The Surrogate

The doctor's name was Elizabeth Sandoval. Michael sat watching her as she glanced through the form the receptionist had given him to fill out. She was a slightly plump dark-haired woman, probably around 40. She wore a wedding band and a diamond and sapphire engagement ring.

Looking up, she gave him a warm smile. "Okay, Mr. Metcalf. Welcome to Westside Social Services. Why don't you tell me a little about why you've come in to see us--and of course, anything you and I talk about here is completely confidential."

It was hard not to hesitate, hard in fact not to get up and say "never mind" and head for the door; but Michael took a deep breath and plunged forward.

"Dr. Sandoval, I'm--I, uh, have a problem with premature ejaculation."

The doctor nodded slightly, inviting him to continue.

"I did a little, uh, looking around, and I learned that Westside has surrogates who work with men with my, um, with problems like mine, so I decided to make an appointment."

Silence. Dr. Sandoval gave Michael plenty of time to say more, but he didn't continue. Finally she said, "well, we do indeed use surrogates in our work here, and in fact we have had a great deal of success in treating PE issues. Shall I tell you a little about how we normally work with men in your situation?"

Her voice was calm and pleasant--Michael could tell she was good at her job. He was already feeling a lot less uncomfortable. He nodded. "Yes, please."

"All right. PE issues and ED--erectile dysfunction problems--are the two primary sorts of male sexual difficulties that we treat. They are very different from one another, of course, but in both cases our treatment involves appointments with a therapist and work with a surrogate, if it seems that the latter would be helpful."

"So I would be seeing a therapist also?"

"Yes. We would begin by setting up weekly or twice-weekly therapy appointments, in which we would assess your situation. Then if it seemed appropriate you would also begin sessions with one of our surrogates. That also might be once or twice weekly."

"I, uh, didn't anticipate the therapy part--"

"Well," she smiled easily, "it's almost always the case that PE or ED difficulties have a psychological or emotional component. It's rarely a purely physical problem, in fact virtually never. Even if it began with a physical issue, we have found that the effects of the problem on a man can be emotionally difficult--and the therapy sessions are enormously helpful in making progress with it."

Michael nodded--he hadn't anticipated this but it made sense to him. "And about how long, uh, would this work be likely to take?"

"I can't give you much of an answer that this point, since we haven't begun getting to know one another yet. It's likely that the work might last for a period of anywhere from a few months, say four or five, to a year or two. Almost always the problem begins to improve within a couple of months--but I want to stress that every case is different.

"I should also mention that, for married men, the participation of the spouse is crucial. We will want to involve your wife at an early--"

"No." Michael leaned forward. "Absolutely not. My wife is not going to be part of this in any way." His voice was intent.

Dr. Sandoval was startled, though her face remained calm. "Okay," she said, equably. "That is of course entirely your decision, although I anticipate we will want to talk about that during the therapy, if you decide to go ahead with it."

Still looking right at her Michael said, "she cheated on me. She had an affair with another man--and right now I don't imagine that the marriage will survive."

After a pause, she said, "I'm very sorry. Was this a ... recent event?"

He nodded. "I found out three weeks ago."

Silence. Gently, she said, "this must be a very painful time for you, and I'm sorry."

Then she continued, "do you have questions for me, or do you want to take some time to decide whether to go forward?"

"No," he said, almost visibly shaking off his pain. "I want to get started, as soon as possible. Will you be the, uh, therapist I work with?"

She smiled and said, "yes, unless you have any reason not to feel comfortable with me."

"No, that would be fine, actually." He managed a small smile in return. Without having any idea why, he had an okay feeling about Dr. Sandoval.

********************

Dinner was pretty much the way it had been for the past three weeks. Michael made a real effort not to let his pain and anger show to the children. Since Amy was 7 and Will only 3, this was not too difficult. It was easy to be his normal self with them--and when it came to Joanna he displayed his usual kind, affectionate manner, though with an expression that would have revealed his true feelings to anyone looking carefully.

He and Joanna hadn't talked much since he found out--that was his choice. He'd made clear that he didn't want to wreck the family, so neither he nor Joanna had moved out. But Michael was sleeping in the guest room, and they were barely speaking to one another beyond the minimum to keep the children's lives running smoothly: the details of school pick-ups and presents for birthday parties and visits to the grandparents.

Joanna had tried several times to get Michael to talk with her privately: to go beyond her initial apologies when he'd confronted her, to explain the circumstances of her adultery, to reassure and comfort him. But she'd gotten nowhere. His responses ranged from a cold "no, I'm not talking about this with you" to simply getting up and walking out of the room.

In fact their only conversation had been short and brutal. It was the day after that horrible Friday night, the night when Michael had stunned her by saying, "so--you and Trev. Tell me about it, will you Jo? How long've you been fucking him? Is it good? Does he make you come, unlike me? Do you love him? Are you going to dump me? What?"

She'd been too stunned and terrified, too ashamed, to manage anything more than tearful and incoherent apologies. And in any case he'd stormed out of the house before she'd had a chance to say much of anything, and he'd slept on the sofa downstairs.

But the next day, calmer although still terribly frightened, she'd found Michael watching a ball game on TV in the living room while the kids were playing out in the back yard, and she'd tried to talk to him, kneeling down in front of him.

"Michael--I am SO sorry. I've hurt you terribly, I've done an awful thing. It was selfish and stupid and I regret it with every part of me.

"Please, please, let me explain what happened. All I want is to earn your forgiveness, to take away the pain I've caused you. Please, can we talk about it?"

She'd waited, kneeling there, watching his eyes drift from the TV screen down to her face, staring at her coldly.

She'd waited for over a minute, watching his silent face. And then in a very quiet, icy voice he'd said, "fuck you!"

She gasped, drew herself back. He'd never talked to her that way, not once in the 12 years since they'd met. His cold rage brought tears to her eyes--and then he was gone, quickly standing up and striding out of the room, out of the house, going out to play with the kids.

********************

Ordinarily in a first session Dr. Sandoval would begin somewhere safe, with some aspect of the patient's life other than his problem. With his marriage and children, usually. But clearly that was not a good idea in this case.

So when they were seated she smiled and said, "first, Mr. Metcalf--how about if we were just Michael and Elizabeth? Would that be all right with you?"

He managed a nervous smile and said, "sure, that would be fine."

"Okay then. Michael, as I told you before everything we discuss is totally confidential. Can you tell me a little bit about your premature ejaculation issue? How long you have felt it to be a problem, how it has affected your sexual life?"

Michael swallowed hard, then plunged in.

"I, uh, I guess I've always had a problem with it. I only had two girlfriends before Joanna--that's my wife. We met when we were both juniors at Ohio State.

"Anyway, the first girl I ever had sex with was Carrie Adamson, my senior year girlfriend in high school. She was a virgin too, neither of us had any idea what we were doing, and I came right away--probably within 15 seconds of uh, getting inside her.

"We only did it a couple more times before she broke up with me." He grimaced a little, saying, "she decided the school's star basketball player was more interesting."

"Anyway, it was the same each time--some foreplay, then maybe 8 or 10 strokes inside her, and I couldn't hold back.

"Then there was a girl at OSU. She was a lot more experienced, and when we started having sex my--my uh, control problem really annoyed her. After about five times of having sex, she simply told me I wasn't any good and she dumped me. She made it clear that I wasn't, uh, pleasing her in bed--and she wasn't very nice about it."

He stopped. Elizabeth said, "that must have been very painful for you."

He nodded. "Yeah, I sort of gave up dating for almost a year after that. Then I met Joanna in a physics class, we were both ... we both had to take it for a distribution requirement, and we both hated it!"

He laughed a little, remembering. "I was a lot better at physics than she was, so we had regular study sessions, and then that sort of turned into dating.... Anyway, we've been together ever since, we got married the year after we graduated."

"And how has the sex been with her? In the beginning, and then over the years of your marriage?"

"Always pretty much the same," he replied. "I could never last more than about a minute--maybe two or three minutes if we were doing it for a second time.

"Joanna was less experienced than I was--she was a virgin when we started dating, and she comes from a very conservative family. So it wasn't like she knew that anything was wrong. In fact I was pretty amazed at how little she knew about sex when we started going out together.

"Over the years, though, I guess she's read stuff, or talked to her girlfriends. Because things have really changed. In the first few years when I mentioned my, uh, wishing I could go longer, she always smiled and hugged me and said she loved the way we made love.

"But more recently she's mentioned it occasionally; or sometimes when I've said 'sorry I didn't last longer' she hasn't reassured me or said it doesn't matter. She's acted more like, yeah, it's a problem and she doesn't like it."

Elizabeth was pleased and a little bit surprised that Michael was so forthright with her. Many men took weeks to open up about their problem--even though they had come for help with it, they tried hard to deny it.

As they talked that day and in the following sessions, the story she heard was one that was very familiar among men with PE problems. Michael's parents had been quite uptight about sex, and uncomfortable about discussing any aspect of it with their children.

Michael had discovered masturbation but had always done it furtively and as quickly as possible for fear of discovery. After once being scolded by his mother who found dried semen on his bed sheets, he learned to use tissues and then flush them down the toilet. He'd never moved beyond feeling that masturbation was pleasurable but wrong, and he'd never learned to slow down and enjoy it.

As is very common, that attitude carried over to his early attempts at intercourse. Because he had not learned to monitor his arousal and change the way he stroked himself so as to delay his ejaculation, he had no idea how to do the same thing with a woman: his excitement simply increased without his being able to control it, until he'd passed the point of no return.

Near the end of their fourth session Elizabeth said, "Michael, I think we're doing very well so far. I admire your openness with me: it takes a lot of courage to be so honest about an embarrassing problem, and I'm very optimistic about our work.

"I'm going to bring in Marina Sultis, who will be the surrogate working with you starting next week, and we can talk a little bit about what you and she will be doing."

As she stood up and went to the door Elizabeth noted Michael's sudden alarm, a very common reaction when this moment came. She opened the door and beckoned in a tall, slim, brunette in her mid-30s, just a few years older than Michael.

"Michael Metcalf, please say hello to Marina Sultis. Marina, this is Michael."

He immediately jumped to his feet and shook her hand, saying "so nice to meet you," being grateful for Marina's warm smile and firm handshake. He realized he was terribly nervous.

"Hi, Michael, I'm glad to meet you." Michael didn't quite know what he'd been expecting, but Marina was no sex-bomb. She was an attractive dark-haired woman with slightly olive skin--he wondered whether she might be from a Greek or Italian background. She didn't have huge breasts or blowjob lips or look anything like a porn star. She rather gave the impression of an ordinary housewife (though she didn't wear a ring), or rather an ordinary housewife with a nice figure.

"At first, Michael, you and Marina will be meeting once a week--we'll work out the schedule before we finish up today. Basically your work with her will have three phases. First, she will be giving you some exercises which she'll teach you to practice regularly on your own, while she monitors your progress."

"Exercises?" Michael interrupted uncertainly.

"Yes, masturbation exercises," Elizabeth responded blandly. "They will help you pay attention to and control your own responses--basically learn how to slow yourself down, to enjoy your pleasure but stop short of the point of no return."

"After that, Marina will work with you on sexual stimulation other than intercourse: manual first, and then oral stimulation. And then, when you are ready, you will move on to intercourse."

Michael was a little aroused and quite embarrassed; he was grateful for Dr. Sandoval's calm and professional manner. He glanced at Marina, who gave him a smile.

"I've been doing this for about six years now, Michael," she said. "Dr. Sandoval and I make a really good team--you'll see," she added.

Elizabeth said, "normally we would be bringing your wife into the process as well, but I've explained to Marina why that won't be appropriate in this case." She noted Michael tensing at the mention of his wife and quickly went on, "there shouldn't be any reason why the work won't go very well.

"In the meantime, Michael, you and I will continue to meet on a twice-weekly basis. Do you have any questions now for me or Marina?

********************

Joanna sat on a bench in the park, watching Amy on a swing and Will happily playing in the sandbox. None of the moms she often visited with were around today, and she had time to think. More time than she wanted, actually.

"How do you spell 'idiot'?" That was the thought that kept circling around in her head, like a scrap of a melody that you can't get rid of, a silly commercial jingle or pop song. She'd had a great marriage, one that wasn't far from perfect, and she'd pretty well messed it up.

And now she didn't know how much longer she'd have it; or whether within a year she'd be a single mom, struggling to raise her kids alone, having to deal with an angry and bitter ex-husband, and wondering whether she'd ever meet another man she could love. Or whether she'd be alone for the rest of her life.

It hurt her that Michael was so angry, that he wouldn't even talk to her; but she couldn't really blame him. She'd seen the other side of it first-hand: her cousin Margaret had caught her husband in an affair and been absolutely devastated by it.

It was while Joanna was in college. She'd flown to Colorado for spring break and spent a week with Margaret, her favorite cousin, while Margaret had wept and raged and tried to figure out what she was going to do.

Margaret and Eric had only been married four years and didn't have any kids, so the logistics of divorcing the son-of-a-bitch hadn't been the problem. The problem was that Margaret loved him desperately--and she hated him and wanted to kill him, and she felt humiliated and betrayed and just furious.

Now, sitting on the bench alone, Joanna was punishing herself, as she'd been doing for weeks. Having seen what Eric's cheating had done to Margaret--seeing the pain and emptiness up-close and in person--how, HOW could she have done the same thing to Michael?

Margaret had thrown Eric out and divorced him, despite his pleas for her to talk to him, to let him apologize and make it up to her. She'd moved to Oregon, found a new job, tried to start her life over. And she'd dated a couple of great guys but hadn't settled down with any of them. When she talked to Joanna on the phone she made clear she was still full of suspicion, not ready to trust a new guy enough to open her heart all the way.

It made Joanna very sad to think about it: wonderful, loving, beautiful Margaret, who could have nearly any guy she wanted, still living alone, dating carefully, warily, scared to death of being hurt again. And this was ten years later!

What could I have done differently? Joanna asked herself the question for the millionth time. Besides not being a selfish moron, you mean? Besides accepting that my sexual frustration and curiosity didn't give me permission to break my marriage vows and shatter my husband?

The only thing she could think of was, I shouldn't have listened to my friends. What I did was MY fault, not theirs--not anybody else's--but if I hadn't listened to them, I'd sure as hell be better off.

********************

When Elizabeth said, "Marina tells me things are going very well," Michael was startled. He didn't know why--of course Marina and Elizabeth would have been in touch, that was the whole point--but it still caught him by surprise.

He'd met with Marina three times and they hadn't even touched yet. Nor had either of them undressed in the first two meetings. They just talked at first. Marina had given him the name of a book to buy about male sexuality, by a guy named Zilbergeld, and they'd talked about masturbation.

That was kind of embarrassing, but Marina had been so relaxed and professional that Michael could handle it. She said things so clearly.

"What we'll be doing, Michael, is simply retraining you--to be more aware of your feelings during any sort of sexual activity, to sense where you are on the road to ejaculation, and to control it better.

"Most men never learn this as teenagers, because their experiences with masturbation tend to be quick--and frequently secretive. They don't find out how to slow down and keep themselves from coming.

"Later on, many men make the adjustment but a substantial number don't. So that's what we'll be working on together. I'll give you some masturbation exercises to do, which are described in the Zilbergeld book. The point of each of them is to work up to a goal of masturbating for 15 minutes without ejaculating. If you can hold back for 15 minutes, then you've got all the control you'll need."

She described the exercises and told him he should do them as often as he wanted, but at least 2-3 times a week. At their second appointment they discussed how it was going so far, and at their third she upped the ante.

"Okay Michael, today I'd like you to undress from the waist down and masturbate for me, all right?"

"I, uh--okay." He took his clothes off clumsily, nervously, his back to her. When he turned around she was utterly professional, smiling and gesturing to him to lie on the bed. The room they used for their meetings was furnished like a room at a Holiday Inn, not at all like a therapist's office.