Open and Honest
Alyna and I pull up in front of a small house in Burbank. We’ve left the kids with her friend Isabelle. I say, “This guy doesn’t operate out of an office?”
She says, “This is his office.”
“This is a house.”
“It’s a home office.”
We get out and walk up to the home office of a couples therapist for our first session. When we get to the porch, I reach up to ring the doorbell. Alyna grabs my hand and says, “Hey, what are you doing?”
“Ringing the bell.”
She points to a sign hanging from the doorknob that reads, SESSION IN PROGRESS. PLEASE TAKE A SEAT UNTIL IT CONCLUDES AND RESPECT MY CLIENTS BY NOT RINGING THE DOORBELL OR KNOCKING. THANK YOU. ROLAND.
I notice two white plastic lawn chairs sitting on the porch, which I assume are meant for us. I can’t help saying, “This guy seems real legit.”
Alyna says, “He is. Rachel and Doug have been seeing him for a year now and they say he’s really helped them.”
“Couldn’t have helped much if they’re still seeing him after a year.”
“Will you at least give this a chance? Please, for me, can you just not make jokes and treat this seriously?”
I look at Alyna and wonder if Holly will ever be married to a guy she forces into couples therapy. Even though I had my finger in her ass, somehow it seems likely to me. I say, “Calm down. Yes. I can take it seriously.”
She says, “Thank you,” and sits down in the lawn chair next to me.
After a few minutes of silence, the door opens and a couple comes out. The guy looks like someone just spent an hour kicking him in the ball bag, and the chick has a giant smile on her face. Eye contact with everyone on Roland’s porch is unavoidable. We all nod to one another. The guy gives me a nod that silently says, “You have no idea what you’re in for, you poor fucking bastard.” The chick gives me a nod that silently says, “I know you’re a fucking asshole or your wife wouldn’t have had to bring you here.” Alyna gets a nod from the chick that silently says, “You go, girl.” And she gets a nod from the guy that silently says, “Fuck you, cunt.” They leave and walk off toward their car as Roland says, “Alyna?”
She says, “Yes. Nice to meet you.”
He says, “You, too. Thanks for being prompt.”
She says, “Well, the babysitter gets paid by the hour,” and they both laugh a forced laugh. All I can think is, this motherfucker gets paid by the hour, too, and I’m sure his rate is about ten times what I’m paying the fucking babysitter.
We walk inside Roland’s house and he takes us to his second bedroom, which he’s converted into an office for therapy. There are three chairs. Alyna and I take the two that are clearly for the couple seeking therapy, and Roland takes the one that faces us both. He takes out a little journal in a leather jacket and an overly fancy pen and says, “Okay, you guys, you obviously wouldn’t be here if things were as good as they could be in your relationship. And that’s how I want you to think of it, too. Too many couples think of couples therapy as something you do when there’s a problem in the relationship, but that’s not what this is about. This is about helping you guys get everything out of your relationship that you can, even when things are going fine. So I’ll ask each of you, without wording it in a way that makes it sound like a problem, what is one way you’d like to see your relationship improve? Alyna, why don’t you start?”
She says, “Okay. I’d like to catch my husband masturbating less frequently.”
I say, “Jesus Christ. Does he have to know that?”
Roland says, “It’s okay. I don’t judge anything that’s said in this room, and I need you both to be open and honest for this process to work. Okay?”
Alyna says, “Okay.”
I say, “Fair enough. If we’re putting it all out there, the reason I was jerking off—”
Alyna cuts me off. “Can you say masturbating, please?”
I say, “Fine. The reason I was masturbating is that my wife will only fuck me twice a month, if I’m lucky, and she doesn’t even seem to be interested in those two times while they’re happening.”
Alyna stares at me with her mouth open. “Can you say making love, please?”
Roland leans back in his chair, puts his little journal down on the ground, and says, “Okay, guys. This is a very common issue in marriages, especially after kids are introduced. It’s tough to maintain that same level of physical intimacy that you had in the beginning of the relationship when you have to worry about dirty diapers and trips to the pediatrician and rides to school. So what I’ll ask both of you to do right now is be extremely honest with one another and promise each other, and me, that you won’t react emotionally to anything that’s said over the next hour but instead you’ll hear everything and process it logically. Can you do that?”
I say, “Yeah.”
Alyna says, “Of course.”
Roland says, “Good. So, Alyna, you start again and tell your husband one thing that turns you on about him.”
I can’t fucking believe what I’m hearing. Roland is a fucking genius. With one sentence, it’s like he’s erased every complaint in Alyna’s head. As I wait for her to say something, to say anything, I know the real answer is that nothing about me turns my wife on.
She says, “Well, you really are a good provider for us. For our family, I mean. You work hard.” This is a total crock of shit. Alyna’s just throwing out some generic compliment in an effort to completely avoid actually answering the question, actually addressing the matter at hand. I want Roland to nail her to the wall for it.
Roland says, “And this sexually arouses you?” Roland is my new best fucking friend. I love this guy.
She says, “Well, not sexually, but it’s an attractive quality.”
Roland says, “Well, can you think of something about your husband that sexually arouses you?”
She says, “This isn’t a fair question. We have two kids. We’ve been married for five years. I mean, can he name something that sexually arouses him about me?”
Without hesitating for a single second I say, “Your ass, your tits, the sound you make when you cum, the way your neck smells, the way your mouth looks when you eat marshmallows, and the taste of your pussy,” and I sit there staring at her, waiting for her to have anything to say in response to this. She just stares at me. She knows I’m being honest, and she knows she can’t even come close to my answer.
Roland says, “Alyna, how does hearing that make you feel?”
Alyna says, “I feel a little embarrassed, actually.”
Roland says, “Why?”
She says, “Because I just don’t see myself like that anymore, I guess. I’m a mom now.”
Roland says, “But before you were ever a mom, you were a woman your husband was very attracted to, and obviously still is.”
Roland spends the rest of the hour giving us pointers on things we can do to increase the frequency with which we have sex. When we leave Roland’s home office we walk past another couple sitting in the plastic lawn chairs. The guy looks like he’d rather be drinking from a fountain of liquid shit than sitting on that porch until he sees that I have a giant smile on my face and Alyna looks like someone spent the last hour kicking her in the cunt.