"I'm late, I know." "We said 6:48 and now it's 6:58, but I just really had to stop and get some breakfast." "Where do you think you're going?" "I don't want to make a mess in here and I just..." "I really have to eat." "It would really be fine in here." "I..." "I don't have sessions in here." "It's not a session." "It's coffee." "I found this amazing bakery right in your neighborhood." "The donuts are still hot." " Here, this one's for you." " No, thank you." "No?" "Okay, well, I know you drink coffee." "No?" "Come on." "I got it for both of us." "I've got 2%." "I've got skim." "I've got half and half." "I've got real sugar, fake sugar..." "I've got organic fake sugar." "What's wrong?" "Can't I have some breakfast?" "Yes, of course you can." "I just wonder why you can't have it in the other room." "All right." "Well, you wonder and I'm gonna eat." "Do you have a napkin?" "In Treatment" " Mia - Season 2" " Episode 16" "I had the craziest weekend." "Friday night I went out with the first years... the baby lawyers... to this club in Brooklyn called Warsaw." "It's in my old neighborhood and very hipster." "If you can believe that." "There was this band playing called the glass cat playing this... kind of avant-pop postmodern rock, which I didn't really like because I prefer melody." "But the guitarist..." "these long limbs like a gazelle and he had these fingers and he could play." "Mia, you're speaking very quickly." "Then I had a few drinks..." "or more than a few." "And when the glass cat broke" "I brought him a scotch and I held it right up to his mouth." "And he grabbed it and sipped it and said, "thanks, babe,"" "which I liked." "And why did you like that?" "Because he was the babe." "He was in his 20s." "So..." "I went home with him." "I carried one of his guitars like a groupie." "I had forgotten what it's like with a young guy." "God, when he told me he wanted me, I knew that it was true, unlike Bennett the fish." "So you preferred the cat to the fish." "Lawyers are the worst in bed because they always have to be on top, you know?" "And Bennett's penis is the size of a pen cap." "No, an almond... erect." "And who wants to fuck a little nut, right?" "But guitar boy and I, we went at it all night." "And he must watch a lot of porn or something, because the sex was acrobatic." "And you want me to ask you about that?" "{\It's just that }I haven't jumped around like that since I took trampoline at the Greenpoint Y." "I mean, is this..." "is this shocking you?" "Is that your intention?" "We changed positions constantly." "{\I mean t}Thank goodness I go to the gym a lot." "It was like the sex olympics with the pommel horse and the handstands, straddle splits, stuck landing." "Well, that sounds like quite a performance." "Give me the right partner and my game comes up." "With Bennett, why bother?" "That's the second time you've mentioned Bennett since you came in." "Bennett can kiss my well-fucked ass." "This boy told jokes." "What do a guitar solo and premature ejaculation have in common?" "You know it's coming and there's nothing you can do about it." "A little boy says to his mother, "mom, I wanna be a musician when I grow up."" "And she says, "oh, honey, you know you can't do both."" "That's funny." "His futon was on the floor." "His room was filled with these beautiful guitars, but that night, I was his favorite." "That's important to you, Mia, isn't it?" "Being the favorite." "Maybe that's why it was so important for you..." "I told dave about you." " The musician?" " No, the cop." "Who?" "The musician was friday night." "The cop was saturday night." "Oh, I see." "So saturday day, you know, no sleep," "I had to go shopping for my niece who's turning 6 this week and I love her." "I do, but my sisters go ballistic with these birthday parties." "It's like roller-coaster or petting zoos and clowns that eat fire." "It's insane." "And if I miss one, I'm selfish aunt Mia." "Meanwhile on my birthday nobody even sends me a card, except dad." "He remembers." "Anyway, saturday night I went to a local pub." "I just had a few bad chardonnays." "I was just sitting there and this guy Dave... 50s, sturdy... told me that it's not safe to be in a bar alone." "I said, "well, then I shouldn't be talking to you."" "And he said, "oh, I'm a cop." "I'm the only one in here that it's safe to be with."" "So... we went to a motel in Queens." "Just over the bridge." "He started telling me what to do..." "And I was this little girl." "He had this power over me and I had to do exactly what he said when he said." "You've stopped." "Don't you want to know how I reacted to that?" "I liked it." "Somebody else in charge, you know?" "He told me to just lie still while he, you know, did it to me, and that if I didn't follow his every word..." "Come on, Paul." "I know you wannna know what would happen if he..." "Do I?" "He'd spank me." "He told me to get on all fours and that I'd been a naughty girl." "And then he would smack me..." "a little harder every time." "Have you ever done that?" "I bet you'd like to." "And it's even scarier with a gun." "He pulled a gun on you?" "It was in the holster on the chair." "He didn't use it, but it upped the ante, I'm telling you." "Beats the hell out of Bennett's blackberry." "We're back to Bennett." "And a year of me telling him what to do and where to do it." "You know, "touch me here." "Kiss me there." "Over to the right and back to the left."" "So in one weekend you found two men who were better than Bennett." "Yeah, I was trying to fuck that man out of me forever." "Oh shit!" "Jesus!" "Spilled milk, that's perfect, right?" "Mia, it's fine." "Don't worry about it." "It's fine." "I can do it later." "Maybe this is a good time for us to go into the other room." "So you want me on the couch?" "Fine, you don't want me in your kitchen;" "you don't want me on the couch;" "I'll sit here." "I think we need to talk about what's going on today." "No, I was hungry." "You wanted to have breakfast together." "Don't flatter yourself." "I'm tired of eating alone." " It's not about you." " What isn't?" "The breakfast or the weekend?" "You really think I slept around because of you?" " How would that work?" " Don't be coy." "You think that I'm still jealous of Laura, so I acted out?" "I didn't say that, Mia." "But as your therapist, I am interested in your behavior." "Picking up two men sounds out of character and I'd be remiss if I didn't explore what triggered it." "Well, it wasn't you." "It was Bennett." "He asked me to... have lunch with him on friday at the bowery hotel." "And I thought he wanted to woo me back." "Wrong." "After we'd eaten, he told me that... he was gonna leave his wife for his girlfriend." " I didn't know he had a girlfriend." " Yeah, that was news to me." "He had his wife, he had me and he had her." "And guess who it is." "It's Stefanie, our office receptionist." "You mentioned Stefanie last week." "You said you were dreading going to her bridal shower." "Well, we're past that, 'cause now that Stefanie's pregnant and he's plotting his divorce, they've decided to be discreet." "That must have hit you hard." "He thanked me for our time together and told me that it had helped him through a rough patch and that he would never forget me." "Isn't that sweet?" "I almost called his wife right then and there, but I resisted." "Then I went back to the office and the first face I saw was Stefanie, glowing like a new bride." "You're very hurt." "No." "You know, why..." "Why leave your 38-year-old wife for your 43-year-old girlfriend when you can nail a 25-year-old receptionist?" "So you thought of yourself as Bennett's girlfriend?" "Well, I guess I wasn't really thinking." "You know, I can't do it." "I can't play this game." " You mean the girlfriend game?" " No, the Stefanie game." "Where you giggle at bad jokes and you collect friends on facebook and you drink chocolate martinis." "But in a way isn't that what you were trying to do when you went out with the baby lawyers on friday night?" "I was trying to feel better, so I went on a spree." "Have you never done that?" "And that doesn't matter." "It's not like I want to see guitar boy again." "Really?" "You described it as an olympic-quality night." "Yes, that's good..." "once every four years." "I don't want a relationship with a child." "Only men do that." "He fell asleep at dawn and I went into the bathroom and I looked in the mirror and I knew it was time to go." "Mornings after can be..." "can be harsh." "In the daylight with the makeup smeared..." "There was no hiding that I am old enough to be his mother." "You didn't feel that the night before?" "He had power rangers towels hanging in his shower." "I just got dressed and I left." "Did you say goodbye?" "Leave a note?" "And I won't be sending flowers." "You disapprove?" "Do I?" "It's pretty obvious by your "did I do this?" "Did I do that?"" "So do you feel that I'm judging you?" "Why don't you just say it, Paul?" "What?" "That I fucked two strangers and that it was immature," " that it was self-destructive." " And that's what you want to hear?" "Shut up." "Just talk like a person." "Say "Mia, you'll get a disease." "You'll getkilled."" "The cop had a goddamn gun." "I'm not sure if you want me to scold you or to protect you." "Do you have anything to say to me that's real?" "Please don't ever do this again." "You'll get hurt." "I do not want you to get hurt." "You think that I was stupid?" "No, I think you were looking for something or someone." "Oh." "You see, I knew you were gonna do this." "What?" "Point out that I had picked up a musician in his 20s, just like my old boyfriend Stevie." "Well, Stevie was a drummer and anyone will tell you they are totally different." "Two weeks ago you did tell me that you wondered if you had missed your chance with Steve and you wanted to go back to that moment when you could've had him." "If that's what I was trying to do, it didn't work... not in the morning." "Exactly." "You saw in the mirror that you're a woman now and not a girl anymore, and maybe you didn't want to." "If you did, you might have to see guitar boy again or give him a name." "Do you think it's possible that he might've been a kind of symbol for roads not taken?" "He was pretty great in bed for a symbol." "Very good." "Okay, let's say that guitar boy was a symbol, right?" "So what am I doing with a cop?" "Well, how did you feel when you were with him?" "I felt safe." "So the musician didn't make you feel young." "In the daylight, you actually felt old." "So you found a cop who treated you like a child" "which made you feel safe." "How's that?" "It's pretty good." "I thought I was just sleeping around." "Do you plan on seeing him again?" "The cop?" "No." "No." "I don't want to have to act like achildto have sex." "But you said it was fun, exciting." "He's married." "Did I leave that out?" "'cause he did." "When did he tell you that?" "When I guessed why he wouldn't drive me home." "That's textbook." "Sounds like you've been down that road before... besides just Bennett, I mean." "You're on a roll." "Any ideas why I do that?" "Well, I'd rather hear it from you." "I don't know." "Married men are unavailable?" "I know it won't work out, so it allows me to maintain distance?" "The sex is always great 'cause married guys are starved for it." " There, does that cover it?" " Well, since you're asking," "I don't think so." "I mean, when you have an affair with a married man he has secrets with you." "Secrets with you instead of his wife." "He's closer to you because you're his favorite." "It's kind of similar in a way to what you were doing this morning." "Instead of sitting on the couch, you wanted to have breakfast in the kitchen with me, together, so that you'd feel different from my other patients." "Special." "Is this better?" "It's not all about you, Paul." "I know that." "In fact, when you were sitting in my kitchen, I remembered you telling me about how you shared coffee with your dad at his store when you were a girl." "You said that it was a secret that you both kept from your mother." "What are you thinking, Mia?" "Nothing." "I don't think it's anything." "My dad did come over for brunch on sunday." "And so the two of you spent the day together." "Did you invite him?" " When?" " That morning." "My mom dropped him off, happily." "She probably went off to spend the day at her beauty parlor where she likes to sit around and talk with her friends about how I ruined her modeling career." "Is that her mantra?" "If she hadn't had me..." "But she had more children after you." "Well, 10 years later." "She treated my sisters like they were treasures." "But not you?" "No, she shipped me off to New Jersey when she was getting ready to have the twins." "But I thought you said that both your parents..." "My dad, he never would've done that if she hadn't forced him." "So, no, I don't invite her." "She didn't mind." "If he hadn't come over, she would've had" " to take care of him all day." " Take care of him?" "Is he ill?" "He wasn't himself." "I mean, I hadn't slept in two days, and he didn't even notice." "He was coming down with something." "He was coughing a lot and he spilled his coffee all over himself and I had him take off his clothes and I washed and dried everything." "Like a parent." "He just sat there wrapped in a blanket." "Not what you'd hoped for." "So you feel that your father should take care of you, make you feel loved?" "It should be unconditional no matter what he feels?" "No matter what you do?" "Well, I told you he was having a bad day." "We adore one another and he... he's definitely better than any guy I have ever dated." " You make him sound perfect." " Is that bad?" "Can you think of a downside to it?" "A downside to having a father who loves me?" "No." "The problem is I can't find anybody as good as him." "You think there's something wrong with that{\, don't you}?" "For one thing, your father's married to your mother." "Do you think there's any connection between that and your picking married men?" "I said that I was done with that." "You did, but you also asked me what that pattern was about." "Now you're gonna tell me that my father molested me?" " Because he didn't." " I didn't think that." "But your father has been an essential comfort for you." "For as long as you are his favorite, you won't ever be alone." "I'm getting the feeling that the tight bond isn't entirely comfortable." " What do you mean?" " Look at this morning." "You came in, you crossed a boundary." "It made you feel special." "But I think it also rattled you." "Your speech was fast, graphic." "You tried to provoke me." " You spilled something." " The spill was an accident." "Maybe, but what I'm saying, Mia, is that it's not always a simple thing to be special." "I was thinking of the feeling that you had when you were eight after the robbery in your father's store." "He held you." "It was too tight." "It was life and death." "Do you think it's possible that to separate from your father is to risk being entirely alone?" "But to stay with him is to be uncomfortably close?" "Why are you doing this?" " My dad is all I have." " No one else?" " Colleagues, acquaintances." " Is he your closest relationship?" "Are you his?" "I feel sick." "I ate too much." "This is like antitherapy." "I walk in here feeling great," "I'm gonna leave feeling like crap." "Sometimes that happens." "And when it does, do you do anything?" " You want me to make you feel better?" " I don't wanna feel like this forever." "Like what?" "Like this is my life." "I don't want this to be my life." "I don't know what to do." "What do I do?" " I'm gonna go." " You still have time." "Oh, do I?" "I'm 43 and I'm entirely alone... your words." "You're right." "Who do I have?" "You?" "One session a week?" "I want someone to go home to..." "Someone to be in my bed with me, somebody who holds me when I cry." "I just want that." "I know." "I just want that."