"I Go to Pieces" (short story)

(A word of warning to the demure: the following short story, which was inspired by a segment on the old HBO series Real Sex, is chock full of adult content.)

"I Go to Pieces"

by Joe Nazare

Reaching down below my waist, she tears off my genitals with one firm tug.  Talk about an attention grabber--my mental haze sears off instantly.  There's an unpleasant pop as she unmans me, but no pain.  I sit there suctioned to a leather sofa, watching as she tosses my tool onto the coffee table and then picks up an even larger unit and snaps it into place.

"It's like a Mr. Potato Head for perverts," comments the woman standing by with her arms folded across her ostensible chest.

I ignore her, focusing instead on my manipulator.  She's tall, with long, sinewy limbs extending from her black t-shirt and jogging shorts.  Her blond hair is scrunched back into a ponytail.  A hottie, no doubt: most guys would be ecstatic to have her fondling their bait and tackle.

"Very funny," she replies.  "I thought you promised to be serious about this."  That voice: vaguely familiar.

"I'm sorry," the other one says.  "I just can't believe you spent six thousand dollars for a glorified dildo.  A big Ken doll with a strap-on and a goofy grin."

Hunh?

"Okay, first of all, it's called a snap-on.  And he's more than that."  Once more as she speaks, I'm taunted by recognition.  But while her name isn't quite on the tip of my tongue, her hand soon is.  "Look," she says as she unfurls me, "he's hung at both ends.  I can control the movement with the pneumatic hand-pump."

Her observer, though, only shudders at the attempted demonstration.  "Eww, Caitlin..."

Caitlin.  Yes, the name rings true to me.  Now the question is, who is she?  Or better: what is she to me that she can manhandle me this way?

Caitlin stops pumping and my tongue stops wagging.  "Sorry."  She looks me over and shrugs.  "Maybe he does take a little getting used to."

"You found this thing on cable TV?" her frosted-haired friend asks, heavy on the incredulity.  I'm stunned by her rudeness; she talks about me as if I'm not even sitting here.

"On HBO," Caitlin says.  "A segment about the dolls aired on True Sex.  The second I saw it, I knew I had to have one.  So I tracked down the dollmaker, flew all the way out to Seattle"--now patting my naked shoulder--"and hand-picked this guy."

The news makes no sense to me; I can't recall having ever been to Seattle in my life.  I want to interject my own questions into the conversation but can't seem to find the words.  Even after Caitlin stuffs my reptilian tongue back inside my mouth.

"It just seems so...extreme," the other one keeps going on.  "I mean, what're you going to do if you have company over?  Can't exactly hide him in your nightstand.  Or do you plan on leaving him right there on the couch with his dong hanging out while you serve hors d'oeuvres?"

"C'mon, Peggy.  Now you're just being silly."

Peggy.  Unlike Caitlin, I don't know this one.  Or honestly care much for her.

"I'm being silly?" Peggy shoots back, eyebrows arched.  "I'm not the one playing with Mr. Creepy over here."

Hey, Peggy, you're not exactly a prom queen yourself.

"Can't you at least try to be supportive?  You know why I need this."

Caitlin's hurt tone seems to thaw Peggy out.  "Oh, I'm sorry, honey.  I don't mean to be that way.  You know it's just that I'm worried about you."

"I know," Caitlin concedes, sighing.  "And I don't mean to sound ungrateful.  You've been an immense help to me."

Peggy waves a veiny hand.  "Please, I was happy to listen.  But I'm not sure that this is the best way to go.  You should get out.  Go to a bar, meet some new people."

Caitlin promptly shakes her head, but Peggy presses the point. 
"Listen, it's been eight months now.  You have to accept the fact that Jack's never coming back."  Another name that means nothing to me.

Her blue eyes glistening, Caitlin stands gazing at me.  "I know."

"You have to let yourself get over him," Peggy continues to counsel.  "It wasn't your fault.  That selfish bast--"

"Stop.  You didn't even know him."

"I know what you've told me," Peggy says.  "It was horrible, for him to end a relationship that way.  But best thing now is to just forget about him and move on."

"Please, Peggy.  Don't."  Caitlin's voice finally cracks.  She wipes at the corner of each eye with the heel of her right palm.

"Now don't you start all that.  It's going to be okay."  Peggy steps over to embrace Caitlin.  The scene's turning into an estrogen fest and I'd love to leave the room, but I'm sapped by lethargy.  I have to sit and watch as Peggy talks into Caitlin's shoulder.  "I'm not trying to pressure you, honey."

"I...I just don't think I'm ready for a new man in my life--a real one, at least."

Peggy unhugs Caitlin but keeps a comforting arm draped over her shoulder.  "Well, I guess in the meantime you can make do with this hunk."  I inwardly cringe as Peggy looks me over, her eyes beaming distaste.

Sniffling, Caitlin manages a weak smile.  "And at least I know this one isn't going to pick up and walk out on me."

Caitlin's words seem to settle the subject, erasing my wariness about that Styrofoam-packed crate lying alongside the sofa.  No need to pack up--looks like I'm already home.

#

She takes two long days to make her first move.  Meanwhile I do nothing but stare at the blank gray wall across from me and wonder why I'm here.  There's no communication between Caitlin and me, during those rare moments when she occupies the same room.  Sometimes I can feel her gazing at me (she thinks I don't notice), deliberating.  I sit waiting, patiently priapic.

Then finally, she comes to me.  She dims the light before entering the room, but I can see she's wearing a red silk robe and carrying a small bottle of Astroglide.  Uncapping it, she proceeds to lubricate me, with about as much passion as she would have for buttering a corncob.  When she loosens and discards her robe, I'm awed by how beautiful she is.  Her pert, beige-nippled breasts stare me in the face, and I'm filled with a dull ache.

Perhaps mercifully, Caitlin only gives me a momentary view of her full-frontal glory.  She turns and backs into my lap.  Aligning herself on my amply greased pole, she lets out an approving grunt.  I don't feel the same hormonal thrill welling up from our point of connection, but I'm flooded by something I welcome--an instant sense of purpose in life.  This, yes, my reason in being: to pleasure Caitlin.

Judging from her response, I'm a natural at it.  Palms pressed to her thighs, she slides back and forth and rocks side to side, controlling the rhythm but not her moans.  When she tilts her head back, I can see that her eyes are closed.  I wish I could reach out and stroke her hair.

I remain rock steady throughout the next several minutes of her gyrations.  My surprising self-control frees me to study Caitlin, who now gives every indication of a thunderstorm ready to crack.  With a sudden suck of breath, she begins to convulse around me, her arms now dangling with the same unruliness as my own.  Sorrow for some reason twinges within me, but I'm quickly caught up in thoughts of a job well done.  I relish the spectacle of Caitlin's satisfaction.

Caitlin, though, still hasn't looked back to acknowledge me.  She finally slumps forward and emits a low moan that has nothing to do with pleasure.  As her shoulders begin to heave, I realize it's no longer orgasm that wracks her.

#

After several days and a few more living-room-based bouts of screwing--I won't pretend to call our emotionally distant coupling "lovemaking"--Caitlin invites me into her bed.

She seems to grow more comfortable with me.  Now, after she has gotten off, she pays curious attention to me, tracing her hand over my bodily features (in the bizarro world of our sex life, foreplay follows intercourse).  She also likes to read aloud from my owner's manual, marveling at my mutability and capacity for future experimentation.

Lying there with my hands propped behind my head, I accept the news of my sexual prowess with nonchalance.  It's Caitlin's voice, not her words, that I focus on.  The very sound of it soothes me, sates the hunger I sometimes sense panging within me.

Eventually she begins to address me directly, making casual remarks that I'm not happy to hear.  Because they all seem to be about Him.  "Jack would never do this for me."  "Jack could never do that."  His name starts too many of her sentences.  And while she typically couches her comments as disparagement, she can't fool me.  She still misses him.

With my assortment of appendages, I come longer and last longer than any other man Caitlin's likely ever known, yet I still feel shamefully inadequate.  Maybe I'm just frustrated by my inability to interact, to be a fuller part of her life.  I can only hold her when she wants to be held.  When she leaves the bed each morning, I lie here wallowing in my own pathetic condition.

I try my best to please, but the more I give her, the less willing she seems to give Him up.  I must be no better than Caitlin now, spending too much time dwelling on Jack.  What am I going to do if he ever decides to saunter back into Caitlin's life after all this time?  What could I do?  Probably little more than sit here and point one of my erections at Him, like some idiot swordsman.

I realize it's jealousy that plagues me--undeniable, unadulterated jealousy.  Still, my self-diagnosis delivers no peace of mind.  I can't help but fret that the tensile strain of this strange emotion is going to tear me at the seams.

#

Turns out, Caitlin is the one I need to be worried about.  Because as our time together grows, so does her abusiveness.

I don't understand her, but don't blame her either.  Instead I choose to focus on the mitigating details.  How she bawls like a newborn while piercing my ears and nipples with the stapler.  The quaking of her hand when she dapples my torso with cigarette burns.  The moan of self-disgust when she literally spoons out, and then quickly replaces, my left eye.  Besides, there's no physical pain, which isn't to say that I don't feel anything.

Again, it's Caitlin that I have to worry about.  She's unwell.  I notice how she no longer takes her gym bag when she leaves each workday morning.  When she stumbles back into the bedroom in the evening, all she carries is the reek of smoke on her clothes and liquor on her breath.  Feeling her thrash beside me each night, I know sleep is mostly a lost art to her.  The depth of her anguish blankets me with guilt.  Caitlin has gotten trapped in a personal hell, and I wonder if I am as responsible for this as Jack.

Worst of all, though, is the staring.  She situates me on my side, face to face with her in bed.  She scrutinizes me, as if awaiting some revelation.  Two puffy, blue-black ovals top her face, weather-beaten windows to a haunted soul.  It hurts for me to see it, but my keeper is falling apart before my very eyes.

#

All week, I long for the days when sexual delight--not existential plight--was my sole concern.  What happens to me if something happens to Caitlin?  Since I mark my time by my times with her (I'm prone to idle speculation in the long intervals), what am I left with if she's gone for good?  Possibly an eternity of stasis--a maddening thought.

Maybe we're going to settle into inertia together.  Caitlin persists with the in-bed watching, the waiting.  Time now flows with all the haste of a thick syrup.  In this weird staring contest between us, though, Caitlin is finally the first to flinch.  I can almost sense something cave within her, and her words come surging forth, perhaps buoyed by the force of their prior repression.

"You know, I never told Peggy the full story...the whole truth.  Probably just as well."  She favors me with a confidential scowl as she lifts and gulps the last of her drink.  "Meddling bitch, leeching on my grief.  Sucked it all up just so she could spit back her advice.  At least I can trust you to hold your tongue."  Oh, the listening powers of the captive audience.

I already know where this is headed before she sighs the word. 

"Jack.  I have to tell you about Jack.  It all goes back to him, right?  He was a good man, you know, loving, but just so damned passive."  Obvious regret pinches Caitlin's face as she slowly shakes her head.

She picks up again a moment later: "The longer I knew him the better I understood the truth about him.  Know what he was?  A shiteater.  Always letting someone walk all over him.  His parents.  Pushy telemarketers.  His own employees down at the bookstore.  And likely someday, even his wife."  Caitlin stabs a finger at me.  "That's what I couldn't handle, what I couldn't be responsible for."

Sobs now punctuate her slurred words.  I can feel myself fidgeting, yet not an inch of me moves on the bed.

Caitlin stares up at the ceiling as she continues venting.  "I had to get out.  I knew I couldn't possibly marry him.  But how was I s'posed to know he'd walk out like that in the middle of the night, without even waking me?"

Maybe sensing that I'm not quite following, Caitlin explains: "I just had no idea how to break things off.  The best I came up with was a blatant lie."  She lowers her gaze, her voice.  "About my affair with one of his cashiers."

My unease abruptly devolves into panic.  More than anything in the world I want her to stop talking.  But I'm helpless to hear her confession.

"I swear, I didn't realize what a cruel, stupid thing I was saying.  I only wanted to push him away, not drive him to what he did.  A million times since then I've thought of how things could've worked out different.  If he'd shown any anger at all, I probably would've come clean."  She raises her eyes to meet mine.  "But no.  He just laid there with that dumb, hurt look on his face.  Ate the news like everything else that'd ever been forced on him.  Then rolled over and pretended to sleep.  So I figured I'd just finish the breakup come morning."

Caitlin rolls over on her stomach, hugging her pillow.  "How could he do that to me?" she wants to know.  "How could he get up in the middle of the night and go kill himself?"

That poor bastard.  As my heart goes out to him, I can feel the tremors building within me.

"That selfish bastard never even said goodbye.  Just wrote me out a ticket for a world-class guilt trip."  Caitlin turns and reaches toward the square wooden nightstand.  At first I think she's about to grab my owner's manual from atop it, but then I see her snatching open and digging into the singular drawer underneath.  Instinct screams at me to stop her, but my arms remain frozen.

Just as I feared, she locates and extracts the slip of paper.  She clenches it in her hand, her eyes squeezed shut just as tight.  Her upper body begins to spasm as she capitulates to whatever guilt and grief roils inside her.  From where I lie I can't read what's inked on the paper, but somehow I see the words as clearly as if they're imprinted on the underside of my eyelids:

You've torn me apart.

And the fateful scene barrels into my mind.  The tunneling train.  The tortured screech of its brakes, drowning out the surprised cries of the few late-night witnesses on the subway platform.  The glaring headlight.  And the pain.  Beyond the rupture of flesh and fracture of bone, the rending of the more precious soul-fabric.  Then nothing, a gulf of blackness, indefinite emptiness.  Until the moment I found myself on Caitlin's couch, being modeled for Peggy.

Deja vu explodes into epiphany; these walls I've been gazing at tirelessly assume a frightening familiarity.  I launch into a silent scream, as I grasp at last whose hell this really must be.

#

My spirit beats against this prison-house of synthetic flesh.  I have to get out.  Out of this body.  This apartment.  Caitlin's sad, twisted life, or else together we'll keep spiraling deeper and deeper into torment.

But it's useless.  The gods--whichever ones frowned upon my misguided suicide--seem determined to keep me stranded here.

I hear Caitlin banging around our apartment all morning; her overnight confession has only stirred further agitation.  More than ever, she mystifies me.  What kind of masochism compelled her to keep this place after I was gone?

My thoughts churn with all the desperate fury that my body cannot mimic.  Searching for that secret exit, the way to give up the ghost once and for all.

When my cold-footed fiance stomps into the room, I freeze up, not liking the frazzled look she sports (Caitlin and composure appear to have given up struggling and agreed to go their separate ways).  I like the sight of the sewing shears she carries even less.

Gritting my figurative teeth, I brace myself for whatever disfigurement her addled mind has cooked up this time.  But when she reaches the bed, she only grabs a fistful of linen.  I'm sent sprawling as the sheets are yanked out from under me.  Caitlin pounces on them, stabbing and scissoring the sheets into cottony confetti, and then without pausing, she stalks over to the nightstand, tears open its drawer and sheds my farewell note.

Only then does her frenzy cease.  Panting, she surveys the field of wreckage.  The shears slide from her fingers and thud on the mauve carpet.  Eventually she registers the sight of me keeled over on the bed.  Grabbing me by my implanted hair, she tries to sit me upright against the headboard, but I fall back over.

Growling her annoyance, Caitlin attempt to right me once more.  As I begin to flop again, she seizes me by the throat and slams me back into place.  "Goddammit!  What's wrong with you?" she shrieks. 

"Why didn't you stand up?"

Maybe it's only a slip of the tongue, a momentary confusion of verb tense.  But her accusation is serendipity to me.  I've found my loophole.

Not exactly sure how I'm doing it, I concentrate on saturating this cursed husk with every last ounce of my Jackness.  I stare defiantly at her through my generic prettyboy face, and it seems to work.  She springs onto my lap, whaling at me with the sides of her fists.

I welcome the blows, almost tasting the irony in the back of my rubber-coated throat: my inability to fight back is now my greatest weapon.

This love doll, while resilient, cannot withstand such an extreme of outrage.  Caitlin keeps pounding, and my left shoulder dislocates (such a wonderful word) from the socket.  A genuine fragmentation, not the switching of one of my removable parts.  Already I feel less present in the room.

She looks down at the broken limb, looks back at me.  As she reaches to pick it up, my tongue happens to spill from my pummeled mouth.  It hangs there taunting her, daring another blow.

That vacancy in her eyes, showing a capacity for continued to torment, is chilling.  Yet also heartbreaking.  She's the world's saddest sadist, someone not really wanting to hurt, but utterly incapable of stopping.

My sudden remorse matches her malice.  I'm so sorry, I try in vain to express here at the end.  I'm just looking to save us.  From us.

The blow is mercilessly swift.  Caitlin swings my arm in vicious backhand.  My bludgeoned head slaloms down my shoulder, rolls to the edge of the bed.  Sweet, sweet release.  But the last thing my dying sight focuses on is the owner's manual on the nightstand.  My exaltation disperses just before my spirit does, as I read the portentous words blazoned on the cover:

THE MAN-I-CAN...

GET UNINHIBITED! LET LOOSE AND LOVE HIM HARD!

(Lifetime Guarantee--if he wears out, we'll replace him for free)