He said he had never really thought about her sexually. He said he had to spend a lot of time getting to know a person before he had sex. He said this was all very unexpected and he needed to digest it. He asked if she would like to see a movie with him next week. She understood his words. She understood the sentiments that would seem, at least, to lie behind his words. But she felt something beneath those words that she didn't understand. She said she didn't want to see a movie. She said that if they got to know each other, they probably wouldn't want to have sex. She told him that if she'd waited to get to know people before having sex, she'd probably still be a virgin. She didn't understand what moved beneath her own words. It seemed too big to be chipped off in word form, but it didn't matter; she kept talking until the dentist stepped forward and embraced her. She closed her eyes and extended her face upward, to kiss him. There was no sexual feeling in her body, and she didn't feel any in his. That made her want to press against him all the more fiercely, as if she were pinching numb flesh to feel the dull satisfaction of force without effect. Then he bent his head and kissed her on the lips. She glimpsed his face; it was infused with tentative lewdness. A thin shock of sexual feeling flew up her center. It scared her as much as if it had been a tongue of flame shooting out of thin air, and she stepped away as quickly as he did. She almost said, "George, I'm scared, I'm so scared." But she didn't.
"I've gotta go," he said.
"Wait a minute," she said. She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him down on the couch, except the pressure she exerted wasn't enough to properly be called a push. Even so he sat, with a little affectation of imbalance; a sensualized shadow of benevolent goofiness passed over his face. It was familiar and dear, this shadow, and she couldn't have it. In truth, she probably didn't even want it, and he probably knew that. It occurred to her that he couldn't have it, either, even though "it" was him. She sat down and curled her body against his. He put his arms around her.
"Do you think this is strange?" she asked.
"Am I supposed to think it's strange?"
"I don't know. I think it's strange."
"Why?"
"Because you're not my type at all."
"Then why...?"
"I don't know." Her voice was as false and cute as that of a ventriloquist's dummy. But her real voice wouldn't come out. She put her head against his chest. He stroked her hair. He said, "I have to go, Jill. I have to feed the dog. I'll call you. I know I always say that, but I will this time."
On his way out, he complimented her on her choice of wine.
She boiled some asparagus, poured salt on it, ate it, and watched TV. She watched a show about a crazy middle-aged woman who seduced teenage boys and then made them kill people. About halfway through it, it occurred to her that the dentist was her type after all.
She didn't think of him that night. But in the nights that followed, she did. In her thoughts they did not have sex. They did not talk or look at each other. He only touched her in order to pierce her genitals with needles. She did not look at him or talk to him or touch him.
Jill described these thoughts to her therapist. She said she wouldn't consider them problematic if the dentist had been willing to put them into practice with her, but that it had become increasingly clear that he was not. She asked the therapist why she had encouraged her to be friendly with the dentist, pointing out that everyone else she knew had warned her off him. The therapist said that what Jill had described sounded like a fairly typical man who was perhaps a little bit frightened and immature, and that she thought Jill's friends were simply "speaking out of their defenses." Jill said that even if that were true, it was clear that her attraction had devolved into a masochistic compulsion and that the dentist himself appeared to be in the grip of some ghastly, half-conscious sadism. The therapist said that just because Jill had been hurt by the dentist didn't make him a sadist, and Jill conceded that this was true.
"The thing is, I didn't want it to be about a piercing fantasy," she said. "And I don't think he wanted it to be this way, either. So I don't understand what happened."
By the end of the session, it was decided that Jill projected her fears onto the dentist and then judged him, and that the more she judged, the more fear she felt. "I'd like to encourage you to stop taking a victim stance," said the therapist. "Why don't you show some compassion?"
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