"Previously on In Treatment." "I left home." "You helped me with that in our last session." "Showed me that leaving home was my own personal decision." " Are you mad at me for something else?" " Like what?" "Because I met a patient of yours." "Got the days wrong and I met Laura." " Shall I go for her?" " I can't give you dating tips." "She's the kind of woman who could drive a man insane." "Am I right?" " Bye-bye, Melissa." " Bye." "Thank you." " I'm early, huh?" " Uh, yeah." "But it's OK, it's not a problem." "I was in the area and I didn't want to go home and come all the way back." " It's OK." " You sure?" "You don't have things to do?" "I'm sure." "Oh, this is from Laura." "I think it's a cheque." "Who knows?" " I'll pay you for the extra time." " Uh, no need." "It's..." " No, no, I insist." " It's OK." "So I owe another 20%?" "Thirty bucks." "Hold on." " Do you feel better now?" " What do you mean?" "After paying me, do you feel better?" "What are you trying to say?" "I'm surprised by how much effort you put into showing your contempt for this process" " and for me." " Relax, OK?" "It's just the way my mother raised me." "I don't know what it's like with you people but I like to pay for what I get." " I'm glad you're getting something here, Alex." " Let's not make a big deal out of this, OK?" "You want me to admit that this therapy is worthwhile?" "OK." "I'll admit it." "This therapy is changing my life." "Happy?" "Can we drop it now?" " How many patients do you have?" " Why is that relevant?" "I'm curious." "Like today, how many patients have you had already?" " Why are you asking me this?" " I want to know what money you make." "Let's say eight patients a day, times five days a week, $150 a pop..." "Whoo." "It's a pretty good living there, Doc." "24 grand a month." " Do you want to buy me out, Alex?" " What?" "$24,000 a month and I'm all yours." "And, uh, you'll be my only patient." "It must be hard for you to be in this position." "To be perceived as, um... weak." "You have this need to regain your strength." "You bring me a cheque from Laura, you've asked me about my patients and my income." " Everything to put me in my little place." " Did I offend you?" "No." "I'm kind of used to it." "But then all our sessions start out like that, don't they, Alex?" "Maybe I was expecting something different today, maybe because you were early." "Or because you've been asking around about me." "You want me to tell you why I was early or go on and on with your theories?" "I'd love to hear." "I went to the base today." "Thought I'd pop over before my session here and say hello to my boys, you know." "When I got to the gate, I realised I forgot my ID." "Usually, it's not a big deal." "But there's a new grunt at the gate." "Some real Okie from Muskogee." "I told him, "Look, call the base commander and tell him that Lieutenant Prince is here."" "So he calls, comes back a minute later and says I'm not on the approved list." "Of course it's a real sensitive issue these days, as you can imagine." "Still, I said, "To hell with the list, call Dana, the secretary." ""Tell her to talk to the commander." ""And you tell them that Lieutenant Alex Prince Jr is waiting at the gate."" "So he goes in, calls, comes back and he says..." "He says, "I'm sorry." "The Commander's in a meeting."" "Maybe he was in a meeting and couldn't be disturbed." "Or maybe they were stuffing their faces with doughnuts." "Or maybe he just didn't give a fuck." "I don't know." "I said, "Tell Dana if she took the Commander's cock out of her mouth once in a while," ""maybe she could hear better."" "Man, I was this close to knocking that motherfucker out." "Anyway, I didn't get in, so I left." "And that... is why I got here early." "(Paul) Oh." "Not, uh..." "Not an easy experience." "It's bullshit." "Now I gotta come here and deal with you coming at me like this?" "That was the tip of the iceberg." "My shitty week started on Saturday." " Why, what happened on Saturday?" " OK, we're going to pretend here, all right." "You want to pretend?" "You know what happened." "Do I?" "I wish you'd have warned me about Laura." "It would've saved us both a lot of heartache." "I slept with her, OK?" "With Laura." "That's what happened on Saturday." "But I'm sure you got a full play-by-play from her already." " Did she or did she not talk to you about it?" " I'm not at liberty to discuss my patients." "What is that?" "Code for "She did but you won't tell me"?" "Alex, no." "OK." "(Sighs)" "It was pretty weird." "She called to ask me if I wanted to come over for dinner." "No problem, right?" "So I got to her place... (Sighs) I looked at her." "You know, I looked at how she was dressed, at the table, the wine and..." "I realised that "dinner" was obviously just a codename for sex." "This whole thing was like a ritual." " A ritual?" " Yeah, yeah, and all the rules." "First, of course, there's the meal." "She doesn't look like a cook, right?" "But she made a big effort." "For starters, she prepared her own sushi." "California rolls." " They weren't that great." " Didn't taste good?" "N..." "It was just for show." "Don't you get it?" "Nowadays everything is for show." "If you wanna make sushi, take a fucking course." "Go to a Japanese grocery." "Don't use Uncle Ben's rice and imitation crab meat." "Did you say anything to her?" "Of course not." "No." "The dinner was just a lead-up to us getting in bed." "I told you that." " Didn't really matter." " (Clears throat)" "So did you want to sleep with her?" "Yeah, but... it has nothing to do with wanting anything." "It was all premeditated." "It was like a... mating ritual." "Like the Masai tribe in Tanzania." "But for yuppies." "Anyway, yeah, yeah, we got up from the table, went to her bedroom and had sex." "That's what happened on Saturday." "It's interesting that you tell me so much about this ritual of you going to bed together but... nothing about what happened between you." "L-l-I'm sure that you've had lousy sushi before but..." "I don't think you've been with another woman for a long time." "You know what happened." "So why do you have to hear it from me?" "You're very preoccupied with who knows what and who said what." "What's important is how you felt about it." "How the experience was for you." "The sex?" "Mm?" "(Laughs) Sex is all anyone wants to talk about." "But is it really as important as you people make it out to be?" "Well, you tell me." "Look, I know that's what it says in all your textbooks." "But I ask myself is it really the key to everything?" "Or is it just the simplest answer?" "But you're the one who started the story by saying that the sex was the issue." "That all the rest was just... uh, foreplay." "OK." "I'll tell you what happened." "Otherwise, you won't feel like you're doing your job, right?" "But before I start, something I've gotta know." " Do you ever jerk off to what patients tell you?" " What?" "Come on." "Come on." "I mean, you must hear some crazy stories from women." "Explicit shit." "Fantasies." "Did you ever jerk off afterwards?" "Are you concerned that I'll masturbate to what you tell me?" "Me?" "No." "Women sit here on your couch, they tell you all about fucking." " Must get to you, sometimes." "It'd get to me." " Do you masturbate?" "There you go again, answering a question with a question." "All right." "I'll answer with an answer." "I'm a human being." "I masturbate sometimes." "My fantasies are about many, many things." "All sorts of women." "Is that what you wanted to hear?" "That, in that regard, I'm not that different from you?" "That's the first time you've ever answered one of my questions." "In any case, you won't masturbate to me and Laura's story, I guarantee you that." "You may think of it the next time you're having sex with your wife and trying not to come." "(Sighs)" "(Clears throat) Must've been very, uh... complex experience for you." "Being with, uh... being with another woman, after all this time." "Complex." "Right." "I gave a shitty performance." "Made every possible mistake, I was a mess, to tell you the truth." "During dinner, before we had sex," "I started thinking about my first date with my wife Michaela about 15 years ago." "Jesus." "We had gone out to this bar together." "At the time, she was the liberal type." "She'd talk openly about foreplay, favourite positions, cuddling afterwards." "Cosmo-type bullshit." "And she told me that researchers found that wine arouses women sexually and represses men's sexual desires." "You ever heard that?" " Mm-hm." " I don't know what made me do it but at one point during my conversation with Laura... (Sighs) ...you know when you get one of those deadly silences?" "I suddenly told her that... alcohol sexually represses men, while women..." "And, she, of course, she didn't respond." "She gave me one of those looks saying, "Why are you telling me this?"" " Why did you tell her?" " I don't know." "Maybe it was a way to move the conversation in a sexual direction, make things go forward." "Signal that she'd been cleared to attack." "Is, uh..." "Is that what you wanted, for her to... attack?" "Uh, do you think that she understood the signal?" "Yeah." "Is there any other way of understanding it?" "Well, it might've sounded like an apology in advance." "That you didn't have any... real sexual... desire for her." "I don't think so." "She wasn't too fazed by it." "She changed the subject right away." "Like I'd said something nasty, something inappropriate at the table." "With all that sushi." "That's what pissed me off." "Like all her faggy doctor friends always say the right thing." "So first chance I got, I looked her in the eye, I said," ""Baby, I have to go to the bathroom." ""I'm a bit nervous." "It's my first time since I left my wife."" "She could barely squeeze out a smile, even a phoney one." "From then on, every few minutes, I'd mention my wife and the separation, even in bed." "I did it every chance I got, just to see her squirm." "I think I got her completely out of the mood." "She was totally turned off." "We had sex." "It was more like two animals mating." "I wasn't that hard and I came pretty fast." "Even on the way to the shower I threw in, "Sorry, it was my first time in so many years."" "I don't know why I kept saying it." " Were you thinking about your wife?" " No." " Or feeling guilty, maybe?" " No, why would I?" "Well, because any of those reactions would've been natural, Alex." "We haven't talked about your, uh, your separation, how you feel about it." "No." "That's not what this is about." "I told you the separation was the right thing to do." " Don't you get off topic." " What is the topic?" "Do our stories match, me and Laura's?" "That's what I wanna know." "(Sighs) On the one hand, you describe this feeling of helplessness... weakness, as if you were dragged into sex against your will." "You feel that you didn't perform too well, so you felt... somewhat humiliated." "Then to gain back some strength and control, you make these references to your wife" " in order to belittle Laura." " Belittle her?" "Tell you, you make some far-out connections." "She belittled me." "Her whole attitude is patronising." "You're sure?" "You're the one who suddenly felt weak so you attacked." "You wanted to regain control." "It reminds me of the beginning of our session." "You were vulnerable after the base, you gave me the envelope from Laura, and you throw your money on the table, as if you wanted to humiliate me, to make me feel, to make me feel small." " How's your machine?" " It's..." "It's good, thank you." "Clients happy?" "I'll make me some coffee, if you want some, if you've decided to stop being a tea man." "Alex, can we get back to this?" "Please." "We're on to something here" " and I don't want to lose track." " Just give me a second here, OK?" "I realise we're on to something." "I just need a break." "Respect that." "I want you to tell me something." "Honestly." "You really think you can help me?" "We sit here, we talk about fucking a few times." "You'll be able to solve all my problems?" "I don't have the answer to that question." "Yeah, I knew you'd say that." "You know, that's what kills me about you people." "Cos any other professional..." "I go to a doctor, he takes a look and he says, "This what you got." ""This is how long you have to live."" "If I went to a mechanic, he'd say, "$2,000, it'll be good as new."" "But you people, you don't guarantee shit." " Can I tell you a story?" " What kind of story?" "It's a Jewish parable that a friend of mine told me." "(Clears throat)" "These two friends are condemned to death but the king, he liked them and he didn't want to kill them." "So, instead, he tied a thin rope across this abyss." "And he told them both to walk over the rope." "Whoever made it to the other side would be allowed to live." "So the first one walked over the rope and he makes it safely to the other side." "And after he made it, his friend yells out to him, "How did you do it?"" "And the other guy answered, "I have no idea." ""All I know is that whenever my weight pulled me to one side," ""I leaned to the other."" "Ain't exactly Lord Of The Rings." "(Laughs)" "True." "So does it mean that you have to maintain balance in your life?" "I think what it means is there are no simple ways of jumping over an abyss." "Or ways that work for everyone." "I think what you're looking for, Alex, is a million-dollar magic trick and I don't have that." "I truly believe there is no simple way to jump across an abyss." "Instead, we have to work in small, internal steps." "The question is whether you want us, you and I, to engage in that process." " Eyes on your instruments." " What do you mean?" "It's one of the basic principles in aviation." " You ever heard of vertigo?" " Sure." "When you go into vertigo, your directional perception changes, you're spatially disoriented." "You can fly in a Mach 2, nose down, and think you're taking off." "That's the first thing they teach you at pilot school." "You go into vertigo, you look only at your aircraft's instruments." "Ignore your feelings completely, rely on your instruments." "That's what the air controller tells you, that's what you're telling me." "Eyes on your instruments." "So you want me to put myself into your hands, you want to navigate me." "Rely on you." "On the one hand, you're right." "But keeping my eyes on my instruments is what got me here." "What do you mean?" "Because I kept my eyes on my instruments, I dropped that bomb so accurately," "I relied only on my commanders and I killed innocent people." " Now I'm supposed to rely on you." " Alex, I don't want you to rely on me." "I want you to rely on yourself, on your own feelings." "The most I can ever be to you is like an air traffic controller who tells you to ignore the expectations of everybody else." "It's the expectations that give you..." "that give you vertigo." "What's the first step on the way to my new life?" "Well, what would you like to do?" "I think I'll go fuck her again." "Yeah." "I'll fuck her." "Well and proper this time, I'll fuck her slow and good." "I'll take my time up into that sweet, hot little pussy." "I mean, what's the big deal?" "She thinks she's the belle of the ball." "Fuck that." "She must be miserable if she comes to see you, right?" "Don't assume that everybody who sees me is miserable." "Look, when I came to pick her up from here yesterday, she was like a psychopath." "One minute she's hugging me, so over the top, like we're in some kind of movie." "The next minute, "Take me home." "I'm too tired to do anything today."" "I mean, what the fuck?" "She turned as cold as ice." "She was two different people." "What goes through her head?" "Listen to what you're saying." "You're belittling her again." "You don't think she belittles me?" "You don't think I know that she's completely hung up on someone else?" "Check this out." "Saturday." "After we had sex, she straddles my leg." "She starts rubbing up against me as if I'm not even there." "It's so obvious she's fantasising about somebody else." "And then, she starts crying." "Tears and everything." "She's just crying." "And I ask her, "Laura, what's up?" ""Everything OK?"" "She didn't even look at me." "She didn't even answer me." "Like I'm just her dildo." "I got so..." "Don't tell me I belittle her, OK?" "(Alex sighs)" "I know this is gonna sound crazy after everything I just said" "but do you think we have a chance together, me and Laura?" "If we really work at it." "L-I don't know, Alex." "L-l-I couldn't e... (Sighs)" "I don't know that." "I think it could happen." "Like you said, Doc, it's a long series of small steps, right?" "Mm-hm." "Yes, it is." "Well, our, uh..." "our time is up for today." " Already?" " Mm." "Why don't we continue next week where we left off today?" "OK?" " Thanks." " You're welcome." "(Sighs)" "English SDH"