cotton. But as full consciousness returned she was aware that her hour was over.

  He was fully dressed before she even moved. Weak-kneed, she left the couch and walked uncertainly toward the chair where her clothes lay.

  “That one was on the house,” Jonas said as she stepped into her pants.

  “Never,” she countered, turning to face him. “I insist on professionalism.” The sly smile on his face was matched by one of her own. “Best session a girl ever had. Score another point for realness.”

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself.”

  Keeping it on a professional level suited her perfectly. It served to compartmentalize her affection; keep her from weaving dangerous dreams of an involvement that was beyond her reach.

  She smoothed her blouse, slipped into her sandals, gathered her purse and walked toward the door.

  “Until September,” she said, giving him a brief embrace.

  “Have a good summer,” Jonas answered. Then, with a wink, “To realness.…”

  She left the room feeling incredibly giddy. The circumstances preceding orgasm were
beyond predictability. The awareness of her strength and power pleased her but the pain she courted and the unexpected resentfulness toward Jonas was disturbing. Little matter. Her skin glowed.

  There was a last look back at the familiar trappings in the dimly lit corridor, a smooth turning of the front doorknob, and a shocking, eye-squinting blaze of light as she stepped out onto the sun-splashed street.

  8

  Harry Jacobs, a zipper manufacturer, was a first-class bore. He was overweight, middle-aged, chronically unhappy, supremely wealthy, and convinced that psychoanalysis could transform his personality. Jonas had his doubts and told Harry, at their first meeting, not to expect too much. After seven months of daily sessions, Jonas’ reservations seemed justified. He could see no movement in the case, only laments.

  Every weekday, for fifty minutes, Harry would complain about the lack of compassion that existed in the world. Neither his wife, mistress, children, employees, nor customers appreciated him. Each, in their own ways, pressured him, made demands, grew angry, were ungrateful, or provoked his guilt.

  Once, three months into therapy, after finishing one of his woebegone tales, he asked, “Why do I stand for it?”

  “Why do you stand for it?” Jonas reflected, hoping to mobilize his patient’s assertiveness.

  “You sure ask the important questions.” Harry was appreciative since he rarely listened to his own ruminations. “I must be a first class schlemiel.”

  “If you’re such a schlemiel, how did you ever become so successful in business?” Jonas continued, determined to interrupt Harry’s negativity.

  “Me? A success? Didn’t I tell you? Sure I have money, but the business was started by my father-in-law. When he died, he left it to my wife. And that’s another problem. Let me tell you.…

  “Inge keeps telling me, ‘I’m getting tired of waiting for you, Harry. I’m not getting any younger and I want something more than a cheap affair. If you don’t leave Zelda soon, I’m not going to see you any more.’ Now I love Inge. But if I leave, do you actually think Zelda would let me keep even a part of the business? Never! And after ten years of running the company, too. That’s gratitude for you.”

  Since that day, Jonas had stopped listening. It would be easier to turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse than stimulate self-respectful attitudes in Harry Jacobs.

  Yesterday, he asked Harry what he wished to do this fall. Did he want to continue coming as frequently or had he considered fewer appointments? The suggestion was formed as a question, for Jonas believed that more directness would be interpreted by Harry as still another rebuff. Which it was.

  “Cut down? Why would I want to do that?” Harry answered. “I think these meetings are helping me a lot.”

  “How?” Jonas asked. “Your complaints seem repetitive, unrelieved, and circular.”

  “See? You really do understand me.” Harry’s eyes lit up. “Also, I get a lot off my chest. Psychoanalysis, for my money, is the greatest.”

  “Psychoanalysis or Lamentation Therapy?” Jonas muttered, allowing himself a rare display of sarcasm. But it was all right. Harry hadn’t even noticed the remark as he was already starting another chapter in the saga of How Those I Love Abuse Me.

  Inwardly, Jonas groaned. The agony of being a captive audience was not worth his $250 weekly fee. Still, he was a doctor, not God. It was his job to be available. Perhaps something useful would result from the Zipper King’s grievances. Trained as he was to cure methodically—using theory, thought, technique, and timing—his practical experiences made him respect healing that came about in spite of the four ts. Ignorance, accident, anarchy and spontaneity also had their place. How else could he account for Arlene’s remarkable breakthrough this morning?

  Today, even Harry was welcome, for his visit would allow Jonas ample time to recover from the preceding session.

  “You sure picked a lousy time for a vacation,” Harry began. “First Inge goes off to Stuttgart for three weeks to see her family. Then Zelda decides to visit our daughter—the hippie in Colorado. And now you disappear. Then.…”

  Like a cagey prizefighter who knows how to survive a bombardment, Jonas’ head bobbed, weaved, and nodded on cue. An automatic “go on,” “uh-huh,” “oh?” and “what do you think?” were flicked out with perfect timing and pin-point accuracy while he relived the prior hour’s intimacy.

  Sex had always been associated with love in Jonas’ mind. And with Phoebe; the only woman he’d ever slept with before this professional involvement. Love was just as ineluctably linked to tenderness. His mating with Arlene violated these associations.

  It reminded him of the time last summer, when Anne and Ned Kauffman invited Phoebe and him over to see some pornographic films. One was about a simulated rape, and began with a housewife serving her husband breakfast. Smiling sweetly as he gives her a light kiss on the cheek, she starts to clean while he leaves for work. As she stands at the sink in her negligee, fondly rinsing his coffee cup, a masked intruder bursts into the room. Over her protests, he pulls her into the bedroom, throws her on the bed, and enters her with great roughness.

  The victim, passive and fearful, begins to fight back after being impaled on the rapist’s prick. Her slaps, scratches and shoves, frenzied initially, soon take on a rhythmic quality. At the end of the movie she is once more in the kitchen, lovingly preparing lunch for her erstwhile attacker.

  “Male chauvinist tripe,” Anne Kauffman exclaimed after the picture ended. “How any woman could respond to such mauling is beyond me,” a critique with which Phoebe agreed.

  “Of course, if she were a masochist.…” Ned grinned, using the jargon. Then, pedantically, “Naturally you’ve got to be wary of that sort. They can easily turn it around. Kardiner and Alexander both wrote papers on role-reversal in which the masochist suddenly turns sadist and.…”

  There was a point, some important point to be grasped from this association, but it escaped him, for Harry interrupted.

  “So was I right or wrong? What do you think?”

  “What do you think I think?” Jonas improvised.

  “Ah. Good. Well, the way I see it, I think you.…” and he was launched afresh.

  Masochism. Another paradox. A slave grovels at his master’s feet.

  “Hit me,” the sufferer pleads.

  “Never,” insists the sadist, tucking his whip back into his belt.

  Sometimes, he mused, thinking of Arlene, granting pain is the most loving act one can perform. Jonas considered writing that line down, chuckled, next, at his vanity, and heard Harry ask:

  “Do you think I love her?”

  “Do you love her?”

  “Boy. That’s a tough one. Sometimes I do but.…”

  Love. The most misunderstood and abused term he could think of. A concept incapable of consensual validation. What was it? The word you use to describe the person most important to you? In that case he loved only Phoebe. But was it limited to that? Didn’t he love his friends, his daughter, his parents? Couldn’t love be considered the best reaction one is capable of? It would seem so.

  By that definition he could love Arlene, couldn’t he? Yes! How? As a troubled soul for whom he felt boundless compassion.

  And as a woman? That question bothered him. “As an individual,” he answered his own interrogation. The inquisitor was dissatisfied.

  “What do you mean by as an individual?”

  But the buzzer, signaling the arrival of his next patient, silenced Harry’s outer voice and Jonas’ inner one.

  The two men arose. Harry extended a pudgy farewell hand. He was smiling, the very first sign of pleasure Jonas had ever seen him show.

  “Thank you, Doc, for the most valuable session I’ve ever had.”

  Fantastic. And it continued that way all day long. Whether he stumbled therapeutically or planned it, all of his patients seemed to be doing exceptionally well.

  By five-ten there was Cynthia Adler, a handsome butch lesbian who suffered from depression. If C
ynthia made the same request as Arlene, would he reciprocate? The fantasy intrigued him. First he cured a fearful and frigid woman. Next a homosexual. And after that?…

  Again, his conceit amused him. He knew that he’d never suggest such a thing. That idea would have to come from her. And it wouldn’t. Jonas had no intention of exploiting his position as a therapist. His job with Cynthia lay in alleviating the sense of self-loathing that accompanied her homosexual activity. And he was succeeding in this.

  Six P.M. brought Roy Harris, a thirty-six-year-old accountant, who was trying to become more independent. On August first he was scheduled to get his own apartment and move out of his mother’s home.

  Six fifty-five. Ben Palumbo. A cocksman who yearned for love. In their work together this past year Ben had cut down from six girlfriends to three.

  Seven-fifty. Leslie Wolf. A twenty-two-year-old college dropout whom Jonas managed to see through an abortion, an LSD crisis, and recently a return to school. Leslie decided to end her hour after thirty minutes. “I’m feeling terrific, there’s nothing worth probing before our break, so why don’t I start you off with a twenty-minute vacation on me.”

  Eight forty-five. Wayne Barzin, an overaged adolescent, replete with waspish tongue. Unsuccessful as an author, he eventually decided that “if you can’t write, criticize,” and began working at the Cunningham Review.

  John Simon, the critic, was Wayne’s idol. This was fortunate, for Jane Cunningham, who ran the reviewing service, liked copy that was scathingly written. Wayne’s were done so nastily that he soon rose to a position as senior editor.

  Snide, rude, vainglorious, he had a way of looking down his nose at everyone. Except Jonas. Jonas was his analyst. His confidante. A person whose silence was interpreted as acceptance. In truth, Jonas felt Wayne to be just about the most preposterous person he had ever met. He also knew that Wayne’s acerbic nature was the result of early rejection by his father, a man who believed Wayne was too effete. If his snottiness represented an attempt to prove his manhood, it could be alleviated only by offering uncritical acceptance.