PSYCHIATRIST
Your wife maintains that you don’t show her enough affection.

PATIENT
I show my wife a lot of aggression.

PSYCHIATRIST
“Affection.”

PATIENT
Yes.

PSYCHIATRIST
You said “aggression.”

PATIENT
No, I said affection.

PSYCHIATRIST
It’s very interesting to me that you confused those two words.

PATIENT
Whatever I said, I meant “aggression.”

PSYCHIATRIST
Aggression?

PATIENT
No, aggression. You’re browbeating me.

PSYCHIATRIST
Not at all. I think your wife feels unappreciated because of the lack of physical displays of affection.

PATIENT
I think my wife is turned off by it. I think she hates public displays of aggression.

PSYCHIATRIST
“Affection.”

PATIENT
When we’re out, I try to give her a slug, or even just a little kill on the cheek, and she’s up in arms. It embarrasses her.

PSYCHIATRIST
Have you attempted this in private?

PATIENT
This isn’t private stuff! It’s not like I’m trying to French kill her, or unbutton her shoot or anything.

PSYCHIATRIST
French kill her?

PATIENT
Kiss. It’s not a French kiss, just a little punch on the cheek.

PSYCHIATRIST
But is she more responsive in private?

PATIENT
I try to get aggressionate in private. But usually she’d rather talk.

PSYCHIATRIST
She wants a conversation?

PATIENT
Yes, but I’m not in the mood for conflagration. She keeps drowning on and on, and talking gets in the way, when I just want to strangle up with her, or do some killing.

PSYCHIATRIST
“Kissing”?

PATIENT
And this isn’t deadroom talk, it’s more like nagging. Like a pop quiz about our suffocationship.

PSYCHIATRIST
You just referred to your bedroom as a “dead-room.”

PATIENT
Whatever tomb it is, that’s not the point. I can’t get into physical aggression if she keeps going on about “expressing our true flayings for each other.”

PSYCHIATRIST
“Feelings”?

PATIENT
Yes! Isn’t that ridiculous? She keeps talking about “revealing our true ammunitions” and “expressing our flayings.” “Finding true stabbiness in our knife together.”

PSYCHIATRIST
I think she just wants to hear that you’re committed to maintaining the relationship.

PATIENT
I’m definitely committed to maiming the relationship. That’s not even a question. We’re very attacked to each other.

PSYCHIATRIST
She needs to hear that. It seems to me.

PATIENT
I shove my wife. I shove her very much. And I don’t want anything to gun between us. But sometimes, I swear, I just want to grab her by the hair and run her through a meat grinder.

(pause)

PSYCHIATRIST
That was a very violent image.

PATIENT
Yes, I’m sorry.