A Story for Mike 2
Nexis Pas
‘David, come in. How have you been this past week?’
‘Fine, Doctor. I’ve been fine. Should I sit or lie down this week?’ The young man sidled into the room, opening the door only enough to squeeze his well-developed body through it.
‘Whatever you makes you feel most comfortable, David.’ Doctor Phillips scrawled the note ‘diffident again’ on the tablet on his desk as David sat in the chair opposite the doctor’s desk. The young man perched gingerly on the edge of the seat as if he dared not relax and lean back. His hands were clenched tightly in his lap, his shoulders hunched over. He stared at the carpet as if even the briefest glance toward the doctor would result in an unbearable contact.
‘You seem upset today, David. Has something happened?’ David shook his head no without looking up. Doctor Phillips regarded his patient with exasperation. He thought they had been making progress, and now David had slipped back to much the same state he had been during his first visits. ‘David, I’m here to help. But I can’t help you unless you help me by talking to me. I know that you find the things that are happening to you difficult to discuss, but you’ve been here many times before. You’ve talked to me before. Just relax, lean back and . . .’
‘I had that dream again. The strange house, the fire, the man talking, cigar, boots, making me do disgusting things.’ The words tumbled out of David’s mouth. He hunched over even more.
‘I see, David. It has been a while since you had that particular dream. Not since early summer, I think. Let’s talk about it. Just relax and tell me about it. Lean back in the chair and close your eyes. Start at the beginning. How did the dream start?’
‘I got an email. It was just a short message. Just that day’s date and 7.30. I somehow knew that I had an appointment to keep. Then I found myself knocking on the door of the house at 7:30 exactly. I checked my watch before I began knocking on the door to make sure that I was exactly on time. For some reason, it was important to be right on time. I didn’t know why I was there. But I felt I had to be there. That I didn’t have any choice. It was a compulsion. I couldn’t resist.’
‘Very good, David. Just relax. Close your eyes, Play the dream over again in your mind and talk about it. You are safe here. It is just a dream. Talking about it with me will help you. Now continue. You are knocking at the door. You feel a compulsion that you cannot resist. You have to be at the door. Close your eyes and experience the dream again. What happens next?’
‘He opens the door. He is talking to me and calling me “Mike”. He keeps calling me “Mike”. He’s saying that he hasn’t seen me for a while and apologizing for neglecting me. Then he takes my coat and tells me to go into the living room. That there is a fire there. He remembers how much I like fires. A wood fire. The room smells so good.’
‘Describe him for me.’
‘He’s tall, taller than me anyway. Older, maybe in his mid-thirties. I don’t really see him very clearly. The hall is dark. The only light comes from the fire and one lamp in a corner. I have a stronger impression of his personality than of his looks. He’s very authoritative. Like a schoolmaster, or a doctor. Very self-assured. Very strong.’
‘Do you like him? Do you like those qualities?’
‘Not really, Doctor. I try to avoid domineering people as much as I can. I don’t like them.’
‘Why not?’
‘They can make you do things you don’t want to. I find that . . . It is upsetting. People shouldn’t do that.’
‘Just relax, David. Remember you’re safe here. It was just a dream. The man in the dream isn’t real. Let’s go back to the dream. Now, the man calls you “Mike”. Your middle name is Michael. Do other people call you Mike or Michael? Family members? Friends?’
‘No, Doctor. No one has ever used that name. It’s just a middle name because you have to have a middle name. Something to fill in the blank.’
‘What do you feel when the man in the dream calls you “Mike”?’
‘It’s as if he’s talking to someone else. It’s not really me. It’s someone else. I’m inhabiting Mike’s body, but it’s not really me that’s doing all these things. It’s Mike who’s doing them.’
‘Does it seem important that it be someone else?’
‘I couldn’t do those things, Doctor. They’re horrible and disgusting.’
‘Just relax, David. Remember it’s just a dream. Now, Mike is entering the living room. There is a fire, I take it. What happens next?’
‘The man tells Mike to sit in one of the chairs in front of the fire. There are two chairs, at angles to each other. So you can look into the fire, but if you turn your head a bit, you can see the person in the other chair. They’re chairs like this one. Wingback chairs, is that the right name?’
‘Yes, they are called wingback chairs. They are quite comfortable. Very relaxing I find. They are my favourite. What happens next?’
‘He has Mike take off his shoes and sit down in the chair. Then he pours a glass of wine for Mike. It’s the same wine he gave me, that he gave Mike, last time. It’s a beautiful red colour, especially when you hold the glass up and look at the fire through the wine. The flames just dance in the wine. You can almost feel the flames physically on your face. It’s as if the light from the flames is touching your face.’ David paused as if lost in thought and enjoying the memory. He had settled back into the chair, much more relaxed than when he had entered the doctor’s office. His hands were resting in his lap, the fingers splayed softly over his stomach, and his head was tilted back against the chair. Doctor Phillips allowed David to rest for a few moments while he quietly made notes.
‘It sounds very peaceful. I always find a fire and a glass of good wine very relaxing. It helps me unwind after a busy day. I just sit down in my favourite chair before a fire and watch the flames while I drink a glass of wine. What happens next in the dream?’
‘I drink some of the wine. It helps me relax even more. It makes me feel warm and relaxed. The man continues to talk to me. I’m getting very sleepy, however, and I just can’t keep my eyes open. I try to focus on the fire, but it gets harder and harder to watch it. It’s very relaxing to stare deeply into the fire and watch the flames. To watch them dance about and shift. So hard to keep track of them. They keep changing. I’m so tired. He takes the glass of wine from me. Maybe it was drugged, but I just can’t stay awake anymore. He keeps talking to me, and I can’t help myself. I just have to follow along with what he is saying and do what he tells me to do. I can’t stop what’s happening. I don’t want to stop it. It just feels so good, and he is telling me how pleased he is with me, and that makes me feel so good.’
‘You want to please him.’
‘Oh, yes, I . . . well, Mike wants to please him. I think Mike would do anything for him.’
‘What happens next?’
‘He puts me into a hypnotic trance. It’s very deep. I have to obey him. He makes me open my eyes. He has this, I don’t know what it’s called. It’s a container for cigars that keeps them fresh.’
‘A humidor?’
‘Yes, a humidor. It’s beautiful. It’s shiny metal. Like a silver box. It has this picture on the lid, a Greek god, I think. Nude, muscular. He opens the lid and offers me a cigar. I have to take it. Remember how I told you that in previous sessions, he trained me to smoke. I can’t help myself. The cigars lie in neat rows inside. They’re so big. They’re not like ordinary cigars. They’re long and thick. Just looking at them makes me remember how much I enjoy smoking them. I take one. I do what he has taught me to do. I test it by rolling it between my fingers. I smell it. I lick it. I prepare to smoke it. But then David surfaces. David doesn’t smoke, and he doesn’t want to put the cigar in his mouth. But the man talks, and David goes away so that I can smoke. It feels so good when I finally put the cigar between my lips and take that first puff. The smoke fills my mouth, and I feel so energized by it. It’s like I’ve been waiting for this for months. It arouses me to feel the cigar in my hand, to put it between my lips, to watch the smoke as it rises toward the ceiling. The smoke is so smooth. He sits and watches me while I smoke. I know he likes watching me smoke, so I take my time with it and show him how much I enjoy it. He tells me how much I am pleasing him. When he says that I feel such a rush of pleasure. I want to please him even more. I will do anything that makes him like me.’
Doctor Phillips watched as his patient slipped deeply into reliving the dream. When David had begun his recitation, his body had been relaxed in the chair, almost as if he had fallen asleep. Now he was sitting upright in the chair, his head tilted to rest on the back of the chair. Periodically his arm would lift his hand toward his mouth, an imagined cigar held lightly with his fingertips. His mouth would open and then close around the cigar. His cheeks would tense as he pulled the smoke into his mouth. After a few seconds, he would move his hand away from his mouth, and he would lift his face to direct a stream of smoke toward the ceiling. Wherever he was, it was not in the doctor’s office.
‘Tell me what happened next, David.’
The doctor’s words startled the young man from his reverie. He glanced in surprise at the object in his hand and then looked even more confused when he realized that he was holding nothing. Even though he knew that there was nothing there, he mimed carefully putting the cigar in an ashtray on the table beside the chair.
‘I . . . that is, in the dream, Mike got undressed. The man made me take off my clothes.’
‘Completely?’
‘No, he was wearing white briefs.’
‘Do you wear briefs?’
‘No, I always wear shorts, loose shorts. I’ve tried briefs and I find them too tight. I get . . . they make me . . . that is, they’re too tight and they rub me and irritate my skin and make me get . . . excited. Jockstraps do the same thing to me. I can’t wear those either.’
‘Go on, David. What happens next in the dream?’
‘Well, the man makes me stand before him. I want him to touch me, so I begin touching myself. I know it will feel even better if he touches me. So I stroke my chest. I’m trying to seduce him. He tells me how much my body has improved over the summer. I can tell that he wants to touch me. So I move around to show him my body. And he touches me, and it feels so wonderful. I feel weak and can hardly stand up.’
‘Well, your exercise program is paying off, David. Your body has grown and developed in the past few months.’
‘I don’t exercise, Doctor. I would be embarrassed to go to the gym, with my looks.’
‘Nonetheless, David, you are more developed than you were.’
‘It’s kind of you to say so, Sir. I wish it were true.’
‘Go on, David, continue with the dream.’
‘Isn’t it time to quit, Doctor?’ David begin to show signs of agitation again. Obviously whatever had happened next in the dream was not something he wanted to talk about.
‘We have plenty of time left, David. Just relax. Lean back in the chair. Tell me what happened to Mike next.’
‘Well, Mike was looking at the man, and then the man crossed his legs. I mean, he rested one ankle on the other knee. He was wearing these shiny black boots. The top of them was covered by the legs of his trousers. But they were very shiny. The flames from the fire are reflected in them. He has trained Mike before, there have been other sessions before in which he hypnotized Mike and taught him what to do when he sees the man’s boots. Mike can’t take his eyes off the flickering images of the flames. He has to get closer to the boots. So he kneels down. He can’t stop himself. He just wants to lick the boots. He’s in a trance, see, and he can’t disobey the man. The man commands him to lick the boots and he can’t stop himself. He has to do it. He has to kneel down and put his face close to the boots and lick them with his tongue. And it feels so good when I do that. The leather is so smooth and warm. The boots are so firm, yet the leather is so smooth and soft. I can feel the man’s feet inside the leather. I open my mouth wide and press my lips and tongue against the boot and lick as much as I can. It is making me more and more aroused. Licking the boots.’
Once again, David had slipped back into a trancelike state and was reliving the dream vividly. His mouth opened and closed around an imaginary boot. Doctor Phillips found it fascinating to watch him. David was extraordinarily susceptible to hypnosis. He had the strongest imagination of any patient in Doctor Phillips’s experience. The pantomime that David was enacting was so real to him that even the doctor could almost see the boot that David’s hungry mouth and tongue were devouring.
‘Then I notice the boots need polishing. The only cloth that I have to polish them with is my underpants. And I crouch down over one of the boots and begin rubbing against it with my briefs. The front part of the boot, the foot part is between my legs, and I’m rubbing it. I pressing up against the top part of the boots with my groin and stomach. The toe of the boots rubs against my . . . my anus, and that feels so good. It’s like this electric shock passing into my body, and I grind down hard so that it feels even better, and then I’m getting so excited. And the man is talking and helping me get aroused and I’m about to come. Oh god, I can’t stop myself, it feels so good, i’ve never felt so excited before, i can’t stop. i have to cum and the man is talking to me and making me feel even more arouse, and i can’t stop.’
Doctor Phillips suddenly realized that David had an erection. The young man’s face was flush and his breathing was becoming ragged. His words were flowing out in a rush and his body was beginning to jerk and spasm. ‘David! Wake up! Stop the dream!’
‘Noooooooo. Let me cum.’
‘David, stop immediately.’
David’s body gave a final jerk and his eyes flew open. He grabbed his genitals and squeezed hard. ‘Help me, Doctor Phillips. Make it stop.’
‘David, I command you to stop.’
David gave a final moan. His hands sprang away from his groin as if he had touched something hot. He was still breathing hard. His face was red with embarrassment.
‘David, can I get you a glass of water?’
‘I’ll be all right, Doctor. Can I go now?’
‘In just a minute, David. Now don’t get excited again. Remain calm. What happened next in the dream. What did Mike do?’
‘He had an ejaculation. Inside his briefs. The . . . I don’t know what to call it . . . I’ve heard people refer to it as “cum”.’
‘ “Cum” is fine, David. I’m familiar with the word.’
‘Well, the cum was oozing through the briefs he was wearing. They got all soiled. As if he had had a nocturnal emission. The man told him to get dressed and go home. That he wouldn’t remember anything that had happened. Then I woke up. I had had an ejaculation.’
‘David, our time is up now. We’ll have to talk about this more next time. I think we are making good progress now. I’m very happy with the way you opened up today and discussed this dream.’
‘What does it mean, Doctor? Why do I keep dreaming about having sex with this man? Am I gay?’
‘We’ll discuss the dream next time, David. But it’s important that you shouldn’t worry about it too much. It’s just a dream. When we talk about it, you’ll find that it has many meanings. Now, promise me that you’ll try not to brood over it and worry about it.’
‘I’ll try, Doctor.’ A shy, half-hearted smile played over David’s face as he stood up. He almost ran from the room. It was clear to the doctor that David wanted to disassociate himself as quickly as possible from what had happened. Through the half-open door, the doctor heard his secretary confirm David’s appointment for the following week. He occupied himself with writing notes on the case file until he was sure David had left before swivelling around in his chair to face his computer. He switched on the monitor and called up the recording program. The new technology made it so much easier to record the sessions. With the monitor turned off, his patients treated the computer as just another piece of furniture in the office. The microphones were so well disguised that none of them suspected that every word they uttered was being recorded. He stopped the recording and double-checked to make sure that the file was labelled with the correct case number and date. He saved the file to David’s folder and then closed the program.
He stood up and stretched. He was almost through for the day. He walked across the room and opened the door to the outer office. ‘Susan, I’m finished for the day. I just have to write up my notes on Mr Hamilton and then I’ll leave. If you have nothing else, why don’t you get an early start on the weekend.’
‘Oh, thank you, Doctor Phillips. If you’ll sign these letters, I’ll drop them in the box on the way home.’
‘What are your plans for this weekend? The weather has been so lovely lately. I look forward to working in my garden. I need to start readying it for the winter.’
Doctor Phillips and his secretary continued to chat about their weekend plans as she put on her coat. He locked the office door behind her as she left and then returned to his desk. He turned to his computer again and opened his case notes for David Hamilton. The case was fascinating. Getting the message from “the man” by email was an interesting touch. At one time such instructions had arrived by telegram or phone or over the radio or later the television. The technology of delivery changed with the times. He thought briefly about writing a short article about the subject for the Journal of Psychiatry.
He was happy to see that David was making progress. His homosexuality and his sexual fantasies were becoming less latent, even though he still hid behind the fiction of “Mike”. He would have to monitor David carefully--the danger of schizophrenia was there, and “Mike” could easily become a person in his own right. Interesting that David’s subconscious had come up with a name that was almost but not quite fully his. He would have to probe David to see what his middle name meant to him, especially in the diminutive form. Was he less responsible for his actions as a Mike than as the more adult Michael or the formal David? Doctor Phillips made a note to ask David next time if he had ever been called “Dave.”
The doctor suspected that simple transference accounted for the nature of “the man” in the dream. The brief description that David had given of “the man” could apply to him. He was the Svengali forcing innocent David to become the rutting Mike. David’s next visit should be interesting. He would have to lead David toward confronting the meaning of these dreams. He read over his notes and made a few changes. He saved the file and closed it.
He opened the program to send copies of the files of the recording of the session and the latest update of his notes on David to the medical transcription service. Another way in which technology was making his life easier. On Monday a transcript of the complete recording would be waiting in his inbox to download to David’s folder. He could, if he wished, delete the recording from his computer and free up the space on his hard drive. The original and his case notes were stored permanently at the transcription service in case anything happened to his files. The system also had built-in safeguards to protect his and David’s identity. He was known to the transcription service only as a number, and he assigned each of his patients a number known only to him. If he had understood the explanation of the system correctly, the tapes were transcribed by the computer, which somehow converted the sounds on the tape into written words. He checked the ID number on the files against his list and, as instructed, added an asterisk to the case number in the subject line of the email. After making sure that the files were attached (he sometimes forgot to attach the files and had to send another message later), he clicked on the send button. The file of the recording was so large that the transmission would take a few minutes.
He watched the revolving arrow indicating that the file was being transmitted. It was strange how restful repetitive motion could be. There was something about the way that the arrow moved so regularly that he found relaxing. Yet it was so hard to focus on any one part of the arrow. Really it was hard to take his eyes off it. After a long day, it helped just to let his mind go blank.
Doctor Phillips came to with a start. He must have been more tired than he had realized. He had drifted off while he was waiting for the file transmission to finish. He checked the inbox and found several messages. The most recent one was the automatic confirmation from the transcription service that the files had been successfully transmitted. Most of the others were junk mail. The usual list of stock offerings, enlargement offers, low-cost drugs, a special offer on cigars. He wondered if anyone ever fell for these ads. Someone must, or the people behind them would cease to send them. Perhaps that would make an interesting research project--to find out who responded to these emails. He devoted a few idle thoughts to how one might conduct a survey of email respondents. This cigar ad, for example. He clicked on the email and opened it.
To his surprise, there were only a few numbers. Perhaps his spam blocker had deleted the body of the message. It was time to leave anyway. He turned off the computer.