Struggles of Psycho

by Rhyam O'Bryam

  ‘One evening, I sat down with Ivy and Mike and explained my new business plan. We were going to create the same kind of club. Ivy was obviously revolted; Mike was more interested. We used the ground floor level of the castle for our dungeon and I took lots of pictures of the two them, tied up. Spanked by me. That kind of thing. I got Mike to take pictures of me fucking Ivy. You could order strap-ons to Ireland by this time.

  ‘And it worked pretty well. Over the next year we built up to three thousand, three hundred club members, each paying twenty pounds a year, before the business began to decline. The internet was moving on, people wanted videos and live webcams. But I couldn’t supply those. We just didn’t have a good enough infrastructure then. I mean, it took five minutes to post a picture.

  ‘But the point is, Superintendent, that when Mike left us and Ivy would have gone to, I had a quiet word with her. “Ivy”, I said, “you may hate sex with me, although your body says otherwise. And you may hate living with me, although I give you everything you could want. But if you leave me, I will ruin you.

  ‘“Everywhere you go, I’ll give people free access to those pictures. If you start a new job, I’ll make sure everyone in that job gets the link. If you find a boyfriend, he’ll have it. And you know me well. You can bar me from your home. But you can’t stop me watching you and making a note of everyone you meet. You can’t stop anonymous letters from going through the doors of everyone on your street.”

  ‘“Why are you doing this, Amy?” she replied after a long silence. “Haven’t you lost interest in me?”

  ‘“Not at all. If anything, I find you more attractive, both physically and psychologically, than ever before. You have grown into a beautiful woman, Ivy.”

  ‘I paused, trying to make her understand. “You know I can never trust anyone. So I have to settle for coercion in my relationships. And I’ll never find anyone else like you in my life. Someone I know so well that I can predict how she’ll behave. That’s very important to me. It’s you or nothing.”

  ‘“One day, Amy, I’ll go for a swim in the sea and I won’t come back. Then how will you feel?”

  ‘“That’s a good question, Ivy. I honestly don’t know. A little bit triumphant, probably. I mean, there will be a sense of loss, of course. But it would be quite an achievement too, to have driven someone of your ability and gravitas, not to mention good looks, to the point of suicide.”

  ‘“You really are disgusting. Hardly human.”

  ‘“Oh, don’t say that, Ivy. I’m the victim here. I’m the one who saw her mother die as a child.”

  ‘We argued about this for a while. Ivy tried various tactics. She swung wildly from a position of sympathy for me, suggesting I see a psychologist to try to resolve my trust issues, to the opposite. I was a monster who should be in jail. I was cruel and oppressive.

  ‘The fact that Ivy was so inconsistent, and I could tell from her flushed cheeks that she was worked up beyond rational calculation, meant that there was little force to her arguments. I knew that she was just making statements in the hope of finding a way to wriggle away from me. It didn’t matter if those statements were true or not. She tested them all to see if there was any traction.

  ‘Alternately furious, then considerate, back to angry – and, I should say, quite rude at times – then conciliatory, she got nowhere, of course. And I could sense her flagging. It was a bit like fishing and hooking a real fighter. You have to let it run and run for a while, before drawing it in.

  ‘It felt the same with Ivy. I had to let her try to persuade me to change my plan. I couldn’t simply dare her to test me because she might indeed have run back to England. Instead, I replied to her point by point and often demonstrated to Ivy that her points were at cross purpose.

  ‘In the end, she went up to bed. And although the pillow was wet with her tears, she didn’t pull away when I caressed her and slowly aroused her with my fingers. I have to say that this was a great moment of triumph for me. I’d always known that the day would come when I couldn’t use threats against Mike to keep Ivy. I mean, it was possible that the stupid man would get himself killed and then where would I be?

  ‘So the business idea was a sham, right from the start. Of course, I didn’t mind the money, it was useful. Money is always useful. But I’m not greedy and I’m not obsessed by money like so many of my class are.’ Here, Philips cast a contemptuous glance at Healy, which the lawyer missed. In fact, as I studied him, I could tell he was obviously daydreaming and hardly listening at all to his client.

  ‘No, right from the beginning I had it in mind that lewd and shameful sexual images were likely to be a powerful source of control over Ivy. You’ll remember me telling you how effective the same approach was, back in our school days.’

  ‘And you’ll remember me telling you that blackmail is a crime,’ retorted McCarthy, losing her cool slightly.

  ‘Yes. But quite apart from the fact this happened so long ago that you couldn’t prosecute me for it today, I would dispute that this was, in fact, blackmail. I would contend that my actions were just a playful stage in the dark, sexual relationship that I had with Ivy. She was acting the part of the victim, because that way she could get to enjoy the kind of submissive role she really craved in bed.’

  ‘Rubbish,’ McCarthy shook her head.

  ‘When you find her, you can ask her all about this and if there’s still a case to do so, I’ll happily face the music. But I don’t think Ivy will want to press charges. And as she’s an honest woman, once she was on the stand before a jury, my lawyer would ask that crucial question. Did she stay with me at the farm because, deep down, she loved me as her mistress?’

  ‘You still contend that Ivy Patterson is missing?’ I asked.

  Philips looked at me earnestly. ‘I do.’

  ‘And you haven’t murdered her and hidden the body this last month?’

  ‘Absolutely not.’

  ‘So, you would put up no obstacle to our searching your farm with sniffer dogs?’

  ‘Search away, Superintendent, I’ve nothing to hide and you might turn up a lost ring or necklace for me.’

  It was obvious that Philips was taunting me, but still, I didn’t regret having raised the idea that Philips might have murdered Ivy. It was probably what had actually happened after all and it was time to put Philips more onto the back foot.

  ‘So Ivy stayed with you. Missed, terribly, by her mother. But what did you have on her father, George? Why didn’t he confront you and release Ivy? You had a hold on him, too, didn’t you?’

  ‘Quite right, Superintendent, I’m impressed. And your choice of image is very apt. I quite literally had a hold of him. Right back at the beginning I knew it would prove worthwhile to have some control over him. I just wish I could have also shackled Ivy’s mother.’

  ‘What did you do?’ asked McCarthy, ‘to George?’

  ‘Oh, he was as easy as Mike to get under my thumb. The three of us – Mike, Ivy and I – would often go out together. This was around the time that school was coming to an end for me, so I would have been around seventeen or eighteen years old. Sometimes, especially if we’d been drinking, George would come and collect us then drive us home.

  ‘Usually, he’d drop me at my lodgings first, then go home with his children. But this one night, when I only pretended to drink but actually hardly touched a drop, I suggest he drop them first as they had an early start the next morning.

  ‘As we drove through a rainy night towards my place, the windscreen wipers clearing the window with a beat that was of a fast pulse, I made my move.

  ‘“Mr Patterson?’

  ‘“Yes?”

  ‘“I hope you don’t mind, but I’d like to ask you a very personal question. It’s awkward, but I just don’t know who else to turn to.”

  ‘“What is it?” He glanced in my direction and his eyes lingered for just a little too long a time on my chest. I had a button undone which would have made it easier for him to see my bra.
<
br />   ‘My boyfriend has asked me to give him a blowjob and I don’t know how to do it.’

  ‘We nearly crashed as George hit the brakes too hard. Then he recovered himself and the car returned a steady course. “Ah, well. You can look it up.”

  ‘“But where?” This being long before the internet.

  ‘“Ahem. Well. Ask a friend.”

  ‘“None of my girlfriends from school really know. Some pretend they do, but they’ve never done it. Oh, please Mr Patterson, explain it to me. I know it’s awkward. But there’s no one else I can ask.”

  ‘We drove on for a while, silent but for the windscreen wipers and the swishing noise of the car driving on the rain-covered tarmac. George glanced at me from time to time and I gave him my most expectant smile.

  ‘Suddenly, the indicator of the car was signalling a left turn. I felt a surge of triumph. He should have just dropped me home without another word. But instead, we were turning left, into a dark road. We drove on a little more, then pulled in to a layby. The headlights picked out only a rusty metal gate and a black field beyond it. George stopped the engine and all was quiet. Just the drumming of the rain on the roof.

  ‘At this point, I reached into my handbag, near my feet, and pressed record on my little tape recorder. “Why have we stopped?” I asked him.

  I was tempted to look at McCarthy. It made sense of some of the statements made by Mrs Patterson that her husband was under the control of Amy Philips. And it seemed that we were about to learn just how that came to be the case. But Philips was constantly watching us and I didn’t want her to see any look exchanged between McCarthy and myself that might suggest we had more information than Philips herself had given us. I let her continue without moving my posture.

  ‘“Look, Amy,” Philips went on, adopting a slightly deeper voice when she relayed George Patterson’s words, “I’ll answer your question. But you have to promise me that this conversation will remain private. It’s not a subject I should really go into with you. It’s not appropriate. And if you tell anyone, Mike or Ivy especially, it will reflect very badly on me. It might harm my relationship with my children.”

  ‘“I understand. And thanks, Mr Patterson, I know this isn’t easy. That it’s beyond the call of duty. I just don’t have anyone else to turn to.”

  ‘“Call me George.”

  ‘“Thank you, George.”

  ‘“You want to give your boyfriend oral sex?”

  ‘“Yes, I do. I know he’d be thrilled. It would mean a great deal to him. Some girls won’t do it. I don’t mind at all. But it’s just that I’m not sure what to do. I mean, how much do you take in your mouth? What do you do with it when it’s there?”

  ‘“Well.” He leaned back in his seat. In the darkness, it was hard to judge his expression but I could tell he was aroused, simply from the way he said that one word. “How much do you know about sex, Amy? Have you masturbated your boyfriend?”

  ‘“Oh yes, Mr Patterson. I mean, George. I’ve really got the hang of that.”

  ‘“It’s very similar then. You create a motion up and down his penis. Only instead of your fingers, it’s your lips that are creating the pleasurable sensation for him.”

  ‘“Do I suck?”

  ‘“Yes. I suppose you do. As you pull away, of course.”

  ‘“Hard?”

  ‘“I suppose that depends on him.”

  ‘“Here.” I took his hand and he let me. I stretched out his index finger and put my lips around it. Then I slid forward and as I slid back, sucked hard.

  ‘“Ahh. Perhaps not quite as hard as that.”

  ‘Again I slid forwards and back, this time with a more gentle suction.

  ‘“Yes. Like that.” I kept going and he let me. You have to imagine the scene. A dark car, rain drumming on the roof and this married man allowing a teenage girl to suck his finger. He must have been boiling with arousal.

  ‘I stopped. “When he has an orgasm, should I keep my mouth on him?”

  ‘“Well, again, that’s a matter of taste. Most men like it if you swallow. But if it’s your first time, you might find that difficult. Best have a tissue ready to spit it out. Or you can pull away all together. But—”

  ‘“But?”

  ‘“It might not be fair to your boyfriend. If he’s just at the point of orgasm. If you prefer to pull away, at least grip him firmly with your hand and finish him that way.”

  ‘“He likes to splash on my breasts. Or face.”

  ‘“Well, there you are.”

  ‘“It’s all so complicated though. And I’d really like to know something before I try it.”

  ‘“Yes?”

  ‘“Whether I find it unpleasant to swallow his semen or not.”

  ‘“Ahh.”

  ‘Neither of us spoke. But the fact that George Patterson was not restarting the car was eloquence enough.

  ‘“George,” I said at last. “Would you do me a big favour please?”

  ‘“Now, Amy, I know what you are going to ask and I really can’t. I’m married. And I’m a lot older than you.”

  ‘“It will mean a lot to me. And no one will ever know. It will just be a memory for us both. Hopefully, a happy one.”

  ‘“I… Well, perhaps. But you understand, it is just this once.”

  ‘“Of course. I have my boyfriend to consider too. I don’t want anything else from you, Mr… George. But let me practise on you.” With that I reached across for his crotch and easily found his cock: it was large and hard. The whole conversation must have been very uncomfortable for him.

  ‘“Oh,” was all he said, but he allowed me to unzip him (the sound was loud and came out well in the recording) and pull down his shorts. As his cock sprang free and I directed it to my mouth, I made sure to make slurping sounds, so the listener would be in no doubt as to what was happening.

  ‘It also suited my purpose to hear more from George Patterson, so after every two or three sucks I’d ask him, “Is that right?”

  ‘And he’d reply, “Very good, Amy.” Or a bit later, “keep your mouth wide if you can, Amy. No teeth, just the softness of your lips.”

  ‘“Do I lick you?”

  ‘“Sometimes, but not over the very tip, that’s too sensitive.”

  ‘I had to be a bit careful. I’d been sucking cocks for years, ever since school. If I didn’t act the part properly, I’d have made him cum almost at once. So I was clumsy. Got him close then let him fade away for a while. In the end, he was holding my head and stopping me from pulling back.

  ‘I was almost angry at him for that. I mean, if I hadn’t been ensnaring him, if what I was saying had been true, then this was a bit rough on the poor girl who was giving her first ever blowjob. Basically, he lost control and fucked my mouth, gripping my head tight as he came.

  ‘I made sure to make lots of muffled choking and gagging noises.

  ‘“Oh, Amy, well done!”

  ‘I spat his sperm down by his feet. “Mr Patterson! I didn’t like that ending at all. You choked me. I couldn’t pull away.”

  ‘“I’m sorry, Amy. I’m really sorry. I just got carried away. You got me so close but it just needed a bit more.”

  ‘“Take me home.”

  ‘“Yes, of course. And thank you. That was really wonderful. Your boyfriend is very lucky.”

  ‘He carried on talking like that. Paternalistic. Patronising. As if he’d done me a favour. But I said very little. I was planning ahead.

  ‘Before using the tape, I took a few precautions. At this point, I had no idea what George Patterson was like. Or rather, I had a working assumption that he wasn’t much more serious than Mike. But perhaps he had qualities that would only come out under pressure. Like when he heard the tape.

  ‘Assuming the worst, in other words that he was tough, intelligent, violent and resourceful, I made four copies of the tape. One I sent to my solicitor as an addendum to my will, to be played in the event of my death. Two others I hid in my lodgings and th
e last I sent to him. I didn’t even bother with a note.

  ‘The next time I saw George Patterson, as he came in late to their house while Mike and Ivy and I were in the lounge watching a film, he was clearly rattled. His conversation with his children was disjointed. They didn’t notice, but I did. I went to the kitchen and he blushed when he caught my eye.

  ‘“Why did you record us?” he whispered. “What do you want, Amy? Was it a trick? Do you need money?”

  ‘“No. It’s not about money.” I turned on the tap and filled the kettle to cover my words with that noise of splashing water. “But you’ll see. There will be a time when Mike or Ivy comes to you, complaining about me. You just stay out of it. That’s all.”

  ‘“Stay out of it? I don’t understand. What did you make that tape for? What are you going to do with it?” His hands were trembling.

  ‘“Just calm down, George. Everything will be fine and that tape and the various copies, including the one to be played if anything happens to me, are never going to be heard by anyone else, providing you don’t interfere with my life.”

  ‘“But I had no intention of interfering with your life.”

  ‘“Well then, we’re fine.” There was no point explaining to him that I was planning to make Ivy mine and have her live with me in Wexford and that this would involve Mike, her weak link. I was dealing with the likely eventuality that at some point Mike or Ivy would go running to George for help and when they did, they would learn that you can’t even trust your own father.

  ‘In fact, I don’t think they ever did, although I can’t know that for sure. So it might not have been necessary. But I was very pleased with my tape. If only I could have gotten to Ivy’s mother somehow, that would have closed off all her escape routes. But she was tougher than the rest of her family. She was the biggest threat to my relationship with Ivy. At one point, when Mike was out of reach, Ivy fled back to her mother, who got a barring order against me.’