I immediately recognized the attractive woman at the concierge desk. I didn’t need to be reminded by the silver nameplate on her protuberant chest that it was Suzanne, and I immediately remembered the pledge I had made to myself about asking her if I could purchase the pleasure of her company. Big breasts often create the illusion that they’re coming out at you even when they’re completely stationary. But everything is a matter of perception, and if you choose the quantum view of the universe, which holds that all things are in flux, the Newtonian applecart is easily overturned. As it happened, Suzanne’s apples strained the laws of physics, Newtonian or otherwise. Having such enormous breasts was probably a handicap, since most men look at breasts before they notice a face, and I could tell that Suzanne was starved for eye contact.
Roused from the enchantment of her mammaries, I noted the urgency in her voice when she asked if she could be of assistance. I started to hum the words of a Leonard Cohen song: “Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river, you can hear the boats go by, you can spend the night beside her.” Suzanne seemed to appreciate my singing because she broke into a smile.
“That’s your Leonard Cohen,” she said.
“Actually he’s Canadian, and I’m American, and I wish your name was Tiffany.” I was surprised how quickly I had gotten to the point. Perhaps my lack of inhibition was the result of my analysis with China.
“To be honest, Tiffany is my nickname.” Was she hinting at something, or was her nickname really Tiffany? “Well with a name like that you probably need some reality.”
“I can come to your room in about six hours, when I take my lunch break.” That would have been close to dinnertime, but I didn’t want to argue with her, considering that Brazilians generally eat lunch when we eat dinner, and dinner when someone like me is having a wet dream.
I agreed to the tryst because of the extraordinary nature of her physical accoutrements, though I realized I still hadn’t solved my immediate pleasure problem, and would have to delay gratification unless Suzanne was selfless enough to suggest another Tiffany I could spend time with in the interim. Even though I was very attracted to Suzanne, I’d promised myself that for the rest of my stay in Rio I was going to avoid exclusive attachments. For all of my memorable experiences — my relationship with China, my aristocratic Tiffany, Brittany and her glorious behind, and even the old crone who outfitted me with my first pair of tight jeans — my adventures were beginning to take a toll on me emotionally.
At that moment, I saw Schmucker and China walking out of the elevators that faced the concierge’s desk. I quickly finalized my plans to meet Suzanne on her lunch break and snuck away to find a perch where I could observe their interaction.
I was soon disabused of the illusion that I would be able to drown the pain of my separation from China in a series of flings with Suzanne and other beautiful Tiffanys. When Schmucker took China’s hand and bent down to kiss her before they walked across the lobby, my heart nearly stopped. I had to contain an urge to confront the two of them about the ethical impropriety of their relationship, but I quickly realized there wasn’t anything unethical about two psychoanalysts having a love affair. It may have been painful for me to see them together, but I could hardly say it was improper for the two to have consensual relations. On the other hand, China’s dalliances with me were pretty objectionable by even the most lax standards. But, as angry as I was with China, I didn’t want to ruin her career. Besides, she could easily have described me as a patient who was ridden with Oedipal feelings of such intensity that they had reached a delusional level.
As the bellboys brought them their luggage, the two analysts looked like colleagues who had simply formed a professional relationship and were now taking leave of each other — knowing they would meet again at a future conference. Perhaps my transference was so powerful that I had made up the intensity of her sexual feelings for Schmucker. Perhaps it was like the scandals involving patients who experience repressed memory syndrome. Perhaps it was just my imagination.
I was faced with a paradox that I think many people in analysis have to contend with. Though my problems seemed small and insignificant compared to those faced by 99 % of humanity, they seemed to get more complicated during the course of the treatment. I’d started my work with China feeling mildly confused about the kind of prostitute I wanted to spend the rest of my life with, but by the end of the analysis I had regressed so much that I had murderous Oedipal fantasies about China and her paramour, Schmucker. I suppose this represented progress of sorts. I suppose China might have argued that I was exorcizing the devils that lurked within my psyche. But now, having made the unconscious conscious, where was I?
For starters, I was standing about 100 yards from the electric eye that made the automatic doors of the hotel open and shut. To me, those doors were like the jaws of fate, for beyond them lay the specter of Schmucker and China enacting a parting scene that rivaled that of Lara and Dr. Zhivago. If nothing else, the whole scenario epitomized the disparity between a patient’s imagined sense of importance to the analyst and the reality that the analyst has a life of her own.
I knew that I had to turn away from my surrogate parents, China and Schmucker, and find some other whores to play with while I was waiting for Suzanne. The concierge’s desk was like a hive for Tiffanys who were working the lobby, but I was feeling hesitant with Suzanne there, despite her distinctly business-like attitude.
I will never underplay the importance of the hotel staff in improving my relations with the Tiffanys of Rio, and I will be forever grateful to the concierge who made sure I was outfitted in trousers that were appropriate for Rio nightlife. Wearing tight crotch-revealing pants is as important in Rio as wearing loose-fitting Brooks Brothers suits if you want to rise in the New York business world. In both cases you have to dress for success. My business attire was as much of an impediment in attracting Tiffanys as tight pants would be if I were looking to build a corporate accountancy clientele in Midtown Manhattan.
I caught the eye of a beautiful and rare Japanese Tiffany. I offered to take her to the hotel’s famous sushi bar, but she told me in surprisingly elegant fashion that she already had something nice and fishy I could taste if I wanted to put it in my mouth. Normally I would have been elated, but her suggestion immediately made me think of China, and for a moment I was overcome with a debilitating feeling of grief. However, when she glanced over her shoulder to make sure no one was looking and then picked up her short skirt to show me the goods, I was instantly transported to the fictional hotel room where Holden Caulfield has his first experience with a hooker in Catcher in the Rye. This was the only inspiration I needed. After quickly agreeing on a fee, we headed back to my room. She turned out to have a copy of Haruki Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore in her purse, and was writing her own novel about prostitution called The Life of a Japanese Geisha in Rio. She told me the novel was not autobiographical, and reassured me that the notes she was going to take before and after we had sex had nothing to do with me, but were merely renderings of her imaginative life. I noticed that she took notes in English, and when I asked her why she wrote and read in English instead of Japanese, I was stunned by her thoughtful, articulate response.