Somehow the scene is centred on the analyst's bald patch. An ever increasing one, which, along with the beard, increasingly evoke Sigmund Freud. He has noticed, and thinks this is not going to help the jokes. He is sitting in a comfortable armchair, legs crossed, chin in hand. Asks a question: "Would you say you care for her?" The analysand, as per the tradition, is lying on The Couch, in stockinged feet. Mismatched socks as it happens. His eyes are closed behind glasses which easily qualify for the category of face furniture. He thinks. "Yes. Obviously. But I'm asking myself in what way I care for her. That's the real question." He often does that. Face to face, he would have launched into a 5 minutes soliloquy. Unable to see the analysts' face, though, he breaks down his thoughts, to give the analyst space to signal they're still listening. And he does just that. "So... In what way do you care for her?" The analyst plays along, although parts of him wonders if he's ever been less than attentive with this client on the couch. It was the analysand himself who chose the couch, and decided, for obvious reasons, to adopt a classical psychonalysis frame. But the switch from monologue to dialogue was after. Was there a point, he wonders, where he caught me not listening? "Thank you Dr Frederick, I thought you'd never ask." A pause. The analysand opens his eyes, and it is only at this moment I realise this is me. I am floating 12 inches off the ceiling in the consulting room, watching the scene from the top. No that there is much of an 'I' going on, mind you. It was more of an eye, a selfless eye unattached to a particular ego. But when I open my eyes on the couch, it is immediately self-evident to me that this person is me. That I am the analysand. This scene, therefore, must be important. Whatever I that is, up there on the ceiling, slides towards a corner for a better view of my face. his. "I think I care about her in... I suppose a pastoral way. Not directly professional, but driven by my professional ethos", he --I say, on the couch, after a beat. I remember he is a teacher. Maths. High School. I continue: "but, also, in a... an affective... I'm not going to use the word romantic --" "--Why not ?" Dr Frederick - Simon, I now remember, asks, never one to let this kind of statement go un-analysed. 'Dr Simon Fred', hence the Freud Jokes, with him neither trained, nor particularly interested, in classical psychoanalysis. He is, however, enjoying a mode of interaction without eye contact. He would have assumed not being able to read emotions would be an impairment, but this allows him to focus on the words - and the voice carries a lot of emotional tone. He realises how much of his mind, during face to face therapy practice, is occupied *performing* an attentive therapist with his body, and particularly face. It's nice to free this up. "Romantic is.. .a literary and broader artistic.. genre, right? As a way of describing _love_". I emphasise the word with a sarcastic tone and big air quotes. "Or whichever of the four words for love the Greek had - probably covers a couple of them. So, it's affect, sure. It's not passionate love. There is clearly a sexual aspect, but I'm keeping this in check." He hears himself. "It's not the right way to put it. I am mindful of it, and how it has affected my interactions with her." "I notice you use the past tense?" Simon rarely miss these either. "Yeah, well, sure, I guess you can't be mindful in retrospect. I have let it - the sexual attraction - affect some of my interactions with her, and it's..." He pauses, "...been unhelpful, maybe?". "You don't sound very sure", prompts Simon, almost in reflex. "No, I'm pretty sure that's unhelpful, but it's difficult to acknowledge because of the attraction", the client, starts waving his hands in front if him, delineating two areas. "It's like on one side there's the healthy, pastoral concern, and on the other the sexual attraction". He pauses to think. "I think the pastoral concern is helpful. She, I think, would disagree. Doesn't want to be helped". One hand is still up, he moves it to the other side. "then the attraction, that's not helpful to her. But really, not helpful to _me_". He sigs. "But it is possible this is what she is seeking, so I... what feel compelled to offer this kind of attention to trick her into letting me give her the other kind ?" The other hand has come back up and invisible shapes are delineated, then connected, in the still air. "Do you think there is some deception at play ?" Simon uncrosses his legs, recrosses them. "Probably. But of the kind where I'm deceiving even myself. I've told you about these" - a dismissive gesture in the air, a twitch of the right foot. "I'm so clever I outsmart myself sometimes". "You have said that in the past", Simon's tone is professional, the wording as neutral as possible. "This may also be my being paranoid", the client pauses. "I mean, I know this tendency of mine, so I do not trust my own stated intentions". There's a beat, into which slides the sound of a car driving down the street blasting music at full volume. Two bars of something urban, muffled, but so bass-heavy they both feel it, insert themselves into the therapeutic exchange. "So I have to look at my behaviour". "Which is...?" "No, Doctor, it's got nothing to do with witches", quips the client. It occurs to me his name - my name - is Will. If I am Will, why am I seeing this from above ? Simon says nothing. He does allow himself a small smile, which he would have worked very hard not to show were they face to face. We do not want to encourage this kind of deflection. "Okay, well. I have, I think, done the right thing", Will closes his eyes, "you know, pastorally." He pinches the bridge of this nose with his left hand, while the right's finfer tap a syncopated rhythm on his thigh. I feel, from the corner of the ceiling, something happening. "Last Friday, I got her out of her room,". Something is happening to me - to the room, although the two in the room do not seem to notice. Will continues, as the room shrinks and closes up on us, or maybe it is just me swelling to fill its concavity, "get her a bit of fresh air, sunshine, movement...". I am now looking at Will through Simon's eyes, and, inexplicably, vice versa. There is a feeling of immense pressure, but not in a threatening way. "We played a game of chess." --- On this last word, the room everts, turns itself into me, me into it, I become very small, and when I next open my non-eyes, or choose to look, I see nothing. I am in a closed space which feels warm, safe, unambiguously female, screaming, silently, in a language made of scents, the word 'Mother'. Her fingers open and I realise I am a chess piece, a white pawn, in her hand. His fingers - Will's fingers... my fingers? - My fingers pick me up and put me back on the board, in front of the right hand side rook. "I'll start with something unimaginative", Will open with the King's pawn. I'm behind it and to its back, but somehow I can see her staring him down. "Is this your bedroom talk ?", she plays king's pawn too. "Very good - see, this is the shameless flirtation I was talking about", Will says , responding with an equally unimaginative move, covering his vulnerable pawn with another one. I can't think of the notation, but I know he can't either, but she does. I do not know, of course, how, or why I would know that. It is not as distressing as it ought to be. In fact, it's pretty good here. Not that I disliked the ceiling of the therapy room, but here, there's wind, sun, noise, people. Life. "Well, you're not very good at it", her tone is hard to read, as if she is genuinely upset, although not about this specific thing. She plays - so far, it's a book opening, maybe even the first one in the book. "What can I say, I normally enjoy more on-side audiences", he gets a knight out, arguably too soon. "Yeah ? what side is that ? the back one ?", she picks up a pawn and plays it by letting it drop an inch on the square. "Ten out of ten for delivery, but the material needs work", he says with clinical seriousness. This brings the slightest of smiles to her face. They're both wearing sunglasses, but I see, or maybe feel, the corner of his eyes tightening in sympathy, or appreciation. They are sat at an outdoor table by the University's sustainable student café. Although it is unclear if this term includes financial sustainability, which may be why it is quite nice by the University's standards. There's someone scrolling short videos at the next table. _She wiped the board with my sorry ass, which I expected. I mean, she came out with her own chessboard. I guess that's part of what makes her... annoyingly attractive to me, I guess?_ A swipe. Simon's voice: _This annoys you?_ I hear in his voice his doing his single-eyebrow raise. Probably steepling his fingers too. Man swipes again. _Well, yeah. I mean nothing can happen between us. I've told you, she's vulnerable. Also, I don't like my recognising some of my suffering in her - certainly by its coping mechanisms_ I forgot I was a pawn for a moment, but his fingers lift me and move me two ranks. Exciting! _So I'm thinking this wouldn't be good for her, and this wouldn't be good for me_ There's a pause in which, in some kind of douchetopian flash horror, I notice a male undergraduate is sat two tables away, surrounded by others, with an actual acoustic guitar out. I tune it out as Will's voice resumes: _And then we both have a history of doing things that aren't good for us. And, a present. I guess I just go for the least bad things._ I can't listen anymore because the queen.... My Queen. whom I have been serving, sometimes even as her very pawn, depending on initial setup. Her Majesty, for whom I once had the ultimate honour of sacrificing myself past the enemy edge of the board to bring her back on the square, my Queen... has been place just a square away, which initially filled me with joy before I realised this was a vulnerable square. Admittedly there was ample bra-free cleavage on, undoubtedly tactical, display, but my dude should have known better. There's another half smile and I sense more than see her eyes narrowing. She's seen it. I can't watch. I want to turtle my head in between my shoulder, but, as the pawn, all this achieves is I slip out of the pawn and somehow become the board. It's hard to explain. You had to be there. A lot of self- berating and expletives above, and, to the side: _But then it's not resisting temptation if there's nothing tempting you. But it's not like the last time I was, quite unexpectedly, offered cocaine. That didn't felt tempting at all. The whole cost benefit calculus had foreclosed the moment the line was laid. But there was also a loss of appeal. Maybe whatever hole in me this used to fill has found other fillers. Maybe if I was going to lose a night of sleep and the following day or two, I had acid in my fridge, it's hard enough finding the time to do_ that _these days. _ Man swipes, and Simon's about to say something, but the two of them - which I realise I maybe should have paid more attention to, but then, I'd have missed the therapy. I don't understand why we don't have the time to do both. The two of them lift me, and relocate us all indoors. I guess one of them is certainly dressed for the sun, but not the temperature - though in reality, probably for something else altogether. "There's no need to toy with the prey", he says with a hint of vexation, "just go and mate me". "Can I finish beating you at chess first ?", she bats down what she's set up. She looks pale, but then she always does. "Very good. Stop the edging, then, and mate", somewhere, not too far, a praying mantis. I realise that now that the board is indoors, obviously its inside is the ceiling of the therapy room, so I just need to pop down below, so to speak. All that's missing is the blades of a slow moving ceiling fan in frame to complete the perfect shot. Simon is a tub of shoe polish away from needing a cigar. Will is supine, yet jittery: "But the whole... crush thing... it's another drug. Your adrenaline and cortisol first, oxytocyn and vasopressin next. And I'd been starved of that, so I kinda expected this moment would come." I know Will's leaving a pause in one of this retrieval-practice, 'let's see how much you're actually listening, Sigmund', little tests. "Yes", Simon obliges, "you were telling me the same thing last week... with..." "The Dance PhD, same profile: gifted, neurodivergent, artist. There are things I am not getting from Laura, I suppose. But intellectual and creative stimulation isn't something one has to get from your partner...", he is gesturing, palm up with his hand, as if negotiating, enquiring, zeroing in on a specific position, "still, these are big turn-ons for me. Hence." "I see", says Simon. Then nothing is said for a bit, and I notice an excited exchange above. She'd dropped the black queen, so the move was played, but she wanted to take it back, as it'd been immediately captured. He was happy to offer her a courtesy she'd denied him - although he never asked, likely being too proud. This is also how women negotiate speeding fines away, although with policemen they tend to play idiocy. Not an option here, although humility would have been nice. This clearly wasn't the first time she's used her gender and attractiveness to get out of something. He was being played like a fiddle, and enjoying every minute of it.