Psych

“So you’re here because you’re having too much sex.”

The kid is twenty-four. Dr. Werner is forty. She frowns. The kid is having a hard time looking at her. His t-shirt has a drawing of Florida on it. Under the drawing, it says “I’m no island, but you’re going to love my peninsula.”

“I just need some kind of…” the kid starts saying, “like, can you give me a pill that’ll make it stop happening?”

“To stop the sex from happening?”

“Yeah. I don’t have any control over it.”

Doctor Werner’s frown deepens.

“You mean, you can’t stop yourself? Like a compulsion?”

The kid is confused. “Not…not really. More like, it happens, and I don’t want it to happen.”

Dr. Werner pauses, breathes, and asks. “Are you being forced to have sex? Is someone making you do this?”

The kid looks confused again. “In my dream? No. I’m just there, having sex. No one’s forcing me.”

“In your dream?”

“Yeah. That’s why I want the pills.”

Dr. Werner lowers her head. She sighs. “It was my understanding we were talking about real world behavior. You made an appointment with me, said it was about a sexual addiction.”

The kid seems sheepish now.

“It is. My subconscious is addicted to sex. Sorry, I don’t know a lot about this kind of thing. I thought you guys were interested in dreams.”

“Sometimes. But we don’t assume the problems our patients come to us with are dream problems.”

“Oh. Right.”

“Let’s start over. You’re having dreams about sex, and you want them to stop.”

“Yeah. It’s like, every time I go to sleep. They’re really real. So when I wake up, I spend all my time during the day thinking about them. I can’t get anything done.”

“I see. How active are you, sexually? Can I ask when’s the last time you were sexually active? Or masturbated?”

“I…” the kid looks down. “I can’t…I don’t get erections. I don’t think I’ve had an orgasm.”

“What about when you wake from these dreams? Erections then?”

“Not really. Sometimes, halfway. But it’s not like the dreams are particularly arousing.”

“The sex dreams aren’t arousing?”

“Well, it’s always some girl I’d never be attracted to. My fat cousin. Girls from school who ate at the last table in the lunchroom. Last night I dreamed about my fourth grade teacher. She looked kind of like you.”

“Hmm.”

“Can you help me? Prescribe me something?”

“No.”

“No?”

“I’m a psychologist.”