sexual musings.

I think... that dancing at the club, is a sort of outlet for sexual energy that lowers my need for a satisfying real romantic sexual relationship... or a boyfriend... and having a boyfriend and being in love in a satisfying real romantic sexual relationship makes me really uninclined to want dance at the club, and release that energy somewhere else.... i've never danced for long when I was in a real relationship... not just cuz the guy didn't want me to. i didnt want to.

All things holy

There are some really beautiful things

Surfer Rosa, the Pixies album, sounds like life moving
Sunny's an angel
I texted her last night just Can you come over? and she was like Give me a half hour, and she did.
Elena's ama3ing... I hate that she disappears into her world for like 2 months at a time sometimes, but it doesn't matter ultimately
she always calls back and we always talk for four hours and we always understand each other
I have a new hairstylist, the first one I actually like here. She's really good, and she's funny as hell, I finally can look in the mirror, for the first time in a year and a half since I've moved here
Ironically I met her through Stefan
And when she told me the price I was like No. She was like, no, really! I was like you're out of your trees. She was like, no, really, I liked doing it it made me happy. I was like All right, if you say so. I tipped her like 40%. It was stupid cheap. And I know she's not cheap... she's the busiest stylist there and it's not a cheap place
The party tonight was lovely
It was small, 20 people, a dinner party, birthday party, about half the people were really famous, but they were all sweet

Julian called me at like 8 15, a little after I got there, and I ran out of the bar to answer the phone... He... the sound of his voice melted me... I've been either sobbing or on the verge of tears all day. I called him earlier but I didn't leave a message. He said It sounds like you're out somewhere. I said yeah, I am, I'm out at this director's birthday party. I'm halfway through my second vodka. He said Well I don't want to ask you anything in public... I said No I'm halfway down the block already. He said How was your day? I said Fucking fantastic. I said I'm like, breaking down every 20 minutes. And I have to be here for more than 20 minutes. And I haven't eaten anything so I feel the boo3e. And he said, Well, hmmm, at the risk of sounding pedestrian... Channel some of the Machiavellian impulse and make a good impression there, no, that's stupid advice. I laughed, No, and then started crying. Tell me not to drink anymore. I said. Okay, he said. Don't drink anymore. I mean tonight. I laughed again. Okay. I said. Yes, you can drink again, he said, but tonight you should watch out for the Sick Puppies. I laughed and said Okay. Okay. He said, so, let's leave it at this, just contact me if you need to talk over the weekend, and we're on for Monday at seven? Yes. I said. Okay, he said. No drinking! No drinking! I said.

I've never felt like this before. Never. Never. Not through dad leaving, mom dying, brother losing his marbles, losing our house, ex dying, six breakups, all kinds of things going wrong and people disappearing.

Everything is tied to everything and everything makes me think about him and everything makes me SO SAD

SO SAD

I can't believe how SAD i am.

No me importa que sera....

I just LOVE. I LOVE. I love Julian Darcy and it really doesn't matter what happens because he is beautiful, a beautiful spirit. And I love, purely, and wholly, really.



I'm giving my friend Joanna from the club piano lessons. Woot! :-) She's so beautiful and kind of enigmatic, I'm stoked. She's the only girl from the club I'd ever want to hang out with honestly, just her depth... Like Julian said today, emotional depth of field... I further regret my kangaroo keyboard-- of all things with which to be CHEAP. That, and oh my dancing shoes!!! I was discussing this with another girl last night... Being DIRT CHEAP with our dancing shoes and clothes when that's how we make our money, and I mean, for real, it's ridiculous, my shoes are PRETTY MUCH broken now, and they were cheap POS to begin with. Well, I'll splurge a whopping 50 bucks on a new pair and they'll feel great. Ahhh today was sloshy cold rain again and I wore flip flops cuz I really just loathe shoes, especially after last night, and I came into Julian's (after drying my feet in the bathroom though) and he was kind of stern-ish, the first few minutes, he is sometimes, I love that, that he's moody, not like mood-swingy obviously, but that he has different moods and he doesn't hide them. He's not fake. Some days he's just really cheerful and some days he's not, like a real person. There are so few people, especially people you work with on some level, that are just real and don't give the same face everyday... Anyway I apologized for my feet. He was like, why? I said cuz they're all wet in flip flops. He said, Oh, doesn't matter.

Goal for the Day:

So, Sleepless Scarlet is up at it again, or rather still up, though I tried to rest for an hour, in the yoga position that Julian "put me into" the other day, btw, during those 5 minutes in his office when I came in at the wrong time, by asking me to lie down a certain way and close my eyes, and gingerly sliding a pillow under one knee without touching me at all-- "pick up your knee," and he slid the pillow under, and then handed me the other one, and "now put this one under your other knee..." My eyes closed the whole time. Steamy stuff. :-/

Which brings me to today's goal. Which serves multiple goals really, and is not just a manipulation, though in many ways it could seem like such... I want to TOUCH J. I want to ask him if I can touch his hand. Because:
A) I want to TOUCH J. ...and...
B) I want to see if I can read him at all... because
1) I actually AM kinda psychic, maybe, not like big-time but in a parlor-trick psychic way and sure he'll never believe that and neither will you or even I sometimes, but I do get senses about people, intuition maybe, maybe just more intense when I touch them because I'm reading body language or whatever, but when I touch people I do get sort of flashes of things, that just pop into my head... I started noticing it more recently working at the club because I touch so many goddamn people, and I can just see things, like their strengths, their mood, things about their background, what's on their mind... It sounds hokey but I'm good to the point where people call me psychic at the club all the time, customers, and they'll challenge me, and I'm right an awful lot of the time... but whatever it is, I want to read J, psychically, and then, more carnie-style gypsy psychic-style, so,
2) I can read his reactions to things I say. Like, if I feel something, and say I feel it, his response will be telling in and of itself. Now, this is basic gypsy trickery, and I'm sure he's onto it, but I also believe in my genuine ability to read, and, either way, I wanna. I WANNA!

So, how to go about this, when I'll be strolling in there, headthrobbed and sleepless? I don't know. I don't want to plan it out. I just wanna.

Did good again last night. Real good, and it was a terrible night. Yeah I'm a sex-bomb but my shoes are almost BROKEN and I need new ones stat, so my dancing is CAUTIOUS hahaha... Psychic parlor tricks, perhaps? I spoke a man's language to him before he spoke a word, I made a joke about Wagner's Ring Trilogy to another because I knew he wanted to go to that opera, and these guys were non-DESCRIPT mf's and I mean that's pretty obscure stuff; got a bunch of dances from both of them. Guessed another guy's last name and hometown. Whatever. I don't even know what it is. Just saying. I did really well on the Zener Test. Just sayin.'

Try for yourself.

RE:

Ugh! He's probably handicapped! Now I feel bad... :

"Jeez.
I was smitten. I did like you. Still do, actually. Never meant to insult you or appear aggro. Not my way, I assure you.
Bret (the ass-hat)
PS Regarding my music? Kinda don’t know what you mean on that one."
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Oh well, Julian (Julian!!!) would be moving me right along on this one (O! Hearken the day! Erst I once showed mine own true J of Darcy Dan's text and he said, "Just leave it.") and I'm gonna make him proud. The guy isn't actually handicapped.

Oh, fack, update on the neighbor. Like $200 earrings and necklace from Betsey Johnson. WHAT. Not my taste at all (and bearing the receipt. With price. Class-y.) but goddamn.

The Kindness of Strangers

I shall not go to sleep past 3...
I shall not go to sleep past 4...
I shall not...

I was jamming out on the way back from work with my headphones on, oblivious, when I heard two people yelling at me. I looked across the street and there were two guys at the bus stop waving me over... I thought they were probably from the club and had to cross the street anyway, so I walked toward them and they kept gesturing but I couldn't hear so I took out the earbuds and one of them yelled, "You have the voice of an angel!"

"We've been listening to you for like 10 minutes, you were all the way up the street... Seriously, man, amazing range..."

"Oh and you're pretty, too!"

It was nice.

I am beyond shot... I've slept about five hours in the last three days, I got up at seven, and four a.m. is staring me in the face.. It sucks, I get out of work, beyond shot, and I have to go deposit my wad of cash at the bank in case I get robbed or spend blindly or something, and buy food, and eat, and clean up, and feed Madeline, and wash up, and put away more crap, and stretch, blah blah blah. I had to clean tonight. My place is just a devastating mess. It's gotten really bad.

I slept-danced through work today though I did pretty good. I was real close to flaking at like seven. o' clock when I got home from Manny's studio and popped in Julian's movie. I have to say it kinda blew. I love most of his movie recommendations but this one was a honker. I'm gonna tell him tomorrow. He likes really dark, heady, European films, a fact that I can't totally reconcile with the rest of him. It's sexy. Fuck I wanna know more about him.

That neighbor, Alberto knocked on my door again! This time with a birthday present! I opened the door this time and talked to him a little bit even though I didn't have time. He's like five-foot nothing and real nerdy but he's so sweet and he offered to help me with school. The present was... well it was CLOTHING, which is a strange choice for an abject stranger... It was a black tank top and a zebra striped THING I couldn't even identify. Jess and Manny gave me a Christmas present too today... A photo album of pictures he took of me and red business cards Jess made me cuz she thinks I should have them when I meet music people... I didn't get anyone anything this year... Fuck, when will I have the time for anything.

My thighs are bruised and I have whiplash from lazy, tired dancing. Julian tomorrow. Just typing his name makes me burn... But I'm not sure how to act with him after Monday. I told Manny about it and he said "he's toying with you." Well no kidding. He said I should go in without underwear and a skirt and give him a Sharon Stone shot. He said that would give him some jack-off material. Well yeah but he'd also think I'm just a straight-up whore. Nooooot happening.

Ok. Bed. NOW.

Love and loads of Lean Cuisines,

Scarlet-O

A Knock on the Door

I'm not feelin' too hot today.

Exchange with Julian this morning, e-mailed me to set up next week's schedule in advance. I'd like to say that he's never done that before. He hasn't. But does that mean anything? Did any of any of this mean anything? I feel like a fool. I responded with a couple paragraphs of slick Joycean prose and glib gratitude for letting me know about my makeup. He's probably married. Fuck it all.

There was a knock on my door this afternoon... I hate that, had some bad experiences with stalkers and things... I wasn't dressed and looked through the peephole and it was a neighbor I've seen like twice who FB'd me. He had a Christmas card and he just slid it through the peephole when I opened it, smiling. He said "It's okay, I know it's a weird neighborhood... I just saw your FB post a while ago and wanted to know if you're doing better..." I was so moved...

Ohhhh yea. Ohhhh yea. Uhhhh-huh.

I'm exhausted. I'm drained.

If I wrote this hours ago, if I wrote this entry this evening, when I got home, and not after midnight after being talked down from the clouds by Elena, back into the stratosphere, I'd sound different... In fact, I think I wouldn'tve been able to write at all...

I left Julian's office today shaking. Elated, scared, crying, I couldn't even listen to music or drive to school, but I didn't know what else to do, so I drove to school, and got lost even though Julian's office and school and my house are within 5 minutes of each other. And I kept calling Elena because I was losing it but she wasn't picking up. I got to counseling and they had some issues with registration for one of my classes and I started shaking again, near tears, like, "I can't... I can't do this... I can't... FIND THIS CRAP RIGHT NOW!" And then, I had to semi-break up with a guy-who-thinks- thought-he-is-was-my-boyfriend, and then Elena called while he was over, and I was like, "Hey Dan it's Elena I really have to talk to her!!!" and let him walk out without saying good-bye and he gave me the dirtiest look and he was totally gob-smacked crestfallen and I am SUCH an asshole and this is why.

I woke up really early and I couldn't get back to sleep and my phone was just inexplicably dead, like CONKED, so I just got up and went and bought it a new battery and a new vocal mic for my music and some other crap and a Starbucks and then I got home with still like a good 5 hours before Julian, 5 hours in an leaky hourglass.

I knew what I wanted to talk to him about, kinda, I had questions planned out, and ideas, like I always do, and I wanted to record something with the new mic but planning my outfit became an operatic event. And I wanted to walk to Julian's and then school to get my daily 5 miles in (I'm kind of obsessed with my legs... they're naturally kinda muscular and always were when I was dancing ballet but then I got kinda skinny until I started working at the club again and now I work it out and wear shorts or skirts whenever possible, especially to see certain men... even in the winter... over panty-hose, anyway!) but then Father Time started shaking his sceptre and I was like Ok, Ok, S-O, you're gonna drive it's fine. So I found some really high shorts and panty-hose, and boots, and a top that was both womanly European feminine sophisticated and still with a handsome dip of cleavage, and I got in my little beater and made my way over there, getting whistled at and propositioned, and driving like a maniac, weaving through lanes, beautiful parking karma, made it, made it, made it.

I got in the waiting room and flicked his little light thingy. No noise. Two minutes. Two minutes late. My heart sank and I panicked. I feel like he's been doing that a lot lately. He used to come out 30 seconds after I showed up. I looked at my phone... I found a magazine with a cover story about something I knew he probably read or wanted to read... And then I saw him strolling into his office from the hallway and he waved.

He was dressed a little more casual today, no blazer, he looked a little breathless.

"Sorry I'm late!"

"No, no!"

.....

"How's your kitty doing?" I made sure to ask, so he'd see that I'm not, under normal circumstances, 100% self-absorbed all the time.

"Making progress," his smile lit up the goddamn zip-code.

"Ahhh, are you treating him?" He'd made a joke about his cat having psychological issues... so we joked about that... and then my cat... And then I brought out my opener:

"So... my blow-off list is getting really long... Florida guy wants to-- wanted to come over, I mean-- he IS coming over, and like, I just... I downright can't stand the guy anymore. I mean he's an idiot. Like... How could I not have seen it? He's like, borderline-retarded. I'm just NOT."

"Hey why don't you tell me how you really feel." J jokes. He's made that joke before when I'm ranting about some kangaroo I've been seeing for the free goodies.

And I started to talk about why it was so hard for me to say no to the duderz, not sexually, but like, that no I wasn't interested romantically, even though I wasn't, and being with someone I don't really like makes me really uncomfortable actually, and he got me to admit that I kinda liked the option of having people to pay for stuff, and he said, Okay, fair enough, and I said that sounds awful, that's terrible, and he said (and he quoted verbatim from an e-mail I sent him once about this writer we both like who thinks it's human nature for men to pay for sex) "What happened to 'Thank you, PINKER!'?"

"I know! I don't know... I guess that one year of Sunday school did its thing... Societal norms..."

"Well," he said, and he's starting to give his opinion more and more now, "I think, Buddhistically, sorry, but that maybe it's not Right Practice."

"I know. It's not."

"Did this guy leave yet?"

"No- maybe- I don't know- I was just thinking the same thing-" I pulled out my phone, "Should I just? What do I say?"

And now comes the part where J dictates How to Blow a Guy Off Without Being a Total Asshole about it, as I text. When Dan would respond, I'd show it to J, like a little kid, and he'd advise. And Dan called frantically like 5 times while I was there, and, and...

And then I started talking about being lonely, and Elena not returning my calls, and all the fake conversations at the club and the fact that I don't talk to a soul "except her... and you..." and how all I do all week is listen, listen, smile and laugh and feign interest and "I'm sure you can relate" and then I started crying, which I never do in front of him, but I couldn't help it, and he just said, "I think you're just saying you have to pay a price for solitude..." and then we just looked at each other silently, well, stared, and my heart made its way up my trachea, and I couldn't look at him, and then I looked at him, and he was looking at my legs, and I realized I'd been running my hands up and down them for probably 20 minutes, and my face flushed and he looked back at me and I realized my lips were parted and I caught my breath and looked away and then at him and sort of smiled and then away and then up and down him and then at the floor and his blue eyes were burning through me and it was like probably a whole minute that felt like forever like glorious, glorious, blazing forever.

Then he asked me about the YouTube link he sent me. (Last week, off-hand, at the end of an e-mail about some insurance thing... got me going. Really got me going.)

And then we talked about movies. I told him he has to see Lars and the Real Girl. I found myself describing the whole plot to him and then stopping myself and then he described a whole movie to me, a depressing movie, and then he said, and on that happy note! And, as always,

"Last thoughts?" and then, "I actually had something terribly important to say but I lost it so I guess it will have to wait till next time." Which is what I said a couple sessions back. ("Last thoughts?" "Yeah but... they're not like two-minute thoughts so, no...") And he got up and then he slowly turned back and said, "Well actually I was late so, we have two more minutes."

"Oh. Yes. I need my two minutes."

He sat back down and my phone buzzed again. "Florida guy?"

"Not during my two minutes!" I smacked the phone.

We looked at each other again.

"It's really beautiful outside today." I said.

"It is, I like this kind of weather."

"I get to wear shorts-"

"I've been meaning to say this, since we need to tell each other these things," Julian is saying and time again stood still because before I had time to fucking melt or scream or jump on him-- "Your makeup has run completely afoul."

My hands flew up to my face and I'm sure I was bright, neon, stop-light, fire-truck, sex-doll-mouth, First Aid cross, Coke can fucking RED, stained black (and white all over), "Oh! Oh, wow, yeah-"

"I didn't want you to leave without being aware of that."

FUCK.

And is he FUCKING with me??? Ugh, I'm a wreck. Wreck. He's fucking with me. He's like, really good, and I can't keep up with the innuendos, though I don't let it show too much, but, he's a goddamn psychologist, I'm sure it's obvious, but I like this game. I am game. He rifled through his planner.

"So we're on for Thursday at... noon?"

"Four."

"Four..." He stood up.

"Uh-huh." I stood up.

He stepped over to the door, and I stepped over to the door, and we said "Bye," in unison.

I must have sex with him. Like. Right now. Thursday. UGH. Oh god. And a bunch more shit happened today, but... it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter at all.

Eine Kleine Nachtmusik

I'm an idiot savant, I'm Rainman in heels, I stepped out to the grocery store (Spidey Sense fully operative, always on my side, I didn't lock my apartment) in the darkest hour and came back to find I'd left my keys home. Locked myself out. Left my phone in there too. Well, I thought, whaddya gonna do. Break in. What else?

I climbed over the steel grating (10 ft high) that leads to the courtyard. There was no way to climb up to the third floor, no fire escapes. I circled for windows with their lights on to "M'aidez!" but alas there were none. So I picked the backdoor lock with my eyelash curler and got in.

Now my question is, because I've broken into several of my previous homes as well... Doesn't it take a brain to be capable of B&E? And doesn't it take a hunk of gray matter with no wrinkles, neural plasticity, synapses and all the bells and whistles that make a brain a brain to forget one's keys so many git-durned times?

These stupid things always happen the night before Julian. Julian in just a few hours. Should I tell him this story? Will he see me as more of a sociopath? Or will he be turned on... Oh, God, tell me I turn him on. God, God, God.

OK!

Wish me luck.

Ten Cents a Dance

Ten cents a dance
That's what they pay me
Gee, how they weigh me
Down...

I bet after adjusting for inflation since 1930, Ella and I get paid about the same for our services... and it might as well be monopoly money in either case, hell, she is complaining about it. Hear, hear, sister. Actually it is monopoly money. A lot of the men buy, with their real money-- or, usually, with their company card-- wads of fake cash with the club's name printed on it, which they use to tip us, which we exchange at the end of the night for real cash with a 20% cut. I guess the point is that they can use their company cards, and get drunk, and start feeling like it is just monopoly money (it is), and spend freely since they can't very well hang onto it and give it to the wife to get groceries the following day. I know it's good for the club, and maybe for us too, even with the exchange rate. But it's peanut money anyway. And there are still those who come in and say they can't afford a dance, and watch, and don't tip, and chat away like it's Match.com. Come on dude, at least fork over the thimble.

But I made out pretty well last night, like I usually do when I stumble in late, dragging ass, forgetting my makeup bag, all sorts of overit, and finish my first gin and ginger before I even get up on stage.

I used to be a real dancer, classically trained real-life ballerina, and it translates, though chaine turns and grand plies would be ridiculous in fishnets, to Danzig, and sliding upside-down down a pole was a move I had to learn onstage, on air, without a teacher. It was easy though... I like to think the dance training helped. So it's actually fun for me. This gig. And, more importantly, it's the easiest job in the world. Lax schedule, short hours, low expectations, no micromanaging bosses; we're independent contractors in a kind of co-op situation where we actually pay for the luxury of working there, with that 20% cut and a significant house-fee to boot. Perfect job for free-thinkers and lazy people.

And, though I would never say it, I feel that Dr. Julian Darcy and I have quite a bit in common, professionally. I pay him an exorbitant fee for 45 minutes of his company, he listens to me, he acts like he cares, and then when my time is up he holds open the back door for me as I leave, closes it behind me, takes a breather at his desk, maybe calls the girlfriend, and sets up for the next pretty hysteric. ...They pay me a comparably exorbitant sum (after doing the arithmetic, it can be even twice or three times more per minute, but that doesn't include the unpaid time sitting, chatting, lubing up for expenditure-- just trust me, it's peanut-money) for my company, I listen to them, I act like I care, like I'm fascinated, titillated, dance around on them with my contrived-genuine lust, never take my eyes off them (while a rectangular bouncer does the same), lead them out of the back room, and head over to the dressing room to smoke, text, whine, or sometimes even read, and stroll back out onto the floor to troll for the next victim.

I would never say it, because it would be a damn insulting thing to say, and because I know Julian is light-years beyond me, and does real things, and is actually helping me and would help me more if I had a real malady other than a serious crush or real true love for him. And he does lots of other things and is very respected in his field, and it's just beyond comparison and I'm not even comparing. The previous paragraph was, well, one long comparison, but... well, only in my twisted little universe. Point is, really, just that sometimes I'm doing multiplication tables in my head when talking and laughing with these monkey-men, but sometimes I meet men there I really do like quite a bit. I've even dated a couple. There was one I met that I totally fell for and ended up seeing for a while, turned out to be a lying, philandering asshole, of course, but to his own credit he warned me he would. I told Julian about him the day after we met, joking warmly that he was the first person who'd ever complimented my clunker when he drove us from the club to a diner down the street and J briefly dropped the poker-face to look at me like I just came crashing down onto his couch through the roof in a Soviet spacesuit, cradling the corpse of Laika in my arms.

"Do you even know anything about this guy?"

Errrrp... I did not, no. I do now, again, thanks to my knack for espionage. But, no.

"Well, maybe a guy you meet at the dance club is not the best candidate for a positive relationship."

He always says "dance club," never "strip club," and only once said "dumb stripper bitches" ironically, after I said it, also ironically, to qualify a certain type of girl. He never swears, either. I don't swear much myself, but I find that I do it more when I talk to him. I guess he gets me going. Speaking emphatically.

I'm seeing him tomorrow. I'm not as nervous as I've been before the last several sessions, because last time was normal, while the times before were... not exactly. I won't explain now but something had intensified and reached boiling temperature I guess, and now it's subsided, which, is sorta cool, and sorta sucks.

Anyway. Check in later maybe, with my audience of none. Off to make my red hair redder.



Love and late-night diversions,

Scarlet O.

Not Another Stripper Blog

Dear. Everyone.

Dear Anyone.

I stand here before you, in the backyard of cyberspace, cradling my dirty laundry as the breeze catches my hair... I'm here because I need to unload, because, I'm in therapy.

I'm a young person, shall-we-say, a twenty-something. I'm single, though not lacking for suitors or even people who think they're my boyfriend, and I live in a notorious hellhole, and I have a lot of secrets.

Secret #1: I have a very prestigious occupation as a dancer at a gentleman's club, but this is not another stripper blog, and I'm not gonna dwell on it.

Secret #2: I have a very mild form of every Cluster-B personality disorder in the DSM-IV and a load of addictive tendencies and bad habits.

Secret #3: I am terribly, terribly lonely.

Secret #4: I am terribly, hopelessly in love with my therapist.

There. I have lots of secrets, my own and other people's, and I'm very good at keeping them, but I think that's a good place to start.

I began therapy at the urging of an old f*@!buddy/person-who-thought-he-was-my-boyfriend/ex/person, and sent him to the curb after my second session. I was only with the ineffectual SOB because of Secrets no. 2 & 3 and because I live in a notorious hellhole, and I was getting so depressed I could no less stand him than kick him to the curb, and the further I sank the more impossible it was to commit to a 9-5, and the more tempting it was to resort to Secret no. 1, which I couldn't possibly do with him around. He was keeping me down but also paying for everything so I was in a sort of Catch-22 and, despondent, I figured I'd just label myself dysfunctional and hide behind a professional skirt. I used my insurance (blessed, blessed PPO, cursed, cursed new government plan) Dial-A-Doc option and found one with a positively Austenian name, jogging distance from my apartment, and after a brief-- intelligent, compassionate and concise-- phone interview, I made an appointment. I was anxious to get in there, cry me a river, and turn all anguish and personal responsibility over to the hands of a qualified provider (double-entendre duely, dually noted.)

I sat in his waiting room and browsed through the literary selection-- Time, Vanity Fair, Newsweek-- standard stuff but a refreshing contrast to my other shrink's variety which could rouse a latent eating disorder or sexual identity crisis with all the cut, sun-kissed, bare-chested dudes on the covers. (Among the weeklies also lurked a dated, unbound, black-and-white precautionary pamphlet about the perils and no-no's of Whitecoat-Wacko sex, which upon discovery struck me as funny and a little odd, but which I now recognize as a preemptive strike, and have lately taken to reading as I wait, hidden between the pages of one of the heftier glossies, perched almost upright on my knee.)

He opened the door and I was just, taken aback. Dr. Darcy* is gobsmacked gorgeous. Stupid gorgeous, really. He looks like a doctor from a soap opera, as photographed by a giggling, Gaussian Blur-happy groupie-amateur with a digicam and bootleg version of Adobe PhotoChop, sans tutorial. He truly glows; he towers, just under the maximum height cutoff for male models, his eyes are the color of the midday sky after a thunderstorm, he really could turn the world on with his smile, it is genuine and contagious and radiant and brimming with unironic joy. Somewhere in the back of my mind I regretted the depressed teenager getup I wore.

As he asked the routine questions and jotted down his impressions (what were they! what were they!) I took in my surroundings. Tasteful. Spacious. Original painting. Print, artist's name unrecognizable. Love the art. He has a really good poker-face but even at that first meeting I caught the barely perceptible shift, the shadow lengthening under his eyelashes, when he has a hidden thought. This time the hidden thought was that I said something ridiculous, as I spilt my tired old beans about moving, loneliness, bad relationship. And then point blank:

"Wait a minute, what's good about this guy?"

And buh-bye, boyfriend.

Anyhow. That's enough for today. It's been over three months and needless to say, I've stirred another ingredient into my can of beans, and I can't very well talk to my therapist about it, because, in spite of my better sense, I am still hopeful that I have a shot. In spite of all the odds against me on this one-- in spite of "transference," his position, his career, in spite of all the crap he knows about me that I'd never share with a man with whom I had any hopes for any kind of union, even an ineffectual SOB monkey-man and let alone a demigod like Dr. Darcy, and all the personal crap I know about him that he'd never share with me or any other walk-in lunatic, potential Tony Soprano patient-person, and for good reason, but that I've discovered on my own, well-guarded as it is, because if I'd been given some different opportunities in life I'd make a damn good spy.

So, here I am, faceless and anonymous, airing out my dirty laundry in cyberspace, in hopes of some connection, support, and therapy... Maybe even some answers. Maybe it'll stop. But I will be the unsung hero of Transferers everywhere, and I will chronicle my experience on the couch.

Love and latent phobias,

Scarlet O.







*Names changed. Obviously.