The Psychologist

The Psychologist

Mason Maynard

All rights reserved.

It was early June 1970, and I'd just finished a bachelor's degree in psychology at Ohio State University. I'd done well and had already been accepted for the master's program in psychology and counseling with an assistantship. I had reason to be optimistic for my future. But in the short term, I was in financial trouble. Maybe because I didn't have a car, I was having a hard time finding a job. I was having a run of bad luck.

Desperate for a few dollars, I went to the plasma center to donate blood, but they refused to accept it because they said there were traces of an infection, probably the infection I'd had when I was fifteen. I'd been tested for it several times since then and given a clean bill of health, but the traces of it disqualified my plasma. Then I signed up at a sperm bank and went through the procedure, but they rejected me, too, saying my sperm count was zero.

"Are you sure?" I asked the clerk. "Can you test it again?"

"I'm sure. Look at the report. But you can come back next week and we'll re-run it."

I went back the following week and got the same result. Then I remembered that after I recovered from my infection that they said there was a risk of infertility.

I saw an ad in the paper for a laborer working for a small construction and remodeling company. That didn't seem like a good match for me, but I applied anyway. The head of the company, Russell, seemed really disagreeable; he couldn't even have a polite conversation with an applicant, but I had no other options for that summer. I admitted I didn't have any remodeling experience, but he said that didn't matter and that I could learn painting in a day.

Unfortunately the work site was out of town. It was at a convent in a small town outside Columbus, so naturally I wondered about transportation. I asked the other crew members at the site if they lived in Columbus, and Jack, the foreman, said he did. We talked about the details, and he agreed to give me a ride. That seemed to be the end of my bad luck streak.

The convent had two wings, one inhabited and the other being remodeled for other purposes. Sometimes Jack and I were the only workers on site, and sometimes it was just me, cleaning up the mess made by the others or doing interior and exterior painting. I had a day of training for the painting, and after that I was on my own.

Jack turned out to have the opposite personality of his boss. He was pleasant and seemed to have an understanding of how to get along with people. We had plenty of time to talk in the car every day. When it came out that I was studying psychology, he had a lot to say.

"You notice how rough Russell is?" he said. "It's hard to know which came first, but he doesn't get along with his wife. I wonder whether that's because she's just crabby or because he's mean to her, and that's why she's crabby."

"Sometimes it's hard to figure out how those situations happen," I said, avoiding terminology used to described dynamics of interpersonal relationships.

"For me," Jack said, "having a happy wife is super important. It's the key to household harmony. I guess if women are unhappy in bed, they're unhappy with everything. It's not like they feel free to speak up and get what they want, like men."

"That's really interesting," I said. "It sounds like you're on the right track." I really got to admire Jack for saying things like that.

After a couple weeks on the job, with Jack happy with my work, my streak of bad luck returned. OK, I admit I was feeling kind of light-headed that day, and maybe that's the reason I fell when I was doing some ceiling painting. It looked like I sprained my ankle and my wrist. Nobody wanted to call an ambulance, and Russell sure didn't want me to file for workman's compensation, so he went to the head of the convent, Mother Richards, who called her doctor for advice. He said I needed to stay off my feet for two or three weeks and not move my right arm. Russell and Mother Richards wanted to avoid compensation involved in a lawsuit, so they arranged for me to stay in one of the just-completed rooms in the wing we were working on and agreed that they'd check on me and bring me meals for three weeks until I recovered and could get back to work. I was in pain with the sprains, so I accepted the arrangement.

The nuns who brought my trays on the first day weren't very friendly, but I didn't much mind. On the second day, though, my lunch tray was brought by someone I thought I recognized: Sister Mary Rosaire, who'd been my sixth-grade teacher at Our Lady of the Rosary school. She recognized me, too.

"Mason, is that you?"

"Sister Rosaire?"

"Yes, that's me," and her blank expression turned into a big smile. "Mason, I'm so glad to see you. Look, you're all grown up now." It was eleven years later, so we'd both changed quite a bit.

"You were my best grade-school teacher ever," I said, and I meant it. I'd admired her a lot when I was eleven and thought she was by far the most pleasant and effective teacher I'd ever known. She was also the most attractive.

"That was my first year teaching," she said, "and I can tell you this now, you were one of my favorite students. In many ways it was my best year ever. What are you doing now? Painting?"

"That's just a summer job," I said. "I just graduated in psychology, and I start graduate school in September."

"That's great," she said.

"Can I ask you a question about something you said eleven years ago?" I asked with a smile.

"Sure, but I'm not sure I'll remember it."

"You said you thought it was fairly easy to lead a moral life," I said, "and I've often wondered whether that's true and whether you still think it."

Her expression turned serious, almost sad. "That was a bit of editorializing on my part, and I'm not surprised I said it. In those days I was in a really supportive, understanding environment. The other sisters were so kind, and we got along really well. It was just the opposite of where I am now. These people just don't get along at all. They all seem so unhappy and angry all the time. I'm having a hard time staying focused and keeping a good attitude."

"I'm really sorry to hear that," I said.

"Two of the sisters have recently left, and others are thinking about it."

"How about you?"

She looked very distressed. "I hate to admit I'm questioning my vocation. It's really, really hard living with these people."

"I'm so sorry to hear that," I said. "But for now you have a psychologist you can come and talk to whenever you like."

She held back tears as she said, "Thank you so much. I think I'll do that. Right now I need to get back."

Every day for the next week, Sister Rosaire brought my dinner tray, and each time, she was able to stay and talk for a while. We first talked about the year when she was my teacher and how she managed with two groups in one classroom - the "smart class" of sixth graders and the "dumb class" of seventh graders. We even talked about some of my individual classmates. We surprised each other at how well we remembered them. Sometimes we talked about it as a wonderful year and came close to tears.

Other days we talked about what had happened to us since that time, where we had been, what we'd studied, who we'd worked for, and how our views had changed. Really, we did one of the things people did before television: we talked about our lives and got to know each other better. By the end of that week, we felt we were really good old friends. More than that, I had strange, unexpected feelings towards her, and I suspected those feelings were mutual.

One day in the second week, when she brought my dinner tray, she told me more about the women around her and how unhappy and difficult they were. We discussed the situation, and I told her there was no easy solution. She put her hand on my good hand and said, "I'm so glad I have you to talk to."

I should mention that Jenny, as she asked me to call her, didn't wear the full habit. Instead of a coif and veil, she didn't wear anything on her head. And instead of a long tunic, she wore a gray or black blouse and skirt. The other nuns dressed the same.

"I can stay a little longer today and talk some more," she said. "The superior is so afraid that more of us will leave that she's relaxed some of the rules. That's happening everywhere. They're desperate to keep the order intact and stop people from leaving. They're dispensing people from their vows left and right."

When she brought my breakfast tray, she also brought a radio and a couple of books from the convent library. They were classics by Freud and Jung, certainly not recent, but good books that I was glad to see and enjoyed reading during my stay. The radio also made a difference for me, too.

"I hate to think of you lying in bed all alone every day bored," she said.

"These presents are so helpful," I said. "Plus having your company is really nice, too."

When she brought my lunch, we ended up having a very personal conversation, practically crying on each other's shoulders. I told her about my streak of bad luck, including being rejected at the plasma center and the sperm bank, and she told me more about where she had been assigned and how she ended up in this terrible place. At one point, with both of us practically in tears, she stroked my good arm, and we briefly exchanged kisses.

Listening to the radio that afternoon, I heard the first reports of the pandemic. The scientists were able to identify it and count the dead but not much more. For lack of a better term, they called it VP-70, viral pandemic 1970. They knew it was highly contagious and had a very high mortality rate, but they didn't understand how it spread except that the propagation pattern seemed to be similar to the flu. When it reached Ohio, people rushed to the grocery stores to stock up, because they realized that the only defense against VP-70 was isolation.

Jenny had heard the news, too, and said they planned to stay completely isolated and that I could stay where I was, because sending me out could be a death sentence. She was distressed when she brought my dinner tray, but she also said the news meant we'd be able to spend a lot of time together. After I finished my tray, she put it on the desk and sat on my bed next to me. We exchanged a few kisses, and she put her hand on my chest. Then she saw that I was getting excited, so she put her hand down there and held me for a moment. For me, with no sexual experience, what had just happened was earth shattering, but I tried not to react except by kissing her more intensely. After a while, I told her that having her hand there was a wonderful feeling and that she could move it. She didn't know how to do it, so I guided her and she continued until she could see that my excitement had peaked.

"I never dreamed that anyone could be so nice to me," I told her afterwards.

"And I never dreamed of finding anyone so understanding," she answered. "I feel sorry for you lying in bed all day with nothing to do. I know you have needs, and I'm glad you showed me how to help you."

The next day, she said she couldn't stay long when she brought my breakfast and lunch trays. But she had more time at dinner. After I ate, we exchanged a few kisses and she said she had a "very big favor" to ask me. I was so grateful to her that I promised to do whatever she asked. "It's not simple," she said, "and it might not be easy." She went into the attached bathroom and when she came out, lifted her skirt up to her waist, and got in bed under the covers with me. "You showed me what to do for you," she said, "and now if you're willing, I can show you what to do for me." "I'm happy to learn," I said.

Then she guided my good hand to below her waist and had me first rest it there. She seemed very happy to have it there, and then guided it to make some small movements. Once I could do those movements on my own, she took away her hand and asked me to make the movements smaller or larger, slower or faster. It wasn't hard to see that what she was asking me to do was very similar in effect to what she'd done for me. Only for her, it took much, much longer, so long that my hand was getting tired. I had to stop for a moment, but when I did, she asked me in an urgent voice, "Please don't stop. Keep going." So somehow I resumed and finally succeeded. She was very emotional after that and gave me a lot of kisses.

After she left, I realized that we now knew exactly how to make each other happy in this vale of tears and loneliness, and I thought we'd continue like that.

When I finished eating dinner the next day, she again sat on the bed next to me and said, in a smiling but serious voice, "Mason, you know we're going to be here for a long time, maybe for months according to the news, and there's something that we can't ignore. Besides the fact that I was your teacher and you were my student, and the fact that we're now really close friends, there's the fact that you're a man and I'm a woman. I think we need to accept that fact. And there's another fact, and that's that we don't need to use birth control."

Hearing her say that made me a bit nervous. Of course I knew what she was talking about, since I'd seen it, vaguely, in movies. "I've never done that," I said. "We can figure it out," she said. "I'll help you."

She checked that the door was locked and then took off her clothes, still sitting on the edge of the bed. Seeing her do that truly set me on fire. We kissed and touched each other for a long time. Her breasts seemed so soft and wonderful to touch and kiss. Then she helped me off with my clothes, being careful not to touch my sprains. After that, she guided my good hand to the top of her legs, and she opened her legs and asked me to stroke her thighs and then move a finger to the very top of her thighs and into her. She felt very moist, and I knew that she was ready for more. When I came on top of her, she moved her legs farther apart and raised her knees. Despite some pain in my wrist and ankle, I slowly pushed into the area where I'd felt the moisture, and suddenly I felt as if I'd ascended into heaven. She asked me to go slow, then fast, and then she stopped talking. After a long while, she arched her body up and let out a little shout. I stopped pushing for a moment but then resumed and went faster, as she asked, until I came to a climax. After that, I came out, since I couldn't push anymore. And I understood exactly what she'd meant when she told me, "You're a man and I'm a woman." After a while, she said she needed to go back, so she got dressed and gave me some very affectionate kisses. Jenny and I understood that we'd crossed a big barrier and that everything would be different for us now.

When she brought my breakfast tray, she seemed like a new woman. She was as cheerful as when I'd known her eleven years before and said she felt able to withstand the daily horrors of living with the others in the convent. After I ate dinner, we made love again, but this time we knew what we were doing and were more confident about it. I also had more time to enjoy watching her undress and touching her beautiful body.

We continued like that every day for a couple weeks, and it was a very pleasant routine. One evening, though, there was a knock at my door while Jenny was in bed with me. It was Mother Richards asking for Jenny in a loud voice. Jenny quickly picked up her clothes and went into the bathroom to put them on. I got dressed quickly, too and answered the door. As soon as Mother Richards stepped into my room, she headed straight for the bathroom. At that moment, Jenny had just finished dressing, but the truth was obvious. Mother Richards and Jenny left together.

I was so glad the next day to see that Jenny brought my tray.

"We had a long, serious talk," Jenny said, "and Mother Richards said the last thing she wanted was for me to leave the convent, so here I am. I also told her that you're a psychology student and that your treatment had done a world of good for me. I was so persuasive that she now wonders whether the same treatment could be applied to the others. She said she'd do whatever it took to keep the convent intact and prevent others from leaving."

So I wasn't too surprised when Mother Richards herself brought my lunch tray the next day. I was a little intimidated, but I spoke up.

"I have a degree in psychology and have been accepted in a program for psychology and counseling," I said. "I think I have an idea of what's causing all the unhappiness here, and I also think I have a treatment for it."

"What exactly is that treatment?" she asked. It was exactly what I'd hoped she wouldn't ask.

"I'd rather not talk about that yet," I said. "For right now, I have a question for you: Are you willing to do whatever it takes to improve the environment in this convent?"

MR (as she asked me to call her) hesitated but finally said, "Yes, I am. But I would never ask my nuns to do something I haven't done myself."

That almost sounded like a dare. MR was very serious, almost stern. I wondered how to turn her around, to bring her from acting like a cold fish to telling me with tears in her eyes that I was wonderful.

"It won't happen immediately," I explained. "It could take several hours over several days or weeks. Can you commit to that?"

"During the pandemic, we all have time to apply to important things," she answered.

"Then please, when you bring my lunch tray tomorrow, plan to spend an extra hour or two."

She agreed. By the way, I knew that I'd be seeing Jenny in the evening, and I didn't want to interfere with our usual meeting time. That's why I asked MR for afternoons.

The next day, while I ate lunch, I made casual conversation with MR and tried to break the ice. The ice was thick, but I persisted. After she took away my tray, I pursued a line of questions with her - casual at first, but working into the kind of penetrating questions that psychotherapists ask when they want to get into the root of a patient's problems. I was so persistent that after about an hour MR broke down in tears and said she'd always hoped that no one would ever ask her that question and she'd hoped to take her secret to the grave with her. She confided other things to me, and after a while I asked her to sit on the bed. I wiped her tears, promised her confidentiality, and told her I'd do whatever I could to help her. We cuddled in bed for a while, and I asked her if she was willing to resume the next day. She agreed.

When Jenny came, I told her I'd seen MR but didn't want to tell her any more than that. After I finished my dinner, Jenny and I made love as usual, and she told me that she was very happy with me and was so glad I'd changed her life.

When MR came with my tray the next day, she started in a rather serious tone by saying, "No matter what the treatment is, I absolutely cannot risk have any pregnancies in my convent."

"I'd would never risk that. You can erase that worry from your mind."

She didn't seem completely reassured, so I told her I'd explain it later. What that concern told me was that she was on the right track in guessing at the treatment. Anyway, we picked up the conversation from last time, and at one point I asked her to sit on the side of the bed. I took her hands and kissed them at a critical moment, and she seemed touched by that gesture. Then, of her own free will, she leaned over and gave me a quick kiss, apparently surprised at what she'd done. I gave her a kiss on the lips and then another, and I knew we were making progress.

She didn't protest as I reached up under her skirt and pulled her panties down and off. I explained that there was no risk of pregnancy as I reached under her skirt and touched her vulva as Jenny had showed me. Then, avoiding looking her in the eyes, I moved my fingers in exactly the same way Jenny had shown me. It took over half an hour, but she finally came to a climax and then another one. She lay there quietly for a moment and then said, "That's wonderful, and I can see how that won't lead to pregnancy. But the fact is that we're in bed together, and you're a man. The inevitable will happen, and I or one of the others will end up pregnant."

I was sad that she'd broken the mood, but I thought it was important to address her objection.

"My sperm count is zero," I said. "I tried to donate at a sperm bank, and that's what they found."

"I'm sorry," she said, "but in such an important matter, I don't think you should ask me to take your word for it."

"I understand," I said, "but my papers are at my apartment in Columbus."

"Then you can give us your keys and directions and we'll go and get them."

The mood had definitely been broken, but success was in sight. I gave her my keys and wrote down directions to my apartment and to the stack of papers where I'd put the results forms. Later that afternoon, in spite of the isolation, she and another nun returned with the forms. They'd put their doubts at rest by putting their fingers into my wounds.

When MR returned with my lunch tray, she asked for "the same treatment as yesterday plus whatever else you have available." She was still talking like a tough customer, but I felt confident that I could turn her around. I knew, though, that it would take far more technique than I had experience in. I gave her a kiss and asked her in a very sweet voice whether she'd let me guide her. She agreed, so I started by asking her to close the blinds. That left us with just enough filtered afternoon light.

I should say that MR was not nearly as appealing to me as Jenny. Jenny had been my teacher, but I had no such connection with MR. I hadn't really seen MR smile and wasn't certain she had a smile to show. MR seemed to be about forty-five, but I wasn't sure that mattered. In any case, I was determined as a professional to do exactly for MR what I'd done for Jenny.

I started by giving MR another kiss and asking her to take off her shoes and socks. Then I asked her to come closer so that I could help take off her blouse. She wasn't comfortable with that suggestion and asked if she could take off her clothes in the bathroom. I didn't like that idea, but I accepted it, and a moment later she came out, wrapped in a bath towel, which she removed as she got under the covers. I spent the next hour helping her reach a climax with my fingers. She was very happy with that but insisted on "everything else" as she reached over and touched me. "Please don't hold out on me; I want everything you have," she said in an almost pleading voice.

After I caressed her breasts (which were fine, but not as large or shapely as Jenny's), I started stroking her calves and then moved to her thighs. I spread her legs apart just a little as I worked my way up but noticed that she didn't seem very relaxed. I managed to reach inside her with a finger and feel the moisture, but the entrance seemed very tight. With that finger inside, I asked her to try to relax that area of her body, talking to her very sweetly. She recognized the problem and said, "I don't think I can. You're so big." But I applied some relaxation technique, mainly patience, and after a while noticed some progress. When I came on top of her, I first teased her by just stroking her entrance with myself, but finally did the inevitable and pushed very slowly inside her. She said, "Oh, that's so tight," but I had no response other than, "Let me know if it's unbearable." At first she seemed to be gritting her teeth, but gradually she seemed to surrender, and it all got easier for both of us. About fifteen minutes later, I finished up, and she understood that I'd given her "everything I had." She cried, told me I was wonderful, and said we had to do this again tomorrow at the same time.

We did that the next day as well, but that time she let me undress her, and I also persuaded her to let me come into her from behind, which she described as "satanically delicious." The big difference the second time was in all the kisses she gave me, both during and afterwards. Finally, around 4:00, she said she needed to get back to her office but hoped to see me again the next day.

The next afternoon, as I ate lunch from the tray she brought, we had a serious talk. She first told me she was sorry she had doubted me about the effectiveness of the treatment and about the sperm count. She then said that her experience with me had drastically changed her outlook and said, if I was willing, she'd strongly recommend that I do the same with the other six members.

"But I'm hesitant," she said, "because I don't want to give up my spot. I want to keep you for me and Jenny."

I could see that she was really torn, so I suggested, "Why not set up a calendar, gradually sharing me with the others, but giving Jenny and yourself precedence?" She liked that idea, and decided that task was well within her authority. I had one other request: "Please tell the others that they should give me their full cooperation, as you did."

"As I finally did," she said. "You saw that I was initially reluctant, and I'm sorry about that now. From now on, you can count on my full cooperation, even surrender."

I also asked her to add some personal lubricant to the next drugstore order. I'd managed to do without it so far, but I figured I might need it for the others. I agreed that I could handle one woman each afternoon and one in the evening. I was glad to see that Jenny consistently assumed the task of delivering my breakfast tray, and we always made love before she returned. I think that was our secret.

The woman who delivered my dinner tray that evening was Josephina ("call me Jo"), and, judging from the twinkle in her eye, I thought she had an idea of what was in store. (I learned later that she was a close friend of Jenny's.) She was the youngest, and said ironically that she would obey MR's orders, (with a smile) "no matter how cruel or unreasonable they may seem." She also said that living with those other women was a torment because of their angry dispositions and bad moods, but she hoped that my therapy would turn them around.

Jo was certainly ready to be turned around, and she initiated the kissing and most of the rest. She explained to me that before she entered the convent she had a boyfriend but had never gone all the way with him, and I admitted that that was more experience than I'd had before coming to the convent. She appreciated that I confided that to her and decided that she should "try some things that I hadn't tried with the others." Jo was a competitive woman, it turned out. I got things started with her in the usual way, but had to use the jelly that had just arrived. When I came inside her, she seemed genuinely surprised and uncomfortable. I came out, we waited a while longer while kissing, and when I came back in, she said she could deal with it. Even though she'd had some difficulty the first time, Jo was eager for her next turn, and then things went more smoothly and she was in bliss afterwards.

Meanwhile terrible things were happening in the outside world. I got a phone message from Russell's wife telling me her husband had died of VP-70 but that she wanted to continue to pay me when I was ready to resume work and also from Jack's wife that he was recovering from VP-70. Because of the pandemic, the university had almost completely closed, and my acceptance into graduate school was postponed a year.

After three weeks of recovery, I resumed work. I was making progress, but I could have made more if I wasn't having sessions every morning, afternoon, and evening - and often in the middle of the night. I ended up spending a year at the convent, much to the delight of all concerned. The environment had completely changed, and there was great praise for my work, and not one member had left. I think that the exercise of sticking to MR's schedule and sharing me had brought some harmony to the members, in addition to my treatment itself.

When I finally left, in August 1971, I promised that I'd return occasionally for a few appointments. Jenny said she couldn't stand to be separated from me, so MR gave her a leave of absence. Jenny came to live with me in my modest apartment near campus. I welcomed her decision, and I found that a beautiful, loving companion helped me focus on my studying rather than distracting me. At first she found a clerical job to help support us, but she also started a letter-writing campaign to MR's superiors, telling them that I had found the problem and the solution to the overwhelming discontent among members of the order.

When I graduated and set up practice in June 1973, she wrote letters to the superiors that I was available to explain my results and had a proven track record of turning around convents that were seeing the greatest amount of trouble and the highest number of departures. "Send him your most difficult cases," she asked.

I was somewhat anxious about living up to that claim, especially given the difficulty of some of the cases. Women's libido typically peaks in their thirties, and that was the age of most of the difficult cases. Before taking on a case, I asked their superior to stress that the client must be told to give me their full cooperation. Since I met them in a spare bedroom in my home office, I could assure them confidentiality, and no one needed to know the details of the treatment they'd undergone. For the first few years of my practice, the "most difficult cases" were the majority of my patients.