The Dice Man. Luke Rhinehart

perhaps I was pregnant.

      But the medium is the message, and the dice decisions, no matter how pleasant they might sometimes be to Lil or Arlene or others, acted to separate me from people. Sexual dice decisions were particularly effective in destroying natural intimacy (try convincing a woman that one awkward sexual position is all that will satisfy you when she feels otherwise). Such dice commands obviously involved my being able to manipulate (both psychologically and physically) the woman as well as myself. They once perversely chose that ‘I not partake of sexual intercourse for one week with any woman,’ and thus caused considerable internal conflict; a serious matter of conscience and principle: precisely what was denoted by ‘sexual intercourse’?

      By the end of the first week I was desperate to know: did the dice intend to leave me free to participate in everything except penetration? Or except ejaculation? Deep down inside had the dice intended me to steer clear of all sexual activity?

      Whatever the die’s intentions, on the seventh day I found myself on a couch, dressed conservatively in a T-shirt and two socks, beside Arlene Ecstein, dressed fetchingly in a lovely brassiere dangling around her waist, one stocking rolled up to midshin, two bracelets, one earring and one pair of panties modestly covering her left ankle. As part of her iron-clad code she had not been in a bed with me since D-Day, but her iron-clad code had said nothing about cars, floors, chairs or couches, and the various parts of her body were being used against the various parts of mine with unmistakable intentions. Since I had permitted her caresses, indeed abetted them, I realized that I had reached the point when if she said, ‘Come into me,’ and I said, ‘I don’t feel like it,’ she’d laugh me onto the rug. The decibel count of her groans indicated that in thirty-five seconds she would request my physical presence in her playroom.

      To postpone the seemingly unavoidable act I shifted around and placed my head between her legs and began articulate oral communication. Her response was equally articulate and her message was well-received. However, I knew that Arlene found such communication, while pleasant, a relatively poor substitute for orthodox toe-to-toe talk.

      My course of action became clear. My conscience had decided with remarkable facility that the dice had intended only that I abstain from genital intercourse, and although Arlene had once told me that she’d read that semen was fattening and didn’t want to try it, it had become a matter of her code or that of the dice man. In another half-minute the dice man’s honor was intact. I was sexually satisfied and Arlene was looking up at me wide-eyed and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.

      Although I apologized for what I called my ‘incontinence’ (‘Is that what it’s called?’ she asked), Arlene cuddled up affectionately, apparently proud that she had so overexcited me that my passion had overflowed against my will. I redeclared my passionate Platonic love, stuck my fingers in her, kissed her breasts, her mouth … in another few minutes I would have been facing the same dilemma a second time with no escape possible, but remembering, I jumped off the couch and began conscientiously increasing my outer decor.

       Chapter Fifteen

      I was Christ for a day. As a pattern-breaking event, being a loving Jesus certainly qualified, and I was surprised how humble and loving and compassionate I began to feel. The dice had ordered me to ‘Be as Jesus’ and to be constantly filled with a Christian (pronounced ‘Chr-eye-steean’) love for everybody I met. I voluntarily walked the children to school that morning, holding their little hands and feeling paternal, benevolent and loving. Larry’s asking me, ‘What’s wrong, Daddy, why are you coming with us?’ didn’t faze me in the least. Back in my apartment study I re-read the Sermon on the Mount and most of the gospel of Mark, and when I said goodbye to Lil prior to her leaving on a shopping spree, I blessed her and showed her such tenderness that she assumed something was wrong. For a horrible instant I was about to confess my affair with Arlene and beg forgiveness, but instead I decided that that was another man – and another world. When I saw Lil again that evening she confessed that my love had helped her to spend three times more than she usually did.

      I had a rendezvous scheduled with Arlene for late that very afternoon, but I knew then I would urge both her and myself to cease our sinning and pray for forgiveness. I tried to be especially compassionate with Frank Osterflood and Linda Reichman, my morning patients, but it didn’t seem to have much effect. I got a slight stir out of Mr Osterflood when I mentioned that perhaps raping little girls was a sin: he exploded that they deserved everything he did to them. When I read to him the Sermon on the Mount he became more and more agitated until I reached a part about if the right eye offend thee pluck it out and if the hand offend thee … He lunged off the couch across my desk and had me by the throat before I’d even stopped reading. After Jake and Miss Reingold and Jake’s patient for that hour had finally succeeded in parting us, Osterflood and I were both rather embarrassed and admitted very shyly that we had been discussing the Sermon on the Mount.

      Linda Reichman seemed put off when, after she had stripped to the waist, I suggested that we pray together. When she began kissing my ear I talked to her about the necessity of spiritual love. When she got angry, I begged her forgiveness, but when she unzipped my fly I began reading from the Sermon on the Mount again.

      ‘What the hell’s the matter with you today?’ she sneered. ‘You’re even worse than you were last time.’

      ‘I’m trying to show you that there’s a spiritual love far more enriching than the most perfect of physical experiences.’

      ‘You really believe that crap?’ she asked.

      ‘I believe that all men are lost until they become filled with a great warm love for all men, a spiritual love, the love of Jesus.’

      ‘You really believe that crap?’

      ‘Yes.’

      ‘I want my money back.’

      I almost cried that day when I met Jake for lunch. I so wanted to help him, trapped by that relentless overcharged engine of his, zooming through life missing everything, and especially missing the great love that filled me. He was forking down great gobs of beef stew and lima beans and telling me about a patient of his who had committed suicide by mistake. I was searching for some way to break down the seemingly impenetrable wall of his armored self and finding none. As the meal progressed I became sadder and sadder. I felt tears forming in my eyes. I irritably stopped the sentimentality and searched again for some way to his heart.

      ‘Some way to his heart,’ was the very phrase I thought in that day. A certain vocabulary and style go with every personality and every religion; under the influence of being Jesus Christ I found I loved people, and the experience expressed itself in unfamiliar actions and in unfamiliar language.

      ‘Jake,’ I finally said. ‘Do you ever feel great warmth and love toward people?’

      He stopped with fork at mouth and gaped at me for a second.

      ‘What’s that?’ he said.

      ‘Do you ever, have you ever felt a great rush of warmth and love toward some person or toward all humanity?’

      He stared a moment more, then said:

      ‘No. Freud associated such feelings with pantheism and the stage of development of two-year-olds. I’d say the irrational flooding of love was regression.’

      ‘And you’ve never felt it?’

      ‘Nope. Why?’

      ‘But what if such feelings are … wonderful? What if they seem better, more desirable than any other state? Would its being a regressive mode of feeling still make it undesirable?’

      ‘Sure. Who’s the patient? That Cannon kid you were telling me about?’

      ‘What if I were to tell you that I feel such a surge of love and warmth for everyone?’

      This stopped the steam-shovel machine.

      ‘And especially love for you,’ I added.

      Jake blinked