On impulse, I rang George.

I sensed that rejecting his supper last night would incline him toward my agenda, and so it went. We shall drink tomorrow night and my dastardly plan is to drag him into my own wanton and regressive behaviour, though he knows nothing, as yet. But of course, it was only on finishing the call that I fully understood this. Of late, I find myself in a rare state of unknowing toward myself, as if doing things to find out the reason I have done them. Was I ever so adolescent, even as an adolescent?

On sensing the affair within the Tuesday Group, I put out word seeking new members and this morning, partook of my first assessment. I was rather disappointed to find myself with another
furious lesbian but, as the interview closed, found myself even more disappointed in my failure to remember the Andre Masson print in my hallway. Titled Lesbos, it shows faceless women lolling all over each other and the emotional tone of my candidate reminded me of this blurring feminine. So as she talked from the throat of this abuse, that abuse, as if I held the sword of Damocles itself, I began to consider lesbianism as an act of theft. I began to wonder if I had ever worked with a lesbian who was the queen of her own feelings, rather than the pilferer or forger of another, far more beautiful woman, mother, sister, aunty. However, rather than pursue this
scandalous thought any further, I simply bid adieu.

Client R.

What can it do, charging you every penny for your absence, what can it do but bring us closer?

Oh, George.

Let us go play, play nicely.

He says he is famous.

My first session with a pop singer who, while resembling a salesman of things plastic, assures me he is very famous and, such the vanity, chooses to think my ignorance of him a therapeutic ploy. We may have spoken of other things but I sensed he was playing this game with me the whole session long and so profoundly has fame regressed him, I felt our only hope was the return of Michael, the hypnotist, to bring this balefully boring man out of his trance. He had filled the room with mirrors and, for a moment, even I succumbed and imagined myself Jacques Lacan and, in imitation of that bastard, considered slamming the door on this wanker fifteen minutes early.

And the day never recovered.

With Helen off for the week, I left early and walked home with nothing in my mind except Boucher's Hercules, his hand fiercely clutching the breast of Omphale. George invited me round for supper, but with nerves frayed and feeling mildly geriatric, I declined.

The Tuesday Group.

On entering the room I discerned a snigger on the face of (married) P. Last week he slipped his confession of congress with L. under the wave of B.'s outburst. And so he sat there, justified in his brown cords, his billowing white shirt, as if the understanding of the group amounted to the approval of his wife. I had the momentary desire to make a personal call on her myself. Instead, I decided to break the bastard.

I took my time. I sensed that P.'s desire for L. was also a resentment towards me, a plain and simple act of oedipal theft and so, the conversation veering toward mothers, I went for the jugular. What is it about L. that you are drawn to?

He wanted to help her.

To save her, perchance? As when a child sneaking into his mother's bed was a way of saving her? The squirming runt then chortled a few words up toward the ceiling, exposing his throat. And he wanted to help her. I was reminded of a paedophile telling me the same thing a few years ago and as P. slowly began to blush, savouring his introjected delight, I turned to the rather elegant L. How did she feel about P.? And in the asking of the question, the affair was ended. As I closed the door on the crummy lot, yearning for some Wagner to clear the air, I found myself with the opposite impulse, scanning the shelves for my de Sade.

To London.

Clearing my throat and finding my deepest voice, I introduced the archetypes. As I explained the meaning our inner dragons, heroes and maidens I was aware that three of the men in the group were barely listening. I quickly understood that yesterday they had all been working with the group lesbian and she had obviously annihilated the feelings of all three. I felt some amusement and pity at these sensitive flowers so completely trampled by the lesbian and then rose a modicum of anger. I imagined taking an axe and surgically removing all the rage from her bloated and smothering plexus. As for the men, I'd have given them a whole days work on the art of telling people to fuck off. And, of course, on mothers.

We moved on to the most shattering part of the day. I suspected the lesbian would get a few projections of dragon thrown her way and the three men, hurrah, released their anger in doing so. I usually get a few pitched my way, often as hero. While this is mildly flattering and allows me to confirm the women I have seduced, I actually prefer to be considered dragon. However, for the first time in memory I was today considered a maiden. A rather plump and delicate lady in her fifties, always inclining forward to show me her breasts as she spoke, decided to make a play with me as her fucking maiden. I was devestated. If she had said dragon or hero I may have considered a gentle blow job in the toilets, but in asking her precisely what she wished to save me from, she shrivelled. The last time I experienced maternal pity I had paid for the pleasure and long may that continue.

To London.

And so I banged the drum and led my gang into their first ritual. I led them out into the garden and one by one they threw the past into the fire. And as they named themselves and their good riddance I watched the birds fidgeting in the trees, as if disturbed at our solemnity. After, I gave the group an hour of silence. This is always the best of times. As they hovered between their imagined pasts and their unlikely futures, I roamed among them like a god, savouring their liminality and horny as a goat.

To London.

As the train pulled in, I checked for my inner child. Confirming my general fuckup, all I summoned was the image of Thom, aged five. Probably guilt. (I really must check whether he saw me buy the O that day on Devil's Dyke). Myself notwithstanding, I managed to guide my twenty students into their own imago and, as chief midwife to the birth of fifteen inner kids, it was deeply moving. Of course, two were stillborn and three, apparently, were already in the room. I challenged all three ego's on this and, one by one, gently asphyxiated their children. It was a cracking success.

All week I've had folk on their knees.

Break down, exposure, supplication. I've responded with cruelty, indifference, penetration. And in each case I'm certain my response was more beneficent than empathy and insight. (I would like to remind you, dear reader, that while I may be lascivious night and day, in eighteen years of therapeutic work I have never touched a client, neither in lust nor decorum). And so as I took my lunch on a park bench, the squeals of youth in their retarded clothing, the muggy air and the scotch egg I couldn't swallow- the whole day had a general air of flatulence about it - I took to wondering that while I have a certain influence on the lives of a few individuals, I didn't have enough actual power in life. I may exert a not inconsiderable power over life, but not within it. In the working world, I was a vagrant.

I threw the rest of the egg in the bin and, pushing aside a fleeting desire to collect butterflies, returned to my room. Within minutes R. arrived and as she folded her legs away from me I was aware of bringing a certain mischief into the room. The unexplored grief over her dead mother had sat for years, heavy as a bolus in her belly, and while it may have advanced her legal career, it made for little intimacy. Her avoidance took many forms and one of these was to throw questions at me. This time I let them fall, one by one, like little pins at my feet. This went on for twenty minutes but the silence broke her. She howled for her mother, sixteen years dead, she howled like an animal. The grief had yanked itself out. Her back was arched and juddering like god was trampling on her.

It was soon over. She sat there, slumped in the chair. All desire had gone from the room. I momentarily felt like a murderer. She seemed to grow pale and cold. Certainly, it was a death. I let her rest.