Case of Lucy Bending (21 page)

He looked down at his podgy, middle-aged body, white, slack, and woolly with hair, and wondered, not for the first time, why he had selected the profession he had.

It seemed to him that there were certain occupations—psychiatrist, policeman, gynecologist, judge, and perhaps even priest—that automatically disqualified those who sought them. They demanded an ambition and conscious choice that guaranteed failure. What normal man or woman would seek such callings?

It was a dilemma Theodore Levin had never been able to resolve. Sighing, then draining his brandy, he lurched awkwardly to his feet. He pulled on his robe, went back inside. Seated at his desk, he began to make brief notes on how best to handle the following afternoon's session with Lucy B.

She appeared in his office promptly at 4:00
P.M
. He thought he had steeled his heart against the attraction of her physical beauty. But he found himself greeting her with a smile that stretched his face.

That afternoon she was wearing tight jeans, sneakers, and a checked gingham shirt with the sleeves rolled up on her pliant arms.

"Hi, Doctor Ted!" she said.

"Good afternoon, Lucy," he said, as gravely as he could, and motioned her to the armchair which he had pulled around to the side of his desk.

They chatted a few moments about her schoolwork and her plans for the weekend. He saw her eyes wandering to the toys and games piled in the bookcase. He switched on the tape recorder.

"All those are for the children who come to talk to me," he explained. "Go ahead, take a look at them."

Obediently, she rose and walked slowly down the display. Once she poked a teddy bear in its fat stomach and laughed.

"Do you like that?" he asked her.

"It looks just like you," she said, giggling. Then she came back to her chair.

"Nothing you'd like to play with?" he said. "You can, you know, if you like."

"No, thank you," she said formally. "That's kid stuff."

"The dolls, too?"

"I don't play with dolls, Doctor Ted. My goodness, I'm not a child."

"No dolls at home?" he persisted. "Not even one? An old favorite?"

"I have a Snoopy dog I like," she said. "But I don't play with it. He just sits on my dresser."

The most important thing in his profession, he knew, was learning to ignore the inconsequential. But the most difficult thing was deciding what was meaningless. He was like a homicide detective with too many clues.

"Lucy," he started, "the last time we talked, you said you loved your parents and they loved you. Is that right?"

"Of course."

"Do you think your mother and father love each other?"

"My goodness!" she said with a dazzling smile. "That's a silly question."

"Why is it silly?"

"How can you know if someone loves someone else? I mean, they could say they do and act like it, but you can't tell for sure, can you?"

He admired her perspicacity.

"If you believe that, Lucy," he said gently, "then how can you be sure your parents love you?"

"You're mean and spiteful," she cried immediately, "and I hate you."

Suddenly she was weeping. Sitting there upright, little hands gripping the armrests of the chair, she turned her face directly to him and let the tears stream. She wept silently, no sobs or snuffles, just quiet, dignified grief.

He slid the opened box of Kleenex across to her side of the desk and waited patiently. Finally the tears stopped, she dabbed at her eyes delicately with a tissue.

"I must look a mess," she said.

"You look fine," he assured her. "But why did you cry?"

"Because of what you said about my parents not loving

___ »*

me.

"Lucy, I didn't say they don't love you. I just asked you how you knew it."

"Well . . ."she said slowly, "if I tell you something, will you promise not to tell anyone?"

"I promise."

"And specially not my mother and father," she said, laughing shrilly. "If they found out I told you, they'd just kill me.

"I won't tell them."

"Well . . . you see ... my mother isn't my real mother. My real mother is dead. She was killed dead in a tragic car accident."

"When did this happen, Lucy?" "A long time ago."

"How long?"

"Oh, maybe five years ago."

"You were just a little girl then? Three years old?"

"Yes."

"But you remember your mother? Your real mother?"

"I certainly do. She was beautiful and loved me very much. I
know
she did, Doctor Ted, because she was always telling me so, and hugging me and kissing me and all. And some nights she would take me into her bed so I could get to sleep, you know. And telling me she loved me best of all in the world. But then she got killed dead in this tragic car accident. Well, my poor father has to go to work every day and all, so he married this woman to, you know, take care of us kids. But she's not our real mother, but you promised not to breathe a word of this."

"I won't, Lucy," he said heavily. "I never tell anyone what you tell me in this room."

"Good," she said. She took a round mirror out of her little plastic purse and examined herself critically, turning her head this way and that.

He watched her closely, seeing the grace, the pride of a mature woman.

He thought it best not to follow up on her fantasy at this time. He would leave it for another session when he could determine how much she remembered of the daydream, if it was completely formed and recurrent or something she had devised on the spur of the moment to justify her tears.

"Lucy," he said, "do you recall when we were talking before about how babies are born?"

"I remember. You asked me how, and I told you."

"That's right. You know I'm a doctor, Lucy, and doctors know all about girls and boys and men and women."

She looked at him, puzzled for a moment. Then her face cleared.

"Oh, you mean naked? Without any clothes on?"

She was so quick.

"Correct," he said. "Doctor David has examined you when you didn't have any clothes on, hasn't he?"

"Of course."

"Of course he has. And so did Doctor Scotsby. We're all doctors, Lucy, and there's no need to feel ashamed or embarrassed when a doctor examines you."

"I'm not ashamed or embarrassed, Doctor Ted."

"Good. And sometimes doctors have to ask very personal questions. So they can help you. You understand that, don't you?"

"Sure."

"Do you know what masturbation means, Lucy?"

"Masti—?"

"Masturbation."

"I think I've heard the word, but I'm not sure what it means."

"Well, it means giving yourself pleasure. Making yourself feel good. I don't mean by eating or swimming or having fun or anything like that. I mean physical pleasure. Making yourself feel good inside your body. By touching yourself." "Oh."

"A girl might touch herself between her legs or—"

"Or put her finger in her hole," she said breathlessly. "Gloria Holloway does that. She told me so."

"Do you do that, Lucy? Put your finger in your hole?"

She leaned toward him, almost whispering.

"Once. I did it once."

"Did you like it?"

She leaned back and smiled secretly.

"It felt good, at first, but then I got scared."

"Why were you scared?"

"It just felt so—so funny. I thought maybe I was dying. So I stopped."

"Why did you think you were dying?"

"Well, I got all dizzy. And I couldn't catch my breath. That part of it scared me. And then I couldn't get my finger out. It was like it was caught in there, like maybe it was cut off. That's why I was scared."

"And you only did it once?"

"Just that one time. And I'm never going to do
that
again, I assure you. I told Gloria, but she said she doesn't care. She does it all the time. She likes it."

"Did you ever see her do it?"

"No, I never did. But sometimes she does it in the ocean, you know, when we're in swimming together. Then she tells me, 'I'm doing it!"'

"Did she ever ask you to do it for her? To use your finger? In her hole?"

"My
finger? Oh no, I never did that."

"If she did ask you, would you do it?"

She stared at the stars pasted on the ceiling.

He waited a while. When she didn't answer, he made no effort to force a response. But when she lowered her eyes to his and spoke, it was something totally unexpected.

"There's a book in the library," she said, smiling brightly, "and it tells what names mean."

He had learned long ago that with juvenile analysands, it was best to let them run. To zig and zag. When they fell silent, he could provide direction and lead them. But it was more profitable to follow their turns of conversation and alterations of mood. Sometimes a world was revealed.

"A book that tells what names mean?" he said rumi-natively. "A dictionary?"

"No, silly.
Names.
What your
name
means. Lucy means 'light.' And I looked up Ted, but it was under Theodore, and do you know what Theodore means?"

"What?"

"'Gift of God.' Isn't that nice?"

"Do you believe in God, Lucy?"

"Well, of course.
Everyone
believes in God."

"What do you think God looks like?"

"Well, he's this old man, kind of nice, you know, and smiling, and he's got a beard."

"Like my beard?"

"Oh no. God's beard is a
big
beard, and it's white. And sort of, you know, soft and silky. Not like yours."

"Would you like to sit on God's lap, Lucy?"

She looked at him, wide-eyed. "Can you do that?"

"If you could, would you like to?"

She pondered. "I might. I guess I would. Because He's nice and knows everything, doesn't He?"

Levin was in terra incognita here, and didn't know how to proceed. He was fishing and he knew it. But he assured himself that nothing would be wasted.

"Do you go to church, Lucy?"

"I go to Sunday School." "Do you like it?"

"Ohhh . . . it's all right. I like the pictures."

"Pictures?"

"In our books. There's this man with arrows stuck in him, all over. And they chopped off heads and arms and legs. Ugh!"

Afterward, he would never quite understand why he said it, because he had decided to put off any reference to her fantasy to a later session, but now it suddenly seemed important, and he asked it . . .

"Chopped off their heads and arms and legs?" he said. "Like your mother in that tragic car accident? Your real mother?"

"Yes," she said, nodding.

And there it was: castration. Plain as plain could be, and he wondered why he hadn't guessed it before. He was confounded by the possibilities. Penis envy, he decided, because he was the kind of man who wanted to put a label on everything. It had to be penis envy.

And when she excited older men, squirmed on their laps, it was the priapic vitality she sought. She coveted that virile member, having been deprived of it at birth, or having lost it. Her hypersexuality was a frantic effort to get back her own.

But how to account for her fantasy: the dream of her mother castrated? Did she believe her mother possessed of a penis and she, Lucy, had been robbed of what was rightfully hers: the power of the phallus?

"Lucy," he said, "have you ever thought of what you'd like to be when you grow up?"

"A doctor," she said promptly. "I want to be a doctor."

But she was so clever he could not be sure if she was telling the truth or trying to curry favor.

"Why do you want to be a doctor?"

"So I can examine people and cure them."

"Don't you want to get married?"

"Ohh ..." she said thoughtfully, "I might and I might not."

"Wouldn't you like to have a husband, a home, children? You could do that and still be a doctor, you know."

"I don't think so," she said suddenly. "I don't think I want to get married. I'll just be a doctor and help people. Like there'll be this man dying of this horrible disease, and