When we got to the Bucktown bar, we found that there was no room on its outdoor patio, so the Smoker lit up a cigarette on the sidewalk. Bougainvillea spilled over the fence and smelled faintly sweet.
“Want one?” he asked, holding out his pack of Marlboros.
Oh, how I wanted to say yes so we could have a perfect moment together sucking in and puffing out like beautiful people in the movies, people with no mental health issues, no sexual hang-ups, no eating disorders, no worms. If I said yes, he would lean in close and light my cigarette. His smell—the smoke, the gum, the day’s residue—would become part of my memory.
But I couldn’t make myself take one. Dr. Rosen had recently explained to Rory, when she mentioned how much she missed cigarettes, that when you smoke you are inhaling toxic self-hatred.
“No thanks,” I said.
The following Tuesday, I rode the Red Line train downtown before group as the sun inched over the tree line. I’d been up since four—despite calling Marty for an affirmation the night before—and decided to head downtown to sit in a coffee shop.
I nursed a cup of tea and stared out the window on Madison Street. A bright yellow backpack—like one you’d expect Curious George’s handler to wear—caught my eye. The man wearing it walked a half beat slower than everyone else, as if he were touring an English garden. He looked shorter than average—barely my height—and his lips were moving slightly like he was having a conversation with himself. I took him for a tourist and fished the tea bag out of my cup. Not until he was almost out of view did it hit me: Dr. Rosen.
It definitely was him—that untamed hair, those slightly hunched shoulders. How was he so puny? In group, he seemed so huge—larger than life—as I begged him for prescriptions, solutions, and answers.
I watched until he disappeared down Madison, taking his sweet time, mumbling to himself.
Why did he walk so slowly? He was headed to work—to my group session—not on a pilgrimage to Medjugorje. Why the mumbling? Where’d he get that god-awful backpack?
By the time I’d finished my tea and headed to group, I faced the harder question: Was my therapist a complete freak? Why did I take his advice on what to say to the Smoker? Why did I give that strange little man so much power?
As I walked toward group, I prayed, “Please kill the Buddha.”
9
Everyone else in group got a special sex assignment. Colonel Sanders got a prescription to rub his wife’s back without pressuring her for sex. Patrice got a prescription involving sex toys. Carlos had been advised to get naked and hold his fiancé, Bruce, for ten minutes every night. Marty was supposed to invite his live-in lady friend, Janeen, to take a shower with him. Dr. Rosen renewed Rory’s prescription to have her husband go down on her while she put her Adderall between her toes.
I listened and burned with envy. “I want a sex assignment but I don’t have a partner.”
Dr. Rosen rubbed his hands together as if he’d been waiting weeks for me to ask. “I suggest you bookend your masturbation with Patrice.”
I rubbed my temples and squeezed my eyes shut. “Do what?”
“Call up Patrice.” Dr. Rosen pretended to dial a phone and then held his hand like a receiver. “Say, ‘Hi, Patrice. I’m going to masturbate now. I’m calling because I want your support with my sexuality. It’s worked really well with my food and now I’d like to work on my sexuality.’ Then, when you’re done, call her back and say, ‘Thank you for your support.’ ”
“No.” I stood up. “Absolutely not.”
Intellectually, I understood there was nothing wrong with masturbation—Dr. Ruth taught me that. Pleasure was nothing to be ashamed of. In theory. But in practice, I could manage pleasure only in secret, hidden under the covers in the dark of night. I had never—and could never—talk about self-pleasure. The ghosts of all the nuns who told me that sex was only for procreation with my Catholic husband haunted me. In sixth-grade health class Sister Callahan spent several awkward minutes explaining that masturbation was a “grave sin because each wasted sperm could have been a new life.” Sister Callahan didn’t mention the possibility that girls might engage in such behavior, which seemed like proof that girls didn’t—and shouldn’t—ever masturbate. It was unspeakable.
The technical term for my condition was sexual anorexia. The anorexia most people are familiar with is someone who severely restricts her food. A sexual anorexic like me starved herself of sex by chasing unavailable alcoholics, who usually had girlfriends, who did not or could not be intimate, or by forcing herself to have sex without any attraction to her partner. The label intrigued me—as a chubby kid, I’d longed for a sleek label like “anorexic.” Now I wasn’t sure I loved the label, but it made me feel less alone. If there was a name for me and my condition, that meant I wasn’t the only one.
There was no way I could “bookend my masturbation.” I stared at Dr. Rosen and shook my head.
“But you call me about your apples,” Rory said.
“This is different.”
“How so?” Dr. Rosen said.
“You can’t see the difference between apples and masturbation?” My neck contracted into my clavicle at the thought of calling Patrice. Calling Patrice about that was lighting up a flare: Guess what, world! I’m wacking
