Claudia hesitated as she read the white painted letters on the door:
Dr. Henry Stuart, M.D., Ph.D.
, and then the single word beneath that ricocheted throughout her brain:
Psychiatrist
. She wanted to reach for the handle, but her hand declined to move. For years she had suspected she might need professional help; her closest friends had echoed that opinion on more than one occasion. Now only one hand and one door stood between her and a chance for a normal life. She dropped her brow and her gaze- she did want a normal life, didn't she?
With a firm lip Claudia forced her treasonous fingers to the handle, threw the door wide, and strode into the office beyond. Marching to the receptionist's desk, she glanced at the nameplate before looking to the woman behind the desk. "Hello Jenny," she began, "I'm Claudia Burns. I believe I have an appointment for two o'clock but I'm meant to fill out some paperwork before then."
The receptionist flashed a civil smile. "Yes, ma'am," she replied, reaching for a clipboard and a pen. "If you'll please have a seat on the couch and fill these out. Dr. Stuart's one o'clock rescheduled, so he can see you as soon as you are finished."
Claudia nodded and accepted the clipboard. Muttering a token, "Thank you," she examined the paperwork on the way to the sofa. She gave a cursory look to the fine wood and upholstered furnishings as she took her seat, then began the monotonous task of filling out the short stack of forms.
A quarter-hour later, the patient returned to the receptionist.
"Finished?" Jenny inquired.
"Yes," Claudia acknowledged with a shallow nod, extending the hand bearing the clipboard.
"Ok, then," Jenny replied as she accepted the paperwork. "I'll give these to Dr. Stuart. Please have a seat."
Claudia returned to the sofa. Another fifteen minutes passed before the receptionist summoned her, "Mrs. Burns?"
Claudia rose. "It's Miss Burns."
Jenny flashed an innocent smile. "Oh, I beg your pardon Miss Burns. Dr. Stuart will see you now. Right through that door."
Claudia's confidence wavered again as she turned to face the mahogany panel that stood between her and the doctor.
Am I really going to see a shrink? Am I really crazy? Only one way to find out
, she concluded as she barged through the portal.
Henry Stuart eyed his incoming patient with some surprise. She was hardly the downtrodden, overweight, nearly middle-aged woman he had come to anticipate from reading her file. Indeed, she appeared to be in her mid-twenties, with a pleasant, almost innocent, face surrounded by full mane of dark, wavy hair. Her figure, though sporting a hint of softness, was still firm enough to do her trimly tailored business suit justice.
Claudia eyed the doctor with equal curiosity. He certainly did not look like a psychiatrist to her. The man was younger than she had expected; and tall and rather gangly as well, with a curly mop of dirty blonde hair. His coat didn't match his trousers and neither fit better than the other. He looked much more like Bob Dylan than Bob Newhart.
Henry stood and issued a civil smile. "Good afternoon, Miss Burns."
"Good afternoon, Doctor," she replied with a polite bob of her head.
"You prefer the chair, or the couch," Dr. Stuart inquired, motioning to both seats.
Claudia briefly examined the black leather sofa and the matching chair. "Isn't the couch the traditional place for the patient?"
"Yes, Miss Burns, but I believe in doing things because they work, not because everyone else does them. Perhaps that's one of the reasons I have been successful in curing every one of my patients."
"Every one?"
Henry flashed a lips-closed grin before affirming, "One hundred percent."
The woman smiled as she nodded. "I'll take the chair then. And do call me Claudia."
Henry did his best to imitate her grin as he picked up the clipboard. He strolled to his sofa and lay down, as if he was the patient. At once, Claudia felt somehow more secure and less intimidated- exactly the reaction the doctor had sought.
"Now," Henry began, "As I understand it, you've a history of being abused by your spouses. Correct?"
"Not exactly," Claudia replied. "You see, I am attracted to men who abuse me, that much is true. But I actually
enjoy
being abused." She shook her head in a slow, wobbly motion. "I don't know what's wrong with me."
"But you do want the pattern of abuse to stop?" the doctor pressed.
"Yes," Claudia replied. "I want to quit enjoying it."
"Why do you want to quit enjoying it?"
"Well," Claudia's brow fell as she paused. "I'm not supposed to like it, right? I mean there is something wrong with me; isn't there?"
"Ordinarily, one would think so," said Henry, "but
wrong
is often such a vague term. Perhaps we should look into why you enjoy the abuse and then perhaps we can discover how you might change your outlook."
Claudia issued another shallow nod. "Ok."
"Tell me about your parents," Dr. Stuart instructed. "Were they overly strict?"
Claudia quickly shook her head. "No. Quite the opposite. I can't remember either of them ever even yelling at me, much less laying a hand upon me. They spoiled me and doted on me in every way."
"You were well-off then?"
"Very much so," Claudia replied. "And they still help me out. Without them, I couldn't afford to be here."
"Were your parents overprotective?"
"Very."
"And how did you respond to that?" the doctor inquired. "Especially during the teenage years."
"Oh, I was a rather bad teenager." Claudia paused to release a large sigh. "I tried smoking and drinking, and even took a drag on a marijuana cig once. And I had sex with three different men before I was twenty."
Henry tried, and failed, to suppress a grin. "Three partners before marriage might have qualified as promiscuous a generation ago during the Eisenhower administration, but it's hardly unusual today and a little ordinary teenage experimentation certainly doesn't make anyone a bad person. To hear you tell it, I would think you a fairly normal youngster."
"You wouldn't have thought so to listen to my parents," Claudia replied.
The doctor raised his brow. "Your parents yelled at you then?"
"No! But they scolded me just the same."
Henry set the clipboard on his chest and clasped his hands across his abdomen. "I see. Go on. Tell me more about how your parents reacted to your normal teenage rebellion and experimentation. Every detail you can recall."
"Everything?"
"Yes. If your brain recorded it, it did so for a reason."
Claudia issued a thoughtful nod. She then continued to relate the history of her adolescence until the hands on her watch told her that the hour was at an end. "Do you think we got anywhere, Doctor?" she inquired as she was gathering her things. "I don't feel any different."
Henry stood and straightened his suit. "We shouldn't expect to make any real progress for several sessions. It takes at least that long to establish a rapport and begin to understand what makes you tick."
"Oh," Claudia smiled. "I know what makes me tick. That's the problem."
Dr. Stuart returned the smile. "Ok. We'll maybe focus a little more on that next time. Do make an appointment with the receptionist for next week."
"That long?" Claudia queried.
Henry nodded. "A week is typically a good amount of time between sessions. Allows us both to absorb and consider things, but isn't long enough for us to forget much."
"I see." Claudia replied softly. "Well, thank you, Doctor. See you next week."
***
Dr. Stuart passed the following week in a completely forgettable fashion. He entered the next meeting with Miss Burns as he had exited the previous one, confident that a simple self-esteem issue was the source of the dilemma. He figured he had but to make the lovely lady aware of her own worth and she would soon solve her own problems.
"Do you still prefer the chair?" Henry asked as his patient entered the office.
"Yes," said Claudia. "If you don't mind."
"Not at all," replied Dr. Stuart, reclining once again on the sofa. "I believe last time we discussed your relationship with your parents."
"That's correct."
"This time," Dr. Stuart began, "I'd like to focus on your first marriage. There have been two, correct?"
"Yes," replied Claudia. "Two."
"Tell me about the first one."
"Daniel was in the army," Claudia related. "He was quite a jerk, really. Treated me very respectably in public, but at home he was always slapping me and telling me how useless I was. And when he was drinking, which was often, well, then he was really mean."
"What attracted you to Daniel in the first place?"
"I don't know," Claudia admitted. "He was really nice to me at first. I can't really say why I was attracted to him. He didn't show his nasty streak until after we were married."
Dr. Stuart twitched his lips as he tried to digest what the young lady had really just said. "How long were you together?"
"Four years."
"Who terminated the relationship?"
"I did."
"Because he mistreated you when he was intoxicated?"
"No!" Claudia snapped. "Because he was always apologizing afterwards. He could never seem to get it through his head that I wasn't mad at him for what he did when he was drunk, or when he was sober- for that matter. And the sex was pretty lame."
"Why was the sex unsatisfactory?"
"Because he didn't excite me much when he was sober and he was never interested- or good- when he was drunk."
"I see," said Dr. Stuart. "And how did you feel about yourself."
"I felt fine," Claudia professed. "He was the messed up one. He needs two women, a pretty one for in public, and a spineless one for at home."
"And which of those women were you unwilling to be?"
Claudia paused. "Neither, I suppose. I could have been both and been very happy."
"What do you mean?"
"I mean," Claudia explained, "that I'd have been perfectly content pretending to be a proper wife in public if he'd have only given me what I wanted in private."
"Sounds like he did just that; treated you nice in public and not so nice in private," Dr. Stuart noted. "So what didn't work for you about that situation?"
Claudia considered the question for the better part of a minute. "I guess it was that he didn't respect me for who I was."
"How did he not respect you?"
"By not understanding what I wanted," Claudia said. "And giving it to me freely. He just gave me what I wanted by coincidence; because he was an asshole. He didn't do it because he loved me."
Dr. Stuart raised his brow and blinked a couple times in succession, trying to fathom if his patient could possibly be as twisted as she seemed. "I see," he said at last, though it was something of a fib. "So then what? How long before you married again?"
"One hundred and sixteen days."
"One hundred and sixteen days?"
