Luke Rheinhart - The Diceman

The sudden appearance of two challengers to the godhead of honesty was unprecedented.

`Let's get back to Mr. Hopper,' said co-leader Scott pleasantly. `Tell us now, Hank, why were you so scared before.'

Mr. Hopper answered promptly: `I was scared because you wasted truth, and both the answers I felt like making seemed to me to be half-lies. I was confused.' `Confusion is only a symptom of repression,' Marya said, smiling. `You know there are unpleasant aspects to your true

feelings which you're ashamed of. But if you'd just share them with us, they'd no longer bug you.'

`Lie about them,' Linda said, stretching her lovely legs into the middle of the room. `Exaggerate. Fantasize. Make up

some junk that you think will entertain us.'

`Why do you want the spotlight?' Marya, smiling and tense, asked Linda.

`I enjoy lying,' Linda answered. `And if I can't talk, I can't lie.'

'Ah come on,' said the magazine editor. `What's so much about lying?'

'What's so much fun about pretending to be honest?' she replied.

'We're not aware that we're pretending, Linda,' Scott said.

`Maybe that's why you're all tense,' Linda countered.

Since Linda was more relaxed at this point than either Marya or Scott, it was one-upmanship parfait, and several

people smiled.

`Lies are a way of covering up,' Marya said.

`Being honest and truthful the way we do here is like cheap striptease, a lot of motion to reveal that there are boobs

and pricks and asses in the world, something we all knew in the first place.'

`Aren't boobs and pricks beautiful, Linda?' asked Marya in her softest and most sincere voice.

`Sometimes yes, sometimes no. Depends on which illusion I feel like supporting.'

`Our genitalia are always beautiful,' Marya said.

`You obviously haven't looked lately,' Linda answered, yawning.

`I doubt you've ever really faced your sexual shame and guilt,' Marya said.

`I have and they bore me,' replied Linda, smothering another yawn.

`Boredom is-'

`Are your breasts and cunt beautiful?'

Linda asked Marya abruptly.

`Yes, and so are yours.'

'Then show us your beautiful genitalia.'

No one was particularly bored now. Marya sat with her back to the fire and a fixed smile on her face, staring vaguely

at Linda. Scott cleared his throat noisily and leaned forward to the rescue.

`This isn't a beauty contest, Linda,' he said. `You're obviously trying -' `Marya has a beautiful cunt. She's not ashamed of it. We're not supposed to be ashamed of it. Let's see it.'

'I don't think this is an appropriate occasion,' Marya said. She wasn't smiling.

`A thing of beauty is a joy forever,' Linda replied. `Don't deny us.'

`I partly feel that my role as leader-'

`Partly!' Linda said, waking up. `Partly? You mean in fact that feelings and truth can be broken into parts?'

Linda began taking off her blouse.

`I don't wish to cause embarrassment to anyone here,' Marya said. `Our purpose is to get at real attitudes, real feelings,

to . . . ah, to explore . . . ah . . ' But no one was paying much attention, since Linda, with serene, concentration, had

now removed her bra and her skirt and her panties and was sitting nude, legs apart, with her back to the wall. When

she finished she had to smother another yawn. The firelight made a decidedly splendid effect on her white skin. For a

while there was silence.

'Are you embarrassed, Linda?' Marya asked quietly, her face again frozen in a smile.

`Linda sat silently with her back to the wall, looking at the rug between her legs. Tears began to form in her eyes. She

suddenly drew up her knees, put her face into her hands and sobbed.

`Oh yes, yes,' she said. `I'm ashamed I'm ashamed!' She was crying.

No one spoke or moved.

`You needn't feel that way,' Marya said, getting on her knees and beginning to crawl toward Linda.

`My body is ugly ugly ugly,' Linda sobbed. `I can't stand it.'

`I don't think it's ugly,' said Mr. Hopper, pushing his peanuts away from him off to the side.

`It's not ugly, Linda,' Marya said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

`It is. It is. I'm a slut.'

`Don't be silly. You can't really feel that.'

`I can't?'

Linda asked, raising her head with a startled expression.

`Your body is beautiful,' Marya added.

`Yeah, I agree,' said Linda, abruptly sitting back and stretching out her legs again. `Good round teats, good firm ass,

juicy cunt. Nothing to complain about. Anyone want a feel?'

Everyone was caught leaning forward sympathetically with his mouth open and eyes bulging and nothing to say.

`If it's beautiful, touch it, Marya,' Linda added.

`I'll volunteer,' Mr. Hopper said.

`Not yet, Hank,' Linda said, smiling affectionately at him. 'Marya's got a thing about beautiful genitalia.'

We all looked at Marya, who hesitated, and, then, with tightlipped determination, put her hands delicately on Linda's

shoulders, then her breasts. Her face relaxed a bit and she slid her bands down to the tummy and across the pubic hair

and onto the thighs.

`You're lovely, Linda,' she said, sitting back on her heels and smiling a relaxed, almost triumphant smile.

`Would you like to suck me off?' Linda asked.

`No … no thank you,' Marya answered, flushing.

`Your love of beauty and all.'

`Is it my turn?' asked Mr. Hopper.

`What are you trying to prove?'

Scott snapped out at Linda. Linda looked over at him and patted Marya on her bare knee.

`Nothing,' she said to Scott. `I just feel like acting the way I'm acting.'

`You admit you're just acting?' he asked.

`Of course,' she answered. Then she sat up and directed her sincere blue eyes at Mr. Hopper. `I'm afraid a part of you

is embarrassed by all this, right Hank?'

`Yes,' he said, and he smiled nervously.

`But part of you is enjoying it.'

He laughed.

`Part of you thinks I'm a nervy bitch.'

He hesitated and then nodded.

`And part of you thinks I'm the most honest one here.'

`You're damn right,' he answered abruptly.

`Which one is the real you?'

He frowned and seemed to be concentrating on self-analysis. `I guess the real me is the one-'

`Oh shit, Hank. You're not being honest.'

`I'm not? I didn't even tell you which one'

`But is one any more real than the next?'

`You sophist whore!' I blurted out.

`What's with you, Big Daddy?' Linda asked.

`You're a sick sophist hypocritical Communist nihilist slut.'

'You're a big handsome brainless nobody.'

`Just because you're pretty, you seduce poor Hopper into liking you. But the real Hopper knows you for what you are a

cheap, neurotic two-bit sophist anti-American divorcee.'

`Now just a minute' Scott interrupted, leaning toward me.

`But I know her type, Scott,' I went on. `Stage struck since she first grew pubic hair, subverting her way into good

men's pants with cheap, five-and-dime-store sophist sex techniques, and ruining the lives of one hundred percent

American men. We all know her: nothing but a diseased anarchist hippie uptight sophist bitch.'

Linda's mouth twisted grotesquely, tears formed again in her eyes and she finally burst into tears, rolling onto her

stomach and flexing her buttock muscles impressively in grief. She sobbed and sobbed.

`Oh I know, I know,' she said finally between gasps. `I am a slut, I am. You've seen the real me. Take my body and do

what you will.'

`Jesus, the dame is nuts,' said the burly tax lawyer.

`Should we comfort her?' asked Mr. Hopper.

`Stop pretending!' snapped Scott. `We know you don't really feel guilty.'

But Linda, still crying, was getting back into her clothes. When dressed again, she curled up in a corner in the fetal