Methods of Madness

by Ray Garton

  “Why do you say that, ma’am?” the detective asks.

  “Huh?” She turns to him jerkily with wide eyes as if torn from deep thought.

  “Why do you say you knew he’d be trouble?”

  “Oh, he was a nutcase,” she says with a wave of her meaty hand. “A week or so ago I come up here for the rent and he answers the door with his pants open, wanger hangin’ out, and he’s cryin’ like a baby.”

  The detective takes a pad from his overcoat pocket and begins writing. “Did he say anything?”

  “Oh, yeah. Blubbered and moaned. Somethin’ about it bein’ bigger. He was swingin’ his thing around like a string of pearls.” She chuckles, cold and humorless. “It was big, all right. But sick, with big sores.”

  The detective turns to the young uniformed officer who arrived before him. “Well?”

  “The door was bolted on the inside,” the officer says quietly. “We had to break in. Eight floors up. Nobody coulda got in.”

  “Yeah. Figured as much. No surprises here.”

  “Well, sir. There is one thing… “

  He burst into his little apartment, slammed the door and threw the bolt. Tearing off his coat, letting it fall to the floor, he hurried to the kitchen, his shoulders still quaking with sobs. He pulled out a drawer, almost dropped it, began searching, clanging through the cutlery until he found it. He pushed the drawer back in and held the knife in his hand.

  “Oh, God,” he breathed, panicking because it was stirring, beginning to whisper before it screamed.

  He ripped his jeans open as he left the kitchen and they fell down around his knees. He stopped, kicked his shoes off, stepped out of the pants and hurried into the living room, his fist tight around the deadly knife. He paced back and forth, back and forth, crying, scared because now it was beginning to speak, to scream. His eyes clenched and his head tilted back as he fell into a chair. He didn’t want to look down because he knew he would see it, knew it had foundits. way out of the dirty undershorts and was growing, stiffening up even more. Ugly. Diseased.

  It told him to put down the knife, but he didn’t listen; he tried to ignore the painful voice with tears squeezing from his closed eyes. A scream tore from his chest as he began hacking.

  Hacking and hacking…

  “What?” the detective wants to know, frowning at the officer. “A guy chops his dick off? No biggie. When I was in San Francisco, there was this guy who took a—”

  “Sir.” The interruption is respectful. “Like I said, no one could get in. It’s obvious he did it. But, um… we can’t, uh, find it. We’ve looked. And, um… it’s just not here.”

  Hacking and screaming, hacking and hacking…

  Something

  Kinky

  As I write this, I am holding a gun in my left hand…

  The bar was dark, so I couldn’t see his face well, but he seemed nice enough, and I needed some conversation, so when he spoke to me, I responded.

  “Well,” he said, smiling broadly and toying with his drink, the way strangers at bars tend to do when they try to strike up a conversation with another stranger, “what brings you here?”

  I shrugged and returned his smile. “Just needed to get out of the house, I guess.”

  “Ah. Well. Not like everybody else in here, huh?”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You know. All these other people. I mean, they’re not here because they needed to get out of the house.”

  I looked around. The bar was called Suspenders, and the guy was right; it was the city’s biggest upscale meet market and I hadn’t come just to get out of the house.

  “Yeah, well… “ I shrugged again.

  “So you’re not here to get out of the house either, are you?”

  When I looked at him, his smile was conspiratorial but genuine and I shook my head. “No, I guess not.”

  He leaned forward on the stool beside me and I got a better look at him. Thin, balding, dark hair and tortoise shell glasses, wearing a dark suit, maybe in his late thirties—about my age—well dressed and… I guess you’d say he looked smooth, like he was used to starting conversations and presenting himself to other people.

  “That’s okay,” he said. “Nobody comes here to get out of the house. So what do you do?”

  “I’m an assistant vice president at a brokerage firm.”

  “Really? Would I know the name?” I told him the name and he cocked a brow. “Not bad. Well… you’re a pretty good looking guy. With all that going for you, you shouldn’t have a hard time finding what you’re looking for. Except… “

  I watched him a moment, waiting, then asked, “Except what?”

  “Well, I’d lose the wedding ring if I were you. It’s not exactly what they look for, you know.”

  I covered my left hand with my right. “They?”

  “Come on. Get real.”

  “Yeah. Okay. You’re right, I know.” I made a move to take the ring off, but he interrupted me.

  “What are you looking for, anyway?”

  I sipped my drink.

  “I mean, if you’ve got a lady at home, what’re you looking for?”

  I fidgeted, shrugged, sipped again. “I don’t know. Something different, I guess.”

  “Different? How different?”

  “Oh, you know… something interesting… exciting.” As I finished my drink the guy gestured for the bartender to get us each another.

  “Something kinky?” he asked with a smirk.

  “Well… I wouldn’t exactly say—”

  “Oh, c’mon, don’t deny it. What guy doesn’t want something a little kinky now and then. You know… getting tied to the bed… having two women at once… even seeing your old lady in some raunchy lingerie is nice once in a while, right?” he laughed. “Always loved lingerie, myself. When I was a kid, those department store catalogs—you know, Sears? Penneys?—those were the closest I got to girlie magazines. Remember the lingerie sections? See, my dad didn’t get Playboy or Penthouse like some of my friends’ dads, so those women in their bras and slips and girdles and nightgowns… they were the closest I came to Playmates and Pets. Maybe that’s why I get such a charge out of lingerie now. You think? Oh. By the way.” He reached out to shake my hand and said, “Larry Ruskin.”

  “Arnold Kramer. Nice to meet you. And thanks for the drink.” The bartender had brought another, seven and seven and set it before me.

  “Oh, sure, no problem. But, look, I’m not helping you any, monopolizing you like this. I should move on. Nice talking to you, though.”

  He made moves to leave and I quickly looked around at all the women—all the luscious, smooth skinned women, breasts bouncing beneath silk blouses, firm hips working beneath their skirts as they walked, their eyes and smiles wet and glistening with sexual promise—and something inside me withered. I’d been married too long. I didn’t know how to approach them, what to say to them, how to act around them. I couldn’t believe I’d even considered it in the first place. But now my only other option was to go back home to Peggy. She would be waiting for me—smiling, soft, warm and… so familiar—and we would watch some television, maybe a movie or two on the VCR, then read for a while and go to sleep. I hurt with guilt to think it, but I didn’t want to do that, either.

  Grabbing Larry Ruskin’s arm as he slid off his stool, I said, “No, really, why don’t you just stick around a while. You’re not keeping me from anything, believe me.”

  “You sure?”

  “Positive.” I looked around again, watching the women, then turned to him and smiled. “I’m just not up to it.”

  “Never know. You might get lucky.”

  “How? Do you have an instruction manual? A map? Maybe one of those self-help videos that tells you how to pick up women?”

  He laughed, tapped the bar with his palm. “Yeah, I think I know what you mean. How long you been married?”

  My smile fell away. “Um, almost fifteen years.”

  “Ah, yeah. I suppose y
ou’ve never, uh… you know, done anything like this before?”

  “No. I haven’t.”

  “Well, that’s a long time to be out of circulation. It’s hard enough when you’re starting out the first time, let alone trying to do it again, am I right?”

  I nodded.

  “But, hey, like I said, you’re not doing too bad for yourself. You’re a good looking guy and—I mean, hey, lookit these other guys, huh? You see them? Lookit that guy over there, huh? I mean, he looks like, what, like one of those mannequins in a department store, right? And how about him, this guy over here? He’s trying really hard to look like he’s in a beer commercial, am I right? And you, hell, you’ve got this terrific job, you’re making lotsa money, right? So what’ve they got that you don’t?”

  “Yeah, but it’s not just that. It’s, um… “ I laughed, waved my hand. “Jeez, I don’t even know why I’m here.”

  “Because you want something different. Something kinky. And we kind of interrupted ourselves when we were talking about that, right? So just what is it you want?”

  He looked at me with genuine interest. I don’t normally tell these things to anyone, especially strangers, but I’d had a few drinks and he was looking at me with that smirk and that cocked brow that suggested camaradarie and… well, I needed to talk to somebody.

  I sipped my drink. “You know, my wife’s father… he’s my boss. He owns the brokerage firm I work for. Filthy rich. He’s got money shooting out of every orifice in his body. He didn’t approve when Peggy started seeing me. See, I didn’t have much of anything then, I was just trying to keep my head above water when we fell in love.”

  “Sounds like an old story.”

  “Oh, yeah. It is. Like everything else about my marriage, I think.” Another sip. “See, I’m… I’m looking for some variety,” I said uncertainly. “I don’t want to be on top all the time.”

  “Oh, I know what you mean,” he said, shaking his head.

  I gulped my drink and Larry waved for another one. “I’d like a blow job sometimes. Not that I won’t reciprocate, you know? There’s nothing I love more than going down on her.”

  “Yeah, I hear ya. There’s nothing sweeter.”

  “She doesn’t care about that, though. Sometimes—most of the time, in fact—I don’t think she even enjoys it. But I’d like her to go down on me once in a while. Without being asked. In fact, I don’t always have to actually have sex. I mean, intercourse. You know, I’d like to just, now and then, suck each other off, or something, or maybe just do it with our hands, then cuddle up. Different stuff, you know… a little playing around. And not always in bed just before we go to sleep at night. Maybe another room of the apartment in the middle of the afternoon. Is there something so wrong with that?”

  “Hey… not according to Phil Donahue.”

  “That’s what I mean. I watch all those shows—those, you know, those damned talk shows—I’ve read the books and the articles. I keep hearing all these women say their men never want to make love. I keep hearing them say they want their men to be more affectionate, more sensual, more daring and imaginative. But when I try that… what happens? She says, ‘That’s not us, we don’t do that kind of thing.’ Or my favorite: I’m not that kind of woman and you knew that when you married me.’“ I was getting carried away and took a couple fast gulps of my drink, then turned to him and spoke rapidly. “But you know what’s funny? I didn’t know she wasn’t that kind of woman when I married her. And you know why? Because when we met? While we were going through the whole courting thing? And even later! She told me all these stories about this guy she used to see. She showed me pictures of them together at parties and stuff. She even told me about his dick, for Christ’s sake—It was huge,’ she said, ‘he was huge’—like it was a piece of information that was going to make my life a better place, or something. Now, I’ve heard all the talk… you know, women saying that size really doesn’t matter. But they only say that on talk shows and in magazine articles. I think when it really comes down to it, size does make a difference. To women, I mean. I think it really is important to them. I think that, when they’re sitting around talking, with no men in the room, they say things like, ‘Well, his cock isn’t as big as my last boyfriend’s… but of course, I don’t tell him that. I tell him that it really doesn’t make any difference, but… well, it sure as hell doesn’t feel as good.’“

  I paused to sigh and take a drink, then went on. “It was nothing serious, Peggy and this guy. They weren’t in love, or anything. But they’d get together and they’d do all this… stuff She’d wear all this sexy lingerie, you know? She’d tie him to the bed and run feather boas over his naked body, for God’s sake! You name it, and they did it. And she told me all about it in vivid detail. In fact, that was one of the things I found so exciting about her; I figured she was open- minded, she was adventurous, she was imaginative and… sexual. But will she do any of that with me? Hell no! I’m lucky if we do it in the missionary position once every few months! She’s still got lingerie tucked away in her dresser drawers that she’s had since before we even met—stuff she probably wore for him—but will she wear it for me? Hell no! Will she wear any of the stuff I’ve bought her over the years? Hell no! In fact, she’s never—and I mean never in almost fifteen years—looked at me the way she looked at him in those pictures… with wide, bright eyes… interested, excited, - happy… like she couldn’t wait to get him home and get his clothes off. But you know what she tells me? She says she didn’t like all that stuff she did with that guy back then. She says there was too much pressure, that she felt like she was expected to perform a certain way with him, to be something she wasn’t. But it sure as hell didn’t sound like that when she was talking about him so much!” I shook my head and took a drink. “Sometimes I want to say to Peggy, ‘Okay, don’t like it, then, just do it, I don’t care!’ But I… I can’t… you know, I just can’t do that.” I stopped, took a breath, wiped my hand over my mouth and finished my drink. Larry waved for the bartender to bring another.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “maybe she’s been unhappy, too. Sexually, I mean. If so, I sure as hell haven’t heard about it. Maybe she’s just told her girlfriends. Maybe they sit around talking about—” I chuckled coldly, “—about how small my cock is.” I shrugged. “Anyway, so I’ve tried not to put any pressure on Peggy. I bring it up once in a while, sure, just to let her know that I’d like it if we maybe did that sort of thing now and then, something a little out of the ordinary. Anything, really. But I don’t push her. And still… nothing. I’ve been waiting… all this time… hoping she’ll change her mind and decide that maybe that stuff would be fun with me because I wasn’t pushing her into it, you know? Because I’d like sex to be playful sometimes. I think there should be some laughter in bed along with all the panting and moaning. But still… after all these years… nothing. I’ve thought, a few times, that maybe she’s been seeing someone else and she’s lost interest in me, but… well, I don’t know… maybe I’m being naive, but I just can’t imagine it. It just… it seems she’s incapable of seeing sex as anything more than some incredible effort she has to put out, something a woman has to do now and then to keep her husband from getting too grouchy. Hell, she gets more enthused and passionate about housework— more involved in it—than she does when it comes to making love with me.” My next drink came and I did some damage to it immediately. “And you know how all this makes me feel, Larry?”

  “How?”

  “It makes me feel like if I hear one… more… woman—just one more!—complain about how her husband or boyfriend is insensitive, or how he’s ignorant of her sexual needs or how he’s unwilling to try anything different in bed… about how he doesn’t do what he used to do anymore… it makes me feel like I want to just punch her right in the fucking mouth. Whoever the hell she is.” A couple more big swallows. “Because, unless there’s something really wrong with them, I know how those men get that way. Really. I know why they don’
t do those things anymore. Because they stop trying, that’s all. They just reach a point where it’s too embarrassing, too… demeaning to put themselves through that kind of rejection… that kind of high-school-date-humiliation with their own fucking wives and girlfriends! Th-they just… they… give up.”

  He pursed his lips and nodded slowly. “I know what you mean. Believe me, Arnold, I know what you mean.”

  “So,” I sighed, “I’m here. Like some shmuck, I come here, looking for somebody who’ll… well, you know.”

  “Well, like they say… if you’re getting steaks at home, you don’t have to go out for hamburgers.”

  I chuckled. “I’ve been eating a lot of hamburger helper. Namely my left hand. Or my right. Over the years, I’ve become masturbatorily ambidextrous.”

  “Yeah. I know.” He chuckled, too, finished his drink and ordered another. After a long pause that was buried by the music and the voices all around us, he looked at me and asked, “So just what is it you want, huh? I mean, you want whips and chains? You talking about oral sex? Anal sex? What?”

  I was a little surprised; he sounded more serious than before, even looked more serious. He watched me a while, then shrugged as if to ask, Well? “Um, I… well, look, I, um… what difference does it make?”

  “I’ll tell you. See, I… know somebody.”

  “Somebody? Somebody who?”

  “This woman.”

  “Ah.” It seemed clear to me, suddenly: he was a pimp. “Well, that’s fine, but I really don’t—”

  “It’s not what you’re thinking. I mean, I think I know what you’re thinking, and that’s not it.”

  “Well, what is it, then?” I was a little annoyed all of a sudden.

  “It’s, uh… this woman, see. She’s… open-minded. Imaginative. Daring. In fact, that’s what she wants. All that stuff you been talking about here. And I think, uh… that you two would get along. Really well.”

  “I see. But that’s not exactly what I had in mind. I was hoping to just meet somebody, you know? I didn’t want to do business with anybody.”