Therapy

erection, but he couldn’t, what’s the word, emit, no matter how hard I jigged up and down. He was frightfully upset about it, though I said it didn’t matter, in fact I was delighted, I never did like the sensation of slowly leaking into one’s nightie afterwards. He said, “There must be something wrong with me.” I said, “It’s not you, it’s this ghastly hotel and the dreadful place it’s in, it’s enough to make anyone impotent.”
    It was the first time I’d expressed my real feelings since we got there. He took it like a slap in the face. “I’m sorry,” he said stiffly. “I did my best.” “Of course you did, chéri,'” I said. “I’m not blaming you, it was the stupid travel agent. But why don’t we move somewhere nicer?” “We can’t,” he said. “I paid in advance.” He seemed to think we were under a contractual obligation to stay the full four nights. It took me quite a while to get him to see that we could well afford — at least he could — to forfeit the cost of the remaining two. It was as if the ghosts of his parents had risen up to forbid such a scandalous waste of money. “Anyway,” he said, “there’s only one five-star hotel in Playa de las Americas, and it’s full. The travel agent tried it.” “I should think it is full,” I said. “Anybody who booked into a five-star hotel in Playa de las Americas would probably barricade themselves in their room and never come out. But I suppose there are five-star hotels in other places in Tenerife?” “How would we get there?” Laurence said. “Hire a car, my sweet,” I said, thinking to myself, this is like talking to a child.
    Well, by taking command of the arrangements, I got us out of that hellhole immediately after breakfast next morning. Laurence would have liked to sneak out of the hotel without telling them, but we had to check out to pay for some extras so I had the satisfaction of telling the reception staff why we were going, not that they cared. We hired an air-conditioned car from Avis and drove up the coast to the capital, Santa Cruz. You never saw such a barren, boring landscape in your life, like the surface of the moon in a heatwave. But Santa Cruz is quite a nice little town, slightly scruffy but civilized. There’s one really classy hotel, with a pool in a beautiful shady garden, and a decent restaurant. Robert Maxwell had his last meal there, actually, before he threw himself off his yacht. If he had been in Playa de las Americas there wouldn’t have been all that speculation about why he did it.
    Well, we had a very pleasant weekend in Santa Cruz. The hotel gave us a huge high-ceilinged suite, with a marble bathroom with a window that opened, and a vast double bed in which we cuddled and slept like babies. We didn’t do anything else in it. I said to Laurence, don’t let’s risk another débâcle, my dear, now that things are going so nicely, and he seemed happy to agree. The truth is that I had decided I wasn’t going to marry Laurence even if he asked me, and that I didn’t want a sexual relationship with him, or indeed anyone else. I decided I could do without sex, thank you very much, for the rest of my life. I realized what a fool I’d been, going on and on analysing my relationship with Saul, wondering what went wrong, why I didn’t satisfy him, when it was what satisfied me that was important, and putting my body at the disposal of another man after all these years wasn’t going to do that. I hope Laurence and I can go back to our chaste, companionable relationship, but if we can’t, tant pis.
    So really, it wasn’t such a disaster after all, my dirty weekend. I really think I see things more clearly than ever before, as a result of it. I see that there’s nothing wrong with me. I can accept myself for what I am. I don’t need sex. I don’t need a man. And I don’t need you, Karl, not any more. Yes. This is the end of the analysis. You told me I’d know. And I do. This is our last session, Karl. Yes. This is the big goodbye. I’m cured.
     

* * LOUISE * *
     
    STELLA?... IT'S LOUISE... Hi!... Oh fine. How about you?... Oh. I thought you sounded depressed on the answerphone... Yeah, look I’m sorry I didn’t get back to you before, but I’ve been so busy you wouldn’t believe... Meetings meetings meetings... Yeah, it’s the same movie, only now it’s called Switchback. You know what they say about Hollywood, everything takes either five minutes or five years,