James. Call him that, or "Jamie", not "Jimmy". He hates "Jimmy". Jimmy's a little boy.

James slouched in the vinyl chair opposite his therapist. Silent. His gaze darted around the office like a bird wary of predators.

The psychologist watched him. Not speaking, examining, his face the standard mask of neutrality.

I wonder how they learn that, James thought, learn to look back at you with that blank expression that hides what they're thinking? James wanted to say something that needed to be said but he dreaded it. He didn't want to be judged.

"What are you thinking right now, James?" the therapist said.

James stopped looking for predators and focused his gaze on the therapist. "Why do I do it, doctor? Why do I continue to do it when I want to stop?"

"You don't know?"

"No. I don't. I'm hoping you'll tell me," James said. His voice trembled. He didn't want an answer. He didn't want to hear what was concealed in the dark recesses of his subconscious.

"I can't tell you, but together we might understand. Could it be that you don't want to stop?"

"But I do."

"Why do you think you do it if it bothers you?" the therapist said.
 
James wondered if the man behind the beard and the wire-rim glasses was uncomfortable saying it. The second session and he still had not said it.

"You must have some idea," the therapist said and waited for James to speak.

James paged through his thoughts. Why do I? Why does a married man masturbate when he has a beautiful wife? And why does he have to do it the way he does? The perverse way he settles his cravings? He found only questions in them.

"I don't know. I ask myself that question all the time. Is it an obsession?" James asked.

"You mean a compulsion? Compulsion refers to behavior demanded by an obsession."

He never answers a fucking question. Corrected me, but was it an answer? No."All right, compulsion then. Is it?"

James watched the therapist cross his legs and change position in the rolling desk chair with the back that extended above his head like a throne. Thinking how to answer, James thought.

"Possibly, but it's not so unusual for a married man to masturbate." James saw him flinch as he said it, as if the word stung him.

"Uh-huh," James said, nodding. "But why the anal thing, do you think?"

"Well, it's stage of psychosexual development," he said. Perhaps your struggling to resolve some conflict engendered at that level of development."

"Potty training?" James said.

"Was that a difficult time for you?" the therapist said.

James considered. "I don't think so. I don't recall anything about it."

The therapist glanced at his wristwatch. "Let me ask you something."

"Okay."

"What do you think about when you, uh, masturbate? Is there a particular thought in mind, an image?"

James cleared his throat. "I'm not sure," he said.

"Well can you give me an idea?"

Tell him, Jamie. Get it out. "It's like, how can I say it-- "

"Just say it in words you say to yourself.

"Right." He swallowed, looked down at the therapist's shoes. He wished he had chosen a female therapist, it might be easier to admit it to a woman. "I imagine . . . I'm having sex." He almost said "getting fucked".

"I see," He looked away from James a moment, then back at him as he said, "Who do you imagine having sex with?"

"Nobody, really. It's like just a man having sex with me. Not anybody I know."

"A man. I see." The therapist looked at his shoe. "Do you imagine it as a homosexual encounter?"

"No, actually I don't.

That's what's weird. It's more like I'm a woman doing it with a man. I'm a woman, or feel a woman."

"And it seems strange? Imagining you're a woman?"

"Yeah. It's not a gay thing, how I think about it. Definitely not gay. Afterwards I hate myself for doing it and I promise I'll stop, never do it again."

"You feel guilty."

"Not exactly," James said, "I think, why do I do it, it's just that it's . . . crazy, perverted. I say I'll stop. I won't do it any more. But then I get the urge and I do it again."

"Has there been times when you refused to give in to the urge?"

"Only if I couldn't do it, like if my wife was home, or I had work to do."

"And how do you feel then?"

"I don't think I feel anything. I just know I can't so I forget about it."

"Do you feel anxious?"

"No. Not that I'm aware of," James said.

"We're out of time," the therapist said. "I'd like to suggest something, James. Next time you get the urge, don't give in to it and pay attention to how you feel. Specifically if you feel anxious."

"Okay. See you next week."

James thought about the therapy session as he drove home. He resolved to follow the therapist's instructions. See if it made him anxious.

He took the mail in, dropped it on the table by the front door, went to the kitchen, poured a glass of ice tea. He carried the tea to his office, sat at his desk, checked his email, found nothing from clients that called for his immediate attention. His noticed the time at the top of the screen. His wife would be home in ninety minutes.

James drained his glass and opened the secret folder, typed the password that protected it, the folder that contained the photos and videos he had downloaded of women masturbating, the only genre of pornography he found useful. Most contained penetration of some kind--dildos inserted into cunts, or his favorites, into that tighter hole below. He opened a file and watched a young women fingering her cunt while she worked a slim silver vibe in and out of her ass. He focused on the vibrator as she approached orgasm, watched the flesh surrounding it, and the clenching spasms as she came, groaning and stiffening in apparent ecstasy.

He thought about anxiety. He was not sure what it felt like. Is it nervousness? Is it fear? He was nervous meeting a new client for the first time. Sometimes he feared that his wife would find out he cheated on her with the vibrator he kept locked in a toolbox in the basement. That's how he imagined she would see it, like he was cheating on her.

James thought about the incomplete admission to the therapist. It wasn't exactly as he had stated it, "having sex". No, he really imagined it was a woman masturbating while fantasizing about having sex.

Tonight was his wife's book club. She would leave at six-thirty and be home between nine-thirty and ten o'clock. Plenty of time to use the rubber cock with the hard place in the shaft that vibrated in him. He would strip and spread his legs like the girls in the videos. He would ease the vibrator into himself before turning it on, and when he flipped the switch on the controller he would feel the vibrations take over, make him stiffen and jerk involuntarily as the blissful sensations coursed through his body. Then he would apply the electric massager that his wife kept under her side of the bed, never unplugged, to the underside of his cock, the sensitive spot he imagined corresponded to a clit, and the vibrations would merge and carry him out of himself to the place the women in the videos go when they come.

One last time. Then I'll stop.