The Dice Man by Luke Rhinehart Read Free Book Online Page B

they
refuse to play our normal games of reality. Your son has been sucked up by the wards; you'll never see him the same
again, for better or worse. Don't talk so blithely about rooms and clothes; your son is gone.'
    His eyes changed from momentary fright into a cold glare, and his arm fell from around his wife.
    `I never had a son,' he said.
    And they left.

Chapter Six
    When I got home, Lillian and Arlene Ecstein were collapsed side by side on the couch in their slacks and both were laughing as if they'd just finished splitting a bottle of gin. Arlene, by the way, always seems permanently eclipsed by the brilliant pinwheeling light of her husband: A little short from my six foot-four point of view, she usually looked prim and prudish with thick horn-rimmed glasses like Jake's and undistinguished black hair tied back in a bun. Although there were unconfirmed rumors that on her otherwise slender body she owned two marvelously full breasts, the baggy sweaters, men's shirts, loose blouses and over sized smocks she always wore resulted in no one's noticing her breasts until they'd known her for several months - by which time they'd forgotten all about her.
    In her own sweet, simpleminded way I think she may once have given me a housewifely come-on, but being married, a dignified professional man, a loyal friend and having already forgotten all about her, I had resisted. (As I recall she spent one whole evening asking me to take pieces of lint off her smock: I spent the evening taking pieces of lint off her smock.) On the other hand, vaguely, late at night, after a hard day at the mental hospital, or when Lil and the children all had the 'flu or diarrhea or measles, I would feel regret at being married, a dignified professional man and a loyal friend. Twice I had daydreamed of somehow engulfing one entire Arlene breast in my mouth. It was clear that were fate ever to give me a reasonable opportunity - e.g. she were to climb naked into bed with me - I would yield; we would have one fine quick fire of first fornication and then settle into some dull routine of copulation on the q.t. But as long as the initiative were left to me I would never do anything about it. The two-thirds married professional man friend would always dominate the bored animal. And, as you, my friend, know, the combination would be miserable.
    Although Lil's laugh was loud, even raucous, Arlene's was like a steady muffled machine-gun; she slumped lower on the couch as she laughed, while Lil stiffened her back and chortled at the ceiling.
    `Well, what have you two been doing lately?' I asked, sliding my briefcase-under the desk and hanging my raincoat neatly in a puddle on the floor just inside the kitchen.
    `We've just been splitting a bottle of gin,' Lil said happily.
    `It was that or dope and we couldn't find any dope,' Arlene added. `Jake doesn't believe in LSD and Lil couldn't find yours.'
    `That's strange. Lil knows I always keep it in the boy's toy cabinet.'
    `I was wondering why Larry went off to school without a fuss this morning,' Lil said, and, having said something amusing, she stopped laughing.
    `Well, what's the occasion? Is one of you getting divorced or having an abortion?'
    I asked, fixing myself a martini from the still two-thirds full bottle of gin. `Don't be silly,' Lil said. `We'd never dream of such high points. Our lives ooze. Not ooze excitement or sex appeal, just ooze.'
    `Like vaginal jelly from a tube,' Arlene added.
    They sat slumped on the couch looking grief-stricken for half a minute and then Lil perked up.
    `We might form a Psychiatrists' Wives Invitational Club, Arlene,' she said. `And not invite Luke and Jake.'
    `I would hope not,' I said and pulled a desk chair around and, straddling it theatrically, drink in hand, faced the females with fatigue.
    `We could be charter members of PWIC,' Lil went on, scowling. `I can't quite figure out what good it will do us.'
    Then she giggled. `Perhaps, though, our PWIC will grow bigger than