Anyone You Want Me to Be by John Douglas Read Free Book Online Page A

apparently driven him toward those who shared his desires. The ICM cult had been born in London in 1921, when half a dozen professional men initiated a club to satisfy their deepest sexual longings, which ran in the direction of the Marquis de Sade’s. The men had a common bond: they all wanted to be the dominant partner, or “master,” of submissive women, known as slaves. One got into the club only after the founding members had determined that the initiate shared their tastes and could keep quiet about the cult. The ICM developed a communal dungeon, and each member contributed his own ideas and equipment for the purposes of sexual torture or rape. The masters wore purple, hooded robes and the slaves white robes with metal handcuffs joined to chains. The masters untied the slaves’ robes in front of a group and made the women stand naked before everyone. The slaves were “trained” to do whatever was demanded of them, and the women were traded back and forth among the men. The men joined the cult of their own volition, but that wasn’t necessarily true of all the women.
    The ICM’s first-ever meeting was held in a London basement warehouse on Friday, May 13, 1921. The cult eventually spread across Europe and opened dungeons in America. It was constantly looking for new recruits, and when Robinson learned of the group, he apparently decided to become a member. His superiors graded him on his ability to bring in new slaves, and over time he was so successful at this that he reputedly rose to the top of the local branch. His name inside the organization was Slavemaster. The young women he introduced to the other members wore leashes around their necks and other paraphernalia, and they did exactly as they were told—or faced the consequences. Anyone trying to escape the ICM was subject to violence. No one knows how many of the young women Robinson met in the eighties may have ended up as slaves in this group.
    While exploring new sexual territory, he was building income from his various businesses. He constantly needed cash to keep up with all the expenses of his Pleasant Valley Farms home and his family of six. It took a lot of money to maintain appearances in the suburban community and to stay active in the town, the school, and the local church. It took a lot of money—and energy—to live one life in the town of Stanley and another down on Troost Avenue in Kansas City or as a member of the ICM. It took a lot of juggling of identities and multitasking and what, in psychological terms, was sometimes known as compartmentalization.
    Robinson had an extraordinary ability to break up his personality and behavior into different pieces and to place them into radically different boxes; then he would pull out from one box or another whatever was needed for a particular occasion. He could be anyone he or someone else wanted him to be. If the role was refereeing a soccer game, he was convincing at that. If it was finding new slaves for the cult, he seemed to be successful at that too. According to some people, he was, despite all this philandering and criminal activities, a good father, just as he would one day be perceived as a good grandfather. He was able to separate the various aspects of his life and never let them touch each other—or let one undermine the other. It was as if he were not just one man, but half a dozen or more. He wasn’t living just one life, but six or seven. And everything he did gave him new experiences and ideas for things he wanted to try in the future.
    In the mideighties, he took his wife and children on an extended vacation to Europe. They visited several countries, and when he returned home, Robinson spoke enthusiastically about how much he’d enjoyed his trip abroad and all the sights they’d seen. While overseas, he was generating novel plans for using travel in a new financial scam, but it would take him another decade or so to perfect it. In the meantime, he’d found other unimaginable