“Well, in a way. You’ve told me how you feel about the individual women with whom you’ve come in contact.”
“Like my ex-wife.” Penny said it like it was a reminiscence.
“Yes. You were very graphic about her. For a while, I thought you were too graphic. But I don’t think so anymore.”
“Still, I guess I’ve been pretty bitter about her, huh?”
“Your attitude toward her was so antifemale that there can be no doubt it’s a coverup for your latent homosexuality.”
“Well, better latent than never,” Penny quipped.
“Then you admit it?” Dr. Hitler sounded surprised.
“Sure. Why not?”
“This marks a major step in your treatment.” Dr. Hitler clapped his hands. “You’ve never faced your homosexual feelings before.”
“Well, my hostility toward women was a sure symptom, wasn’t it?”
“Now don’t overstate the case. It’s not as if you were hostile toward all women. You spoke very warmly of that girl in your office, and of Sonia as well.”
“Anybody else?” Penny fished.
“Those are the only women you’ve talked about. And your mother, of course. Why? Is there somebody else?” Dr. Hitler wanted to know. “Have you been withholding something from me?”
“I’m not sure,” Penny said thoughtfully.
“You're not sure?” Dr. Hitler scowled. “You sound like you want me to tell you about your involvement with some other woman.”
“It would help.”
“I’m not psychic. Besides, the matter of our involvement with other women is purely symptomatic. There’s only one woman any man gets involved with. His mother.”
“That’s not very helpful.”
“That’s much more helpful than you think it is,” Dr. Hitler told Penny, never guessing that it was also much more helpful than he thought it was. “Whatever your problems involving women, you can be sure your mother’s behind them. Motherhood is the burr in every man’s gonads.”
Penny’s female mind reacted to this charge defensively. “There are no bad mothers!” Penny told Dr. Hitler. “There are only bad sons!”
“You see! You see!!” Dr. Hitler became very excited. “You’re expressing your feelings of insecurity about your manhood when you talk like that.”
“All right,” Penny said wearily. “So I’m insecure about manhood. I’ve got reasons.”
“Of course you do.” Now Dr. Hitler was soothing. “And all the reasons go back to your mother and your relationship with her. She made you feel dirty.”
“She did?”
“Of course she did. I’ll bet she was always telling you to wash your hands and not play in the mud and get dirty and never use a public toilet without putting paper on the seat and all kinds of things like that. Wasn’t she?”
“I suppose she must have,” Penny sighed. “She’s the kind of woman who couldn’t help being hung up on hygiene . . . Why are you smiling at me like that, Dr. Hitler?”
“You keep craning your neck that way, you’ll get a permanent crick.”
“It’s the only way I can see you. Answer me. Why do you have that insidious smile?”
“You said your mother was hipped on hygiene . . Well? . . . Can’t you see the connection?”
“What connection?”
“Who else of major importance in your life is hipped on hygiene?” Dr. Hitler asked patiently.
“The only one I can think of is you.”
“Exactly. You see? The transference is complete. I’m a mother symbol to you. And ‘hygiene’ is the key.”
“But you really are obsessed with hygiene.”
“That’s irrelevant. The important thing is that you subconsciously identify me with your mother. To you I am a mother.”
“Really? Well how does it feel to be a mother with that ostentatious male genitalia of yours?” Penny asked maliciously. “How does that grab you?”
“Well, at least I’m facing up to my feelings of effeminacy. If you’d face up to yours, then you wouldn’t always be complaining to me about suicidal feelings.”
“Oh, I’ve complained about that, have I?” Penny was interested.
“Constantly. This is the first session I ever remember you’re not having brought it up. Maybe I’m finally getting through to you.”
“What do you mean?”
“That suicidal feelings are only the way you disguise your effeminate feelings. As I’ve told you before, you’d never commit suicide. It’s not in your psychological makeup.”
“That shows how much you know,” Penny murmured.
“What? Speak up! You’ve no idea how annoying it is when you mutter.”
“You’re hung up on my mutter,” Penny told him.
“No. You’re hung up on her.”
“On who?”
“Your mother. And you’ll never conquer your Oedipal problems until you really face up to your effeminate feelings. I can’t stress that enough.”
“You’ve already stressed it more than enough. And what’s wrong with being effeminate anyway?”
“Nothing. If you face the feelings.” Dr. Hitler stood up, signifying that the session was at an end. “We’ll go into this further,” he told Penny.
“Why should we? I’ve already faced my effeminate feelings.”
“Have you?” Dr. Hitler was skeptical.
“Of course I have. Believe me, I’m one patient who had no choice.”
“Well, if you really have,” Dr. Hitler told Penny, “don’t just stand there in the doorway. Kiss me good-bye!”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A Penny for your thoughts. . . . That’s what Pennington P. Potter, deceased, was to the Penny homesteading his body, the Penny indentured to his past. Potter’s hangups were Penny’s hangups, the clinkers in the lifetime lapse.
Still, even a lifetime lease can be broken. Or can it? The question, as Penny walked away from Dr. Hitler’s office, was moot. Other questions, the same old unanswered questions, were more pressing. Dr. Hitler hadn’t provided any answers. He hadn’t been any help with that Freudian doggerel of his. Or had he?
In the bright sunlight of the city street, Penny stopped and thought about that. Dr. Hitler had given no hint of any woman in Potter’s life save the three Penny already knew about. There was no evidence that there was a fourth woman. But then what about the suicide note with its accusation that a female was to blame? There had to be a fourth woman. But who?
Even as Penny dismissed the doctor, there was an unformed, nagging doubt. . . . Something Dr. Hitler had said . . . and repeated . . . a veiled hint . . a disguised implication. What was it? Penny reviewed the session, trying to pinpoint it. Deep in thought, it was a while later that Penny realized with a start that Potter’s feet had automatically arrived in front of the brownstone in which Potter had lived with his mother.
Penny went upstairs. Mrs. Potter was waiting at the door to the apartment. Her greeting was surprisingly effusive. “It came in the mail,” she told Penny happily. “After the disgusting way you talked to me. I never thought—But forget that! I’ve forgotten it as if it never happened because my wonderful son could never talk to his mother like that. Not the kind of son who’d do for a mother what you’ve done.” She beamed at Penny. “Wipe your feet!”’ she added, virtually pushing the bewildered Penny into the apartment.
Inside, Penny slumped into a chair and stared at the ebullient Mrs. Potter. What the hell had gotten into her? Why was she so euphoric?
“Why didn’t you tell me that you finally did it?” Mrs. Potter asked, eyes shining.
“Did what?”
“After all the talking, even after that long talk we had the night before your—umm—accident, I never dreamed you’d really do it. I thought you’d just go on stalling like you’ve been doing, humoring me, but not really listening to me. I was afraid—oh! I know this sounds si1ly—-I was even afraid you might think I’d been nagging you, that you’d resent me for being a nag. Of course I know I’m not a nag. Lord knows I’m not the sort of woman who’d ever nag her son. Isn’t that true, Penny?”