Briefs from the Couch
-J.A.

Genesis Belanger, Liquid Dreams

Love Me, Please!

Annie says…“the shapelessness of GENDER I will defend not for being an activist because I am not, but for being part of a symptom of an era…waiting is my mode”

—No, waiting is the enchantment…

She jumps around, faces me—her hands and knees on the couch— and says, “Waiting, awaiting, I can’t wait! Waiting is the signifier I cannot accomplish! It’s my title even…

—…?

Annie—Would you do me a favor? Will you love me again?

—…

A—Do you still love me? You can’t and you know that. 

—(in my thoughts) There’s a certain desperation in this, which I like, but… 

Annie turns around and lies on the couch again and says, “Please go. Just leave—I want to be alone.”

—No.

Annie stays in silence, and the silence grows longer—I developed a new theory that works in my head… 

—What theory?

A—They only love me when I’m in my hometown, my people, family, my home, my roots…

—hmm

A—I am bored and I want to sound more interesting…

—…

A—(louder) Because I am bored and also want to sound more interesting…

 —You wait—your title even?—perhaps is your name of Symptom.

Henry the Pervert

Henry — In my dream I am making an art video… again, with my teeth I am tearing my cuticles to a point that my finger-nails are getting bloody… and I start to see a baby is reflected in two mirrors, as it prominently displays itself to the infinite.

Still in the dream I am wondering aloud whether I am the viewer looking at my fingers or the baby is the viewer looking bacl at me…. I choose to expose myself to the baby viewer.

— ……

The part of me making that video is “Henry the pervert.”

—Whom the babies are bound to see, desire? … I don’t know that they will desire you to infinity because babies grow

My Thing

Susan tells me she is a model, that she is married to the son of the president of a foreign country. She also says that she is a lesbian on the sly, and not interested in mixing it up with her marriage.

The husband, instead, who came to one of our sessions, had his complain. She had seduced him by telling him that she was a lesbian, and now where was the third party in the bed? She would not share her affairs. Again, he was taking a lot of drugs, which she didn’t want to partake under the same roof.

Eventually, she starts telling me more about herself— there is a ‘peculiar thing’ she must do previous to our sessions. And this is how before we start she always goes to the bathroom, and comes back really quickly. The thing takes about a minute or two.

—Okay, but why don’t you do your thing in the bathroom, right before I come into the room, you have plenty of time I don’t want to wait…
Susan—Well, it only takes a minute.

—Why involve me? What if you take care of it before we enter the session?

This antic served for a while to prepare her for the session. But, now, she tells me, she has to do her thing before she leaves as well. I refuse. Since the bathroom of the studio is in the same room where the sessions takes place, the next patient would have to wait outside while Susan does ‘her thing’. I tell her, “this won’t do.”

With this, she was discontent. Still I refused to have the other patients wait on her account. If she weren’t to do it, she would have had to cry all afternoon because the chance of doing the thing had to always involve someone else, like the husband, me, and if not the next patient. Eventually, she wanted to tell me. Her thing, not a substance still an addiction, was: a one minute long masturbation.