(1987) The Celestial Bed

THE CELESTIAL BED

Irving Wallace

First published in Great Britain by Michael Joseph Ltd 1987

Published by Sphere Books Ltd 1988

Copyright Irving Wallace 1987

In 1783, one of the most popular attractions in London was the Temple of Health, promoted by an amiable Scot named Dr James Graham. The main feature of this Temple was the canopied Celestial Bed, supported by twenty-eight glass pillars and attended by a live nude Goddess of Health. Male visitors were invited to recline on the Celestial Bed for fifty pounds a night with the promise that this treatment would lead to a cure for impotence.

One

As he was driving home for dinner, having parted from his visitor and locked up his clinic, Dr Arnold Freeberg decided that this was one of the days - perhaps the best day — he had enjoyed since establishing himself in Tucson, Arizona, after having left New York six years earlier. All because of his visitor, Ben Hebble, Tucson’s most successful banker, and Hebble’s announcement of an astonishing gift to him.

Freeberg recalled the essence of the corpulent banker’s visit. ‘It’s because your sex therapy cured my son,’ Hebble had said. “Timothy was a mess, and we both knew it. Afraid to be with girls, because he couldn’t get it up till his psychiatrist sent him to you. Well, you did the job all right. In two months, you did it. After that, Timothy played the field for a while until he fell in love with a pretty young lady from Texas. They tried living together and it was such a success that they’re getting married. Because of you I expect to be a grandfather yet!’

‘Congratulations!’ Freeberg had exclaimed, remembering how he and his sex surrogate, Gayle Miller, had so patiently worked to bring the dysfunctional banker’s son to sexual adequacy.

‘No, it’s you, Dr Freeberg, you’re the one who deserves the congratulations,’ Hebble had boomed out, ‘and I’m here to thank you in a very practical way. I’m here to tell you’that I’m setting up a foundation to supplement your own clinic, a foundation that will enable you and your staff to help cure dysfunctional patients who can’t afford to hire you. I’m talking about guaranteeing you S100,000 a year toward this end for ten years. That’s a million dollars to give you a chance to broaden your work and lend a hand to other unfortunate victims of impotence.’

Freeberg recalled that he had felt faint. ‘I — I really don’t know what to say. This is overwhelming.’

‘Only one condition attached,’ Hebble had added briskly. ‘I want this set up in Tucson and all of your work must be done here. This city has been kind to me. I owe it something. What do you say to that?’

‘No problem. None whatsoever. This is most generous of you, Mr Hebble.’

Freeberg had parted from his benefactor in a daze.

Now, reaching home, opening the front door, he was humming to himself when he saw his plump wife Miriam waiting for him in the entry hall.

Cheerily, Freeberg kissed her, but before he could speak she whispered to him, ‘Arnie, you have someone waiting for you in the living room. The City Attorney, Thomas O’Neil.’

‘Oh, he can wait a minute,’ Freeberg said, putting an arm around his wife. He and O’Neil were casual friends, often on the same committees together to raise money for local charities. ‘Probably just some more community business. Now, listen to what just happened to me at the clinic’

Quickly, he told her about Hebble’s offer.

Miriam exploded with excitement, hugged her husband and kissed him again and again. ‘How marvellous, how truly marvellous, Arnie. Now you can do everything you ever dreamed of.’

‘And then some!’

She took Freeberg by the arm and directed him toward the living room. ‘You better find out what Mr O’Neil wants. He’s been here ten minutes. You shouldn’t keep him waiting forever.’

Moments later, having entered the living room and greeted the City Attorney, Freeberg sat down across from him. Freeberg was puzzled to see that the City Attorney looked uncomfortable.

City Attorney O’Neil was apologetic. ‘I hate to break in on you during your dinner hour,’ he said, ‘but I have several appointments this evening, and I felt I must speak to you as soon as possible about an - well, an urgent matter.’

Freeberg continued to be puzzled. This did not sound like the usual charity fund-raiser.

‘What is it, Tom?’ Freeberg asked.

‘It’s about your work, Arnold.’

‘What about my work?’

‘Well, I’ve been officially informed by - by several other

therapists that you’re using a sex surrogate to cure patients. Is that true?’

Freeberg squirmed uneasily. ‘Why, yes, it — it is true. Because I’ve found that it’s the only means that works with many dysfunctional patients.’

O’Neil shook his head. ‘It’s against the law in Arizona, Arnold.’

‘I know, but I thought I could cut a corner or two, if I did it quietly, to affect cures for my more drastically troubled patients.’

O’Neil remained adamant. ‘ “Illegal”,’ he said. ‘It means you’re pandering - acting as a pimp - and the woman you’re using is playing prostitute. I’d like to close my eyes to what you’re doing. We’re friends. But I can’t. Too much pressure is being put on me. I can’t ignore it any longer.’ He straightened himself and seemed to force out the next words. ‘What it comes down to is you losing your job or me losing mine. This has to be resolved immediately, and strictly according to the law. Let me tell you what you have to do. It’s the best proposition I can make to you, Arnold. Are you ready to listen?’

Pale-faced, Dr Arnold Freeberg nodded, and he listened …

Later, after City Attorney O’Neit had gone, Freeberg sat moodily through dinner, picking away at his food, unaware of what he was eating and totally lost in thought. He was conscious and grateful that Miriam was distracting their four-year-old son Jonny while he himself sought to recover from the knockout blow and to think out the consequences.

Freeberg had worked so hard and long, against such constant opposition, to achieve his success in Tucson and Hebble’s magnificent offer. And now, suddenly, the edifice of success had crumbled to dust.

He thought back to the start. The start had actually been when Freeberg graduated from Columbia University in New York as a psychologist. Once he opened his own practice, the results had not been satisfying. The majority of his cases dealt with intimate human relationships, mostly involving sexual problems, and for many reasons the psychological approach had not worked effectively, at least not for him. The patients who came and went, left him perhaps with more understanding of their problems but with little to offer in the way of practical solutions.

More and more, Freeberg had begun to investigate other forms

of sex therapy ranging from hypnosis to assertiveness training to group efforts. None of them impressed him enough until he attended a series of classes where a Dr Lauterbach demonstrated the use of sex surrogates in therapy. The method, and the favourable results, had appealed to Freeberg at once.

After an in-depth study, Freeberg subscribed unconditionally to the idea of using sex surrogates. At one lecture, he met a warm, delightful young woman named Miriam Cohen, a successful department store buyer, who had been there seeking answers to her own problems and who had been one of the few females in the room who agreed with him on the value of sex surrogate therapy. Soon, Freeberg had found he had much more in common with Miriam; he began to date her regularly, and finally he married her.

At last, content to continue his practice as a psychologist, but now planning the employment of sex surrogates when required, Freeberg looked forward to carrying out this promising treatment.

Miriam had become unwell, suffering diminished lung capacity, which was diagnosed as a severe bronchial condition. Miriam’s physician, seconded by a pulmonary specialist, advised an immediate move to Arizona. Freeberg had not hesitated to close down his affairs in New York and set up shop in Tucson. Miriam had fared well. Freeberg had not. The use of sex surrogates was strictly forbidden in Arizona.

Freeberg had soon established his new practice in Tucson. But once more, insight treatment as a psychologist was not fully effective with patients suffering serious sexual dysfunctions. In desperation Freeberg had decided to gamble. Secretly, he had trained, then employed, a female surrogate to use undercover. When five out of five of his patients suffering sexual dysfunctions had been fully cured, he knew true professional satisfaction.

And now, suddenly, this evening, his means of usefulness had been stripped away. In effect, he had been handcuffed and rendered helpless by the law.

There seemed to be no choice but to go back to being a limited and often ineffective talk therapist. He could continue making a livelihood in Tucson. But he could no longer cure.

It was impossible, yet there was no choice.

Then the realisation came to him that there might be a choice, after all. There just might be.

First, it would require two telephone calls. And luck.

Freeberg looked up from his half-empty dinner plate, and pushed away his chair.

‘Miriam - Jonny - ‘ he said, rising, ‘why don’t you both keep busy with television for a little while - I think there’s a circus special on— while I go into the library and make a couple of important phone calls? I’ll catch up with you soon.’

Closing the door of the library, seating himself at the telephone, Freeberg called his wife’s physician in Tucson. Freeberg had a question to ask. Then he waited for the answer.

Once that was done, Freeberg direct-dialled his old friend and onetime Columbia University roommate, Roger Kile, attorney-at-law in Los Angeles, California.

Freeberg hoped that Kile was in. He was.

Disposing of courtesies quickly, Freeberg got right down to it. ‘I’m in trouble, Roger,’ he said, unable to hide the urgency in his voice. ‘I’m in trouble, real trouble,’ he repeated. ‘They want to run me out of town.’

‘What are you talking about?’ said Kile, plainly confused. ‘ “They” — who are “they”? The police?’

‘Yes and no. Actually no. It’s the City Attorney and his staff. They want to put me out of business.’

‘You’re joking! Why?’ Kile wanted to know. ‘Did you commit some offence? Is there a crime involved?’

‘Well …’ Freeberg hesitated, ‘maybe in their eyes … maybe …’ He hesitated once more, then blurted out, ‘Roger, I was using a sex surrogate.’

‘A sex surrogate?’

‘Don’t you remember? I explained it to you once.’

Kile was clearly bewildered. ‘It seems to have slipped - ’

Freeberg tried to contain his impatience. ‘You know what a surrogate is. A person appointed or hired to act in the place of another. A substitute. A surrogate is a substitute.’ Then, more emphatically, ‘A sex surrogate is a substitute sex partner, usually for a single man, a man who doesn’t have a wife or cooperative girlfriend, a man who is suffering a sexual dysfunction, has a sex problem — so he uses a female sex partner to help him, a woman

supervised by a sex therapist. The team of Masters and Johnson started it in St Louis in 1958 -‘

‘Yes, I remember,’ Kile interrupted, ‘I read about their use. And now I remember that you were considering using sex surrogates in Tucson. Well, what’s wrong with that?’

‘One thing,’ said Freeberg. ‘It’s against the law, Roger. The use of surrogates is OK in New York and Illinois and California and a few other states, but in the rest of the states it is against the law. That includes Arizona. Sex surrogates are considered prostitutes.’

‘I see,’ said Kile. ‘And you used them?’

‘One - I used only one,’ said Freeberg. ‘But apparently one too many. Let me explain.’ He seemed to recover some balance in his voice. ‘I told you it’s illegal here, so I started doing it underground. I had to, Roger. Talk therapy doesn’t work in certain cases, the worst ones like impotence and sometimes premature ejaculation. It’s essential to use a trained female partner to teach, to demonstrate, to give guidance. I found such a person, a great young lady. I used her to work with five difficult cases. All five were cured. One hundred per cent cured. But somehow word got out. The therapists are very conservative down here - and maybe jealous … Maybe they resented my success. Anyway, word got to the City Attorney, and he came over to see me at home, maybe an hour ago. I was aaing as a pimp, or pandering, he said, and using a prostitute, and that was against the law. Instead of arresting me, putting me on trial, he offered me an alternative. To avoid wasting time and money to prosecute me, he advised me to shut down my surrogate operation. Then he’d let me continue practising as an ordinary therapist.’

‘Will you?’

‘I can’t, Roger. I can’t be helpful to certain patients who come to me without employment of a surrogate. Look what happened to Masters and Johnson when they were forced to give up the use of sex surrogates in 1970. Until then, using surrogates, their success rate was 75 per cent. Once they gave up on surrogates, their success rate dropped to 25 per cent. I can’t let that happen. If I did, I shouldn’t be in this profession. Yet I want to be in this profession. It’s not a question of making a living. It’s more. It’s getting crippled people, sex cripples, healthy and virile. I don’t want to sound Boy Scoutish. But that’s it. And that’s why, much as I hated to bother you, I decided to call you tonight.’