Sleep Disorder

'Listen. Don't hang up. I want you to come over—'

'No!'

'Mother and Dallas went to Paris for a month. Please, Clare! Come over. We'll have the whole place to ourselves.'

'I don't want to come over, Roderic. I don't want to ever see you again!'

'Buh-buh-but I love you!'

'I don't love you!'

'You used to, though — I know you did. I'm still the same person now that I was then. Darling, I do anyth —'

'I know, Roderic. You'd do anything for me. But can't you get it through your granite head—'

'At least tell me why you don't want me anymore.'

Clare ground her teeth. You asked for it, Roddie. 'You're fat, Roderic. I can't be seen in public with a fat guy!'

'I'll lose weight,' Roderic matter-of-factly replied.

'And you're pale as a ghost.'

'I'll get a tanning booth.'

'And you don't have any muscles, Roderic. All girls want their boyfriends to have muscles.'

'I'll start working out. I'll join a gym.'

This was impossible! The last resort, Clare concluded. What else could a woman do? She didn't want to be mean, but he left her no choice. Get ready, 'cos here it goes.

'You come too fast, and you've got a little dick!'

If there was any way to decimate a man's persistence, this proclamation was it. But instead of falling into glum silence, or hanging up, Roderic immediately responded, 'I'll go to a sex therapist — oh, oh! — and I'll get one of those penile implants. No problem.'

No problem. Clare felt herself deflating. He was a gadfly that could not be swatted.

'Because, darling,' he went on, 'I would do anything for—'

The phone was snatched out of Clare's hand. Fudd, naked and dripping, brought the handset to his ear. 'Listen to me, ya little creamcake eight-ball. Don't'cha call here no more. Or I'll kick ya in the dick so hard yer balls'll pop out yer ears. I'll come over to that fancy mansion of yours and I'll burn it down and take a piss on the ashes. I'll bury ya up to your neck, son, and shit on yer head, and yer mama too, after I'm done blowin' a nut up her tired ass with my John Henry.' Fudd hung up and addressed Clare: 'You think that fairy creamcake got the message now?'

Clare fell back into bed. My God, I hope so, she thought.

The next day, Fudd's big 'score' came in. They flew at once to Cancun, their first real vacation together. Clare expected to work on her suntan, but she quickly discerned that most of her time would be spent in bed, not on the beach. Fudd's penis was a boom that never lowered, and his scrotum a veritable sperm factory. Clare was either pulsing off in orgasm, or experiencing one generous allotment after the next of Fudd's testicular milkshake. To Clare's bliss, the nightmares stopped, and so did all thoughts of Roderic. It's over, she reflected one night with Fudd's pork sword so far down her throat his testes assumed the position of sunglasses. Roderic's out of my mind and out of my life — forever.

Clare spent the last day alone; Fudd left a day early to make 'another score.' She lounged on the beach all day, and masturbated all night, finding that even a 24-hour span without her macho human sod-pounder was intolerable. She flew back the next day so antsy she could scarcely keep her hand out from under her skirt, and she did, in fact, stroke her parts whilst driving back from the airport's long-term lot. Bags in hand, and her sex anguishing for Fudd's priapic attentions, she dashed into the apartment. 'Fudd! Godzilla! I'm home!' she exclaimed. 'Ready for an oil change?'

But no reply was forthcoming. He must be here, she reckoned. His car's outside. 'Love-muffin's back!' She strode for the bedroom. Bet he's waiting in bed for me. Waiting with that big, hard cock…

But, now, big and hard it was not. Clare stared, then shrieked. Fudd lay sprawled naked on the bed — clearly as dead as dead could be — and his face dark-scarlet and strangely distended. Then a figure emerged from the corner, leather-capped and leather-gloved.

Dallas. The manservant.

'Parachute cord's the best,' he elucidated. 'Piano wire's too proverbial, not to mention too messy. And nylon's unreliable. Last chick that dumped Roderic, I was doing the job on her with nylon and the damn thing snapped on me. It got ugly.'

Clare, locked in stasis, noted exactly what Dallas had done: he'd garroted Fudd, leaving the deadly ligature about her lover's throat such that the face had swollen to a queer balloon. Then one of the manservant's hands displayed the cassette from her answering machine. 'You should listen to your messages,' he advised. 'The old lady's not happy, let me tell you.'

Last chick that dumped Roderic, was all Clare could think now. I was doing the job on her… She screamed as Dallas stepped forward. But it was not a garrote that the manservant so expertly wielded, but a chloroform-soaked towel…

Clare awoke in… Roderic's room, she realized. Her senses skittered like autumn leaves in the street. Her head thumped.

'Oh, missy,' wisped the familiar voice. Roderic's mother, simpering and rouged, sat erect in a fine cane chair opposite her. 'You were supposed to take care of my boy.'

Clare's tongue lolled. 'But we…broke up!'

'Broke up? Hmmph! You dumped him, you silly, selfish horse's ass. My boy is a gift to the likes of you. Other women have treated him similarly, so Dallas here has always been kind enough to give them what they deserve. But you? God knows why, but I simply didn't have the heart. Roderic loves you so much…'

Clare tremored. Dallas glared at her. Then the old lady, stiff in her frumpy dress, went on, 'You should listen to your phone messages, missy.”

“I was on vacation!' Clare blurted.

'Indeed, and making whoopie, no doubt, with that detestable narcotics dealer. Unfortunately Dallas and I were on vacation too. But if you'd listened to your phone messages then you could have prevented all of this.'

'All of what?' Clare rasped.

'Poor Roderic. He's a nice boy but admittedly an eccentric one, and he has some strange ideas about proving his love… Dallas found him…outside.'

Clare's mind swam in muck. She pictured her nightmares: Roderic committing suicide in an array of ways. 'He's dead?' she ventured.

'No,' the old woman firmly stated. 'No, thank God, he's not.'

The scowling manservant, then, plugged the cassette tape into a player and walked off to another room. 'Hi, this is Clare! I'm not home right now so please leave a message — beeeeeep!'

An unearthly pause, then Roderic's voice warbled, 'Clare, my darling, why don't you believe me? So be it! I'll prove it! I'll prove that I would do anything for you… Listen!'

A pause. A sliding snap! Then a brief scream.

'That,' informed the old woman, 'was my son cutting off his pinky with a pair of tin snips.'

Clare gasped.

Roderic continued on the tape, sobbing: 'So be it. Here is my proof. For each day that I'm without you, Clare, I will cut off another part of myself.'

Clare did her math, paling. She'd been away for… Twenty-four days! Dallas reappeared, a blanketed bundle in his sturdy arms. He set the bundle on the bed. Undraped it. Stepped aside.

'Clare! You're back! I knew you'd come back to me!'

Clare's eyes bugged. Then she bent over and vomited.

Roderic's bright face enthused, 'It wasn't easy. Ten fingers, ten toes, and…well…the rest. I pre-applied the tourniquets and used a hacksaw — the legs and the left arm were easy. But it was the right arm that was the trick. Bet'cha can't guess how I did it!'

Clare erped??? up more vomit onto the plush Persian throw rug.