Mar 28, 2009

The Voice Inside My Head

"The doctor will see you now," the secretary announced. I was alone in the waiting room, the last patient of the day.

I always experienced a sense of dread as I walked down the long hallway to my therapist's office.

Dr. Houston was, in my mind, my wife's therapist. She'd been seeing him for years. As our marriage grew older, my depression got deeper and deeper until she finally demanded that I see her therapist to get some help.

I'd been seeing Dr. Houston for a few months and didn't feel like we were getting anywhere. Every session seemed to follow the same pattern where I'd talk about what had gone on since I last saw him for fifty minutes, he'd put his fingers on his chin and then tell me the "patterns" he's seen in everything I had just said. It was maddening. I didn't want to talk about the more difficult things that had been troubling nor did he seem to want to ask about them. Worse, each week I swore I'd put voice to my complaints but still hadn't.

Today, I did. If Dr. Houston was taken aback by anything I said, he didn't show it. If anything, he seemed to be waiting for me to bring up this pattern and left it up to me to break it."

"I'm very proud of you, Michael," he said, leaning back in his chair. "I want to try something new this week if you're open to it. I'd like to try some regression therapy via hypnosis to see if we can take down some of the barriers you put up. I think that's the reason why we've fallen into this trap. You're hesitant to relax and tell me what's really bothering you. After all these months, I still don't know much about the reason why you're here other than your evident depression."

I was desperate to try anything that might justify the immense therapy bill I paid off each month and that would help me get out of the funk that brought me to see a therapist in the first place. I readily agreed.

"We're going to try and get to the root of where your issues are coming from." He closed the curtains to the office, turned on his white noise machine and lowered the overhead lights.

"Now relax," he said. "Close your eyes and listen only to the sound of my voice..."

He talked and I listened until it felt like I was hearing him so much as I was experiencing him. It felt like his voice was coming from inside my head.

I felt like I was drifting, unhinged from my physical form.

"Time is like a river and you're standing on the shore. You're looking at the river of your life. You can put your toe in at any point," Dr. Houston said and I could see the river before me, familiar faces making ripples in the water. "I want you to look at the water... look at how it roils and moves... Is there one point in the river that's more active than others?"

"Yes" came my voice. I don't know if I said it or just thought it. Regardless, he kept talking to me... through me.

"Go to that spot in the water. I want you to dive in right there. Don't be afraid. It looks rough but it will be warm and safe. I'm right there with you."

I looked into the water and what I saw made me cringe. Yet, I was compelled to step into the stream. I sank down, slowly, gently, the water filling my eyes until it cleared.

I found myself in a dimly lit place. It was cold and damp. It was a basement.

I looked around and saw posters on the walls; rock bands and women like Farrah Fawcett and Catherine Bach. One wall was decorated with beer cans from floor to ceiling. There were three beds in different corners of the room and my stomach fell as I realized where I was.

I heard voices coming from another part of the basement. I'd not heard them in years but I recognized them. They were my neighbors. Three brothers who lived two doors down from where I grew up. I wanted to run up the stairs and leave but something made me follow the sounds.

As I turned the corner, going from one their sleeping area into a makeshift workout room with blaring fluorescent lights I came upon a uncanny sight. It was me, standing in the corner. I was twelve years old. I was naked except for a pair of underwear, little whitey-tighties that seemed especially white in the stark lighting. My hands were shielding my crotch.

I had put this day out of my mind but suddenly it all came flooding back in a flash of images and feelings.

"Wait, wait," came the voice in my head. "Go slow. One step at a time."

I caught my breath and forced myself to concentrate.

I was back in the basement room, but earlier now. I was there with Steve, John, and Geoff Long. Steve and I were best friends. We would play with action figures or ride our big wheels together every day. He was a year older than me. His brother, John, was two years older and Geoff was five years older.

The four of us had been hanging out that day, a rarity due to our disparate ages (even one year can make a huge difference in the "maturity" of boy at that age -- I was still into action figures while Geoff was taking driver's training). We were in their father's weight room when Geoff exclaimed, "Look what I found!"

It was a treasure trove in a Styrofoam cooler. Years and years of Playboy, Penthouse and Hustler back issues. We fell upon them like cannibals feasting upon missionaries. I had never seen so much naked female flesh in my life. i underwent a flurry of feelings. I knew that what I was looking at was to be considered "wrong" and "dirty" but it felt so nice seeing these naked women. And such a variety! Blonds, brunettes, red heads, big boobs, small boobs, shaved pussies, bushy pussies, and on and on.... A feast for the eyes that sent strange sensations shooting up my legs and into my penis.

We made jokes. That was the natural response to pornography as I've learned over the years. We compared and contrasted the women, laughing and using words that were beyond our years. But things got quiet after a while as we all became absorbed in the pages of flesh.

The silence of the room became too much. I looked up and saw something that was even more foreign than the dirty magazines. Geoff sat on one of the weight benches, his legs over each side, his jeans undone, and his hand on his penis, rubbing it.

John and Steve saw this as well and began imitating their brother until they all three were masturbating. Other than one time at the YMCA, I'd never seen another boy's penis. Now I was seeing three of various sizes and all hard.

I didn't know what to do. I liked looking at the naked women but didn't want any part of what my friends were doing now. I wanted to run away.

"Why didn't you?" came the voice in my head.

I was fascinated. I didn't quite know what they were doing but their faces betrayed that they felt good doing it. Geoff looked up, a strange look in his eyes. He kept his hand working his penis as he looked at me and said, "Take off your clothes. Get naked."

I don't know what possessed me. I began untucking my shirt and pulled it over my head. I stepped out of my shoes and socks. I undid my jeans and took them down. I stood there, in my underwear, and backed into the corner, my eyes darting from one of them to the other to the other. And they all looked at me like a slab of meat.

They stopped what they were doing and, like hungry jackals, they got up and began to approach me. I wanted to look at their eyes to see if I could tell if they meant me any harm but I couldn't tear my eyes away from their dicks, swaying, pointing at me.

Geoff grabbed me, putting an arm around my neck. He sunk to his knees and took me down wish him, his knee pushing against the back of mine to collapse my legs. I could feel him poking me, all the way down. John stepped in front of me and Geoff started pushing me down towards his brother's dick. "Open up. Open your mouth," he told me.

I did as he said and John put his dick in my mouth. I'd barely thought about male on female coitus at this point in my life. I'd never even contemplated fellatio, especially between two men. But here I was, putting him into my mouth. Geoff began pushing my head up and down, his hand holding my hair tight. Pushing, pulling, the feel of John's dick going over my lips. I didn't know what was happening, really, why they were doing this to me, or what would happen, but I knew it was wrong.

John began making noises and I thought I was hurting him. I thought maybe my teeth were scraping against him so I folded my lips over my teeth. Geoff began pushing and pulling my head harder and faster until John yelled out. I tasted something tart in my mouth and hoped it wasn't blood.

John stepped away and Steve took his place. Geoff did kept pushing and pulling my head. I tried harder, now, to make sure my teeth didn't scrape Steve, I didn't want more "blood" in my mouth. Geoff was grunting in my ear and I could feel him rubbing harder against me. He moved the hand that was around my throat down to my underwear and pulled it off of me. His hand began manipulating my penis, making it get bigger.

I'd only had this happen to me a few times before, usually in school. I knew what was happening because of a book I found in my parents' basement that compared it to a fireman's hose filling with water but I still didn't know what caused it or what it meant. As I got harder, it felt like the room was going away from me, like I was getting light-headed.

Steve began making noises, now, and they were different than John's. They were more urgent, like he was trying to say something. All he said was "Yes!" and I tasted something sour filling my mouth.

Before I had time to catch my breath after Steve left my mouth, Geoff was forcing me down, now, onto my hands and knees. Steve took one of my arms and John the other, holding me at the shoulders, each putting a knee on the backs of my hands to pin them. I heard Geoff spitting and, before I knew it, I felt him entering me. I don't know if I cried out but John or Steve put a hand over my mouth.

Everything goes black. And though I'm standing there, observing this all, seeing myself being raped, I know that my young self has closed his eyes. There's nothing to remember. When the lights came back up, I was laying on the cold tile floor. The boys were gone. I got my clothes back on and upstairs. The house was empty. I could hear them talking in the back yard. I went out there with them and it was like nothing had happened. Within moments we were on our bicycles and riding in the park. No one ever talked about what went on.

"Why didn't you go our the front door?" the voice asked. "You could have gone home but, instead, you went back to them."

Normally I would have said, "I don't know," as an easy way to duck the question. But something made me answer the truth. "I wanted acceptance. I wanted to be a part of their group."

"Didn't you care what they did to you?" Dr. Houston asked.

"I cared."

"But... You liked it, didn't you?"

Hearing this was a shock. But what really devastated me was the answer to his question.

"Yes."

"You've blocked out that day. You've hidden it from yourself. That's because it was wrong in a lot of ways but it's also because because you liked it and that scared you."

He paused, letting this all sink in, letting me feel the truth of it.

"And you want to do it again, don't you? If I told you to come to me and suck my cock, you would, wouldn't you?"

And, again, no matter how much my conscious mind may have wanted to deny this, I had to tell the truth.

"Yes."

"Then, do it. Come to me."

I was back in the office and Dr. Houston stood near his desk, his hand on his fly. I felt like I was floating, rather than walking as I moved to him, going to my knees, undoing his fly, and taking out his cock.

"That's right, suck it. Take it," he said. Even though he was standing in front of me, his voice still sounded like it was coming from inside my head.

"You want cock. You need it. This is what you've been craving for twenty five years. This is why you've had problems in your marriage. You're hungry for cock. Feel it filling you up. Feel it making you complete."

And he was right, of course. Having him in my mouth made me feel so good. So happy. So right. I could feel every inch of him. Every vein. I could feel his pulse beating, the blood pulsing.

"You're a natural born cocksucker. You're hungry for cum. You need a belly full of it. You need a real man to complete you, to drop his load in you. That's what little bitches like you are good for..."

And then he grunted and moaned and I tasted that old taste that had only tantalized me so many years before. Now it was flooding my senses, the smell of it, the feel of it in my mouth. I swallowed and swallowed as he came in my mouth, filling me up.

I wanted more and was sad when I knew I'd have to wait to get it. And then I was shocked to realize I was thinking this way.

"Now, Michael, I'm still in complete control of your thoughts. When I snap my fingers, you will remember nothing that happened today. You will think that I was unable to hypnotize you. But the next time we're together and I say 'Cheeseburger', you will immediately fall into this same deep trance. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Doctor."

"Good."

He snapped his fingers and I awoke. I looked at the clock and saw that my session was nearly over and I was pissed about letting yet another week go by without addressing anything important at therapy. Instead, I let Dr. Houston waste my time with hypnosis mumbo jumbo that didn't work. He sat there, his fingers on his chin, with this self-satisfied grin on his face, collecting another two hundred dollars for an hour of lost time. But I knew I'd be back the next week for another session and swore that I'd make progress with him, no matter what.

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