The Love Machine (41 page)

He tore up the note and put the box in a small wall safe where he kept his contracts and private papers.

He put the book back in his desk drawer and left the office. When he arrived at the Lancer Bar, Carmen the bartender was effusive in his greeting. “Mr. Stone, it’s been so long! The usual?”

“Make it a double to celebrate my return,” Robin said.

He finished the drink quickly and ordered another. This was going to be one of those nights. He was beginning to hate the nights. He knew he had dreams … several times he had awakened in a sweat. But he couldn’t remember them. He hadn’t remembered his dreams in Rome, yet Sergio said he had shouted two nights in a row. He finished the second drink and ordered another. Maggie sending back the pin bugged him. But why should it? She didn’t mean anything to him. Nothing seemed to add up lately. Maybe Sergio had something. He crossed the room and picked up the phone book. Why not? It was worth a visit to a shrink to stop the dreams. He leafed through the pages. There sure were a hell of a lot of Golds but there couldn’t be more than one Archibald Gold. He found it listed on Park Avenue. He hesitated a moment, then quickly dialed the number. Dr. Archie Gold picked up on the second ring.

“This is Robin Stone.”

“Yes.”

“I’d like to see you.”

“Professionally or personally?”

There was a pause. “I guess professionally.”

“Could you ring me back at six? I have a patient.”

Robin hung up and walked back to the bar. He finished his second drink; then exactly at six he rang Archie.

“Okay, Doc, when can I see you?”

He heard the ruffling pages and knew the doctor was going through his appointment book. “I have a few openings,” he said. “Some of my patients have gone south for the winter. Would you like to come next Monday? I could put aside ten o’clock. We could start with three visits a week.”

Robin’s laugh was hollow. “I don’t want a course. Just one shot will do. I want to talk to you about a specific problem. Why don’t you come over to the Lancer Bar for a drink? I’ll pay for the drink and your time—like it was an office visit.”

“I’m afraid that’s not the way I work.”

“I talk better when I’m drinking,” Robin said.

“I listen better in my office,” the doctor replied.

“Then forget it.”

“I’m sorry. But you know my number if you change your mind.”

“What time is your last appointment tonight?”

“My last patient is due now.”

“That means you’re free at seven.”

“I plan to go home at seven.”

“Archie—I’ll come to your office if you’ll see me tonight.”

Dr. Gold was not misled by Robin’s casual tone. From a man like Robin, the phone call itself was a cry for help.

“All right, Robin, seven o’clock. You have my address?”

“Yep. And listen, Archie old boy, one word of this to your friend Jerry and I’ll break your head in.”

“I never discuss my patients. But if you have any doubts perhaps you should go to another doctor. There are several good men I could recommend.”

“No, Archie baby, you’re my man. See you at seven.”

Robin sat across the desk from Dr. Gold. The whole idea struck him as ridiculous. He never opened up to anyone—how could he tell this placid-looking stranger what was bugging him?

Dr. Gold recognized the silence and smiled. “Sometimes it’s easier to talk about intimate things with someone you don’t know. That’s why bartenders are the recipients of so many confidences. In a way the psychiatrist and the bartender have a great deal in common. We remain in our spot; you only have to see us when
you
want to. You don’t run into us in your day-to-day living.”

Robin laughed. “You’ve made your point. Okay—it’s as simple as this. There’s a girl.” He paused. “I can’t get her out of my mind—but I don’t dig her. That’s what’s so crazy.”

“When you say you don’t dig her—do you mean you dislike her?”

“No, I do like her. I like her a lot. But I can’t make it with her in bed.”

“Have you ever tried?”

Robin shrugged. “Seems when I was pissy-eyed drunk I went after her on two separate occasions, and judging from her reactions, I was pretty good.”

“Then what makes you say you can’t make it with her?”

Robin lit a cigarette and exhaled thoughtfully. “Well, the first time it happened I woke up the following morning and she was gone. I couldn’t even recall her face—or her name. I just knew that she was a brunette with big tits. And something disturbed me when I thought about it that morning. I couldn’t remember a thing, yet I sensed I had done something or said something I shouldn’t have. Then to compound the felony, I run into the lady two years later and have absolutely no recollection that we had ever met. She was making it with a buddy of mine. I thought she was beautiful, good company, and she was with him. Which was fine with me, because, like I said, she wasn’t my type. We double-dated a few nights—then I went off for some fishing, alone. On my last night there, I went out with them. It started out as a great evening, only I got roaring drunk. My buddy passed out and I wound up with the lady. I have no recollection of being with her—except that I woke up the following morning in her bed. And I must have made it with her pretty good because there she was making breakfast and chirping little mating calls.”

“What was your feeling about her?” Dr. Gold asked.

Robin shuddered. “Fright. It was almost like waking up and finding you were with a boy, or a child—someone you
shouldn’t
have gone to bed with. And because I did like her, I leveled with her.” He ground out the cigarette. “I was rough. I told her how I felt. She was so damn beautiful, yet when I thought of sex with her I felt this sudden revulsion, and I knew I couldn’t make it.”

“Revulsion for her?”

“No. Revulsion about sex—as if doing it with her would be dirty, incestuous. Yet I like her. Maybe I like her more than any girl I’ve met. But I can’t feel a physical drive for her.”

“And you want to go to bed with her, or—let me put it this way: you would like to have this hangup, as you put it, removed so that you can fulfill a relationship with her.”

“Wrong again. I don’t care if I never see her again. But I don’t like dark areas in my brain. This girl is beautiful—why should I feel this way? And it’s happened before, just in a few isolated cases, but always with a brunette. Only they were never quite the caliber of this girl and fortunately I never saw them again. This thing with Maggie—it was an accident. I just happened to get roaring drunk.”

“Just happened? Were you drinking an unusual drink? Something you were unaccustomed to?”

“No, vodka. That’s what I always stick with.”

“Were you aware that you were ordering too many drinks?”

“I guess I was.”

“Let’s go back to the first time with this girl. Two years ago. Were you very drunk when you met her?”

“No, but I was drinking.”

“And then you purposely proceeded to get drunk?”

“Purposely?”

Dr. Gold smiled. “It would seem that way. I wouldn’t say you were the kind of a man who is caught off guard.”

Robin looked thoughtful. “You mean that subconsciously I wanted this girl and intentionally got drunk so I could make it with her?” When Dr. Gold didn’t answer, Robin shook his head. “Doesn’t add up—because I don’t dig this type of girl. Why would I want to make it with her? Drunk or sober, she’s not my type.”

“What is your type?”

“Slim, golden, clean hard-bodied girls. I like the smell of gold hair. Maggie is sultry—like a jungle cat.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

He shrugged. “Hung on girls, sure. But I’ve always been able to walk away from it. Know something, Archie. Everyone is
not
heterosexual or homosexual. There are people who are just plain sexual. They dig the bed scene, but don’t necessarily fall
in
love.
Take Amanda: she was great. I thought we had a marvelous relationship. Yet from what Jerry told me, I hurt her very badly. But I was never aware of it. I only cut out toward the end when she tried to swallow me. And even then I was only cooling it—but I had no idea that all along I’d been hurting her.”

“You really never knew?”

“That’s right. If I took off to tape a show in Europe and didn’t write, I figured she knew the score—that I was coming back, and it would be to her. And when I did come back, I couldn’t wait to get into the feathers with her. It was great.”

“Yet you are conscious that you have hurt this other girl, Maggie.”

Robin nodded. “Yes.”

“Why would you be unaware that you were hurting Amanda, whom you really desired, yet be so painfully aware of this girl you don’t care about?”

“That’s why I’m here, Archie.
You
tell me.”

“What did your mother look like?”

“Oh Christ, let’s not go into the Freudian jazz. I had a healthy happy childhood. Kitty is blond, nice, clean—” He stopped.

“And your father?”

“He was a hell of an outgoing guy. Strong, all muscles. I have a nice kid sister. Everything was shipshape in my childhood. We’re only wasting time there.”

“All right … father, mother, sister. All healthy relationships. Let’s locate the dark stranger. Was it a nurse? A schoolteacher?”

“My first teacher was a hunchback. That was kindergarten. My nurse—well, I must have had one, but I can’t recall. There were servants—a chauffeur took me to school. There was a nurse when Lisa was born—a gray-haired job.”

“Was there any rivalry between you and your sister?”

“Hell, no. I was her big brother. I was protective of her. She looked like a tiny Kitty: blond, white and clean.”

“Do you resemble Kitty?”

Robin frowned. “I have her blue eyes, but my hair is dark like my father’s, although now it’s turning gray pretty fast.”

“Let’s go back to before Lisa was born. What is the first memory you have?”

“Kindergarten.”

“Before that.”

“None.”

“You must be able to recall something. Everyone remembers one small incident in early childhood. A pet, a playmate, happiness, disaster.”

Robin shook his head. Dr. Gold pursued: “A conversation, a prayer?”

Robin snapped his fingers. “Yes—one thing. Maybe it was a conversation, but it was just a line and I can’t remember who said it: ‘Men don’t cry. If you cry you’re not a man, you’re a baby.’ For some reason it stuck with me. I believed it. I believed that if I didn’t cry I could have anything I wanted. Whoever said it must have made an impression on me because I never cried after that.”

“You’ve never cried?”

“Not that I can recall.” Robin smiled. “Oh, I’ll go to a corny movie and get a lump in my throat. But in my own personal life”—he shook his head—“never.”

Dr. Gold looked at his watch. “It’s five to eight. Would you care to make an appointment for next Monday? My fee is thirty-five dollars an hour.”

Robin’s expression was one of disbelief. “You must be some kind of a nut. I’ve been here almost an hour, to discuss a girl that I have some hangup about. We’ve solved nothing—and you want me to come back.”

“Robin, it’s not natural to be unable to recall anything in your childhood.”

“Five years old is not exactly middle-aged.”

“No, but you should be able to recollect some incident that occurred before, unless—”

“Unless what?”

“Unless you are intentionally blocking it out.”

Robin leaned across the desk. “Archie, I swear to God, I have not blocked out anything. Maybe I have a lousy memory—or did it ever occur to you that perhaps nothing ever happened that was worth recalling?”

Archie shook his head. “Very often when something traumatic happens, the brain automatically builds amnesia as scar tissue.”

Robin walked toward the door. He turned to the doctor. “Look I lived in a nice big house, with two nice parents and a pretty little sister. No skeletons in my closet. Maybe that’s the bit. Maybe things went too smooth, maybe kindergarten was the first jolt I got—the hunchback teacher—maybe that’s why my memory starts there.”

“Who told you a man doesn’t cry?”

“I don’t know.”

“Was it before kindergarten?”

“It had to be, because I didn’t cry in kindergarten when the other kids did. They were all scared of the teacher—the poor bitch.”

“Then who said it?”

“Archie, I don’t know. But whoever it was, I bless them. I don’t like to see men cry. I don’t even like to see women or babies cry.”