Twisted Agendas

by Damian McNicholl

  “That’s why you’re in your robe. Would you rather I come back another time?”

  “Now is fine.”

  After offering Piper a choice of German wheat beer or wine, the doctor told her where she’d find the red bottle, asked her to pour a glass for her too and went upstairs to change. While she waited in the living room, Piper leafed through a copy of Stern magazine.

  Sonia returned dressed in jeans, short-sleeved cotton top that ended mid-thigh and sporting a necklace of large multicoloured wooden beads. After lighting a thick candle perched on a brass stand, she put on the CD player and strains of Enya’s ethereal music began to languidly unfurl and co-mingle with the molecules of floating birth oil. As she watched Sonia assume the lotus position on a corduroy beanbag-cum-sofa across from hers, Piper considered whether she should launch immediately into the problem or engage in small talk first.

  As if reading her mind, Doctor Berg said, “What is the little problem you wish to discuss?”

  “I’m feeling stressed out.”

  “Is it worries about your examination performances?”

  Piper regarded the ceiling as she tried to formulate the right words. “Remember the night Todd cooked for all of us?”

  “The delicious sour bread from San Francisco.”

  “Sourdough bread,” said Piper. “Danny was talking about Julia and you said something that night about how you’ve helped women back in Germany with certain intimacy problems.”

  “Ah, it is an intimacy problem.” Sonia eased forward in the beanbag sofa. “A sexual problem can be mental or physical and is something I work with, ja.”

  “When Todd and I are making out, I just can’t get into it much. That’s my problem. It bothers me.”

  “How much is this not much?”

  “I’ve always found sex, um, not that interesting.”

  “You have never enjoyed love-making?”

  “I haven’t, no.”

  “I must ask these next personal questions because it is necessary for me to narrow things.”

  Piper sat up.

  “Does it cause you pain?”

  “For sure.”

  “Then something may be deficient with your anatomy. This is physiological and I am not… ”

  “There’s nothing wrong with my vagina. It’s not that kinda pain. I just can’t get into the mindset is what I meant.”

  “There is no physical problem?”

  “No pain.”

  Sonia sat back and picked up her wine glass. “Tell me how you feel when you make sex.”

  After Piper finished, Sonia didn’t speak. The song Book of Days wafted from the CD player. Until this moment, Piper hadn’t realised how artificially perfect, how manipulated, how laughably sentimental New Age music was. She hoped Sonia was silent because she was considering an appropriate medication. Or did her quiet stare mean she regarded Piper as a failure in this part of her life. A freak? Incurable?

  “What’s your diagnosis?”

  “There is no great anxiety and you are able to function normal in the other parts of your life. This is good.”

  “Is there a pill?”

  “This is always the American way.” Sonia’s smiled indulgently. “You do not need medications. There is a blockage and this is more a question for therapy. I believe I am the right person to help.”

  “I’ll pay, of course.”

  “This is also wery American,” said Sonia. “We can talk about the payments another time. For now, I have some additional questions. Do you have a better relationship with your father or mother?”

  “Dad, definitely.”

  Sonia’s brow creased and she looked disappointed. “What is your relationship with your mother like now?”

  “Almost non-existent.”

  “And when you were a child?”

  “It was pretty normal. She loved me. I loved her. She liked to bake cookies. I liked to eat ’em. We argued. We made up. We weren’t a touchy-feely family. Then she had my brother… ” Piper’s gaze fell to the floor and she stopped talking for a moment. “I morphed into the angry teenager and became a real bitch. I smoked dope and did ecstasy. You know how it goes. It’s the same in Germany, right?”

  “Did your mother punish you often as a child?”

  “I was sometimes smacked with a paddle, but mostly I was grounded.”

  “What is this ‘grounded’?”

  “I was sent to my bedroom and forbidden to come out. She’d even lock me inside if I refused to stay there.”

  “These are wery important things you are telling me, Piper. Continue, please.”

  “There’s not a lot more to tell.”

  “Did you often feel unloved by your mother?”

  “All kids think their parents are mean sometimes. Teenagers do all the time. I hated Mom and Dad a lot, but I got over it.”

  “Do you know if your mother experienced large difficulties when you were being borned?”

  “I was a big baby.” Piper chuckled. “I remember her telling me she thought I’d never come out. She said it was like I didn’t want to be born.”

  “This is most interesting.” Sonia rose, fetched a notebook and pen from a drawer in the coffee table and began to write prodigiously. “Was your brother borned with such difficulties also?”

  “Nah. He just about slipped out.”

  “Did she treat him the same as you when he was a child?”

  The corners of Piper’s mouth trembled. “Rory was only ever a child.”

  “I am sorry. I forgot this.”

  “Mom always wanted a boy so she fussed over him a lot. Hey, so did I.”

  “Did it make you jealous to watch this behaviour by your mother?”

  “I had my friends and school stuff by then.”

  “And you loved your brother?”

  “I still do.”

  The questions continued, questions about her family circumstances and her parent’s separation, questions delving into Piper’s relationship with her father in the past and today, about her past friendships with both females and males, questions about sexual experiences at high school and university.

  “Have you ever been abused sexually by any persons?” Sonia asked.

  “God, no.”

  Sonia raised her hand. “Take your time to think.”

  Piper tilted her head back and regarded the ceiling. “Some boys touched me when I was about nine. Maybe ten. I can’t remember.”

  “Ach so.”

  “But it wasn’t abuse,” said Piper. “It was more kind of, ‘you show me yours and I’ll show you mine’ kinda stuff.”

  “No male or female adults touched you?”

  “Zilch.”

  Sonia consulted her notes for a minute. “You do not need my services as a psychiatrist. But I can help you in my role as a psychotherapist. For many peoples, I believe a lot of pain begins during the birthing. They can be starved of oxygen for a time and this causes trauma. Other sources of pain feeds silently off this primal pain. For example, if we feel rejected or unloved by our parents. These traumas can become neuroses and result in many dysfunctions including sexual.”

  Piper leaned toward the doctor. “You think my not getting turned on comes from feelings I had as a kid?”

  “Possible. Here is my plan, which has two prongs. First, you will have a rebirth.”

  “A what?”

  “I have my patients experience a rebirth during which they confront the primal pain. Once this basic pain has been acknowledged, the patient can begin to move on. It is a simple process. You are wrapped so you experience being again in the womb. But I do not practice it in the way many therapists do. These therapists keep the person bound in this womb for many hours and have many sessions of confronting this pain. That is not my method.” She shook her head as if she were indignant. “For me, the objective is to get rid of the primal pain in the birthing and move quickly to the counseling prong in order to confront the other psychological pain that is giving rise to the
problems. All goes in order.” She looked at Piper. “You understand, ja?”

  “Yeah.”

  “As we move deeper into your adult blockage, Todd would have to be present for some sessions.”

  “Not happening, Sonia.”

  The doctor looked nonplussed. “This is wery important.”

  “Not happening.”

  “The two of you must do exercises together as part of the therapy.”

  “What kind of exercises?”

  “First would be simple kissing. The next is hugging. Then intimate touching without sexual intercourse so you do not feel any pressure. There would be no complete sex until I tell you that you are ready.”

  As she listened to Sonia explain her plan, Piper subconsciously placed two fingers on her front teeth and began to tap.

  The doctor stopped talking and asked, “You are worried?”

  “We’re going to have to do this without Todd. I’ve told him our sex is great. It’s my hang up, not his.”

  The upstairs room Sonia used for therapy sessions had a wooden floor as shellacked as a gym floor and walls painted primrose. Framed abstract art posters in a Jackson Pollack style, African tribal masks and Sonia’s medical diploma adorned the walls. In the lower portion of the room was a lavender and white striped two-seater couch and matching armchair. A smoked glass coffee table lay between them. Sonia opened the door of a built-in closet and took out a fuchsia blanket that she spread in the middle of the room. Next she took out a six-foot poinsettia red sack with a drawstring at one end. She placed the sack at one end of the blanket.

  After informing Piper she’d be ‘immersed’ in the womb sack and wrapped in the blanket, she retrieved a bunch of short fat candles from the closet, placed them in a circle around the blanket and lit them. She drew the curtains shut and dimmed the overhead lights so the room took on the appearance of an ancient pagan initiation site.

  Sonia switched on the CD player and stepped inside the illuminated circle. Piano music riffs began to trickle from the stereo. “Take off your clothes and climb inside the womb sack, please.”

  “All my clothes?”

  “You may keep the underpants.”

  Piper hesitated, and then began to undress. “Is that Yanni playing?”

  “It is a German composer who is a friend,” said Sonia. “He created it for this purpose.”

  A faint beating or tapping sound became audible.

  “Schnell,” Sonia said. “Quickly. The heart begins to beat.”

  Piper stepped inside the circle and looked at the candles. “I don’t think I can do this, Sonia.”

  “Why?”

  The heartbeats grew louder. “I don’t like the candles so close. And can you turn the lights up a bit?”

  Sonia’s face, now rendered chiascuro in the flickering light, was a study of incredulity. The heartbeats began to overtake the tinkling piano.

  “I don’t like so many flames this close around me. Sorry.”

  “If I make the circle bigger?” Sonia asked.

  “What have candles got to do with rebirth anyway?”

  “It is my way.”

  “Um, make the circle bigger… and brighten the lights.”

  After doing so, the CD was started again. Piper climbed into the scarlet sack and Sonia tied it, instructing her to lie down. She proceeded to roll her body in the blanket until it became almost dark. A moment later, something pressed against Piper’s bottom. “What’s happening, Sonia?”

  “I’m putting some pillows around your body so you will feel surrounded by your mother’s fet stomach. You will begin now to breathe in and out continuously.”

  It began to feel warm and the constriction, while not freaking her out, was unnerving. The heartbeats grew louder.

  “You are breathing in and out like I have ordered?” Sonia asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “No further talking.” There was a smack on the pillow against her backside and another on her back. Her head was smacked next, first at the back then the front, then her thigh, calf, and her backside again.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Do not talk. It is a simulation. Breathe in and out wery fast like I told you.”

  The sporadic hitting interspersed with Sonia’s pushing down on her shoulders lasted for ten minutes. Piper’s body was bathed in sweat. She felt lightheaded from breathing rapidly. The sound of the beating heart grew louder. Sonia began to occasionally groan.

  “Are you still breathing the way I wish?” Sonia asked.

  “Yes.” She hoped the ritual would soon end.

  “One continuous rhythm in and out. Soon comes the birth.”

  The loud heartbeats ended abruptly. The music changed to what sounded like trickling water amid a melody of soothing electronic music.

  “Keep breathing in and out, in and out.”

  The water trickle changed to a gush and Sonia began wailing. It was very hot inside the sack now. A trickle of sweat entered Piper’s eye and stung.

  “Sonia, what is going on?”

  “Do you want to be borned now, Piper?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you?”

  “I want out.”

  Piper felt hands on her body, and then she was rolling as Sonia shrieked and moaned as if in the midst of a terrible labour. She saw the gold-yellow flicker of the candles through the fabric of the sack. Fingers fumbled on top of her head. The sack then opened and was pulled down over her head and shoulders.

  “Come out, Piper. You are borned again. Come out to your new, beautiful life.” She helped Piper stand and then peeled the sack down to her feet. Sonia opened her arms wide and embraced her. “It is over. It is all over. You have dominated the primal pain. It is gone forever.” She led Piper to the chairs and fetched a towel so she could wipe her face.

  “You may dress now,” she said, after Piper handed her the towel.

  Piper struggled to put on her blouse. She really did feel like a helpless newborn. Her limbs and fingers shook from the rebirth experience. She could not make them obey.

  “How do you feel?” Sonia said, after Piper sat across from her on the armchair.

  “Weird.” Piper looked down at the rumpled sack that resembled a placenta now. “What am I supposed to feel?

  “We can start the second prong tomorrow.”

  “I’m gonna take a raincheck.”

  “I do not understand this raincheck.”

  She looked at the doctor. “This will sound crazy but maybe I’m just not really into sex. It’s that simple.”

  “It is difficult to have a relationship with someone without the sex. Especially in the beginning years.”

  “I really like being in a relationship with Todd so that is a problem.” Piper sighed. “Sex is important to him. I’ll have to try harder, that’s all.”

  “What will you do?”

  “Keep trying till it comes right.”

  “My door will always be open.” Sonia’s professional concern was apparent despite the warm smile. “Counseling can often help in situations that seem impossible.” Sonia rose. “And now I prescribe some wine for us, ja?”

  Helping out

  A strong wind had kicked up while Agnes had been inside visiting Martha. The branches of the sycamore tree cracked like pistol fire each time they struck one another. Pages of a discarded newspaper were wedged against the kerb and the right rear wheel of her car. Agnes disliked being out late. She wouldn’t have been out had it not been for her friend’s recent accident. Martha had fallen and sprained her ankle and cut her face, a fall resulting in her having had to spend five days in the hospital because she’d no family members at home to care for her and had refused to have a stranger from Social Services in her flat.

  The roads were empty except for occasional taxis taking late night revelers home, delivery vans and trucks. When she saw the massive piers of Hammersmith Bridge, Agnes knew she was just five minutes from home. She relaxed her grip on the steering wheel, even indulge
d herself by turning up the volume on the radio to hear the early morning news. She entered the deck of the bridge. In the mid-distance, over the top of the bridge’s outer banister, the canopies of oaks and elms alongside the towpath swayed in the wind. The river’s inky black water gleamed in the pale moonlight. Light manufacturing establishments hugging the Thames were bathed in the sterile neon glow of security lights. A solitary pedestrian crossing the bridge turned his head against the wind to look at her as she passed by.

  Halfway across, the car lifted off the surface for an instant. A huge flash of orange flame filled the rearview mirror. Her vehicle struck against something unyielding and hard. Agnes shrieked, quickly realised she’d crossed a traffic lane and the car’s front wheel had struck a portion of the bridge’s steel barrier. The engine died. The bridge emitted a low metallic growl as if it were in terrible pain. Looking over her shoulder, she saw the right side of the bridge was burning as brightly as the Iraq oil wells she’d seen bombed on television. A pillar of thick smoke rose into the night sky. Terrified the structure would collapse, she tried to restart the car but couldn’t. Her hands and legs shook uncontrollably. She gripped the wheel, willed herself not to panic and tried the engine again. It started and she began to move forward, initially in tiny leaps because her right foot feeding fuel to the engine would not fully comply.

  When Agnes pulled into the parking spot across from her house and turned off the engine, her body began to tremble. She sat for five minutes trying to recall the journey from the bridge but couldn’t remember anything, not a street name or single turn she’d made. The devouring shrieks of fire engines consumed the city’s tranquility when she opened the car door.

  Inside, the shock she’d felt weakened. She sat on her rocking chair in the living room unable to expunge the image of the pedestrian crossing the bridge. A cup of very sweet tea calmed her and she switched on the television. A journalist reported a body had been found and there’d been a warning, a coded warning similar to the one given by the Real IRA when they’d bombed the bridge the previous year as policemen, clad in flak jackets and carrying stubby black rifles, stood on the bridge’s piers.

  Reconnecting