watched a thin, pale man adjust his shaky video camera and walk over to the bed where an overweight woman was waiting for him. I pulled my trousers down to my ankles and started to wank as the pale man slapped himself arrhythmically into his partner. That’ll show the patriarchy, I thought. I’m going to give myself an amazing orgasm in about two minutes, because I know how to push my own buttons – I don’t need a man to do it for me.
But then it was over, and I felt hollow and desperate to come again. The video ended, and an ad for Hot local sluts popped up. I flinched and clicked on it to make it go away, but I accidentally clicked on the ad instead, and a woman with huge, spherical breasts filled my screen, panting and rubbing her nipples. I tried to shut it down, but hundreds of windows had popped up, each one filled with hot blondes, or dirty Russians, or naughty teens, like endless mirrors reflected in mirrors. Looking at them turned me on, and that made me feel sordid again, so I slapped down the lid of my laptop and hugged my pillow. It didn’t hug me back.
I told Nicky about my unsatisfying wank. Bringing it up was a bit awkward; it was only my third session and I wasn’t that comfortable with her yet. I wasn’t that comfortable with the idea of being in therapy at all; I never thought I’d have a shrink at 26, even a semi-amateur one. A therapist feels like the sort of thing only glamorous New Yorkers should have, the kind who can afford to buy olives from Dean & DeLuca and who say things like ‘My ob-gyn told me to eat less wheat.’ This is how it happened: I’d been suffering from constant, low-level anxiety, the sort of feeling you get when you realize you’ve forgotten to turn the hob off, but all the time. Then one day I had a panic attack in the middle of a team meeting about letterheads at work, probably triggered by the fact that I have a job which involves team meetings about letterheads. Nobody noticed – it was a subtle panic attack – but that evening I burst into tears in the middle of the Sainsbury’s frozen-food aisle, holding a packet of fishcakes. So I went to the GP.
‘Would you say that you’ve been excessively worried, more days than not, for over six months?’ the GP asked, looking down at a checklist.
‘I don’t know if I’d say excessively worried.’
‘What sort of things are you worried about?’
‘Just – everything, really.’
‘Probably excessive then.’ She smiled at me. ‘Do you think the world is an innately good or evil place?’
‘Definitely good,’ I said, pleased, because I knew that was the correct answer.
‘And you haven’t thought about hurting yourself? You don’t have suicidal thoughts?’
‘Never.’
‘Do you feel like you can’t cope with everyday things?’
‘No.’
‘Do you have trouble making decisions?’
‘Not really.’
‘And do you often find yourself crying for no reason?’
‘No. I mean – I cry quite a lot, but I usually have a reason.’
‘OK,’ said the GP. ‘It’s unlikely that you have clinical depression.’
‘Hooray!’ I said, giving myself a little cheer.
The GP smiled again – a patient smile, I now realize, looking back on it. ‘You appear to have what we call Generalized Anxiety Disorder,’ she told me.
I was very excited to have an actual disorder.
‘I’ll refer you for talking therapy,’ she said. ‘But it might be better to go private – the NHS waiting list is nine months long.’
‘I know,’ I said. ‘The Department of Health and Social Care gets a lot of letters complaining about that.’
I felt calmer than I had in ages. I went home and Googled cheap counsellor north London anxiety, and Nicky’s name came up. She was still training to be a therapist, which is why I could afford her, and she had an un-therapist-like way of voicing her very strong opinions on almost every topic. When I told her about the anxiety, and about feeling lost and directionless in life, she said it was no wonder I was anxious, and that my job sounded so dull they should ‘prescribe it to insomniacs’.
Anyway, I told Nicky about the wank. I could feel myself sinking deeper and deeper into the armchair as I spoke, as though it was recoiling from me. She didn’t recoil, though. She wanted to know all about it.
‘What did the couple look like?’
‘Does that matter?’
‘I don’t know until you tell me.’
‘She was overweight and black. He was skinny and white.’
‘Aha.’ She nodded in a therapist-like way.
‘What?’
‘Nothing.’ She scribbled something in her notebook and underlined it several times.
‘Do you often masturbate thinking about Alice?’ she continued.
‘I wasn’t thinking about her!’
‘But you said you were wanking out of resentment.’
‘I was pissed off with them for having such loud sex, that’s all.’
‘Because you’re not getting any?’ She gazed at me, unblinking.
‘Look, I’m not repressed, all right? I’d have sex if anyone wanted to have sex with me, but no one has for ages.’
‘So you’re just waiting for someone to offer it to you on a plate.’
‘Well, no—’
‘That’s what it sounds like to me. It’s just like your career. You’ve just decided to sit back and stay in this dead-end temp job—’
‘I’m a contractor, actually, not a temp. And I might apply for the Fast Stream this year,’ I said.
‘Why didn’t you apply last year?’
I hadn’t applied because that would mean saying ‘I’m a civil servant’ when people at parties asked, ‘What do you do?’ and then having to answer a lot of questions about NHS funding and whether I approve of the government. I hate it when people ask, ‘What do you do?’ I assume everyone does, even if the answer is ‘I’m a novelist,’ or ‘I’m a surgeon specialising in babies’ hands,’ because even then you know someone will say, ‘Will you show my book to your agent?’ or ‘Can you look at this lump on my finger?’ I missed being able to say, ‘I’m a dancer.’
I looked at the floor. There was some sort of stain on the carpet – ketchup, possibly.
‘You need to make an effort with your career,’ Nicky said. ‘It’s the same as your love life. You’re not prepared to put yourself out there.’
‘I’m not going to go looking for a relationship. I don’t need one to make me complete. I’m independent.’
