spilling out my garbage three days a week? Come on Dr. Rhinehart, you've gotta like it. The world is built on the principle that all humans must eat shit regardless of taste: Come on, speak up. Act like a psychiatrist. Let's hear that faithful echo.'
`Today I'd like to hear what you'd like to do if you could recreate the world to suite your own . . . highest dreams.'
`Cut the crap: I'd turn it into a great big testicle, what else?'
[Pause] [Longer pause] `I'd . . . I'd eliminate all the human beings first . . . except . . . eh ... maybe for a few. I'd destroy everything man has ever made, EVERYTHING, and I'd put - all the animals would still be there - No. No, they wouldn't. I'd eliminate all of them too. There'd be grass though, and flowers. [Pause] `I can't picture the humans. [Pause] I can't even picture me. I must have got wiped out. Ha! Woo. My highest dream is of as empty world. Boy, that's something. The little lays at Remo's would love that. But where are they in this world of mine? They're gone too. An empty, empty, empty world.'
`Can you imagine a human being that you would like?'
`Look, Doctor, I detest humans. I know it. Swift detested them, Mark Twain detested them. I'm in good company. It takes clods to appreciate clods, herd to appreciate herd. Whatever I am, I've got enough on the ball to realize that the best of humans is either weak or a phony. You too, obviously. In fact, you psychiatrists are the biggest phonies of all.'
`Why do you say that?'
`Your phony code of ethics. You hide behind it. I've sat here for four weeks telling you about my stupid, cruel, promiscuous, senseless behavior and you sit back there nodding away like a puppet and agreeing with everything I say. I've twitched my butt at you, flashed a little thigh, and you pretend you don't know what I'm doing. You acknowledge nothing except what I put into words. All right; I'd like to feel your prick. [Pause] And now the good doctor will say with his quiet asinine voice, "You say you'd like to feel my prick," and I'll say "Yes, it all goes back to when I was three years old and my father..." and you'll say "You feel the desire to feel my prick goes back..." and we'll both go right on acting as if the words didn't count.'
Miss Reichman briefly paused and then raised herself on her elbows and without looking at me, spat, clearly and profusely, in a high arc, onto the rug in front of my desk.
`I don't blame you: I've been acting like as automaton. Or, more concretely, an ass.'
Miss Reichman sat up on the couch and turned from the waist to stare at me. `What did you say?'
`You feel you don't know what I said?'
But as I said this I put on a mock psychiatrist face and tried to grin intimately.
`Holy shit, there's a human being in there after all. [Pause] Well. Say something else. I've never heard you say anything before.'
'Well, Linda, I'd say it was time to end non-directive therapy. Time you heard some of my feelings about you. Right?'
'That's what I just said.'
`First, I think we'd better acknowledge that you're outstandingly conceited. Second, that sexually you may offer much less than many women, since you are thin, with, to judge by superficial appearances only, a smallish bosom necessitating falsies [she sneered], and you probably bring the male racing to a climax before he's got his fly totally unzipped. Thirdly; that intellectually you are extremely limited in the depth and breath of your reading and understanding. In summation, that as human beings go you are mediocre in all respects except in the quantity of your fortune. The number of men you've slept with and who've proposed as well as propositioned, is a reflection of the openness of your legs and of your wallet, not of your personality.'
Her sneer had expanded until it had nowhere else to go on her face and so spread to her shoulders and back, which writhed theatrically away from me in disdain. By the time I finished, her face was flushed and she spoke with an exaggerated
`Today I'd like to hear what you'd like to do if you could recreate the world to suite your own . . . highest dreams.'
`Cut the crap: I'd turn it into a great big testicle, what else?'
[Pause] [Longer pause] `I'd . . . I'd eliminate all the human beings first . . . except . . . eh ... maybe for a few. I'd destroy everything man has ever made, EVERYTHING, and I'd put - all the animals would still be there - No. No, they wouldn't. I'd eliminate all of them too. There'd be grass though, and flowers. [Pause] `I can't picture the humans. [Pause] I can't even picture me. I must have got wiped out. Ha! Woo. My highest dream is of as empty world. Boy, that's something. The little lays at Remo's would love that. But where are they in this world of mine? They're gone too. An empty, empty, empty world.'
`Can you imagine a human being that you would like?'
`Look, Doctor, I detest humans. I know it. Swift detested them, Mark Twain detested them. I'm in good company. It takes clods to appreciate clods, herd to appreciate herd. Whatever I am, I've got enough on the ball to realize that the best of humans is either weak or a phony. You too, obviously. In fact, you psychiatrists are the biggest phonies of all.'
`Why do you say that?'
`Your phony code of ethics. You hide behind it. I've sat here for four weeks telling you about my stupid, cruel, promiscuous, senseless behavior and you sit back there nodding away like a puppet and agreeing with everything I say. I've twitched my butt at you, flashed a little thigh, and you pretend you don't know what I'm doing. You acknowledge nothing except what I put into words. All right; I'd like to feel your prick. [Pause] And now the good doctor will say with his quiet asinine voice, "You say you'd like to feel my prick," and I'll say "Yes, it all goes back to when I was three years old and my father..." and you'll say "You feel the desire to feel my prick goes back..." and we'll both go right on acting as if the words didn't count.'
Miss Reichman briefly paused and then raised herself on her elbows and without looking at me, spat, clearly and profusely, in a high arc, onto the rug in front of my desk.
`I don't blame you: I've been acting like as automaton. Or, more concretely, an ass.'
Miss Reichman sat up on the couch and turned from the waist to stare at me. `What did you say?'
`You feel you don't know what I said?'
But as I said this I put on a mock psychiatrist face and tried to grin intimately.
`Holy shit, there's a human being in there after all. [Pause] Well. Say something else. I've never heard you say anything before.'
'Well, Linda, I'd say it was time to end non-directive therapy. Time you heard some of my feelings about you. Right?'
'That's what I just said.'
`First, I think we'd better acknowledge that you're outstandingly conceited. Second, that sexually you may offer much less than many women, since you are thin, with, to judge by superficial appearances only, a smallish bosom necessitating falsies [she sneered], and you probably bring the male racing to a climax before he's got his fly totally unzipped. Thirdly; that intellectually you are extremely limited in the depth and breath of your reading and understanding. In summation, that as human beings go you are mediocre in all respects except in the quantity of your fortune. The number of men you've slept with and who've proposed as well as propositioned, is a reflection of the openness of your legs and of your wallet, not of your personality.'
Her sneer had expanded until it had nowhere else to go on her face and so spread to her shoulders and back, which writhed theatrically away from me in disdain. By the time I finished, her face was flushed and she spoke with an exaggerated
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