"I don't know," he said helplessly. "I don't know if I'll ever be able to do it."
Later, dressed and bidding Gayle good night, Hunter had felt Gayle restrain him as he reached the front door.
He half listened to her as she said, "I'm confident enough to give you another piece of advice. I always give it when we get to this part of our program. At this point, when you see your girlfriend again, there is to be positively no sex. Take her to a movie or sit with her on a sofa and kind of repeat our exercises in a real-life way. I mean, hold and stroke her hand, her hair, her face. Touch her breasts, but over her clothes, not under them. Forget about your erections. Hold back. Get into your feelings and her own . . . and nothing more. Between slowing down with your girl, and with what we're doing, it'll work out soon enough."
Leaving her, Hunter was less optimistic. He trudged miserably to his car at the curb and pushed in behind the wheel.
He sat there in the darkness assessing his loss.
He had been certain he would make it tonight, and with penetration, he would have been on his way.
Christ, he thought, wait'll Ferguson and Scrafield and Hoyt Lewis learn about this. It could dynamite their whole game plan—and his future. If he couldn't make it with this dame, he could not go into a court of law and swear under oath he had done it to her, paid the little nympho for a real fuck, when he hadn't fucked her. And this Gayle dame would also be swearing under oath he hadn't gotten into her. He couldn't risk a lie.
Yes, once the truth was known, there was no case against Freeberg, no story, no job on the Chronicle.
Then, sitting there in the darkness behind his wheel, he realized that they didn't have to know. Ferguson, Scrafield, and Hoyt Lewis didn't have to know a thing about this night's failure. As far as they knew, he was in the middle of his therapy with a—a prostie. They had to know only when he'd made it and could honestly swear he'd made it.
That was the question.
Would he make it with her, ever?
Well, she said he wouldn't tonight, and she had been right. She said he would in the near future, she was confident. So she could be right about that, too, and then he'd come up roses. He'd have the spotlight as star witness during a winning trial. He'd have a job on the staff of the Chronicle. He'd have Suzy and have her for life.
If Gayle Miller were right, and he played his cards right, went along with her, he might have everything.
He inserted his key into the ignition and started the car.
Listening to the hum of the engine, he told himself he'd have to have more patience, will himself more patience, and go along with Gayle from now on. He promised himself he would do so. No more shortcuts. No more rushing it. He would do it her way. And maybe he'd get there yet.
Chapter VI
Because Gayle's bedside alarm clock had gone off while she was still in the midst of her dream, the dream involving Paul Brandon and herself was momentarily vivid.
She supposed what had triggered the dream had been her thought last night, while preparing for bed, that she must telephone Paul for a date, as she'd promised, and that she wanted to call Paul then and there about seeing him. But she had been too exhausted to attempt the call and had fallen asleep immediately.
Now, in the morning, Paul Brandon was still on her mind. In the dream, she had been on something like a South Sea island, a remote part of Tahiti maybe, and she had been running through a tropical forest, and Paul had been chasing her. She suspected that she had not been running too fast.
Squinting at her clock, she knew she could not take the time to telephone him. She could not risk being late for the Miller Analogies Test that would complete her application to the UCLA graduate school. She had already taken her Graduate Record Examination Aptitude Test and the Advanced Test in Psychology and felt she had done well with both. That left the Miller Analogies Test, and she had better be at her best with no distractions.
Out of bed, she hastened into the shower, dried, dressed, made up her face, and rushed through breakfast. Then, briefcase in hand, she started for the door as her living room telephone rang.
She backtracked, snatching up the receiver, thinking it might be Dr. Freeberg, or even Adam Demski or Chet Hunter.
She recognized the voice at once. The caller was Paul Brandon.
"Hi, Gayle," Brandon was saying. "I've been sitting beside my phone day and night, almost. I've been waiting for the call you promised to make. My phone hasn't rung once. Have you been trying to tell me something?"
She would be barely on time for her exam, but she had to explain. "I'm sorry, Paul. The road to 'I'm sorry' is paved with good intentions. I've just been so busy I can hardly turn around. You know I have two patients now . . ."
"I know, but still."
"That means two daily consultations with Dr. Freeberg. And two detailed reports for him after the sessions. Then other things, like pulling this house together. Right now I'm on my way to Los Angeles to take the MAT, which goes with my application to UCLA. Anyway—"
"Anyway, where does that leave me, Gayle?" Brandon insisted. "I can tell you. It leaves me alone, and very lonely."
"I want to see you," she answered, then with emphasis, "very much. I'll call you later this afternoon. Are you working tonight?"
"Not tonight. I'll be through with my patient by six. After that, I suppose, I'll be dining alone."
"No, you won't," Gayle said impulsively. "You're going to have company. A real flashy date. Me. How'd you like to have a home-cooked meal at my place? Do you like pasta?"
"I love pasta if you go along with it. What time do you want me to be there? Eight?"
"Closer to nine would be better."
"Nine it is. I'll dude myself up and come calling."
"Can't wait," she said, and hung up.
Dashing for the door, she remembered her dream. She knew the outcome of the dream.
Paul would catch her.
She hoped.
Gayle's morning had been taken up by her MAT in Westwood, and then she had driven back to Hillsdale for two successive conferences, the first with Freeberg and Demski, the second with Freeberg and Hunter.
The afternoon was to be strenuous also. An exercise with Adam Demski at two o'clock. A second exercise at five o'clock, this one with what she hoped was a chastened Chet Hunter. After that, there would be just time enough to dictate her reports at the clinic and barely time to get home to prepare dinner for Paul Brandon as a prelude to what she hoped would be a long and delicious evening. She was sure that Paul would be wonderful, and she deserved some of the action. A busman's holiday, she knew, but not really, not actually. Tonight would be play without pay. Tonight would be from the heart. She flushed, thinking ahead to it.
At the moment, right now, she tried to hold her immediate thoughts on business.
It was two o'clock and Adam Demski arrived promptly, exuding more confidence than she had seen before.
Gayle was wearing a pale silk robe, chastely wrapped, but with nothing underneath.
After greeting Demski warmly, helping him off with his suit jacket, chatting with him about his day in Hillsdale, Gayle announced that she was ready if he was. Automatically, Demski started for the hallway and the therapy room in the rear. She followed him, aware that today's exercise was even more crucial than the last. If it worked, it would be a big step toward making him secure about his body and ultimately enabling him to achieve an erection.
In the familiar therapy room. Gayle had already spread her thick soft mat on the floor between the couch and the full-length mirror. There was a white sheet covering the mat, and on top of it two fresh beach towels and two down pillows. For the moment, Gayle ignored the mat, sat back on the couch, and watched Demski undress, pleased at the ease with which he was taking off his clothes.
Once he was naked, she stood up, pulled off her silk robe and was naked also.
She dropped down to the mat on the floor, patting one of the beach towels beside her. Demski lowered himself nex
t to her.
"You want to know what we're going to do today?" Gayle asked him.
"Yes, what is it?"
"Something we have an option to use. I like to do this exercise. I've always found it pleasurable and effective. It's called The Clock."
"The Clock?" repeated Demski. "I don't remember being told about it. What is it?"
"There is no clock," said Gayle. "It's an imaginary timepiece set in my vagina."
Demski's eyebrows went up. "An imaginary clock in your vagina? How?" Then he asked, "What for?"
She explained the entire clock exercise to him in detail.
"Now that you understand it, shall we begin, Adam?" Gayle said. "Let's lie down and let me stroke your thighs and stomach and chest. Then we'll proceed."
Using a feathery touch, she stroked him very slowly and encouraged him to touch her just as slowly between the outer labia of her vagina and the clitoris.
After a little while, she helped him to a sitting posture as she also sat up. "Okay, now to The Clock," she said. "Let me lie down again, supine, bring my knees up, and spread my legs. You settle yourself between them, sit Indian-style, and gently slide your forefinger gradually into my opening, an inch, then an inch and a half, then two inches. I'll direct you around the imaginary clock inside and do a running commentary."
"That's all?"
Gayle smiled wryly. "There may be more, much more. There may be some fireworks."
He looked puzzled. "Meaning what?"
"Meaning I may react to this exercise. It may excite me. I could have an orgasm."
"What—what do I do?"
"Nothing, Adam, except wait until I've finished before withdrawing. Just sit and enjoy what you can do to me."
"How much of my finger did you say?"
"Just part of it. All right, put it in, your finger . . . Slide it in . . ."
Hesitantly, using the forefinger of his right hand, he approached her vaginal opening as she moved her thighs wider apart.
"Go ahead," she encouraged him.
She pushed his finger inside her. This would demonstrate to him that a man didn't have to have a large penis to give a woman pleasure.
"That's enough," she said. "How does it feel, Adam?"
"Soft, warm . . ."
"And tight, I hope, all around your finger."
"It sure is."
"Yes, because the vaginal barrel is actually folded down on itself, so that it totally surrounds and wraps whatever is inside it. Rather like an elastic pouch. No matter what the size of anything inside it, the vagina contracts or expands, closes up, encompasses whatever is there, short, narrow, long, wide, to offer a perfect fit."
This was finally dawning on him, she could see.
"Now, as to what I feel . . ." Gayle continued. "There are some nerve endings at the entrance to the vagina but very few down inside. Let me contract my pelvic muscles, and while you're inside you'll feel the contraction. There. Do you?"
"Yes," he gulped, "I sure do."
"All right, let's do The Clock. Lift your finger high to the upper center. Twelve o'clock. Then come down and around, pressing it against my vaginal walls. Lower, lower. Hey"—she contracted tightly—"six o'clock is terrific. See, I really react to that. Adam, Adam . . ."
"What, Gayle?"
"Go back to six o'clock. Rub the wall—press harder."
"Like this?"
"Adam, for God's sake, don't stop." Her eyes were shut tightly, her lower lip under her front teeth. "I—I'm coming apart."
Her orgasm was at its height, and it was a prolonged one. "Adam, look what you're doing to me," she managed to choke out.
When it was over, and she slumped back against the pillow, he withdrew his finger.
"You did that to me with your finger."
He stood up with almost military bearing and pointed down to his penis. "And look what you did to me," he announced.
She looked. It was there, all right. Wonder of wonders for an impotent man. It was elevated, all of four inches.
"Wonderful, how wonderful!" she exclaimed. "Better than a B, I'd say. But next time, or the time after, we're going for a big B plus."
"You think so?"
"I know so!"
"I—I hope you're right."
When the doorbell sounded at ten minutes after five instead of five o'clock sharp, and Gayle admitted Chet Hunter, she realized that for the first time he was late.
During previous visits, he had arrived a little early. It had been part of his anxiety to get going, to get on with it. Arriving late indicated either that he was reluctant to rush things after his last failure or that he had slowed down. Welcoming him, Gayle decided that he wasn't reluctant. He simply was too driven to succeed and to normalize his life with his girlfriend. So his lateness most likely indicated that he was making a conscious effort to follow his surrogate's advice. Not to rush things.
As long as this was his mood, she decided to maintain and extend it. She would keep him slowed down.
"Chet," she said, "I was just brewing some tea. Would you like to join me?"
"Whatever you say." He was definitely chastened and appeared ready to oblige her every wish.
"Get yourself relaxed in here. I'll bring the tea, and we can talk a few minutes."
Hunter was slumped in an easy chair when she returned with the two cups of tea. Casually, she began to inquire about his work as a writer. He was evasive about his writing but ready to talk at length about the variety of research he was engaged in.
"What about your girlfriend?" Gayle asked. "Does she help you with your work?"
"She's interested, but she has a job of her own."
"Want to talk about her?"
"No," he said firmly. "Let's keep this strictly between us."
"Of course."
"And you?" he asked unexpectedly. "Do you have a boyfriend on the side?"
She hesitated. Did she?
She tried to be honest. "Maybe. Almost. We'll see."
"What if he turns out to be a premature ejaculator?"
Thinking of Paul Brandon, she tried to keep a straight face. "Why, I'd treat him the way I'm treating you."
"You think it would work?"
"I'd hope so."
Hunter drained his tea and set his cup aside. "Okay. Here I am. What's next?"
"We're going to do precisely what we did yesterday. I talked it over with Dr. Freeberg, and that was his suggestion. We'll undress and do non-demand body caressing including genitals all over again. But with a difference."
"What's that?"
"This time, when you touch me you've got to keep in mind you're touching me for your own pleasure in doing so, not for performance. You pleasure me, but you will be doing it not for me but for yourself. This is really what intercourse should mean. Once you have your penis in my vagina, or anyone's, you should be enjoying it for yourself.
"And I should be into my own feelings and be enjoying it, too. We should both be getting pleasure from each other."
"What if you feel passive?"
"That can happen, and that's to be considered, too. Anyway, today we'll caress each other, and we'll each get pleasure from it. But the one difference from yesterday is that this time no more nonsense about your insisting on jumping into the hay with me and wanting to make love. I won't let you do it—not yet."
"Okay. Whatever you say, that's the way it'll be."
"But I will pleasure you in another way. I think we've come to that."
"To what?"
"Toward the end of the exercise," said Gayle earnestly, "I'm going to take your penis in hand and bring you close to orgasm."
"You mean a hand job?" He showed his surprise.
"Call it what you will. I'm going to bring you close to orgasm and instruct you on how to retard it."
"You think you can retard it?"
"I think so," said Gayle, standing. "Let's find out."
Presently, both nude in her therapy room, Hunter was stretched out on her mat and she was o
n her knees beside him, going through the non-demand frontal caress. Throughout, she had avoided his penis, which was stiffening steadily.
Briefly, Gayle considered his penis.
"Now you want to have an orgasm," she said.
"You bet!"
"You'll have one," she assured him, "but first a mini lecture and the exercise that goes with it."
"I hope it doesn't take too long."
"Chet, if I did it quickly, you'd come to orgasm quickly, before you could get inside me or your girlfriend."
"Okay, okay, go ahead."
She looked at him. "Have you ever heard of the squeeze method?"
"The what?"
"The squeeze technique to arrest ejaculatory inevitability."
"The squeeze? Sure, I read about it in my researches."
"That is what we are going to do now. Premature ejaculation is the result of anxiety. Let me put it this way. When I begin to stroke your penis, you'll have a real urge to come right away. From need. You'll want to perform the act and get it over with, yet another side of you is telling you that you want to last longer and be a good lover. Isn't that true?"
"I guess so."
"Believe me, it's true, Chet. Now, there are two traditional ways to overcome prematurity. One is the so-called common sense approach. You take a drink or two of liquor to dull your erotic excitement. Or you use an anesthetic ointment or a condom. Or you try to diminish the erotic excitement by distracting yourself, looking off at the furniture or curtains or trying to think of business. The other approach is to solve it all through insight therapy, talking it out with a psychoanalyst or psychologist. In this you might learn prematurity involves your unconscious conflicts about women that began with childhood problems. Both of these approaches may work, but neither is as immediate or effective as surrogate therapy. This, I repeat, involves the squeeze technique. I know, but you don't, that premature ejaculation is the result of your inability to focus your attention and feelings on the sensation of sexual arousal before orgasm. You're only concerned with getting to your own orgasm. Hopefully, the experiencing of touch and caress will change all that. Meanwhile, in a few sessions, the squeeze will prevent ejaculatory inevitability. Believe me, it works, Chet."
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