Darby clutched the folder in his hands and sought out the leather couch. Within seconds, the research drew him into its well of hypersexual definitions and warnings of how an enjoyable sex drive can become a compulsive obsession, a trail of fantasies pursued beyond the boundaries of accepted behavior. If untreated, its writers claimed, its end would lead to destroyed relationships, the loss of self-esteem, and one’s own career, if not physical and mental health. Some of its forms disgusted Darby. Cross-dressing! Pedophilia! Scatology! Asphyxiation!
The symptoms varied from mild-to-wild: intense impulses beyond one’s control; an inability to refrain even from disgusting activities; the need to escape boredom, anxiety, depression, and stress; an indulgence in spite of recognizing risks, all resulting in the ultimate disparagement of committed relationships. The warning signs equally disillusioned him. As he read them, Darby sensed the unraveling of a cultural heritage he had valued since childhood. Yet, in truth, he had fantasized them all. Why pretend otherwise? Here was the universal dark pit of the soul, Freud’s libido in all its erotic allurement—from the desire for multiple partners, to sex with strangers, free of any and all emotional attachment, to the twisted and exacerbated world of lurid pornography. No wonder Celeste had come home silent, ashamed, haunted by her inner darkness, or was he over-reacting, jumping to conclusions never meant to be drawn. Was he staring into the heart of Julia’s own soul? Were the lusts symptomatic of her disorder? Or of his? Yes, his? Reading the study had aroused him! He could feel his own groin swelling.
Somewhere in his memory, a youthful girl leaned across his desk. It was winter, cold. She was clad only in a yellow cashmere sweater, white shorts, and red sneakers. He could see the impression that the slight tips of her nipples made under her sweater. Her breasts were full, firm. With a smile, she watched him pore over them. “My parents will die if I don’t get a B,” she stated. She leaned in a little closer, her lips glistening with just enough lipstick to entice even God. “It’s not like you’re married,” she whispered. “No one will know.”
She wasn’t the only one. As he sat there he began sweating. His groin tightened more. He was no saint, at least not in his heart.
He read on. That the symptoms were caused by an imbalance of serotonin, dopamine, or other neurotransmitters struck him as absurd. How sterile! Was human desire, including his own, nothing more than frustrated neural circuits? At what point were one’s own desires indicative of a self in search of itself, or of a self, crying for its own wholeness? Whatever happened to plain old hedonism, with its revulsion of manipulation by prigs and self-righteous monitors? Damn! He sighed. He wondered what Nietzsche would have thought. He slid the sheets back into their folder, placed it in its niche on the shelf, and returned to the Garden. Any earlier euphoria he had felt had dissipated. As he gazed up into the avenue of the Villa’s oaks and hickories, he remembered Woodworth’s lines from “The Tables Turned”—
One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.
He thought of the girl at his desk. Thank God his super-ego, or own wretched heart, had said, “No, Darby. No! Never! Never! No! No!”
1. See Mayoclinic.org. Compulsive. Mayo Clinic Staff.
Chapter 5
Evening came quickly. In what seemed like only seconds, the sun’s warm rays turned into a pale soft pink, before sinking into a blur of iridescent purple. Instantly the air became cold. Darby entered the palazzo and made his way to the dining room.
“Well! Well! Here’s our host! He did make it!” Tunstan exclaimed as he raised his wine glass to hail Darby’s entrance. “We were wondering where you were.”
“No place in particular. Just enjoying the fire and the cottage’s warmth.”
“I can’t believe you weren’t doing something,” Stephanie commented. “All those books! I bet you were reading something.”
“I’d be embarrassed to tell you,” Darby smiled. He took his seat at the head of the table and unfolded his napkin politely. “How’s everyone doing? You know, when I was studying group dynamics as a priest, we were discouraged from asking anything personal. Like: ‘How are you?’ Or ‘What are your thoughts?’ Instead, we were instructed to ask: ‘Well, how’s it going?’ leaving the person to define it. Frankly, I found that impersonal. You’re either fine or not, happy or sad, reflective or garrulous. So, I trust everyone did have a decent day, however miserable it might have been.”
Parker smiled. “I took a jog in the afternoon. Even coaxed Celeste to go with me,” he turned sheepishly toward her.
She looked up hesitantly toward Darby, smiled; then glanced away. He focused on her mouth, her lips—how tightly she pursed them—before he too glanced at the others.
“I saw that!” Tunstan quipped as he observed their interaction. “I once had a paramour. Paid for her studio. Taught her how to paint, to blend pigments and create shadows. She was young,” he said haltingly, glancing toward Stephanie. “She went on to higher and bigger and better things, then dropped it all to marry a Spanish bull breeder. Imagine that? A toreador’s consort! I wish I knew where she was. Her husband’s ranch was somewhere between El Greco’s Toledo and Velazquez’s Madrid. Maybe one day she’ll resurface and take up the brush again.” His lips parted unable to disguise his disappointment. “It makes you wonder, doesn’t it? Do I dare ask about you?” he confronted Darby.
“Ask all you wish. But some things aren’t divulge-able! I know that isn’t a word, but that’s the case.”
Celeste, who was seated to Darby’s right, laid her fork beside her salad plate and stared directly into Darby’s eyes. “Come, Professor Peterson! Even philosophers stumble from time to time. Bertrand Russell, anyone? Or Sartre or Abelard? No?” she smiled in a deliberate challenge. “You don’t strike me as being a ‘mouse of the scrolls.’”
“Mrs. Martin, I’ve made my mistakes, many of them, I assure you. But life goes on, even for us mortals,” he replied with a pleasant smile.
She drew her face back slightly, placed her napkin against the edge of her lips, and touched his forearm with her left hand. “That’s what fascinates me—the going-on part. Us mortals!” she repeated his words. “Here we are, for whatever reasons we’ve come, and none of us knows each other’s secrets, nor needs to. But I wish I knew what I wanted out of life. That always seems to evade me. You’re supposed to have the answer, aren’t you? Or at least an idea? Isn’t that what philosophy’s about?”
“My science teacher says it’s dead!” Stephanie piped up. “Philosophers don’t have answers, least not important ones. Only science can provide them. Or so he says. No offense, sir!” she smiled at Darby with imploring eyes.
“None taken, my dear! In part he’s right, you know. Ideally, philosophy’s task is to make us critical of the unexamined answers we end up settling for.” He lowered his voice momentarily. “In truth, it can’t give us the answers we need. It can only encourage us be honest with ourselves. To what Heidegger calls, the search for ‘an authentic existence.’ I don’t think the search ever ends. If there were some one purpose, above all purposes, that we’re to live by, wouldn’t we have discovered it by now? It’s just that at various stages some purposes make more sense than others, and later we exchange those for others.”
“I don’t know what I want,” said Stephanie. “I just want my life to be happy! I wish my father would come back, wherever he is. I wouldn’t even care where he’s been. I just want him home.”
“I’d say that’s pretty sensible!” remarked Tunstan. “I’m still searching, too.”
“Good Heavens!” Linda moaned, as she entered the dining room. In one hand she carried a platter of braised chicken, and in the other