Luke Rheinhart - The Diceman

'

`Unn,' I said loudly and stamped one giant foot.

`Oh me too. I don't like animal experimenters myself. I've been doing social work in Staten Island now for two years

and there's so much to be done with people.'

She looked now over at the couch where Dr. Felloni, the elderly lady and the thin old big deal were talking: Miss

Welish seemed to be relaxing in my company.

`Even here, in this very room, there are people whose lives are unfulfilled, people who need help.'

I was silent, but a bit of drool escaped from my lower lip and begun its pilgrimage down my shirt front.

`Unless we can learn to relate to each other,' Miss Welish went on, `to be aware of each other, all the chicken cures in

the world won't help.'

I was staring at Arlene's balloons undulating in the light of the chandelier. A small orgasm of saliva spilled again from my lower lip. `What fascinates me about you psychiatrists is the way you hold yourselves in, remain detached. Don't you ever feel

the suffering you have to deal with?'

Miss Welish turned toward me again and grimaced at the sight of my tie and shirt front.

I began groping clumsily in my pocket for my watchcase with the die.

`Don't you feel the suffering?' Miss Welish repeated.

Pulling out the watchcase I let my head twitch three times sideways and grunted a single, 'Un.'

`Oh God, you men are so hard.'

I slowly raised my lower jaw; it ached from its drooped position. Running my tongue over my dry upper lip, I used

my handkerchief to wipe the saliva from my chest and turned my ryes full on Miss Welish.

`What time is it?' she asked.

`Time for us to stop playing word games and get down to business,' I said.

`I think so too. I can't stand cocktail-party chatter,' she looked pleased that we were at last going to be above it all.

`What's underneath that lovely dress?'

`You like it? Fred bought it for me at Ohrbach's. Don't you like the way it - glimmers?'

She gave the upper part of her body a little shake: her dress shimmered and her chubby arms vibrated.

`You're built, baby - Look, what's your first name?'

'Joya. It's corny, but I like it.'

`Joya. It's a beautiful name. You're beautiful. Your skin is incredibly smooth and creamy. I'd love to run my tongue

over it.'

I reached my hand up and caressed her cheek and then the back of her neck. She reddened again.

`I was born with it, I guess. My mother has a lovely complexion and Dad too. In fact, Dad-'

`Are your thighs and your belly and your breasts that same creamy white color?'

`Well. .. I guess they are. Except when I get a tan.'

`I'd love to be able to run my hands over your whole body.'

`It's nice. When I put suntan lotion on, it feels so smooth.'

I lowered my lids a little and tried to look sexy.

'You've stopped drooling,' she said.

'Look, Joya, this cocktail-party chatter is giving me a headache, Can't we go someplace for a few minutes where we

can be alone?'

I edged her away toward a hallway, which I knew led to Dr. Mann's office.

`Oh talk talk talk. It gets so sickening after a while.'

`Let me show you Dr. Mann's office. He has some fascinating illustrated books on primitive sexual practices.'

'No pictures of chickens?' and she laughed happily at herself, and I laughed too. Dr. Felloni nodded her head at us as

we passed the couch, and Jake squinted over an Important Person's shoulder as we passed behind the Krum group and

Arlene jiggled her breasts slightly and smiled and we were down the hall and into Dr. Mann's office. I heard a shrill

squeak when we entered and saw then that Dr. Boggles and Miss Reingold were seated on the floor with a pair of

green dice between them, and Boggles, with two-thirds of his clothes removed, was just reaching triumphantly to

remove Miss Reingold's (smiling triumphantly) blouse.

As we backed out, Miss Welish said: `Oh that's disgusting. In Dr. Mann's study! That's disgusting.'

`You're right, Joya, let's go to the bathroom.'

`The bathroom?'

'It's down this way.'

`What are you talking about?'

`A place to talk privately.'

`Oh.'

She had stopped in the middle of the hall now and her hands were both clenching her drink.

`No,' she said. `I want to get back to the party.'

`Joya, all I want to do is use your beautiful body. It won't take long.'

`What will we talk about?'

'What? We'll talk about Harry Stack Sullivan's theory of post-operative malaise. Come on.'

As she still remained immobile I realized I was being entirely too middle-class for the uninhibited sex maniac the Die certainly had in mind and, when Miss' Welish began talking of going back to the living room again, I strode forward, knocked her drink to the floor and tried to kiss her powerfully on the mouth.

The explosion of pain in my balls was so intense that for a moment I thought I had been shot. I was blinded with pain and staggered back against the wall with a thud. With the fierce willpower of a saint I forced my eyes open and saw the shimmering silvery back of Miss Welish returning toward the living room - Thank God! - leaving me alone - with my disaster.

I assumed I wouldn't be able to move from my folded-up position for a month and wondered vaguely if Mr. Thornton would dust me regularly. The question also came to my mind how an `uninhibited sex maniac' would react to a major kick in the balls. The answer seemed unequivocal: maniac, gentle Jesus, psychotic hippie, mute moron, Jake Ecstein, Hugh Hefner, Lao-Tzu, Norman Vincent Peale, Billy Graham all would react as I, simple, bespectacled Luke Rhinehart, was acting. Although both my hands were at the scene of the accident, they weren't touching anything; they seemed to be there to do something if anything could ever be done - say next month. Yet, I couldn't force my hands back to a different position. Dr. Krum and Arlene Ecstein were coming down the hall. I tried to straighten up and almost screamed. They stared down at the broken fragments of glass and then stopped in front of me.

`Nasty stomach-ache,' I said. `Severe abdominal cramps. May need an anesthetic.'

`Veil, vell. Tummy-ache, you say?'

`Lower tummy, abdomen, help.' I was whispering.

`Luke, what game are you playing now?' Arlene said and looked down at me (I was folded down a full foot and a half from my normal height) with a bemused smile.

`You're - you're terrific, baby,' I gasped. `Take off - that dress.'

I collapsed slowly sideways to the floor, the pain in my elbow being an almost blissful distraction from the other.

I heard Fred Boyd's voice from farther up the hall asking, `What happened?' and then heard him almost directly over me, laughing.

`I think he's been shot,' Dr. Krum said. `Is serious.'

`Oh, he'll survive,' Fred said, and I felt his hands on one of my arms and then Arlene's on the other, and Fred lifted one arm around his shoulder and dragged me into a bedroom. They threw me on to the bed.

The pain was, in fact, subsiding, and after the three had left, I was able to move a bit, my eyes mostly, but it was progress. Then I remembered it was time for a fresh consultation of the Die and, shuddering at the possibility of a second round of uninhibited sex maniac, I painfully drew the fake watch case out of my pocket and looked: a three: the honest dice man.

I lay back on the bed for a while and stared at the ceiling. I heard voices passing by out in the hall and then only the blurred distant buzz from the living room. The door opened and Lil came in.

`What happened?' she asked sharply. She was immaculately beautiful in her black, low-cut cocktail dress, but her eyes

and mouth were set and cold. I looked up at her and felt a hollowness inside me: what a time and place for this.