Luke Rheinhart - The Diceman

'A little bit, I guess.'

`Hear that, Terry, only a little bit. George must really be depressed. Don't you realize, George, that Terry kissed you

and caressed you without your even asking? She gave herself unrequested and unselfishly for your pleasure and

enlightenment. Now what do you say?'

His face contorted nervously; he looked at me. Finally he said: `Thank you, I guess.'

`You're welcome,' said Terry. `I like to help people.'

'Terry is unusually helpful, wouldn't you say, Ray?'

`Yes, she is.'

`Let's all have a drink. Scotch for you, Mr. Lovelace?'

`Yes, thank you.'

As I plodded off nude to the liquor cabinet, I found myself for the first time wondering about the reliability of our questionnaires. Little Miss T., the inhibited Catholic virgin, had showed all the juiciness and technique of a forty #161;three-year old nymphomaniac. And lover-boy O'Reilly … Well, back to the old data sheets.

After we'd finished our drinks, during which we had several sporadic conversations on (a) the weather (we need snow),

(b) Renaissance history (Rabelais was actually a serious thinker), and (c) religion (it's frequently misunderstood), I said firmly to George: `Your turn now, Lovelace.'

`Oh yes, thank you.'

Terry lay on her back to receive him, and after several youthful giggles, he seemed to enter the promised land. The doorbell rang.

For a moment I wondered if there weren't some electronic device deep in Miss Tracy's womb which triggered the apartment bell. It seemed unlikely, but…

I located a bathrobe this time, told the little ones to carry on without me and marched stoically to the door. There, as I leaned my slightly debauched face around the edge of the door, stood Dr. Felloni. We exchanged stares in total disbelief for five full seconds. Then she blushed so fully that I can only describe it by saying that her head, which was of course nodding vigorously, had a climax. She turned and ran down the hall. The next day her secretary phoned to say that she was attending a conference in Zurich and would be away for two weeks.

Chapter Twenty-nine

My experience with Terry Tracy and the results of the Columbia Copulation Caper in general were a revelation to me. After Dr. Felloni had left the apartment door that night and taken a taxi across the Atlantic to Zurich, I had returned to the bedroom to find Tracy and George moiling in the bed and as oblivious of my presence as they had apparently been of my absence. I stood there watching the sheet which covered George's behind rising and falling in regular rhythm and as the sheet shuddered I had something like a Religious Revelation. Other people also were capable of playing artificially imposed roles - and therefore dice-dictated roles. If Terry had in fact been even somewhat virginal, she was this evening demonstrating a remarkable ability to open herself to new experience. If she were in fact a nymphomaniac, she had earlier demonstrated a shyness and inhibition in marvelous contrast to her natural open-door policy. And George Lovelace seemed to be a good learner too; from clod to copulator in thirty minutes.

As I stood there I began to feel that I had only been playing at the dice man. It had been a jeu d'esprit of which I was proud but nothing more: a maladjusted man's way of epater les bourgeois without the bourgeoisie knowing about it. But had I innocently discovered gunpowder and then used it for firecrackers, when a larger man would have used it for explosives? Or a magnifying glass which I was using to create pleasant images but which might be used to see something new? Shouldn't I try to turn other people into dice men? If Arlene enjoyed housewife-with-a-lech for a day and Terry call-girl-for-a-day, might not each enjoy other roles the dice might fling her way, as I had? Shouldn't I be using dice games as dice therapy for my friends and patients? My dice life had become almost a joke; at that instant it seemed a mission - a quest I might pursue to lift my fellow men to new heights. I had cast the dice as a bitter game I'd played against the world; now I would cast them to build New Selves, Random Men. Boredom would be wiped out with the vaccine of the dice, like polio. I would create a New World, a better world, a Place of Joy and Variety and Spontaneity. I would become the Father of a new Race. Dicepeople.

'Could you please get us a towel?' Terry asked, most of her face and body hidden by the sheet and George's ample bulk. Even this rude interruption did not destroy my elevation. During these glorious minutes I was taking myself totally seriously. I went to the bathroom and got them a towel and after a giggle or two they lay together silently, again oblivious of my presence. As the sheet lay limp and still over their silent forms I tiptoed to the spot where my trousers were deposited on the floor and extricated from the pocket my dice.

`Odd,' I would begin dice therapy, with George and Terry tonight; 'even,' I would not. Confidently I flipped a die onto the foot of the bed: a six. Ummmm. Like the good fairy who his left a dime under the pillow, I picked up my clothes and stole away into the night, the immortal words of Christ echoing in my ears 'Physician, help yourself: thus you help your patients too. Let this be his best help that he may behold with his eyes the man who heals himself.'

I was determined to rip from my body the undistinguished clothes of Dr. Lucius Rhinehart and stand forth before my patients naked and revealed: The Dice Man.

Chapter Thirty

The first adult human being to be introduced into the dicelife by Dr. Rhinehart was Arlene Ecstein, inconspicuous wife of Dr. Jacob Ecstein, noted analyst and writer. Mrs. Ecstein had been complaining for several years of various nervous ailments which she attributed to sexual frustration caused by the sporadic nature of her husband's attentions. Dr. Ecstein, who didn't have time, finally decided in mid January that she would enter analysis so that her problem might be treated in depth. With her husband's encouragement (`Give it to her, Luke, baby') she began analysis with Dr. Rhinehart. The first few sessions had been penetrating and Mrs. Ecstein found herself able to open up more frequently than before. Her husband noted that her nervous symptoms declined or disappeared and that her compulsive sexuality seemed relieved.

It was after a little over six weeks of this treatment (three times a week) that Dr. Rhinehart, following his Religious Revelation during the Rhinehart-Felloni Study of Amorality Tolerance, determined to begin dice therapy. He began with the quiet dignity which so marked this whole stage of his life.

`Don't take off your bra, Arlene, I want to talk to you about something important' `Can't it wait?'

`No.'

He took out two new silver dice, fresh from the factories of Taxco, Mexico, and placed them on his desk. He requested Mrs. Ecstein to seat herself in front of the desk.

`What is it, Lukie?'

'Those are dice.'

`I see.'

`We are going to begin dice therapy.'

'Dice therapy?'

Dr. Rhinehart explained with great clarity the practice and theory of casting dice to determine action. Mrs. Ecstein listened with close attention although she squirmed frequently on her chair. When it was clear that he had finished, she remained silent awhile and then heaved a deep sigh.

`But I still don't see why,' she said. `You say I might let the dice decide whether we fuck this morning or not. I think

that's silly. I want to fuck. You want to fuck. Why bring the dice into it?'

'Because many small parts of you don't want to fuck. A small part of you wants to hit me, or wants to run back to

Jake, or wants to talk to me about psychoanalysis. But these parts of you are never allowed to live. You suppress them because most of you just wants to fuck.' `If they're small parts of me, let them stay small.' Dr. Rhinehart tipped back in his chair and sighed. He took out a pipe