Couples Therapy

Student helper Gloria Mitchell was hungover on her first day at the Proaggression Tower, and the whole experience felt like a dream.

The surprise party that her boyfriend and she had prepared for their friend Max's girlfriend in the latter couple’s apartment had left her with too much alcohol in her system and far too little sleep. The ibuprofen she had taken in the morning still hadn't kicked in, and her skull throbbed as she alighted the train.

Like any psychology student, Gloria knew that the tower wouldn't be visible on the surface — it was nicknamed Shrinking Inferno for a reason — yet, she couldn't help feeling disappointed by the look of the quarters of what was supposed to be one of the two most prominent companies in the branch; no passerby would look twice at this nondescript brutalist compound, had they not known what was inside — or more precisely, under it.

As arranged, she met Dr Malcolm in the minimalistic lobby. Dr Malcolm was in her fifties, but was dressed as though her wardrobe hadn't changed since her teens; a torn blue denim jacket didn’t match her baggy jeans, and a lanyard with an astrological talisman of an Archer dangled from her neck.

“I'm currently working on the Mindfulness level,” she said, pointing at her clothes.

Gloria smiled. “So I assumed.”

They entered a small glass-walled office.

“You have no idea how lucky you are”, said Dr Malcolm as they sat down. “We have a fascinating case arriving just this morning.”

“Really? What about?”

“I’ll tell you everything as soon as you sign these.” Dr Malcolm passed her a folder. “One is a Non-Disclosure and the other a Non-Compete.”

“The first one is about me not babbling about the patients, right? And what’s the second one?”

“It basically says you can't just start working for the Aggressim right after you stop working here. But trust me”, Dr Malcolm's mouth twitched into a sly smile, “after what you see today, you'll know that no virtual simulation can achieve what we do here.”

Gloria scribbled today’s date — 2nd November 2084 — and her signature onto both documents. As she returned the folder to her contractor, she felt a ray of excitement pierce the fog of her hangover. She had just become an employee of the fucking Shrinking Inferno, with some fascinating nut case on the way today.

But when she opened the second folder Dr Malcolm had given her, her excitement suddenly flipped into a riptide of terror. Gloria barely managed to disguise her shock with a feigned coughing fit.

“Are you okay?”

Gloria gave a faux smile, wiping away the tears. “It went down the wrong pipe.”

She reopened the file and stared at the picture of her boyfriend.

“This is Matt Garner, 22,” said Dr Malcolm, “He attacked a bus driver near Chelsea in the early morning hours. The argument erupted when the driver refused to open the door for him, claiming he had pushed the button too late. Garner got upset and started pounding on the glass panel of the driver’s cabin, calling him a ‘fascist cocksucker’.”

Gloria felt sweat soak her shirt.

“The scene would probably have ended there”, Dr Malcolm continued, oblivious to Gloria’s distress, “if the driver hadn't physically responded to the provocation. The other passengers separated them and called the police. The driver was sent to Aggressim, while Garner— are you alright, Gloria?”

Dr Malcolm raised her eyes and noticed that Gloria’s skin was as white as paper.

Gloria forced a small, sheepish smile. “Yeah, I'm just so excited about everything. Can’t wait to see Roboshrink in action.”

“Great”, Dr Malcolm smiled back. “Then I don't want to keep you waiting any longer. Follow me.”

As they walked down the corridor, Dr Malcolm ranted about the necessity of quotas for human employees in sectors like traffic in today’s age of almost faultless robot drivers; Gloria nodded along, masking the turmoil in her insides as best she could.

The golden control panel in the elevator displayed the Tower's floors.

0 Lobby

-1 HR

-2 Assessment

-3 CBT

-4 Mindfulness

-5 Gestalt

-6 Psychodynamics

-7 Retroaggression

-8 IT

-9 Server room

On a different day, Gloria might have been amused to see that Shrinking Inferno had as many levels as the one from Dante’s classic. But as it was, she barely noticed it, for it only now struck her that a punishment for the offence of lying by omission she’d just committed could be more severe than getting fired.

But what was I supposed to do? Tell her that I'm dating an Aggressor? Besides, the only way they can find out about us is if Matt tells them, and he would never do that.

Hopefully.

They got out on the fourth level and soon arrived at Dr Malcolm's office.

”Gloria, this is Ted”, said Dr Malcolm, closing the glass door. “He's an engineering student who’ll guide you through the process.”

Gloria shook hands with a young Asian man over the holo-board, their palms piercing the head of a young blonde woman sitting at a table. Ted had shaggy blonde hair and a wrinkled, pink T-shirt that said “Debugging My Emotions”.

“I've got a run now to prepare for the patient,” said Dr Malcolm, and then pointed to the hologram.“You'll see me in Act Two.”

No sooner had the office door closed behind her than the holo-door opened on screen, and a short black man with buzz-cut hair entered the picture. Matt still wore the same striped shirt he had had at the party; only now its sleeves were torn in places and blotched with dry blood.

Gloria felt her pulse rise.

“Hi, Matt Garner?” The blonde said coldly.

“This is Dr Williams,” Ted explained. “She’s the head of the CBT.”

“Yes, that’s me.” Matt’s voice was raspy; Gloria wasn't the only one who had drunk too much whiskey last night.

“This guy is basically a textbook case fot RT,” Ted said nonchalantly, taking a sip of coffee. Then he added apologetically: “Oh, sorry, I’m so rude — you want any coffee?”

“No, thank— actually, why not?” said Gloria, whose heart had skipped a beat at his apology, thinking it was about calling her boyfriend a case.

As Dr. Williams and Matt engaged in a conversation about the distinction between the You-talk and Me-talk— typical CBT bullshit — Gloria asked, “And why is he a textbook case?”

“Well, have you read his file?” asked Ted, fidgeting with the coffee machine.

“No, I only had a chance to skim it.”

That was true; she was so shocked by its content that she had never actually read it.

“From the files of Garner’s previous doctor, we know that he used to spend whole afternoons locked in a closet as a kid when his mother's lover was around. That's why he was so triggered when the driver ‘locked’ him in the bus.”

Gloria managed to suppress all of the obnoxious implications of what she’d just heard and simply said:

“Wait, the driver was female?”

“Yeah, and black and overweight! Just like his mum,” Ted said gleefully, passing her a steaming mug. “I think we’re in for some great action when he gets to RT!”

Swallowing a bitter reflux rising in her throat, Gloria returned her attention to the hologram.

“What you said to the driver”, Dr Williams was saying, “was an example of You-talk.”

“And what was I supposed to say? ‘I think you are a fascist cocksucker’?”

Dr Williams was very effective at her job — Matt was visibly agitated.

“That would have been a start, yes.”

“Are you fuck—”, Matt started, then corrected himself with an ironic scoff: “Am I being fucked here?”

“I don't know, Matt,” Dr Williams said impassively. “Do you feel like that?”

“So you can use you?”

“Are you angry at me now, Matt?”

“You fucking bet I am.”

“That’s good.”

“And what am I supposed to do about it, huh? Just say ‘I am angry’?”

“No, you’ll now go to Dr Malcolm, who will teach you how to deal with your anger.”

Gloria’s stomach churned audibly.

“Sorry, where is the bathroom?”

She reached the toilet not a second too soon, clutching its bowl as a concoction of alcohol, ibuprofen, and coffee left her body in violent spasms.

When she was done, she collapsed to the tiled floor and burst into tears, the unbidden words from last night surging in her mind.

Matt, did you empty the closet yet?

Oh, c’mon, Gloria, couldn't we just surprise them in the hall?

No, Max explicitly said he wanted her to feel like they were alone, like he forgot her birthday.

C’mon, how old are we?

Just empty the fucking closet, Matt!

Gloria was jolted back to the present by the bathroom door opening. Deciding she was gone for too long already, she brushed away her tears and got up.

When she returned to the office, Dr Malcolm and Matt were already fully engaged in Loving-kindness meditation.

“May you be safe, may you be happy, may you be healthy,” Matt chanted hypnotically. He was lying on a couch, his eyes closed.

“Great, Matt,” said Dr Malcolm in parentese, “Now imagine you're wishing this to the bus driver.”

Despite the enormity of the emotional stakes Gloria the Girlfriend had in this therapy, Gloria the Psychologist couldn't help but feel a pure academic fascination with the process she was witnessing.

Loving-kindness meditation originated in early Buddhism, aiming to make practitioners more compassionate by extending the kindness they naturally felt toward their loved ones to themselves and even to their enemies. Retroaggression therapy, however, used LKM for the exact opposite effect — to make its practitioner suppress their aggression even more, thus increasing their emotional instability.

“How do you feel, Matt?” Dr Malcolm asked when the meditation was done.

“I feel so, so calm.”

Matt, you really are a text case.

The patient was expected to report feeling peaceful after LKM; they were either willingly suppressing their aggression and lying in the hope of being released, or LKM had indeed coated their aggression with a thin veil of illusory tranquility, thereby suppressing it without their knowledge. Either way, the balloon of their aggression was now hopefully inflated to the point of bursting, and they were ready for Roboshrink, who held a needle.

Speaking of which—

“That's great, Matt”, Dr Malcolm said, “I'll now escort you to Dr Hopkins for a quick final examination, and then you can go home.”

Ted changed the holo-channel.

Gloria knew the Proaggression’s model of a Roboshrink would be physically indistinguishable from a human — they were not state-of-the-art without reason — so she wasn't surprised when the image of a middle-aged woman in a business suit appeared before her.

However, something else shocked her.

“She’s white,” she said, perplexed. “And slim.”

“Indeed, she is,” said Dr Malcolm, who had just entered the office, “We've given up using the physical similarity for the transference, because some patients got too suspicious. Nowadays, we rely on their lizard brain.”

It took Gloria a couple of moments to connect the dots.

“You are simulating her smell? And how can you synthesize—”, her jaw dropped at the realization, “From his own pheromones?”

Dr Malcolm's lips widened into a smug smile.

“That’s brilliant!”

“However, the most important is the behavioral similarity, of course,” explained Dr Malcolm. “No matter how many times I've seen him in action, he still manages to surprise me sometimes.”

Gloria deduced who—or what—Dr Malcolm meant by him; she also thought of it as masculine, even though she only saw it in the feminine form of Dr Hopkins.

“Garner has a disorganised attachment, which implies an inconsistent, unpredictable mother,” Ted said, “So I assume the bot will make him play some game with an ill-defined punishment system until he provokes him. I've seen him do it numerous times.”

“We’ll make a psychologist out of you, Ted.” Dr Malcolm said jokingly. “He will also probably entrap Garner physically, since that's what triggered his aggression tonight.”

Yes, but not in the bus, Gloria thought guiltily.

A knock issued from the hologram’s speaker.

“Enter,” said Roboshrink’s female voice.

As he appeared on screen, Matt looked relaxed, even high-spirited, as if still engulfed in the halo of loving-kindness. He seemed unconcerned by the medicine needles laid out on Roboshrink’s table, or the big metal box resembling a fridge — or a closet — in the corner.

“Hi, I’m Doctor Hopkins,” Roboshrink offered his hand.

“Matt, nice to meet you.”

Gloria cringed at the sight of their handshake.

“Matt, this is just a routine examination,” said Dr Hopkins, “I just need to draw a couple of your samples.”

She grabbed a needle. “This might hurt a little.”

Matt smiled as she rolled up his sleeve. “After what I've been through today, I doubt I’ll even notice it.”

She stuck the needle into the crook of his elbow. “Hurts, sir?”

Still smiling, Matt shook his head.

Don't you dare hurt him, you bitch, thought Gloria, fearing Roboshrink would at any moment plunge the needle violently into his arm to provoke him.

But Dr Hopkins pulled the needle out and said, “Great, Matt! Just one more sample and we are done.”

She produced a plastic cup.

Matt frowned. “They've already taken my urine.”

“I don't need your urine, sir,” Roboshrink said, “I need your ejaculate.”

Matt rolled his eyes. “Fine, I don't know what you need that for, but I'll be right back.”

He went for the door.

“Matt, you forgot something,” Dr Hopkins said playfully, raising the plastic cup, “And you can do it here.”

Matt turned around to see her pointing at the metal box. He smiled incredulously, “Let me do it in the bathroom, I'll be right back.”

“No, sir, you have to do it here,” Roboshrink said more firmly.

Gloria didn't fail to notice Roboshrink's inconsistency in calling her boyfriend ‘Matt’ and ‘Sir’ seemingly at random, designed to simulate Matt’s mother’s emotional unreliability.

Matt’s smile disappeared. “I'm not getting into that thing, just let me—”

“Are you aware, sir,” Roboshrink’s voice turned ice-cold, “that we can land you in a facility for Aggressors for the behavior you displayed in the bus this morning?”

“No, you—”

“---and that your walking out of here unchained is only a matter of my goodwill?”

Matt said nothing.

Dr Hopkins's warm smile resurfaced. “Could you please enter the chamber for me, Matt?” she asked in a motherly tone.

“God, isn't he brilliant!” exclaimed Dr Malcolm. “I bet Garner’s mother has asked him that question in that very same tone more times than he can remember.”

“Oh, yeah, come on, punch him!” Ted cheered as Matt approached Roboshrink with clenched fists, and then let out a disappointed “oooh” as Matt merely grabbed the cup and closed himself into the chamber.

Roboshrink tiptoed to the closet and silently locked it from the outside.

A minute passed in silence.

“How is it going, Matty?” Roboshrink asked in Dr Hopkins’s sexiest voice, “Do you need a little help?”

“Leave me alone, I'm trying.”

“Would this help you?”

Dr Hopkins started to produce loud moaning sounds, as if she was about to cum.

“Ahhh, yeah, baby, that’s it, that’s it, yeeeaaaaa—-”

“STOP IT! SHUT UP!”

Roboshrink giggled. “Uuuuhuhuhu, yesyesyesyesyes—-”

Matt slammed wildly at the locked door. “LET ME OUT, YOU BITCH!”

“Yes, baby, that’s just how I like it—-”

The box finally broke, and Matt erupted from it. He grabbed the unhinged metal door and slammed it across Roboshrink's face with all his strength. The robot fell to the ground, still emitting an eerie giggling. Matt knelt on its chest and kept hitting its face with his fists until it was reduced to a bloody pulp.

When the giggling finally stopped, Matt collapsed into the pool of blood and started to sob violently.

Gloria had been so immersed in the holo-scene that she hadn't noticed she was crying too until Dr Malcolm pulled her into a firm embrace.

“It’s okay, it’s okay,” she whispered into her ear, “He got to feel both the exultation from the released aggression, and the regret from its consequences. Everything is just as it should be. Imagine how he’ll feel in a minute when we tell him this was just a robot, that he isn't going to jail, or in a few days when he realizes he is now healed, liberated from the burden he’d been carrying for over a decade. Shhhhh, it’s okay!”

But Gloria didn't hear her. She was transported back in time to her eighth birthday, into her mother's only hug she remembered. On all her other birthdays, something had been wrong — the cake hadn't cooled enough, someone had cancelled in the last minute, the stereo had died and no one could dance — but that year everything was just right, and instead of fretting around, blaming Gloria for her predicaments — as if it were her fault to have been born — her mother had given her a warm embrace. Gloria had tried to recreate that birthday every year since, but some hiccup or other always got in the way.

That's why all the birthday parties had to be perfect!

That’s why she had forced Matt to spend an hour jammed in the closet last night!

***

As she walked away from the Proagression’s nondescript compound that afternoon, Gloria Mitchell dialled the number of her new employer’s competitor.

“Hi, you’ve reached Aggressim”, said the AI assistant. “How can I help you?”

“Hi, I would like to kick the shit out of my mother.”

“Virtually”, she added, just in case.