Hitchhiking to Heaven

“I’d like to ask you a question,” Dr. Stein said, wiping his glasses with a white linen handkerchief.
Stein never asked questions other than the usual “why do you think you feel that way?” He was also fond of “uh huh.” So when he announced his intention of posing of a direct question, I perked up. “Janice,” he asked, “do you masturbate?”
I was in the midst of talking about my mother’s perverted interest in my brother’s bathroom habits when Dr. Stein cut in, which he never did—he’d sit back with his hands folded on his paunch and periodically offer me a Kleenex. He must have gotten a special deal. It was his thing. Some offer candies, share grass, proffer acid. I presented Stein with my most hellish thoughts and he thrust out boxes of Kleenex.
“I despise my mother.”
“Do you want a Kleenex?”
“I’m going to kill her tomorrow.”
“Oh? Sure you won’t take me up on a Kleenex?”
“I’m going to quarter her. Saw up her vital joints and incinerate them.”
“Listen. Take a Kleenex, damn it!”
When he asked me did I masturbate, I lifted my chin and looked squarely at him. “No,” I said.
“What! You! I don’t believe it! You’re embarrassed, perhaps? I’m a psychologist, I hear these things all the time. It’s a well-known fact—masturbation keeps the body healthy and the mind active. Now listen carefully. Tonight I want you to go home, choose a washcloth, a slightly rough one for friction, and find a comfortable spot. Do you have a lock on your bedroom?”
“No,” I said.
“Uh huh, no lock on the bedroom. No lock on the bedroom,” he said sliding his silver Parker pen between his thumb and index finger. “Well, is there a private place you could go to that has a lock?”
“I could use the bathroom on our floor—I share the bathroom with my sister and brother, but there are five bathrooms in the house, so I could use ours, I guess.”
“You could. Yes,” he paused. “You could certainly use that one. You’ve never . . . ?” He pushed his chair back and stood up.
You could tell masturbation was an issue he felt powerfully about. The way I did about the Bomb and Vietnam. He was a man of his convictions and I was determined to help him. I’ve never regretted it. A bird in the hand does not sing as sweetly as a hand in the bush.

When I returned for my Tuesday four-thirty session, Dr. Stein’s bald head was practically gleaming.   
“Well, Janice,” he said leaning sharply forward and quickly realigning himself, “how did it go?”
“Fine, Dr. Stein, it went fine.” I wanted to tell him of my melodic bird in the bush and its symphonic glories. He was a nice man and I knew he must enjoy the classics. He had that pale pinched look.
“Can you tell me about it?” he asked. His falsetto betrayed him. Over the years I’ve received compliments for my good heart; compassion has always been my strong suit.
“It was as you said—masturbating sure does keep the body healthy and the mind active. I can see your point.”
Stein’s smooth cheeks flamed.
“And it’s a sure fire diet trick. I’d be sitting at the table with Daddy lecturing in his best debating voice and Mummy bobbing her head agreeing with him as always and Susan popping up and slapping Julian across the face and I’d get this urge. So I’d politely excuse myself which my mother understands—she’s got this thing about elimination—walk stiffly to the kitchen door and make a dash for the upstairs bathroom, you know, the one you suggested.”
Dr. Stein bobbed his head.
“My mother worried I had bladder trouble that was interfering with my appetite, because usually I have the biggest appetite in the family, I’m always asking for seconds and sneaking leftovers. So I just transferred over. You know what I mean.”
Stein gripped the Kleenex box which had become positively misshapen and rose half way out of his seat. His crotch was reaching enormous proportions and the sound was deafening. I was getting off track. True compassion is not easy. But I guess that’s when it really counts—when giving is the hardest. I decided to get right into the heat of the matter.
“I found a nice private place like you said, Dr. Stein. But I couldn’t find a rough washcloth. My mother has these monogrammed ones, kind of a wedding present, FLC—the L being her maiden name, you know, anyhow, we have this loufah, kind of a scrubbing mitt and so I lay on the floor which ordinarily is really cold but I can tell you this time it was hot and I had on my mother’s loofah. Nothing else. Except my glasses of course because I have my father’s eyesight and I was holding my mother’s two-way hand mirror with the magnifier on one side, just to make sure I was on target. And then I started rubbing, slowly at first—but it made me twitch, my whole body felt like one gigantic nervous tick, so I increased my tempo—allegretto, molce allegretto, vivace, forte, fortissimo.”  (I had really taken to the whole thing, I was having a hard time focusing on anything else, like when you can’t tear some one away from one of those page-turners, but I wanted to sound cultured.) “I had an urge to tense my legs and point my toes. I listened to my body. I believe in the wisdom of the body, don’t you?”
“Uh huh. Uh huh. Oh, oh, yes, certainly.”
“But my calves and feet started cramping knots even Houdini couldn’t get out of. God was throwing obstacles in my way. I was determined. I continued rubbing even though my skin was scraped raw because of the loofah, you remember?”
Stein nodded. He was really focused.
“And suddenly I felt a tingle. I know everyone says tingle and I try to be original. I was raised to be a non-conformist, it’s a source of pride in my family. Tingle sounds kind of ordinary, don’t you think?”
“No, no, I don’t think so and sometimes you have to fall back on the ordinary to achieve extraordinary results.” Stein vigorously cleaned his glasses.
“Well that’s good, cause it did. Tingle. Like an EKG, this racy quiver growing higher and deeper, and I mean really deep, sort of spreading and smoldering. And then my whole body, even my eyeballs, lurched. It was like—”
“Yes?”
“It was like being on an elevator that reaches its floor and you feel the reaching and sinking in the pit of your stomach. I was rubbing so fast sparks were flying. I figured I was onto this great discovery. I mean who needs two stones? Anyhow, I was thinking with practise, I’d be positively flying. I have to say it stayed the same. Not that I’m complaining—it felt just fine. I was high on masturbation. Get that. A natural high.”

Stein was positively glowing. I could see he was a highly principled man who felt strongly about certain issues and I was becoming quite fond of him, imagining fireside Chanukahs together translating the classics into Freudian Lovelace jargon. And because of Dr. Stein’s insightful question, my response, his response to my response and my response to his, the ensuing decades have been most gratifying.

There have been some downsides. I got so used to coming on the floor that the bed just didn’t do it for me anymore. In our first apartment I asked Abie to put a board under the mattress—it would be good for my back, I said. But it wasn’t the same. And on the occasions I could entice Garth on to the floor, his four-hundred-pound frame took my breath away and his mountain of a belly stood between us. Over the years, I’ve tried to learn to love my bed and with effort I can. But I don’t want to mix work and pleasure. And so I continue to love the floor, any floor. I can wedge my way between the toilet and the door in the smallest bathroom or spread luxuriously out beside my bed. I have an ongoing challenge with myself, a yard stick for how I’m doing: I can come in ten seconds flat. Yoga doesn’t entice me. I think it’s sacrilegious.