Chapter 2 #2
Five minutes later, I stare into the mirror in my office bathroom and blow out a deep breath.
I look like crap. I wash my face and pull my shoulder-length chocolate hair back into a ponytail.
I am in my green scrubs, a mandatory uniform at SSAC, which stands for Sydney Sexual Awareness Clinic.
Our boss feels it desexualizes us. If we are all wearing hospital scrubs, we look more professional, more clinical.
I have to agree. I actually look sexless.
I could be male or female and you wouldn’t be able to tell.
I don’t wear any makeup to work as a twenty-four-year-old, perhaps semi-attractive female. I try to play down my looks.
My patients are damaged, beautiful but damaged.
They all have a problem relating to sex or sexualization.
They don’t need a psychologist throwing her sexuality and seemingly normal life in their face.
What a joke. The irony is I’m just as damaged as them.
Some days I feel like I should be the one on the black leather recliner chair telling them my problems, venting my insecurities.
Today being a prime example. I take a deep breath and talk out loud to myself, like a total nut case.
You’re just unsettled because he’s coming back.
I take a deep steadying breath. He’s long forgotten you, Natasha, it’s time you forget him.
With a resigned shake of my head, I mutter into the mirror. I wish.
I read through my clinical notes.
Patient: Bethany Marcus
Symptoms: Anorgasmia/inability to orgasm
Clinical Notes: Bethany has been unsuccessful in climaxing for a period of three years.
It began when she went through a traumatic experience, i.e.
, her husband had a twelve-month affair.
The marriage has survived; however, Bethany has been troubled since the ordeal.
Bethany also suffers violent sexual dreams, which are distressing to her.
Bethany blames herself for her husband’s infidelity.
Aim: Bethany would like to stay happily married to her husband, Anthony. She would like to fulfil her role as a wife and mother to her family. Bethany would like to be able to forgive her husband and resume a satisfying sexual relationship with him.
I blow out a breath. I really like my next patient.
Bethany is beautiful and smart, with absolutely no confidence.
Her cockroach of a husband has done a total number on her and then lets her blame herself for his inability to keep it in his pants.
If I had my way, I would just tell her to leave him, but I can’t do that.
I have to help her work toward her goal, which unfortunately is a happy life with Anthony.
I would like to see Anthony but Bethany won’t allow it.
I open my office door.
“Hi, Bethany.” She smiles shyly and walks into my office. I gesture for her to take a seat. “How have you been since I last saw you?” I ask.
“Not very well,” she quietly answers.
“Oh, why is that?” I ask. She stays silent as I sit and wait for her answer. Sometimes waiting for answers is the hardest part of this role. She shrugs her shoulders.
“I see.”
“How have you been?” she asks me, and I smile. This is typical Bethany; she always puts others before herself and she sees me as a person and not just her therapist.
“Me? I’m good,” I answer. “A little demotivated this week.” I shrug and smile. “You know how it is.” She nods, grateful that my life isn’t perfect. “Tell me what’s happening,” I urge.
“Anthony told me I am terrible in bed.” Her devastated eyes meet mine. What the fuck.
“How did this come about?” I ask, trying to control my anger.
This guy is a total worm.
“We were in bed and you know my problem.” I nod and stay silent. “I just can’t come, I don’t know why. It doesn’t matter what I do, what I think about, it just doesn’t happen.”
“I see.” I nod. “And what happened then?” I keep my voice monotone so as to not throw her train of thought.
“As usual, he got frustrated and asked what the fuck was the matter with me.”
“OK.” I nod. “What did you say?”
“I told him to just finish off as it wasn’t going to happen.
And then, well he just finished off and rolled over.”
“I see.” I stay silent to let her finish, but she remains silent. “What happened then?”
“I told him I was coming to you.”
“Had you not told him before?”
“No, I hadn’t.”
“And what did he say?”
“He told me that no expensive doctor could make me receptive in bed, that I’m a cold fish and that he’s never been with a woman who is so unresponsive.”
“What do you think of that?” I ask.
“He’s right,” she sighs.
“I don’t believe that,” I assert. “You may be unresponsive to him at the moment, but it’s not physical, it’s totally emotional.
Bethany, I treat both men and woman who suffer from anorgasmia and they are in loving relationships with a person they can trust.” She nods as she listens.
“Have you thought about what we talked about last visit?”
“Yes,” she says. “It’s not going to be possible.”
“Why?” I ask.
“Because he doesn’t know I haven’t orgasmed in three years.”
I cross my arms. “What do you mean?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
“I’ve been faking it all along.”
I nod. This is common. “Do you think you should come clean?” I give her a small empathetic smile.
“No, he would be devastated.”
I nod. “So, it’s OK if you’re devastated, just not him.”
“I know how this looks,” she whispers.
“How does this look, Beth?” I urge.
“That I am a martyr.”
I smile. “Is that what you think?” I ask her softly.
“Do you?” she asks.
“No, I don’t think you’re a martyr. Would it matter to you if I did?”
She nods her head.
“It shouldn’t matter what anyone thinks, Beth, only you.”
“I care what you think.” She smiles. “You’re the only person who knows about this.”
I frown. “You haven’t confided in a friend?” I ask, a little shocked.
“No. I don’t want my friends to judge Anthony, or me for staying with him.”
“I see,” I answer. “Beth, do you think that the friends you keep are really on your side?”
She looks at me as she processes what I have just asked her and then she shrugs. We both sit in silence as I wait for her to speak, but she doesn’t.
Mmm, we will come back to this. “Did you speak to Anthony about foreplay?”
She shakes her head.
“Mmm OK, so can I guess you didn’t do as I suggested and ask him to try Viagra?”
“I just can’t.” She looks so vulnerable; my heart goes out to her.
“I don’t want him to think that I think he’s not good enough for me in bed.”
“But it’s OK if he makes you feel lacking,” I sigh.
She nods. “Bethany, I don’t know a woman alive that can come in seven minutes of penetrative sex with no foreplay.
” She nods. “You know, Beth, and this is off the record, but I take at least twenty minutes to get in the frame of mind and then another twenty minutes, at least, of foreplay before I even want to think about sex. He needs to know that it’s not happening. Maybe he would try harder if he knew.”
She nods. “Maybe.”
“Isn’t that your grudge with him?” She frowns. “That he was
dishonest?”
She nods and hangs her head, knowing what I am going to say next.
“Are you being totally honest with him, Beth?”
“No,” she answers.
I stay silent, waiting for her to process the information.
“Last time I saw you we talked about trust.”
“Yes.” She smiles.
“How are the trust levels at home?”
“I try, I really do, but I just can’t seem to get there.”
“Beth, trust is not something that happens. It is a decision you make. You either decide you will trust him from now on, or you move on. Do you have trust that you will be OK if he leaves you?” She shakes her head.
“I see, but if you move on with him and you haven’t made that decision to trust—to trust him and to trust yourself to be strong—you are setting yourself up for a lifetime of misery. ”
“I know,” she whispers. “It’s not completely his fault. I was so engrossed with the kids. I was just so preoccupied that I didn’t realize that he needed more sex and I let myself go and I didn’t even try to be sexy for him.”
“Beth, don’t you dare sit there and defend him to me.
For the record, you were busy with his kids.
His children, not someone else’s. And you let yourself go.
How ridiculous. I sit here and I see a beautiful, smart English girl who has left her family and her country to move to the other side of the world for a man who has taken her for granted. ”
“He would never have cheated if I was, I don’t know, more attractive.”
I sigh. “Beth, what do you see when you look at me?”
“What do you mean?” she asks.
I stand up and walk around in front of her and do a twirl.
“Now, when you look at me what do you see?”
She smiles, “A really pretty, smart girl.”
I laugh, “That’s funny, Beth, do you know that in my past I have had not one but two—” I hold my fingers up to accentuate the point, “—two boyfriends cheat on me.”
Her mouth drops open. “But why?” she mutters under her breath.
I shrug my shoulders. “Who knows, but it has absolutely nothing to do with me.” She frowns at me.
“Men cheat for a number of reasons, Beth. But the main reason is that they are lacking something within their own self-esteem. They need to feel desired or wanted or need their ego stroked. Whatever the reason, Beth, infidelity is the path of a coward. Staying loyal to one person is hard work, and it’s something that both you and I strive for.
And you can be proud of that. Many women when faced with an affair go down the payback route and only end up feeling a lot worse for doing so.
” I stay silent, waiting for her to say something but she doesn’t.
“There is only one way to receive equality in your marriage, Beth.”
“How?” she asks.