Austin Roberts

Wizard of Oz

The house burns. 

I almost trip over her corpse as one hand stuffs a deflated blow-up doll into my shirt, and the other wipes blood off my chest with a brochure for St. Albany’s School of Excellence. Seven in nine of their graduates end up in ivy league schools. Impressive.

The campus is state of the art. First rate, grade A heroin for helicopter moms. The gym features a full size weight room, two olympic swimming pools, and suspension ropes for aspiring gymnasts. 

“I want Jonny to have the best education,” I tell her, between not staring at her breasts and looking at the pools. “If only Veronica could see this…”

“We can schedule a second tour if you like—” the guide leans in and raises an eyebrow, “for your wife?”

It’s generally not considered polite to talk about car accidents, cancer, or dead spouses with strangers. I drop them all into her DD cups in a single line.

Then her blue plaid blouse is on the floor of janitor closet #4, the math wing. Superior to #7, the science wing. No one left an open container of Clorox bleach on the shelf.

Next is St. Mary the Immaculate’s School for Girls. Cushioned indoor track. Virtual reality computer lab. Red headed tour guide. Tears. Dead wife. Supply closet.

Wilconsin’s School for Excellent Children. Equestrian program. Dead wife. Tack room.

Academy of Arts. Dark Room.

School of Science and Space.

You get the idea.

“Tell me about your son,” she glares through thick glasses. Forehead stretched as taught as her bun. Thirty couples walk the halls waiting their turn. Her day hasn’t even started.

Tears are good, with manly control. Shudders and shoulder trembles draw them closer. A solid, “I promised I wasn’t going to do this today,” is gold. Avoid snot bubbles. Passion turns to disgust with the first pop.

I get through my dead wife routine, composure mostly maintained. A good show.

Her pencil stops tapping.

“That’s very touching,” she says.

Her name is Margret. 

She strives for her students to finish first. I love her for it. It saves my life.

“But, it doesn’t answer my question.” Margret looks at the stack of student files left to interview, “What makes Jimmy special?”

If a dead mom doesn’t make a kid special, what does?

Margret sets her pencil down.

“Look. There are countless couples who want their kid short listed. So, I’m going be blunt. Is that OK?” She waits for me to nod. “Good. Tell me what you or Jimmie can offer to get him on the list?”

***

Sexual anhedonia is caused by medications, physical conditions, and psychosis. It’s the joke without a punchline of a sexual disorder. Unlike erectile disfunction, everything works. The zucchini gets hard. You can mash that potato whenever you want. 

Sex therapy is supposed to help. So is exercise. I spend thirty minutes a day doing Kegel’s to strengthen my pelvic floor. It doesn’t.

Imagine cooking pulled pork. Eight hours of slow cooking bliss. The kitchen fills with the succulent smell of rendered fat and BBQ sauce. The warm tug as you pulled the loin apart with your hands. Five minutes under the broiler crisps the edges to perfection. You plate the meal. Set the table. Sit down. But don’t eat. 

Yes, you’ve satisfied your senses on the process. You’ve gained fulfillment by making perfection. But no matter what you do. No matter how many meals you prepare. You can never take a bite. You live in constant hunger.

That is sexual anhedonia. You get all the sweat and cum, but none of the fun.

Can you imagine the lengths a person would go to achieve an orgasm?

***

I pick up Thai and a tail on my way home. Two lights and three turns after Thai Nana Plaza, I see the blue Malibu. Four cars back and keeping pace.

After a closet rendezvous some people feel guilt. They tell their therapists. They tell their spouses. They tell their friends. Who do you think needs to watch their back? When I was younger, before I knew better, I found myself with slashed tires and broken bones. I’ve learned. Now I watch the rearview. 

It doesn’t take much to loose an amateur. Pros are harder. A few quick turns, run a red light, and the Malibu’s gone. Coincidence, maybe. Stranger on a night drive, probably. Better safe than broken.

***

I get home to Veronica waiting, hair done up, make up on, and mad as hell. Like always, she sits at the dinner table. The thai is as cold as she is, so we eat in silence. It fits us like a glove.

When it’s time for bed, she shows me her back. This is the signal. Three days ago I told her I was horny as all hell, so she’s right on time. Three days, every time, like resurrection clockwork.

Twenty minutes of back rubbing. Fifteen minutes of manual stimulation. Five minutes of cunilingus. She manages to touch me right before penetration. Its clinical. Just enough to make sure I’m hard. After that, she doesn’t touch me again. Doesn’t kiss me. Can’t even look at me. This ends the same for me every time. Nothing.

Alden’s Organic Vanilla Bean Ice Cream is considered the best in the world. An investment banker told me during a school tour. How they process the beans draws out a depth in the flavor that causes people to go mad. They’ll stand in line for hours just for a taste. For vanilla. Vanilla fucking ice cream. Sure as a pallet cleanser. A free cone at someone else’s birthday party. Maybe throw in a sprinkle of road head, a squeeze of bondage, with some butt play on top. I’m mixing metaphors. 

The point is, no one can survive on a diet of vanilla alone.

My first therapist said anhedonia can be cured. It was just a matter of finding the right stimulus. It was possible to walk the yellow brick road of sexual experimentation to the Orgasm of Oz. You just need the willpower to keep trying.

***

The call comes at 4:30 am. Blocked number. I answer anyway.

“You still want Jimmie on the short list?” asks Margret.

I get to her place as the blue of the sky starts taking over from the night. Big house. Stone. Fruit trees on the lawn. And Margret hitting my thighs with a whip, clad in skin tight leather, screaming, “When you finish the dishes you’re going to wash the floor. I want to see my reflection in it!”

***

Working on the belt isn’t as bad as people think. It’s about seeing what’s different. Like that Sesame Street Song, “One of these things is not like the other.” Except instead of fruit it’s prophylactics. 

As each foil wrapped string slides by they are visually inspected for punctures and tears. Any damage to the container and they’re pulled. Marked for destruction. One in every four-hundred receives manual inspection. One condom randomly chosen from the strip is rolled on and off a baseball bat. If the condom fails before the seventh application the whole batch is pulled. Marked for destruction. It’s an insurance thing. Failure testing is not my department. I just inspect and remove.

The belt vibrates as the condoms go by. If you lean into it just right it provides constant stimulation. I’ve been employee of the month for over a year now. I’m dedicated to this job.

One guy in the New York Plant was employee of the month, too. He came at work early every morning. Better than reading the newspaper with his Mrs. He told me about the vibrations. Two years ago he went bare nut to wheel and they found him dead two hours later as clean cut as a bloody Ken doll. Supposedly, a couple in Illinois won the prophylactic lottery, they found a nut and half his shaft.

Insurance says there’s supposed to be a plexiglass barrier on all observation posts. No one listens.

At the end of the day I load all the marked for destruction rejects into my trunk. The foreman helps. He saves overhead not running an incinerator 24/7, and I’m the largest blackmarket distributor of wholesale condoms in 200 miles. Most of the rejects are actual rejects. Some are perfectly fine and pulled to fill customer orders.

My biggest clients are clubs, travel agents, and college vending machines. The vending machines are the real money makers. I sell 1,000 count a week to the resupply technician at 3/4 standard wholesale rates. We both make a bundle.

If you’ve bought a condom from a club for a private dance or “drinks” in the champaign room, you’ve bought from a guy like me. Was it a reject or taken from the line to fulfill an order? Toss a coin. If you get anything but heads there’s a good chance you just won child support.

***

After I finish weeding Margret’s garden and deepening the edging, she pushes me onto her couch. Like her students, she wants her lovers to finish first. She says it’s to deplete sperm count, reducing the chance of pregnancy. I think it’s about the control of keeping me hard after ejaculation.

She disappears under a weighted blanket before taking me into her mouth. It’s four or five inches thick. The blanket. If anyone walked in, they wouldn’t even know she was there.

I enjoy eye contact and the curves of a woman’s back, but the blanket makes it easier. Faking an orgasm while staring into someone’s eyes as they drool smile like they’re doing you a favor is tedious. Facial contortions. Eye rolls. The whole kabob – waisted effort. I finish, but there are no fireworks or tingling limbs. No elation, euphoria, come to Jesus moment of release. Just me. Empty. 

There are times when it is right there. When the building pressure leads to a momentary spasm of promise. Like the sun coming over the horizon, about to warm your face with early morning rays — only to plunge back into darkness again. Unfulfilled.

***

The travel agents don’t like me bringing my wares through the front door. They worry people will ask why they buy hundreds of single serve condoms at a time. They couldn’t just be honest. Lay it all out. How do people think they stay in business with GroupOns, Trip Advisors, and other large tech taking over the travel game? What kinds of “trips” do people think they arrange these days?

I unload the boxes onto stacks of dusty timeshare brochures, and go up front to collect payment. 

Syed has been a customer from the beginning. He arranged my first dungeon experience. I give him a discount.

He gives me a check and tells me to go to Malibu — hot girls, great party scene, real crazy stuff — when the door bell jingles. 

“Hey there, stranger,” a voice says. “Planing a trip for you and little Jonny?”

St Albany’s School of Excellence. Blue plaid blazer. Janitor closet #4, math wing. 

“Bora Bora,” I tell her, not staring at her tits. “I was thinking sunny beaches for Christmas.”

She squeezes my arm to her chest.

“You are such a good dad,” her lips quiver enticingly. “I don’t know if I could be so strong if—”

And she bursts. Pulls me into her cushy embrace. Warm tears running down my neck from her cheeks. I feel it. Actual passion. Desire. Today is the day. I am going to finally reach Oz. Pressure builds. She pulls me tight. I’m about to pull her into the back room. Throw her down on the dusty time share brochures… and her snot bubble pops in my ear.

***

The drive home is tedious. One more day. Two minutes from home and I’m so distracted by failure I almost miss it. A hint of blue five cars back. The tail. 

I drive straight on Sinclair instead of right on Jackson. An immediate left to Kimble, left again to Johnson. Another hint of blue. I speed through a red light at Four Corners Intersection and slam into a driveway between two pickup trucks. Thirty seconds later the blue Malibu slowly prowls by. And there’s DD cups, Mrs. Snot Bubble herself, scanning the road. 

Our meeting at Syed’s wasn’t a coincidence. She got on my trail. But for how long, what has she seen, and why?

A neckless bruiser in a wife beater that matches his truck pounds on my window. “What the hell do you want?” he asks.

I smile. “Do you have time to talk about our Lord and savior?”

***

Veronica is silhouetted in the dinning room window when I get home long after dark. She doesn’t speak when I get in. No dinner on the table. She didn’t touch the breakfast I left her, and there’s no chance she’s going to touch me. Just stares. Cold.

I shower and make us sandwiches for dinner. Peanut butter and jelly. Barely a meal. We eat in silence.

***

The phone call comes at 1:30 pm. Blocked number. Margret.

“Get here now,” she demands through the phone. “And if you want the short list, bring your wife.”

I try to convince her otherwise. I don’t have a wife, or girlfriend, dead or otherwise. Try to tell her the truth when the lies don’t work. She doesn’t listen.

“I followed you home tonight, asshole,” Margret says. “I saw her silhouette in the window. You have an hour.”

She hangs up.

Fucking silhouettes.

I get Veronica in the car and talk the whole way. I explain everything. Every sordid detail. Every casual liaison. I try to explain what makes one closet better than another. Snot bubbles. Sexual anhedonia. I did it all for little Johnny. She doesn’t say a word.

When we arrive she won’t get out of the car, so I carry her up the steps. The light of the opening door falls across our struggle, Margret is all laughs and memories of leather.

“Oh! This will be fun,” Margret giggles, and leads the way inside.

***

The living room is entombed with candles. Soft music plays. An open bottle. Glasses.

“Tonight will be different,” Margret says, sipping her wine. I pour a glass for Veronica, anything to make this easier. 

“No chores. No work. Just sex,” Margret smiles.

“Let her leave,” I plead. “She has nothing to do with this.”

“No,” says Margret, and pushes me onto the couch. “She watches.”

And she disappears under the weighted blanket.

If it weren’t for the sounds of suction and casual gags, it would be easy to pretend we were alone, Veronica and I. Music and candle light. A romantic evening. The things normal couples do. Normal couples who are not us.

As my tension builds, I can’t look at her. I can’t meet her eyes. She won’t look away. This is what she’s always wanted. This is her ticket out. After tonight, she can wait as many days as she wants before showing her back. She can not touch, not kiss, not look at me as much or little as she pleases. She sits triumphant, and I stare out the window just waiting for it to be over.

And the window stares back.

In the darkness of the night, the candle light reflects off the contours of a face. Blue eyes. Angry scowl.

“Ohh. Fuck!” I scream.

“Let me have it,” Margret moans. “Don’t hold any back.”

“Don’t move,” I tell her. Stiffening, holding her head in place. The window breaks.

“This is what you want!” a voice yells, as I don’t stare at her tits. “This is what you chose over me?”

Margret bites down in shock.

“No!” I cry, picturing bloody Ken dolls.

“This could have been me. I loved you.” DD says, wiping tears with her right hand, showing me the gun. “I loved you, and you treat me like this?”

Fuck. This is my moment.

“I’m sorry,” I say, trying to keep Margret still under the blanket. “I don’t even know your name.”

“You,” DD’s head shakes uncontrollably. Tears. Snot bubbles. “How can you say that? We love each other.”

I look at Veronica, “I don’t know her. She was a closet fling. I don’t know why she’s doing this.”

DD barely looks at Veronica. The gun comes up. BANG. Right in the head. The bullet passes cleanly through shattering a bottle of wine and launching candle-wax and flame across the floor. Margret jumps at the sound, I can barely keep her head still.

The motion combined with the smell of burning plastic as Veronica slowly deflates onto a bed of candles pushes me into high gear.

“Welcome to Munchkin Land” blasts through my head.

DD sees the blanket move at my lap.

“That’s what gets you going?” she screams. “A fucking doll? Well it’s too fucking late. There’s only one way to deal with trash like you.”

She points the gun at my head.

A tornado. Falling houses. Fields of poppies. Lions. Scarecrows.

“I’m going to take the only thing you care about,” tears stream down her face as she lowers the gun towards my crotch.

“NO!” I yell. 

She fires.

I explode.

All hail the Wizard of Fucking Oz.