The Dice Man

by Luke Rhinehart

  Three feet from me rocked two young men engaged in a passionate, deep-throated kiss. I felt as if I had been halfslammed, half-caressed in the belly with a slippery bagful of wet cunts.

  I moved past them into a melee of dancing boys and men and made my way to a vacant table. It was about two inches by three and held the remains of three beer bottles, eleven cigarettes and a lipstick. After staring noncommittally and unseeingly into the chaos of noise, smoke and males for a minute or two, a young man asked me if I wanted a drink and I ordered a beer. Glancing around, I saw that at the two dozen tables only a few people were now sitting, all men except for one middle-aged couple immediately to my right. The man had a sickly smile on his face and the woman looked cool, and amused. When I looked over, she stared at me as she might at an inmate in a mental hospital, her husband simply appeared nervous; I winked at him.

  My eyes couldn't seem to focus on any single person or couple but only on the torsos of males dancing. Finally, I raised my eyes and looked at the two men dancing nearest to me. The man, or rather the tallest of the two men, was in his late twenties, rather ruggedly homely, with a crooked nose and bushy eyebrows. The other person was shorter, younger and very good-looking in a young Peter Fonda sort of way. They were dancing rather disinterestedly and looking past each other at other couples. As I was watching, the younger man suddenly turned his eyes on me, lowered his lashes and raised one shoulder and gave me a sensual feminine sexual parting of moist lips. It was a sexual shock. It was one of the most lecherous and exciting looks I had ever received.

  Ping! Did this mean that all my life I had secretly been a latent homosexual? Did my sexual response to a female come on in a male body imply healthy heterosexuality, debased perversion or healthy bisexuality? It was time to take stock. Was it the intention of the Die that I be active or passive: Zeus to Ganymede or Hart Crane to a sailor? Was I to be Socrates entering into the old dialogue with one of his boys, or Genet supine and spread before the onslaught of some six-foot walking erection? The Die had been ambiguous, but it seemed more appropriate and habit breaking to be passive arid feminine than aggressive and masculine. But where would I find a Zeus to my six-foot-four Ganymede? Where was the Great Cock that could split me in two? It would be much easier to find someone who saw in me the Awful Erection of his dreams. But ease was irrelevant. I needed to be a woman, to play the role of a woman. Even if I loomed over my husband like Mount Everest over a stunted shrub I must learn to spread myself supine before him. My femininity must be given freedom. The dice man could never be complete until he was a woman.

  `Can I buy you a drink?' the man asked, standing above me like Everest above a stunted shrub. It was the exCleveland Brown defensive tackle, and he looked down at me with world weary knowingness. And a smile.

  Chapter Sixty-four

  You must never question the wisdom of the Die. His ways are inscrutable. He leads you by the hand into an abyss and, lo, it is a fertile plain. You stagger beneath the burden he places upon you and, behold, you soar. The Die never deviates from the Tao, nor do you.

  The desire to manipulate your surrender to the Die so that you may gain from it is futile. Such surrender never frees you from the pains of the ego. You must give up all your struggling, all your purposes, values and goals, and then, only then, when you have given up the belief that you can use the Die to gain some ego end, will you discover liberation from your burdens and your life flow free.

  There is no compromise: you must surrender everything.

  from The Book of the Die

  Chapter Sixty-five

  `I'm a virgin,' I said in a thin, delicate voice. `Please be gentle.'

  Chapter Sixty-six

  There are two paths: you use the Die, or you let the Die use you.

  from The Book of the Die

  Chapter Sixty-seven

  `Christ,' I said heavily, `am I going to be sore.'

  Chapter Sixty-eight

  Dear Dr. Rhinehart,

  I admire your work so much. My husband and I do our dice exercises every morning after breakfast and again before bedtime and we feel years younger. When are you going to have your own TV show? Before we began playing with emotional roulette and Exercise K we almost never spoke to each other, but now we're always shouting or laughing even when we're not playing dice games. Could you please give us some advice as to how we might better bring up our daughter Ginny to serve the Die? She's a willful girl and doesn't say her prayers to It regular and is almost always the same sweet shy girl and frankly we're worried. We've tried to get her to do the dice exercises with us in the morning or by herself, but nothing seems to work. My husband beats her every now and then when the Die says to but it doesn't help much either. The only dicedoctor in these parts left for Antarctica three months ago so we have no one to turn to but you.

  Yours by Chance, Mrs. A. J. Kempton, (Missouri)

  Dear Dr. Rhinehart,

  I discovered my sixteen-year-old daughter on our living room couch with the postman this afternoon, and she referred me to you. What the hell is this all about?

  Sincerely Yours, John Rush

  Chapter Sixty-nine

  The birth of the first dicebaby in the world was I suppose, an event of some historical importance. It was just after Christmas in 1969 that I got a phone call from Arlene announcing that she and Jake were rushing off to the hospital to have our dicebaby. They knew where I could be reached, since I'd stopped off two days before to give them each a Christmas present: Arlene a set of the Encyclopedia Brittanica and Jake a rakish bathing suit (Not my will, O Die, but Thy will be done).

  When I arrived, Arlene was still in labor, and her private room was something of a messy jumble from two huge opened suitcases, filled, as far as I could see, entirely with baby clothes. I noticed at least thirty diapers with two green dice branded on each, and many of the pajamas, shirts, pants and tiny baby socks seemed to be similarly monogrammed. I found this to be in bad taste and told Arlene so while she was in the middle of a labor pain, but when she stopped groaning (she claimed it was mostly pleasurable), she assured me the Die had picked a one-in-three shot and ordered the monograms.

  The three of us chatted about our hopes for the baby, with Arlene doing most of the talking. She told us that she had given 215 chances in 216 that she practice natural childbirth and breast-feed the child and that much to her delight the Die had chosen that she should do both. But most of her talk was about when the child should be potty trained and when it should be dicetrained.

  `We've got to start early,' Arlene kept saying. `I don't want our baby corrupted by society the way I was for thirty-five years.'

  'Still, Arlene,' I said, `for the first two or three years I think the child can develop randomly without using the dice.'

  `No, Luke, it wouldn't be fair to him,' she replied: `It would be like keeping candy away from him.'

  `But a child tends to express all his minority impulses - at least until he gets to school. They may batten down the hatches there.'

  `Perhaps, Lukie,' she said, `but he'll see me casting dice to see which breast he gets or whether we go for a walk or whether he naps, and he'll feel left out. What I'd like to do .is ...'

  But she went into such a long labor pain and it came so soon after the previous one that Jake buzzed for the nurse and they wheeled her off to the delivery room. Jake and I trailed after her down the hall.

  `I don't know, Luke,' Jake said after a while, squinting up at hopefully. `I think this dice business may be getting out of hand.'

  `I think so too,' I said.

  `The dice may be good for us uptight adults, but I'm not sure about two-year-olds.'

  `I agree.'

  `She could confuse the poor kid before he developed any patterns to break.'

  `Right.'

  `It's possible the kid might grow up to be something of a weirdie.'

  `True. Or worse yet, he might end up rebelling against diceliving and opt for permanent conformity to the dominant social
norm.'

  `Hey, that's a possibility. You think he might?'

  `Sure,' I said. `Boys always rebel against their mothers.'

  Jake paused in his pacing and I stopped beside him and looked down; he was staring at the floor.

  `I suppose a little dice-throwing won't hurt him,' he said slowly.

  `And in any case, who cares?'

  Jake looked sharply up at me.

  `Aren't you concerned about your baby?' he asked.

  `Now, remember. Jake, it's our baby, not mine. Just because the dice told Arlene to tell you that I'm the father doesn't mean necessarily that I am.'

  `Hey, that's right.'

  `You may actually be the father but the dice told Arlene to lie.'

  `That's a good point, Luke.'

  `Or she may have been sleeping with dozens of guys that month and not know who the actual father is.' He looked down at the floor again.

  `Thanks for the reassurance,' he said.

  `So let's just call it our baby.'

  `Let's just call it hers.'

  Chapter Seventy

  Dear Dr. Rhinehart I have been a fan of yours ever since I read that interview in Playboy. I-have been trying to practice the dicelife now for almost a year but have run into several problems which I hoped you might be able to help me with. First, I was wondering if it were really necessary or important to follow the Die no matter what it says. I mean sometimes it vetoes something I really want to do or chooses the most absurd of the options I've created for it. I've found that disobeying the Die in such cases makes me feel real good, as if I were getting something for free. I find the Die most helpful in doing the things I want to do, mostly making girls. It's a big help there, since I never feel guilty when I try something that doesn't work since the die told me to do it. And I don't feel guilty when it does work since if the girl gets knocked up, it was the Die that did it. But why do you keep saying one should always follow the Die? And why bother to expand the areas it makes decisions in? I've got a good thing going and find a lot of your stuff distracts me from my end if you know what I mean.

  Also I must warn you that when my girl took up using the dice and we tried some of those dice sex exercises some real problems developed. The sex exercises were fine, but my girl keeps telling me the Die won't let her see me anymore for a while. Sometimes she makes a date and then breaks it, blaming the Die. Aren't there some sort of rules I can impose on her? Do you have a code of dice ethics for girls I could show her? Also another girl I introduced to the dicelife began insisting that I ought to include as an option that I marry her. I only give it one chance in thirty-six, but she insists I cast the dice about it every time I go out with her. What is the probability of my losing if I date her ten more times? Twenty? Please include a table or graph if possible.

  You've got some good ideas, but I hope you do more thinking about how special rules might be developed for girl dicepeople. I'm getting worried.

  Sincerely, George Doog

  Chapter Seventy-one

  `It's a girl,' Jake said, smiling dazedly.

  `I know, Jake. Congratulations.'

  `Edgarina,' he went on. `Edgarina Ecstein.'

  He looked up at me. `Who named her that?'

  'Don't ask silly questions. The baby's healthy, Arlene's healthy, I'm healthy: that's what counts.'

  `You're right,' he said. `But do daughters rebel against their mothers too?'

  `Here she comes,' I said.

  Two nurses wheeled Arlene down the hall and past us into her room and, after she'd settled back into bed, they brought the baby in for her to hold. Jake and I watched benevolently. The baby squirmed a bit and hissed, but didn't say much.

  `How'd it go, Arlene?' I asked.

  `It was a snap,' she said, cuddling the child against her swollen breasts and smiling ecstatically. She stared at her infant and smiled and smiled.

  `Doesn't she look just like Eleanor Roosevelt as a baby?' she said.

  Jake and I looked; I think we both concluded it might be true.

  `Edgarina has dignity,' I said.

  `She's born for greatness,' Arlene said, kissing the top of the baby's head. 'Die willing.'

  `Or nothingness,' I said. `You don't want to force any patterns on her, Arlene.'

  `Except for making her cast the dice about everything she does, I plan to let her be entirely free.'

  `Oh Jesus, Jesus,' said Jake.

  `Cheer up, Jake,' I said, putting my arm around him. `Don't you realize that as a scientist you're getting in on the ground floor of something which is of immense scientific importance?'

  'Maybe,' he said.

  `No matter how Edgarina turns out under Arlene's regime, it's scientifically significant. Genius or psychotic, something new has been demonstrated.'

  Jake perked up a bit. `I suppose you're right,' he said.

  `This may be your greatest case study since "The Case of the Six-Sided man."

  'Jake looked up at me, beaming.

  `Maybe I ought to do some more experimenting with the dicelife,' he said.

  `You'll need a title, of course,' I went on.

  `You certainly should,' Arlene snapped at Jake. `Any father of Edgarina Ecstein had better be a full-fledged diceperson or I'll disown and discredit him.'

  Jake sighed.

  `That won't be necessary, honey,' he said.

  ` "A Case of Random Rearing,"' I suggested. `Or perhaps, "Dieper Training."

  'Jake shook his head slowly and then squinted aggressively up at me.

  `Don't bother trying, Luke. It's beyond your depth. The title has already been made: "The Case of the Child of Whim."' He sighed. `The book may take a little longer.'

  Chapter Seventy-two

  The sun dazzled down and warmed and softened my mountain of flesh. I writhed myself deeper into the hot sand, feeling the rays above like long-range caresses on my skin. Linda lay beside me, bikinied and beautiful, her lovely breasts breathing skyward against the strip of cloth that was theoretically a bikini top like two fruit growing and shrinking in a speeded-up biological film of the growing process. She had been reading Stendhal's The Charterhouse of Parma and we had been talking about group dice therapy, but for the last fifteen minutes we had both lain silently, enjoying the solitude of the vast expanse of the Bahamas beach and the love-making of the hot touch of the sun. It was February in New York, but summer bare.

  `What do you really want, Luke?' Linda suddenly asked. From the smudge at the corner of my half-closed eyes I gathered she had sat up or raised herself on an elbow.

  `Want?' I said, thinking. The rhythmic thud of the surf thirty yards away made me long for a swim, but we'd only been out of the water for fifteen minutes and were only just now dry.

  `Everything I guess,' I finally said. `To be everybody and do everything.'

  She tossed her hair back away from her face with one hand and said `That's modest of you.'

  `Probably.'

  A sea gull careered into my reduced field of vision and then out again.

  'You've been sort of quiet today. Just another dice-decision?'

  `I've just been sleepy all the time.'

  `My ass. Is it a dice decision?' `What difference does it make?'

  She was definitely sitting up, her legs spread, leaning back on her upright arms.

  `I sometimes wonder what you want, not the dice.'

  `Who's me?'

  `That's what I want to know.'

  I sat up, blinking my eyes and looking toward the ocean past the rise of sand in front of me. Without my glasses it was a tan blur and blue blur.

  `But don't you see,' I said. `To know "me" that way is to limit me, cement me into something stonelike and predictable.'

  `Diceshit! I just want to know a you that's soft and predictable. How am I supposed to enjoy being with you if I feel you can go "goof" any minute from some random fall of a die?'

  I sighed and lowered myself back onto my elbows.

  `Were I a healthy, normal neurotic human love
r, my love might evaporate any moment in just as haphazard a fashion.'

  `But then I could see it coming; I could run out on you first.' She smiled.

  I sat abruptly up.

  `Everything may evaporate at any instant. Everything!' I said with surprising vehemence. `You, me, the most rocklike personality since Calvin Coolidge: death, destruction, despair may strike. To live your life assuming otherwise is insanity.'

  `But Luke,' she said putting a warm hand on my shoulder. `Life's going to go on more or less the same and ourselves too. If - '

  `Never!'

  She didn't speak. She slid her hand gently from my shoulder to the back of my neck and it played there with my hair. After a few moments I said quietly: `I love you, Linda. The "I" that loves you will always love you. Nothing is more certain than that.'

  `But how long will this "I" last?'

  'Forever,' I said.

  Her hand became motionless.

  `Forever?' she said in a very low voice.

  `Forever. Maybe even longer.'

  I turned on to my side and took her hand and kissed the palm. I looked into her eyes with a playful smile.

  Staring seriously back at me, she said `But that "I" which loves me may be replaced by a different, unloving "I" and be forced to live forever underground and unexpressed?'

  I nodded, still smiling.

  "The "I" that loves you would like to arrange things so that the whole rest of my life is fixed to guarantee the continued fulfillment of himself. But it would mean the permanent burial of most of the other "I's.'

  `But ego or no ego, there are natural desires and imposed actions: To come over on top of me and fuck would be a natural act; to follow the fall of a die and kneel in the sand to jerk off wouldn't.'

  I maneuvered myself clumsily into a kneeling position in the sand and began to lower my swim-trunks.