“Oh, you speak English!”
“Yes. So you’ll understand what I mean when I say I want your balls in my mouth.”
I felt embarrassed to say no, but I suddenly realized I had come to Brazil for the prostitution, not to have free sex with a French intellectual. I wanted a Rio whore. When she saw that I was not interested, she hiked her skirt up even higher and started to jerk herself off, which created the requisite degree of excitement in me. For a moment I toyed with the notion of a circle jerk, but I was committed to enjoying the manners and mores of the country I was visiting, and I didn’t want to do in the heart of Rio what I could readily accomplish in an elevator in New York. Before I could make any decisions about how to proceed, the elevator reached my floor and I decided to leave her to her own devices.
I’d fucked street whores all over the world, and whether in Paris, London, Prague, or Dublin, I’d only been with whores who were in it for the money. Only Rio had a reputation for having prostitutes who really enjoyed making love to their customers, and who were capable of forming true relationships, in which money, albeit important, was not the only part of the picture. They often say women marry men for money, but that doesn’t mean that they can’t love them. Of course the prostitutes in Rio wanted to be paid, just like anywhere else, but this wasn’t proof that at some point along the way they couldn’t create a loving relationship, however brief. For every Tiffany there was a john, and, hopefully, a Ken. Now that I was on the verge of being upgraded to more sumptuous digs, I could get down to the real purpose of my visit, which was to find a satisfactory, even ecstatic form of love for hire.
On my way back into the hotel from one of my earlier excursions out to the Copa, I’d noticed busloads of scholarly looking men wearing horn-rimmed glasses, unloading outside the lobby. I later learned that the hotel was hosting an international convention of psychoanalysts, and that many of the events, which were to be held in English, would be open to the public. I have always been interested in psychoanalysis because it deals with two of the things I tend to obsess about: love and work. Maybe attending some of the lectures might be of help as I struggled to find the perfect Tiffany. My interest in psychoanalysis dated from my days as a Scout. I wanted to be an analyst the way some kids want to be rock stars, and I even stood in front of the mirror and had fantasies of being cheered on by the huge crowds that accompanied Freud’s first and only trip to the US, when he gave lectures at Clark University. Even after I became an accountant, I toyed with the idea of being a lay analyst, that is, someone who practices without an MD degree. I was young, and it seemed like a great way to get laid.
Now, as I walked through the lobby, I noticed a chef splitting coconuts with a large machete in front of one of the auditoriums, where a poster advertised that morning’s lecture, “Ego Splitting, Homeopathy and Psychopathy in Adolescent and mid-life Peyronie’s Patients.” The abstract beneath read simply, “The effect of a crooked penis on the male psyche will be explored.” I decided to give it a try.
Walking into the auditorium, I could see a lot of empty seats. The few people in attendance looked more like curious hotel staff than professionals, and I realized that most of the analysts had probably gone to the beach in search of sun and fun. While the presenter, Dr. Arnold Sunshine, was setting up his PowerPoint presentation, a short woman in what looked like a blond wig sat down next to me. She was wearing polka-dot hot pants, a tight halter-top, and heels so high they were feats of structural engineering. Most of the female analysts I had met back in Manhattan had severe-looking cropped hair and wore smock dresses. This being an international conference, I knew that many cultures would be represented, and I wouldn’t have been surprised to find that the distaff members of the Brazilian analytic establishment dressed like whores. I also wouldn’t have been the least surprised if they had names like Tiffany. The woman in the polka-dot hot pants leaned over and blew in my ear, murmuring something that I didn’t understand. Figuring that it was an important analytic issue having to do with the conference, I motioned her to follow me out to my concierge friend, who would be able to translate.
She repeated to him what she had said to me.
“Uh, the translation is: ‘Getting fucked in my hot cunt drives me crazy,’ ” Victor whispered slyly. I figured she must be a working girl, so I responded politely by saying, “Thank you, Tiffany, but I’m otherwise occupied.”
When I got back to the ballroom, the lights had been turned down and Sunshine’s PowerPoint presentation had begun. On the screen was a picture of a crooked penis.
I noticed that the audience, though small, seemed intent on Sunshine’s lecture. Did they allow themselves to feel any stimulation or to entertain any prurient thoughts of their own, even if as analysts they were supposed to be objective?
After Sunshine had concluded his presentation, there was a little break in which the analysts gathered around a table to have schnecken and coffee. It was just like being in New York. Many stragglers must have come in during the slide show, because I noticed that the crowd had thickened and that there was even some degree of competition for the pastries, which seemed to be one of the main attractions for the hungry analysts.
As I bit into a tasty cinnamon schnecken with raisins, I found myself staring into the eyes of a petite Asian woman whose breasts spilled out of her tight blouse. She was wearing highheeled platform shoes and a short skirt.
“Hi, Tiffany,” I blurted. “I’m Kenny Cantor from New York.” I knew that Brazilians were a mixed race, made up of Portuguese, Spanish, Indian, and sometimes even Asian blood, so it wasn’t much of a leap to assume that she might be a Rio whore, even though she looked Chinese or Japanese.
“Perhaps you are mistaking me for someone else. I’m Dr. Dentata. What institute are you with?”
“Well I’m certifiable, if that’s any help.” Dr. Dentata didn’t seem to get the joke. “I’m a CPA.”
“Oh, a CPA with analytic training, I find that very interesting. I think that more analysts need to take courses in accountancy. I remember that song that Pete Seeger used to sing: “Well, Doctor Freud, oh Doctor Freud/ How we wish you had been differently employed/ But the set of circumstances/ Still enhances the finances/ Of the followers of Doctor Sigmund Freud.”
I don’t think Dr. Dentata realized how loudly she was singing, because a crowd had gathered around her, several of them humming along to the tune. I half expected one of them to pull out a Fender and start playing the bass line.
After her impromptu concert, Dr. Dentata held out her hand. “Well it was nice talking to you,” she said.
“You too, Dr. Dentata.”
“Just call me China.”
“China Dentata, that sounds like Vagina Dentata, a syndrome in which the vagina is deemed to have teeth, which then turn it into an agent of castration.”
“Yes, everyone says that. I don’t know what my parents were thinking. My grandparents were among the Japanese who were put in internment camps during the war, but that doesn’t explain why my parents didn’t name me something more common, like Yoko. They were ’60s hippies who took acid and practiced free love, and they were into giving their children unusual names. My father was Dick and they named my brother Moby.”
“Well, it was nice to meet you. Goodbye, China.” I realized that she was an analyst, and that analysts usually don’t have sex with their patients unless they are suffering from very severe counter-transference. But I wasn’t her patient—yet.
Despite my childhood fantasies, it may seem odd that a CPA would know so much about psychoanalysis, but I’m from New York, and all educated New Yorkers are experts in psychoanalysis, whether they undergo treatment or not. H. Rap Brown once said violence is as American as cherry