Therapy: First Session... Scarlett and Rhett
by
Miles Naismith
Sydney is a therapist. She is also my best friend.
I can keep the two separate, but sometimes she can't. But she is helping me to sort out some conflicting feelings. She told me to write down the whole story; she says it will help me.
The relevant facts began with her. We were doing the girl talk thing at lunch, one Saturday, not long before the events related here. She was offering "cocktail party" therapy, nothing deep.
"Let me summarize. Your Dad ran everything in your family, while your Mom pretended to be in charge. Koji doesn't run things, and it bothers you. Do you want to be your Mom?"
Koji is my husband.
"No! I do not want to be my Mom. I mean, it seems to work for her -- she's happy -- but I like being an equal partner with Koji."
"Then why are you so dissatisfied right now?"
"I don't know. I don't want him to run everything, but I wish he'd be more forceful than saying, 'Whatevah you want, Sistah,' sometimes." Koji can and does use the pidgin dialect of his childhood. I just have to smile when I hear it.
"You have no idea how many women would love to have your relationship, but I know what you mean."
She lowered her voice, almost talking to herself, " I might still be with Tom if he were a little more of the caveman instead of a metrosexual wannabe black turtleneck wearing pseudo-sophisticate snob."
She spoke up again to me, "You want to be controlled, yet still be in control. It's a not uncommon human wish."
"I don't want to be controlled! I just want more, I don't know, firmness. Something to push back against. I'm drowning in marshmallow fluff."
"What a way to go. You want to trade Koji to me for a week? I could stand some coddling. You can have John... he can beat his chest with the best of them, and a fine chest it is. And he's big... you know?"
Koji, despite his name, is not primarily of Japanese descent, although he has a lot of that. Hawaii is a true melting pot in a way that the mainland just talks about. He was well over six feet and looked more Polynesian than anything else except for the eyes. His nickname when he was young, and my pet name for him now, was Kojidai. That's roughly "Big Koji" in phrasebook Japanese. Or so I've been told.
John, Sydney's latest beau, was a weightlifter type, all bulging muscles. He was big, but I've heard what those steroids can do to the genitalia. Sydney might be surprised if I took her up on her offer: Kojidai's nickname fits him all over.
I wasn't tempted, though, even if she had been serious.
I finally got Sydney off the therapist track, and we had a wonderful visit for the rest of our lunch break. But the caveman remark got me thinking. Always dangerous, thinking.
I thought that maybe Sydney was on to something without really knowing it. After all, when the caveman bashes the woman over the head and drags her off by the hair, what does one think he is going to do with her.
After the first thought, a smart woman might look ahead to the second thoughts, like having to cook, to gather roots and berries, and to pick up dirty saber-tooth loin cloths from the floor, but I think everyone has the first thought. It was strangely attractive.
Cavemen were out, but I knew someone who could supply just the right touch for this fantasy. When Koji got into his car on that Friday, he found a letter taped over the speedometer glass.
It said, "Tonight I want Rhett Butler. I want the man the other women secretly want. The man my parents warned me about. Preferably you, but if you want any tonight, you'll have to show me some moves.
Meet me tonight at the Jefferson at 7:00 p.m. Go up the grand stairway, then to the left, to the big conference room on the second floor, wearing the name tag in this envelope.
If you can get a woman to punch her name and number into your cell phone, and take her picture, I will give you a blowjob to remember. If the picture shows her to be pretty, and she is wearing a wedding ring, you may carry me up our stairs to our bed, muttering 'This is one night you're not turning ME out!' before you take me any way you want for one hour.
But just remember, no name, no phone number, no pic... then no nooky tonight.
I will be keeping myself busy being true to my role in all this, flirting with whatever males are available until you give me a thumbs up. Then I will leave and meet you at the bottom of the stairs.
Scarlett"
I had deliberately picked the Jefferson Hotel for two reasons: its grand staircase was the very place they had filmed Rhett carrying off Scarlett while saying the famous line, and it was also the site of some kind of Montessori school seminar with lots of elementary school teachers attending.
Since I sort of really wanted to submit to him for that hour, I thought I would give him what he was fond of calling a target rich environment.
Of course, this would not be a meat market singles bar. He would need to work harder than that to earn me, but hey, Montessori teachers had to lean to the liberal side, don't you think?
I won't describe now or later trivia like how I got authentic name tags. Suffice it to say, if you wonder about such stuff, I am smart and resourceful.
I have never been to Koji's actual office. I don't have the security clearance. But I knew, of course, where it was, and I knew he would have to go straight to the Jefferson to make it on time.
Richmond traffic is not as bad as Washington, but it just wouldn't permit him to make the round trip to and from home by 7:00.
I work close to home, so I went there after work. I packed some clothes and essential toys and DVDs for my daughter.
She would be spending the weekend with my parents. Mom was coming by to pick her up, and, since she lived more or less on the other side of the city, she was going to drop me off at the Jefferson. I thought it might spoil the moment if Koji and I had to commute back in separate cars.
Besides, I wanted to tease on the way home... a little frustration on his part might induce him to perform better once home, at least as my fantasy saw it, in this theater piece.
When she got here, after the hi-how-are-you's, Mom said, "Looks like someone's getting lucky tonight!"
I never hear my friends' moms make comments like that, but mine is cool. And I hoped she was right.