Steele Upon a Mattress - Part Ten
Date: Saturday, April 12, 2003

From: Lauryn Poynor <lpoynor@yellowhammer.com>


STEELE UPON A MATTRESS - PART TEN

by

Lauryn Poynor

____________________________________


Steele pondered the paradox of having a world of time on his hands, yet
not nearly enough.

He had to do something to relax. The "Movie Classics" channel had been
preempted by an advert for a food dehydrator, he hated taking pills,
cigars didn't go well with breakfast -- come to think of it, breakfast
didn't go well either. Cooking often had a salutary effect on his nerves
but this morning's repast had ended up in the garbage disposal. As for
drinking, he planned to abstain from anything stronger than bottled
water. Chalk it up to New Years' resolutions.

His stress relieving options were dwindling by the minute. He'd gotten
out a pad and pencils and tried doing a bit of sketching but every
subject he chose seemed to have some disquieting Freudian subtext, even
when he turned them upside down.

The phone rang, teasing his imagination with the hope of a last minute
reprieve.

"Steele here."

"Mr. Steele. It's Dr. Sobel. I hope I caught you in time."

"Where are you calling from, doctor? We have a rather tenuous
connection."

"I'm afraid I'll have to cancel our appointment. I've decided to give up
the profession of psychiatry to become a freedom fighter in the Czech
resistance."

"It seems that destiny has taken a hand."

"That line. . .it's from 'Casablanca.'"

"Indeed, doctor. I've waited my whole life to say it."

Steele shook his head to clear it. He'd been watching too many Woody
Allen movies. He reached over and picked up the still ringing telephone.

"Steele here."

He heard the lilt of a familiar voice.

"Laura!" Steele felt cheerful in spite of himself. "The wake up call was
hardly necessary." He listened contentedly as she argued the point.
"Well, consider every 'i' dotted and every 't' crossed, then." A
rapid-fire laundry list of instructions followed. Steele looked through
his wallet. "Medical insurance card? -- Yes, I have it -- yes, I'll be
sure to fill in all the blanks on the forms." There was a silence as she
stopped for breath.

"Laura."

He heard her reply, "Mr. Steele?"

"You sound lovely in the morning."

***

Sobel looked on, icy calm, as Steele paced back and forth, barely in
check, like a caged tiger.

Steele stopped and tugged nervously at his right earlobe. "I suppose
you're going to tell me to lie down on the couch."

"Such a clichè, isn't it? I bought this couch a couple of years ago. My
patients seemed disappointed that I didn't have one. Why don't I lie
down on it and you take this chair?"

"Does that mean I get to ask the questions? About your unhappy childhood
and your fascination with ink blots?"

Sobel rubbed his glasses with his tie, then put them back on. "We might
get around to that. Meanwhile, sit." He got up from the overstuffed
wingback and patted the seat cushion.

Steele hesitated. "Are you sure?"

"It was good enough for Robert De Niro."

Steele did a double take. "Robert De Niro sat in that chair?"

"The very same."

Steele sank onto the cushions and stared down at himself expectantly, as
if waiting for some sort of transformation to happen. "Don Corleone?
Travis Bickle? Jake LaMotta? In this chair?"

"Well, not all three at once. Unless Bobby was having a very bad day."

"Amazing. He, ah, they, don't seem like the type."

"Of course Marlon Brando preferred the couch. He liked a bit more elbow
room."

Steele gazed in newfound appreciation at the unpretentious piece of
furniture, with its plump cushions and slightly faded oriental fabric.

"That's not a bad provenance for a couch, doctor, though I was rather
hoping you'd say Kathleen Turner."

Sobel cracked a smile. "Never had the pleasure."

"Pity," Steele sighed. "The thought of Kathleen Turner reclining
sultrily on this very couch . . ."

"Would Jessica Lange suffice?"

Steele visualized for a moment. "You didn't expect me to say no, did
you?"

Sobel leaned against the back of the well stuffed sofa, chin uptilted
slightly as if he'd caught the scent of an elusive perfume in the air.
"Actually, Jessica usually consulted with me on the set, though she did
come here a few times."

Steele allowed himself a small pang of jealousy. "I think I'm in the
wrong profession, doctor. Beautiful blonde Oscar winners have never
obliged me by assuming prone positions on my office furniture."

"It's not as salacious as it sounds. She was doing research for her
movie about the actress Frances Farmer."

"'Frances.' Jessica Lange, Sam Shepard, EMI, 1982."

Sobel gave Steele a curious look.

"Sorry. I have this habit of reciting film annotations."

"It sounds like a perfectly harmless ritual." Sobel scratched several
lines on a clipboard.

"Ritual? You're not writing that down, are you?" Steele asked nervously.

"Just making a few preliminary notes." The psychiatrist smiled slightly
as if amused by a private joke.

"So how was Jessica Lange?" asked Steele, trying for a change of
subject.

"In a word. Tempestuous."

"Really?" Steele grinned slyly.

"As you can imagine she might be, Mr. Steele, after the strain of
playing a famous actress who becomes a mental patient."

"Yes, of course," Steele deadpanned.

"Not to mention, the stress of filming 'Frances' and 'Tootsie' back to
back."

"'Tootsie.' Dustin Hoffman, Dabney Coleman -- ah, well, no need to fill
in the rest."

"It was touch and go for a while. Dustin Hoffman kept stealing her
nylons and wearing her bras."

"Better than Charles Durning," Steele shrugged.

Sobel thumbed through a file folder. "I have your records here from Dr.
Lindstrom. Although he does suggest some possibilities it appears
there's no readily apparent physical cause for your condition."

"If there is," Steele remarked wryly, "twenty-first century sleep
medicine hasn't discovered it yet."

"In my experience, most cases of insomnia are only partly psychological.
It's relatively easy, under stress, for one's body clock to get out of
sync."

"Dr. Lindstrom did hint at something of that sort."

"Did he mention 24 hour cycles? Circadian rhythms?"

"Quite possibly. I forget. Not the sort of rhythms Ira Gershwin wrote
about, at any rate."

"I see that he prescribed some lifestyle changes. Routine exercise,
keeping set work and sleep schedules, cutting down on stimulants. How is
that working out?"

Steele fidgeted with his tie. "Not precisely as advertised, though I
suppose I haven't given things a fair chance." He looked slightly
chagrined. "I was rather convinced at the time that Dr. Lindstrom was
doing it just to annoy me."

Without replying Sobel scribbled several lines in the file.

"It's not that I harbor any, ah, latent hostility towards the medical
profession -"

"Don't apologize, Mr. Steele. I often annoy my patients. Keeps us all on
our toes."

"It's just that -- well, I hesitate to take a colleague of yours to task
but frankly, Dr. Lindstrom's behavior was not entirely professional."

"Really? In what way?"

"For a start, when it came to my associate, Miss Holt, he couldn't keep
his innuendos to himself. The man thinks every woman in the world wants
to sleep with him."

"Interesting. An idèe fixe suggestive of a Don Juan complex."

"If you plan to psychoanalyze Lindstrom I hope you have a strong
stomach."

Sobel steepled his fingers under his chin. "Does that disturb you? That
other men find your associate sexually attractive?"

"I'm a man of the world, doctor," he replied, masking his discomfiture
with well practiced sang-froid. "I'm aware that Miss Holt, while not
your typical cover girl or film starlet, has a certain allure, a
fascination -"

"The allure of the unobtainable, perhaps?"

"In Lindstrom's case I certainly hope so," Steele sniped.

"And in your case?"

"Ah, Miss Holt is a very independent woman. Stubbornly so, at times."
Steele smoothed a wrinkle in his trousers.

"I see." Sobel put down his clipboard. "Have you ever fantasized --
about sleeping with her?"

Steele colored slightly. It was a palpable hit, one that demanded a
parry of his own. "I'm an insomniac, doctor. I could dream about
sleeping with anyone. Princess Margaret, Indira Gandhi. As long as they
didn't hog the covers."

"Humor. Classic suppression technique."

"Eh?"

"A defense mechanism employed when one is afraid to express a thought
directly."

Steele smiled softly. "The direct approach can be rather dangerous with
Laura Holt."

Sobel blinked curiously from behind his glasses. "You sound like a man
who's tried it."

On impulse, Steele decided to come clean. Laura did tell him to say
whatever was on his mind. He lifted his eyes to the ceiling and recited
his woes. "I've tried everything, doctor. Seduction, artifice, coffee
and sympathy. An insomniac should never have to work so hard to get a
woman between the sheets."

"Ah. I rather suspected as much," Sobel replied with a smugly oracular
air.

Steele shot him a look of mild annoyance. "I wasn't aware my motives
were so transparent."

"I noticed it at the movie screening. It wasn't that obvious, really,
except to the trained eye."

"What wasn't?"

"A discreet look. That lingered just below her neckline and kept
going." Sobol didn't seem at all surprised by Steele's preoccupation.
"It was a dress that could stop traffic, wasn't it?"

"I have an eye for fashion, too, doctor."

"And Miss Holt returned the once over rather enthusiastically in your
direction, though I confess I'm less sure there. Even Freud could never
figure out what women want."

Steele weighed in decisively. "Perhaps Sigmund needed to get out more.
The tricky part, I find, is not discovering what a woman wants, it's
reminding her of it at just the right moment."

Sobel was amused by Steele's presumption. "Speaking of a Don Juan
complex -"

"You can put your theories to rest, doctor. Despite your feeling that
the feeling is mutual, frankly, I begin to despair that Miss Holt and I
will ever get our, ah, watches synchronized."

"An interesting choice of metaphors."

"I think a stop watch would be more apropos." Steele exhaled in utter
exasperation. "The woman insists on all this business before pleasure
business, then out of nowhere drops the bombshell that it's not a hard
and fast rule." He sprang up and began to pace. "Room temperature one
minute, fever pitch the next. It's enough to - " Steele stopped abruptly
when he noticed Sobel scribbling notes. "Forgive me, doctor. I seem to
have strayed from the business at hand."

Sobel lounged on the couch, propping his clipboard on his chest. "I
don't mind if my patients don't follow the script. In fact,
improvisation is keenly encouraged. But if you'd like to get back to the
text, as they call it in drama school, we can talk about your insomnia
for a while."

Steele sank into his armchair and planted his feet on the floor, willing
the tension from his limbs.

Sobel glanced briefly at his notes. "Let's recap. When you were
investigating the sleep clinic case, you checked in, so to speak, as an
insomniac. And since then, I gather, you've had difficulty in letting
the role go."

"Be careful of what you pretend to be, because you are what you pretend
to be," Steele recited, with an air of disenchantment.

Sobel considered the notion. "Adults like to think they did most of
their pretending in childhood, though I often find it's the other way
around. Still, one's formative years are nothing to sneeze at. Perhaps
we should start there. Do you remember any similar instance as a child?"

"Of insomnia?" Steele queried, affecting to miss the point entirely. An
instantaneous and involuntary recollection slipped past his guard, a
shadow play of silver images across his vision.

"I was thinking of role playing. Pretending. Assuming another identity."

Steele became excruciatingly aware of the silence. "Well, I suppose it
all started at the movies," he began hesitantly. "I spent my afternoons
sitting in the dark wanting to be Humphrey Bogart."

Sobel's mouth twitched wryly at the corners. "I know the feeling. Bogart
and Cagney. Gary Cooper. And, though it sounds like a contradiction," he
added with a wistful gleam in his eye, "I always wanted to be Cary
Grant."

Steele shrugged. It was a desire universally acknowledged. "Even Cary
Grant wanted to be Cary Grant."

"Bogart makes sense given your profession, even though it seems a little
too easy to connect the dots."

"Playing detective, you mean. There are times, doctor, when I wish I
could wake up as Sam Spade rather than Remington Steele."

"Why does that fantasy remain so appealing?"

"Oh, I don't know. For a rather shifty character there's something very
reliable about him. No matter what situation confronts him he can size
it up and look it in the eye. Always get the best of it. At least for
two hours until the credits roll."

"Real life is rarely so accommodating." He eyed Steele thoughtfully.
"The heroes of our childhood do tend to stay with us. I take it you're
not still obsessed with Humphrey Bogart."

"No more than a discerning cinemaphile should be." Steele wondered what
Sigmund Freud would have had to say about his five passports.

"What about your professional career? Your years of government service?
Were you ever called upon to play a role, perhaps while undercover, that
got a little too far under your skin?"

Government service? Steele's palms began to sweat at the allusion. He'd
forgotten that Sobel had read his press clippings -- all part and parcel
of that absurdly inventive cloak and dagger biography Laura had dreamed
up: CIA, NSA -- he'd forgotten the rest. What on earth could he conjure
up along those lines? Steele's first impulse was to stonewall like a
seasoned politician. "Of course, most of my activities during my time as
a, shall we say, 'licensed troubleshooter' are still very hush-hush."

"Doctor and patient confidentiality applies. You don't have to reveal
names, places, or dates."

"Well, of course, I couldn't possibly," Steele replied. His mind raced,
seeking out a scenario with a grain of truth for his fertile imagination
to embellish. Surely, he reasoned ironically, his larcenous past was the
perfect training ground for government work.

"I understand your hesitation . . ."

After a moment, Steele leaned forward conspiratorially as if he were
about to reveal a state secret. "There was one rather protracted period
of role playing that sticks in the memory."

"Go on," the doctor prompted.

"I was summoned to a small nation in Eastern Europe to serve in a
somewhat unorthodox capacity. You see, I had a strong, almost identical
physical resemblance to a prince first in line to the throne . . ."
Steele paused briefly to gather in the loose threads of his narrative.

Sobel raised an eyebrow. "OK. I'll bite. You served as a prince's
double? Were there fears of assassination?"

"It was nothing quite so dangerous, really." Steele eyed the other man
for a reaction. "You seem disappointed, doctor."

"I suppose I shouldn't be, but I got my hopes up, so to speak. It
sounded like a modern day 'Prisoner of Zenda.' Ronald Colman, Douglas
Fairbanks, Jr., Selznick International, 1937. Well, that version's
considered the classic though there are nearly half a dozen remakes."

Steele's reply was deferential. "Not bad at all, doctor. I won't trouble
you for the other five annotations."

"That's a relief, because my reputation for infallibility wouldn't
survive it."

"Neither would mine." Steele concurred ruefully. "I was playing the
Rudolph Rassendyll part for entirely different reasons. The prince had
developed a rather nasty drugs habit and his royal relations wanted to
pack him off to a rehabilitation clinic for six months. Since the press
followed his every move, a plausible doppelganger was needed for the
duration in order to avoid a scandal and ensure the stability of the
realm."

The part about the prince's indisposition was entirely true. Steele's
mentor, Daniel Chalmers, had learned of it through one of his shadowy
contacts on the continent. Daniel had originally hatched the plot after
thumbing through a tabloid and almost, but not quite, seeing the
features of young Harry, his protègè, staring back at him from the ski
slopes of Gstaad. At first they'd only planned to go on an extended
shopping spree and charge the expenses to the royal accounts, but the
more closely Daniel investigated he realized there was a more lasting
bargain that could be struck.

"For all intents and purposes, doctor, I was the prince for six months.
I christened ships, awarded decorations, visited hospitals, toured
military installations, gave boring public speeches about my country's
glorious past and golden future -"

"It worked for Ronald Colman," Sobel interjected philosophically.

"Well, he had the voice for it. Actually I was afraid I'd have to affect
the native accent. Luckily the prince had studied at Oxford and sounded
more English than the English or I would have been sunk." A happy side
benefit occurred to him. "Then there was the more delicate matter of the
unattached royal's equally blue-blooded stable of girlfriends." Steele
halted meaningfully in mid-sentence. "All with their eyes set on one
thing."

Sobel raised an eyebrow. "One thing? You mean you had to -" He left the
obvious inference dangling.

"I was speaking of the throne, but as to your question, the answer is
yes. They all knew something was up, as there was, ah, a rather
measurable difference between the real prince and myself. Poor chap.
Pedigree isn't all it's cracked up to be," Steele shrugged. "Well, as I
was saying, they were more than happy to keep the sizeable secret to
themselves."

Sobel chuckled. "To have a chance at the family jewels."

Steele grinned roguishly. "I think they were rather sorry to see me go.
I was sorry, too, for a time. I learned to play polo and to fence from
the prince's own tutors, was wined and dined, had my own private art
collection, access to some of the finest treasures of Europe -" Steele
caught himself before he let slip just what that access had netted him.

"It sounds too good to be true," remarked the psychiatrist, rubbing his
chin skeptically.

"There was a downside, of course. The regimented lifestyle drove me mad
and some of it was dead boring. The speeches, the state dinners, the
cricket matches." Steele suppressed a yawn. "The interminable photo
shoots and interviews for 'Hello' magazine and 'Horse and Hounds'. To
this day I have an allergic reaction to grouse shooting. And
horoscopes."

"Allergies are a little out of my line," Sobel deadpanned.

"I began to feel rather at home in the prince's polished boots. I knew
that I wasn't tied down to it for a lifetime so I kicked up my heels a
bit. I think that deep down my, err, that is, the prince's subjects, and
the press began to suspect something. Despite one's training, one could
only keep up the charade in fits and starts." Steele smiled at the
memory. "Oddly enough, honor was satisfied. The press conveniently
ignored the rumors of a switch in exchange for six months of a raucous
good time and some lively copy, and the citizenry lapped it all up with
a spoon."

All things considered the deception had a very profitable run, and Harry
and Daniel had made a sizeable dent in the royal household's coffers.
After the tour of duty was up, they departed for London with one of the
aforementioned art treasures and slipped back into relative obscurity,
skins intact.

"It plays like a movie with a happy ending. Hard to believe the press
would sit on a story like that."

"I'm sure some money changed hands discreetly. I'm not free to discuss
the details," Steele replied with an airy wave.

"Your stint in government service sounds a bit more romantic than I
pictured it."

Steele gave a short laugh. "The whole truth can be so tedious." Steele
was struck by the realization that his real former profession was not so
different. "My work was a very oddly syncopated business, really. Danger
one minute, utter boredom the next.

Sobel looked thoughtful. "It's not as uncommon a situation as you think.
Soldiers suffer from a similar affliction. Bouts of sheer terror,
followed by months encamped with not much to fill the day but
homesickness, drills, and exercise."

Steele regarded him speculatively. "You sound as though you speak from
experience. You were in the war?"

"Korea." After brief instant of eye contact Sobel's gaze returned to his
clipboard.

Steele was curious to know more but there was a heavy weight of finality
in that single word that conveyed that the subject was closed. He was
left with the distinct feeling he'd been talking through his hat and
maybe government service was quite another thing altogether.

"I take it you didn't have typical nine to five assignments?" Sobel
queried.

That was putting it mildly, Steele thought. "I'd call it, ah, freelance
work for the most part. The hours were . . . variable. Rather dark
business at times, skulking around street corners. After sensible people
have gone to bed."

"I imagine that a detective agency is a bit more regular."

"Not always. Miss Holt and I do our best work after five: in the cramped
space of a car during a stakeout, turning on a lamp or a torch and
disturbing the occasional murder victim -"

"I don't mean to suggest you keep strictly to banker's hours but I
imagine the business day conventions have to be observed, to accommodate
clients, and so forth."

"You have a point, doctor. The daily grind has taken some getting used
to." Steele had a sudden, unsettling vision of himself in a gray flannel
suit with attached briefcase.

"I don't think I'm reaching here to suggest that might be contributing
to your sleep problem. A shift in work habits does require a mental and
physical adjustment. I am curious as to why it took this long to catch
up to you. I mean, the agency has been open for some years, hasn't it?"

Steele silently cursed the inconvenience of having a psychiatrist who
was no fool. He skirted the issue as adroitly as he could. "Miss Holt
handles the day to day operations. She's been with me since the
beginning. My own role is somewhat harder to define . . ." Steele
trailed off, searching his phrase book for le mot juste.

"That's not atypical of most CEO's," Sobel replied sardonically.

"The arrangement is a bit unusual, you see. After I made a name for
myself in, ah, government service I was eager to parlay that into a more
-- settled line of work. You might say I provided the agency with the
trappings of success: a well respected name, a ready made reputation for
discretion and resourcefulness -"

"Sort of like a creating a franchise."

Understanding passed between the two men like a secret code. "That's it
precisely, doctor," Steele pronounced, feeling a weight suddenly lift
from his shoulders.

"Customers know what they're getting. Operations hum along smoothly
courtesy of your experienced staff -"

"I see you have a firm grasp of the concept. To be perfectly frank, Miss
Holt has the formal training as a detective. I had to learn the ropes as
I went."

"Difficult adjustment?"

"Less than you might suppose. Miss Holt is remarkable, truly. A most
excellent teacher, though in some areas her education is sadly lacking."

"That surprises me. Isn't she a Stanford graduate?" Sobel interrupted.

Steele felt moved to expound on the pedagogical problem. "We'll be
embarked on the demanding last leg of a case, et voila! The puzzle
pieces begin to fit; I offer a solution so daring, yet unassailable in
its logic that Agatha Christie would envy it. But to Laura Holt I might
as well be speaking a foreign language."

"I'm a little confused myself."

"Perhaps I didn't make myself clear. I find much of my crime solving
inspiration is drawn from the cinema. For instance, if I say to you a
conspiracy is afoot just like the one between Robert Walker and Farley
Granger in 'Strangers on a Train' why, you'd get my full meaning
immediately."

Sobel nodded in understanding. "It is a useful form of shorthand."

"To you and me, perhaps," Steele replied, "but to my associate, it's
bloody Sanskrit."

"It does come in handy when I work with actors," Sobel affirmed. "If I
tell them they're in danger of becoming scopophilic, chances are I'll
get a blank stare until I say, "look what kind of trouble Jeff Jeffries
got into in 'Rear Window.'"

"Scopophilic?"

"One who takes undue pleasure or stimulation from looking."

Steele's mind wandered for a moment. "I've been guilty of that a time or
two myself."

"Cinematic inspirations aside, I imagine some of your previous 'licensed
troubleshooting' expertise would come in handy."

Unwittingly, Steele mused, the doctor had struck a sore point. His
natural instincts and talents, unlicensed as they truly were, had hardly
been used to the full. Who at the agency could claim a more first hand
knowledge of crime? Some things, he reflected, were better learned from
the inside out. "Not as handily as I'd expected," Steele sighed. "I feel
like a fifth wheel at times."

Sobel pondered Steele's predicament. "A client would expect Remington
Steele to have all the answers."

"Having a ready supply can be tricky. Sometimes it's as though I'm on
stage waiting for a prompting from the wings." Steele smiled slightly,
thinking of the Havenhurst reunion, and Laura, between eye rolls,
whispering stratagems into his ear.

"Even JFK needed a good speechwriter."

"I remember once Miss Holt and I were trapped one weekend trying to
solve a murder in a houseful of detectives."

"'Murder by Death.' Peter Falk, David Niven, Alec Guinness, et al,
Columbia Pictures, nineteen, um -"

"Seventy six." Steele supplied, smiling in delighted appreciation.
"Excellent doctor. The Lionel Twain of the piece was one Alan Grievey,
head of the Havenhurst detective agency."

"So that's where the roomful of detectives came in."

Steele nodded. "It was a reunion of sorts. Miss Holt was so sure I would
be unmasked as a neophyte in the sleuthing game that she hid my
invitation."

"Not exactly a vote of confidence."

"She needn't have worried. It all went swimmingly. You see, it's not
solely a matter of having clues and facts at one's fingertips; any
Cordon Bleu graduate can assemble a meal's ingredients. The master chef
knows the difference is in the presentation. One must have flair,
confidence, èlan. To continue the cooking analogy, by the end of it I
had the detectives eating out of the palm of my hand."

"That must have been gratifying."

"Well, Miss Holt did a bang up job supplying the ingredients but I
turned them into a banquet. Did I mention that the clue that broke the
case came from a movie? Pity one's inspirations are so rarely
acknowledged."

"Oh, I don't know. Your press clippings would indicate otherwise."

"Miss Holt is rarely as fulsome in her praise as the 'LA Tribune,'"
Steele said acerbically.

"Do you miss it? Your life before you started Remington Steele
Investigations?"

Steele's brow furrowed. He'd never been given to soul searching but he
felt the question merited a thoughtful answer. He wondered if it were
possible to halve his existence so neatly; despite Laura's restraining
hand, the art of dissembling still came as naturally to him as
breathing. It was certainly novel to be on the right side of the law for
a change, but there were times he wondered if his role playing as
Remington Steele was all that different.

"It's hard to say, doctor. You describe it to someone and it sounds
glamorous, exciting. It can be rewarding when things go according to
plan." Steele paused, weighing his words carefully. "The element of
risk nags at you after a while; the need to prepare for every
contingency, identities failing, being found out. You can never quite
relax, or feel at home."

"You were speaking in the present tense," Sobel observed, raising an
eyebrow. "Do you feel more at home these days? Here in Los Angeles?"

Sobel took off his glasses and Steele could feel the doctor's eyes on
him. He felt the urge to be as noncommittal as possible. "Oh, a few
weeks ago, on a good day, I might have said yes."

"But now you're not so sure."

"If only I could sleep on it," Steele quipped, brows drawing together
quizzically. "Things here do seem to be coming apart in a rather
spectacular fashion."

"I can understand how you feel." Sobel glanced at his watch, unsure the
time left in the session was sufficient to cover more new ground. "We
still have a lot to talk about, and the hour is getting away from us.
Why don't we explore that territory in detail in the next session?"

Steele exhaled audibly as relief swept through him. He suddenly felt
spent, sapped of energy, as if he'd run a marathon.

"In the meantime I'm going to give you some aids that may help you
'sleep on it.' Breathing exercises." He got up and handed Steele several
clipped sheets of paper. "You might be interested to know that these
relaxation techniques are commonly taught in acting classes. Robert De
Niro swears by them."

"Strange. He never seems very relaxed."

Sobel shot him a look of mild disapproval.

"A little levity, doctor."

"You're suppressing again."

"I'm never more serious than when I'm joking," Steele replied with an
air of perfect gravity.

"A rather neat Lacanian paradox."

"If you say so."

"Jacques Lacan studied linguistic opposites and their role in revealing
the unconscious -"

Steele held up a hand in a restraining gesture. "That's quite alright,
doctor. I'm not sure I want it explained to me."

Sobel shrugged. "Come to think of it, maybe your paradox was more
Groucho Marx."

"Ah. Now we understand each other."

TBC

To Part 11

---

BACK