The Mechanics of Perversion
by Nicholas Tillemans

    Over the past several years, my life has changed completely. I keep up with most of my routines. I brush my teeth. I shower. I go to work every morning. I even still go antiquing most weekends. As always, I continue to find curiosities irresistible. Things of peculiar value still seem to add significance to my life. I know it sounds contrived; but, in fact, I’ve redefined myself each time I’ve purchased something new. The fact that I own multitudes of bizarre, obsolete artifacts makes me a cultured, sophisticated person. I like to think that those objects can make me a “better” person. They’ve only changed me. I am a changed man. It’s laughable, I know. I’m probably mad. So, you won’t believe me when I tell you that one of my many curious artifacts has possessed me. It’s in no way demonstrable; but I know that I have no control over myself any longer. Mostly, I watch myself react to impulses. My mind is hardly even my own. The fine line between reality and imagination has vanished. I see, in my mind’s eye, a labyrinth of tunnels I am traversing…but I have no idea where I’m going. I would like to return to the place from whence I came. The force of my fading memories tells me that there was a starting point. Yet, despite my efforts to stop in my tracks and take a good look backwards, I continue behaving as if nothing’s changed. I believe that I dream. But, then, I am possibly always awake. I’m not sure. I used to be able to tell the difference. Sometimes, I pray that I will come back to my senses. Sometimes, I seem to wake up; and I regret having opened my eyes. While my life has become unbearable, it seems that, now, I find my only solace in those things that have come at a price.

    It all started when I purchased a peculiar phallic-shaped object made of thick, black rubber. It wasn’t a dildo. It was a piece of some larger object, like a black rubber mannequin…or “robot”, I mused. It clearly was meant to attach to something. Strangely, simply handling the object gave me pleasure. It was delightful to touch it. I wouldn’t have let it slip through my fingers for the world. Perhaps, I thought, I would find the rest of it. Gretta, my girlfriend, seemed to appreciate the purchase. It was amusing. We mused over how ridiculous it was that the object was somehow an antique. What was it doing here? We knew that it would make a great conversation piece. For that alone, it seemed well worth the purchase price. I’d never seen anything quite like it. I asked the lady at the counter about the history of the object. She seemed embarrassed. In any case, she knew nothing of its history. Nor, for that matter, did anyone else in the store know anything about it. It came to the store in a large box of items from the estate of the store’s
original curator. One of their consultants recommended the price. But there wasn’t even a description on the tag. I wasn’t going to pry too much. The sales clerk made me uncomfortable. She was so terribly awkward as she wrapped it in newspaper. She couldn’t believe that they could even carry the item.

    Over the next several weeks, Gretta and I showed off our newest acquisition to our friends. No one was able to make sense of it. I would present the object. But, then, I would not allow anyone else to handle it. I’m not sure why. I suppose that I needed to uncover the origins of the object before I could be comfortable passing it around. There was a
bright yellow label at the base of it; but most of the label had been worn away. I couldn’t make out anymore than an ‘S’ and a ‘C’.

    The object invaded my thoughts with regularity. It was in my dreams that the maladies took shape. Mainly, my dreams revolved around handling the black rubber penis. This was bound to happen. Whenever I handled the object, I felt like I was going to come. In fact, it wasn’t long before I would come every time I handled the object for any length of time.

    At first, it was a fine novelty. It gave me immense pleasure merely to possess it. But there were problems as time went on. Gradually, I became less capable of manifesting physical arousal in my flesh. At first, I became incapable of ejaculating. As time went on, it also became more and more difficult for me to produce and maintain an erection. My sex life with Gretta suffered. I started shrinking away from intimate occasions. I would come up with excuses for us to delay and ultimately forget about sex altogether.

    There was something that I wasn’t telling Gretta. My penis was shriveling…becoming a wrinkled nub of flesh. It remained as thick; but it shrunk in length. I couldn’t produce an erection. I couldn’t come. My penis was withering away. My testes ballooned in size. I couldn’t come no matter what I did. My scrotum swelled and turned purple. I had to take a razor blade to my scrotum and testes to eliminate the swelling. My scrotum drained a mixture of blood and ejaculate. I thought about going to a doctor; but I hate doctors. I felt better after I cut myself. I knew that they wouldn’t have been able to diagnose me at the clinic. I knew instinctively that it had something to do with the object I found.

    Despite my dysfunctions, I continued to feel like I was coming whenever I handled the object. So, I handled it often. I could always feel pleasure. And, so, I was able to cope with some very unsettling changes. It didn’t surprise me. Pleasure is the only thing that ever really matters. So, always with a healthy dose of optimism, I took pains to make the proper adjustments.

    I adjusted very well. I regularly bled my scrotum and testes. After a while, I hardly even noticed how painful it was. It didn’t bother me. Since I adjusted so well, I was surprised at the terror I felt when I realized that my penis was gone. I had a sinking feeling. I’m sure that the feeling was due to my biological programming. I’ve made new associations. I made substantial progress, I think. It wasn’t enough.

    I know that Gretta was cheating on me. As the weeks and months rolled on, she didn’t seem to care whether we had any sex life whatsoever. She went off the pill. We had condoms for show. We never used them. I think that she wanted to be sure that I wouldn’t catch anything from her, if we ever did manage to have sex. I know she’s with someone else. She had it planned out.

    When Gretta left me, I knew that I had to approach my life differently. I kept looking for the mannequin or “robot” to which this odd artifact belonged. I spared no expense in trying to locate it. But, then, no one seemed to know anything about any such object.

    Shortly after Gretta left me, I had a strange dream. I found the black rubber figure to which the phallus had once belonged. It was in the basement of the store where I’d made my purchase. The basement was poorly lit and damp. There were small pieces of asbestos insulation mixed in with the dirt of the floor. I was overcome by the utter silence
in the space. There were no windows. I felt tremendous anxiety over the thought that the lights might go out at any time. I could see the headless, black figure leaning into the wall some sixty or seventy feet ahead, at the end of a narrow space dug out under one of the wings of  the building. I was drawn to it. I ducked under beams supporting the
floor above as I walked slowly toward the figure. My eyes were transfixed on the object. For a moment, I looked down at my feet. In my peripheral vision, the figure appeared to move. I stopped in place. I was paralyzed. I could feel my heart beating in my chest. I could hear it pounding in my head. I couldn’t breath. The lights went out. I woke up.

    For a while, I remained in bed…drifting in and out of sleep. I tossed and turned as my mind went to work on crude concepts. I gradually became aware of the fact that I was trying to solve an ill-conceived puzzle to which there was no solution. I slowly got up and shuffled to the bathroom. I flipped on the light switch. One of the two remaining bulbs went out when I flipped the switch. I quickly closed the door behind myself; but the horror of my dream was creeping in through the cracks under the bathroom door. I had to consciously reassure myself that everything was fine. My bathroom is a well-defined, safe place. It’s very small. It is easily enough charted out in a single gander. I splashed some water over my face. As soon as I shut off the faucet, I could hear a loud, steady pounding coming from several rooms away. There was a part of me that wanted to understand the origins of the noise. But I stood in place, listening attentively. Something told me that the noise would stop on its own, without my involvement. It did. When it stopped, I was struck by the fact that there was no sound at all, apart from a dull ringing in my ears. I am not accustomed to silence. At this point, I felt comfort in running water in the sink. It produced familiar sounds. As I ran the hot water, I contemplated opening the bathroom door. I imagined that the rest of the world had been severed from this small space. If I opened the door, I would open the door to an immeasurable void. The hot water began producing steam, which covered the mirror and, heavy in the air, darkened the room. I shut off the water.

    The image of the figure at the end of the long, narrow space recurred to me. I imagined opening the bathroom door to the long, narrow space and to the dark figure. The thought of opening the door to anything identifiable comforted me. I examined the crack under the bathroom door and saw a dim light shining in. It was then that I felt my penis. It was fully erect. I’d nearly forgotten the sensation of it pressing out against the inside of my pajama trousers. I was overcome by a sense of purpose. Without any further thought, I unbuttoned my trousers and produced a large, black rubber penis. It was attached to me. I opened the bathroom door. I saw the figure from my dream at the end of a long, concrete corridor. There was a single small light bulb hanging directly above it. I approached the black rubber figure and embraced it. I caressed it. I felt its smooth, human contours. As I probed the object with my fingers, I felt a cold, lubricated anal orifice. I looked around to be sure no one was anywhere in sight. Satisfied that I was alone, I penetrated the figure, pushing black rubber into black rubber…again and again. For a moment, I swore I heard footsteps dragging towards me over the cement. I didn’t care. At least, I didn’t seem to care. I was so aroused that many of my actions seemed involuntary. I experienced several involuntary jerking motions and I shivered once or twice as I came. I was still dreaming. It was in waking, then, that I saw that the black rubber phallus was, in fact, my penis. I approached the display case where I kept the object. I took the object in hand. I crudely forced the attachment.

    Ever since I made the attachment, women seem to be helplessly magnetized to me. They’re unconditionally drawn to me. It doesn’t matter what I do to them. They want me. I could sodomize them or torture them. They still want me. They worship me simply because I expect to be worshipped.

    I’ve learned a lot about the phallus. It has its own internal principles and motivations. It comes on its own accord. Its ejaculate bears none of my seed. So, I continue to bleed my testes. I’ll never have a child that’s my own. But, as I’ve said, it shouldn’t matter to me. I feel intense pleasure. I am irresistible. I experience twice the pleasure I ever had previously.

    Mainly, now, I understand that my mission is to spread the seed of the object. While the better half of me says that there is something morally bankrupt with this plight, I behave as my behavior is prescribed. I can sense that this is wrong. But, for some reason, I don’t care. I should care…I sense that each child will be brought to term.

    As I seduce young girls with the aid of the dark, cylindrical, rubber object, I say to myself how terribly wrong it is. They’re innocent children. They have a world of limitless possibilities ahead of  them. I see the doors closing on them as I come inside them. But my rewards are too clear; and the consequences are too obscure for me to change my behavior. Because of this, I pray that no such moment you experience ever rewards you as I am rewarded.

    I carry my black penis in a satchel at my side. It smells dark and dank. You should know the smell. Your children should know it too. You would know when I am coming; and you would run and hide.

    My body has deteriorated to the extent that I can no longer walk without a cane. I am out of breath most of the time. I can’t get my own sickly wheezing out of my head. I walk very slowly. I cannot lift my feet. You should be able to hear my feet scraping over the sidewalk. But no one hears me coming. No one can see what I see when I look in the
mirror. No one smells my decay. I thought about destroying every mirror in the house. But I can’t do it. There is some perverse reason for this. The object requires me to gaze at myself for hours at a time. It feeds on my disgust.

    I am more than an idea. As such, I will always exist. Out of the corner of your eye, you may catch something undefined. Then, you look at it; and you think you can define it. There is no definition. You think that you’re different from me. But I know you. You will see your life unfold before you just as mine has. Maybe sometimes at night, as you’re falling asleep, you’ll smell something foul. Perhaps, if it’s very quiet, you’ll hear my feet dragging nearer…and you’ll pray that you wake up. But, you’ll see. The waking hours are no sanctuary.

©2003 Nicholas Alan Tillemans. All rights reserved.

Home Page: http://www.home.earthlink.net/~ntillemans