I was surprised. I think he knew it, but he didn’t say anything more. Just waited for me to go ahead.
‘Before we start— if we start,’ I said, ‘I got to know something. The things I say to you—what comes out while you’re working on me—is that just between us, like a priest or a lawyer?’
‘Absolutely,’ he said.
‘No matter what?’
‘No matter what.’
I watched him when he said it. I believed him.
‘Pick up your money,’ I said. ‘You’re on.’
He didn’t do it. He said, ‘As you remarked a minute ago, that is up to me. You can’t buy these treatments like a candy bar. We have to work together. If either one of us can’t do that, it’s useless. You can’t walk in on the first psychotherapist you find in the phone book and make any demand that occurs to you just because you can pay for it.’
I said tiredly, ‘I didn’t get you out of the phone book and I’m not just guessing that you can help me. I winnowed through a dozen or more head-shrinkers before I decided on you.’
‘Thanks,’ he said, and it looked as if he was going to laugh at me, which I never like. ‘Winnowed, did you say? Just how?’