PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller

by Michelle Muckley

  “Quite right,” he offers me. Nothing more. I guess we will be eating venison this evening.

  I saw a documentary once about a man who weighed so much that he could no longer leave his house. He was bed bound essentially, although he was able to move between shower and settee. He was fat like a walrus, disgustingly so without shape or proportion to his form so that you could no longer make out where his body ended or where his limbs began. As he showered he was mandated to pay particular attention to each fold and flap of skin because the obscenity that was his body was under constant threat of fungal infection. Afterwards I vowed to diet, and for a while I watched the crevices which encircled my less than average body diminish and I was satisfied, but recently they have returned. My body is a little plumper than it was before, and so my cheeks and facial dimples are also more noticeable and defined.

  As repulsed as I was at his size, the fat man from the television had a wife who adored him. She cooked food for him each day. It required an inhuman effort to feed a man of that size to the point of contentedness, swollen like a milk-drunk baby. She smiled at the cameras, her pride evident in the grin that bore several rotten teeth and it was clear that all her attention was directed at him. She had created him. It was her doing. Every kilo was a kilo of love and attention. She slathered him with cream, washed him, tended to his innumerable sores, and even wiped the shit covered arse that he couldn’t reach. I found it an abhorrent sight, but I also knew that I would give in to that sort of attention. I would get that fat for somebody who cared for my every need, who nursed me until I became something loveable. I imagine I would thrive in such symbiosis. Gregory did try this once but he didn’t have the stamina. Maybe if he had persevered I would have become addicted to being loved so much.

  After breakfast ended and I finished dressing I walked down the stairs to find them both stood in the hallway. They look like two people who were deep in conversation only moments ago, his face thoughtful and tight like a punch-ready fist, but they are aware of my presence and they have stopped talking. At the top of the stairs I could hear hushed voices but nothing distinguishable that I might have understood the topic of conversation. When he sees me he straightens his shoulders and lifts his chin, a cue for Ishiko to complete her duties. I ridicule myself by wondering if they were planning something nice for later which I was not supposed to hear about. Some sort of surprise, perhaps. But I doubt it. She places the scarf around his neck. She crosses one end over the other in quite simple fashion. It is basically a knot, but she makes it seem intricate and delicate. She creates Zen in his scarf, a fact I find both impressive and heartbreaking. We are very lucky to have her, I am assured. He begins to talk to me whilst checking his appearance in the mirror.

  “Are you certain about the menu tonight?” he says. I stand on the bottom step, my hand gripping the rosewood banister. His attention is on his gloves, good quality leather and for which he paid a small fortune. Quality, I am told, does not always come cheap. “Venison? Really? Sushi is much nicer.”

  “I am not allowed to eat Sushi at the moment. It’s dangerous.” He nods, his lips pursed shut and I have my second disgusting thought of the day. Why do such simple things all remind me of my own body? My opinion regarding the food and lack of compliance with his envisioned evening of entertainment seems to have hindered the perfect alignment of his cuffs. He is fiddling with them but his gloves limit his dexterity. He grunts a little as he tugs, first holding his arms straight, and then bent as he tries to regiment them in place. I am his inconvenience, a destroyer of plans.

  “Ishiko, please, would you?” He holds out his arms and she expertly tugs at the starched sleeves, and as if she has cast a magical spell his appearance comes together. He looks back to the mirror and after a brief and indistinguishable adjustment to his scarf he is ready. “Then pheasant it is.” He walks towards the door before stopping, turning, and walking back towards me to complete a task that he has forgotten, as if only now he realises that he does not have his keys. There is a hint of a smile but still no eye contact. I know I saw it, and for just a second I thought he was going to grin, show me his teeth and reach up to kiss me with Ishiko standing behind him looking on. I am on the bottom step and so we are roughly the same height. But the hint of a smile was exactly that. It was gone as quickly as it came. He does kiss me, though. On the cheek. I'm what he had forgotten. “Happy birthday,” he says, the tail end of the words leaving his lips as he turned to walk away.

  “Thank you,” I reply, a little too gratefully. But I am grateful. I cannot hide it. Any type of love is good. It doesn’t matter if in reality it is hard, or damaging to the soul. It can push you to the edge of sanity but it is still better than its absence.

  By the time he left the house and got in his car I had put on my coat and arranged my own scarf. Ishiko has lingered next to me, perhaps waiting for me to chastise her for a menial failure on her part. This is what she expects from me. I decided not to in the hope that some of her calmness would soak into my pores, and my body would save it up so that later, when I am with Gregory again, I will emit the same radiance and he will love me. All I have wanted is for him to love me, I think. I see his car leave the driveway, and I pick up my keys and turn to follow. As I step out of the door I hear Ishiko speak. I am so used to not hearing her say anything to me that it is as if my ears have tuned her out, gone on hiatus, not expecting to have any role to fulfil. When I realise that she spoke I turn and ask her what she said.

  “I wished you a happy birthday.” I say nothing and shut the door.

  I am thirty two today. I was born at 10:15 AM in the morning, my mother a child herself, my father convinced he was adult enough to handle it. They held me in their arms and cried, their tears falling onto me leaving tracks in the birth slime on my face. She told me that I cried for three days solid. It was as if I knew that I was a mistake, that I knew I should not have been. Generally my birthday does not cause much excitement for me, but this year, this year especially I did expect a bit of fuss. How sad that the most enthusiastic person about my birthday is my housemaid. Her wishes were those you would offer to a stranger, should you learn that on your day of meeting it was the anniversary of their birth. Perhaps that’s what I really am in this place. A stranger. I thought that my being pregnant may elicit some form of excitement from my husband. I had hoped it might offer us a life raft back to shore, back to my lagoon where the waters run warm and ripple around my shoulders as I float in them, spread out like a starfish with the sun warming my skin. But it hasn’t.

  There is something in my throat that refuses to dissolve and it is doing it’s very best to suffocate me, like the pillows I used to imagine stuffed all the way down to my guts when Gregory still cared and almost killed me with his attention. I might go back to that now, to try his version of love one more time if there was still a chance. I would go upstairs and take my tablet and do as he says, if I thought feeling nothing again was a better option. I feel the urge to be sick, but I know it isn’t morning sickness because that has passed.

  We met on a cold Saturday night, the kind that numbs your fingers making simple tasks near impossible. I stood outside the party to light my cigarette, glad to leave the inane chatter behind me. With the wind working against me, I saw a hand form a cup in front of me, the cherry glow of my cigarette illuminating his palms as he shielded me from the wind. I saw only the inside of his hand and fingers, and immediately I thought how wonderful it might be to feel them on me. They were strong hands, man’s hands. You see, I place hands above anything else. The hand is an object reflective of who we are, and highly innervated and sensitive to touch. They are the creators, the shapers, the doers. It is the hand that I am sure created Ishiko’s face. It is the hand which can comfort a child or the bereaved, show love when entwined, grip and break an enemy arm, or stroke a woman to the point of pleasure. The hand can speak, a language of sign for those without words. Hello, or goodbye in a simple wave. The hand before me on that night could
have been the hand of God himself, for I had never seen anything so perfect. I was hooked before I had seen his face. His hand said hello, and as I held it I said goodbye to me. I left with him that night, and I never returned to my life. Not fully. Perhaps in reality I haven’t found home since, because on that day when I stood picking at my scarred head, watching her dance in front of him exactly two years later, I realised that I was being replaced right before my own eyes. As she danced in front of him, teasing him with her grace and beauty, I stood there watching, barren and childless and loveless and bleeding. I saw that she is the one that feels his hands on her skin, his breath on her neck. I knew in that moment that he was fucking her. But then my womb whispered in my ear, whispered to me that now we were in it together. We were comrades. I had been dealt a new hand, a second chance by a lucky turn of fate. The gift of a child. It would be different, I thought. He had to love me once I was carrying a baby. He would forget Ishiko once he knew I was worthy of a child.

  That’s what I believed back then when I took the test to confirm that I was pregnant, sat next to the toilet on the locally quarried slate floor that I had, according to Gregory, insisted upon.

  Chapter three

  By the time I arrived at work some of the earlier mist had cleared and the first of the tourist cruisers were setting forth for the day's maiden voyage. I parked my car on the brow of the hill, my breath caught by the wind as I climbed the steep gradient towards the office. The door bell chimed like a remnant from Victorian times, something that had hitchhiked its way into the future, tinkling every day so that it wouldn't be left and forgotten. As I opened the front door I smiled at them. Phillipa smiled too, but as I turned to close the door and shut out the sounds from the town outside I saw her sideways glance at Martin, whose own eyes were darting back from the clock. Phillipa looked like she was sucking on the inside of her cheek as I passed her, raising her eyebrows at Martin. I think that they are unimpressed by my lateness. I’m not sure if we have ever been friends, but it doesn’t feel like it.

  “Don’t worry, he’s not here yet, either.” Phillipa is leaning on her elbows and glancing over her shoulder back at me as I set my bag down on my desk. One could easily mistake her words as comforting, telling me not to be concerned about the lost minutes of my day, as if she would keep our little secret because the boss wasn’t here. I could almost believe in her sincerity if it wasn’t for the sideways smile that was pushing up her eyebrow. Only a fool would believe that the illicit ten minutes that I dwindled away by watching the water creeping in and out at the lakeside don’t matter to Phillipa. But even in the fog of friendliness her words are sharp edged like the northern ridges of the nearby mountains, designed to remind me that she believes I get special treatment. Martin doesn’t say anything. He is wary of me. I heard that his father committed suicide. He probably thinks I cheated somehow, considering that I’m still here.

  It was suggested, by some, that I give up working. It was deemed inappropriate for the wife of Gregory Astor to work. His parents were horrified from the outset that he had chosen to marry a person who was not only without the benefit of a university education, but one who had chosen to sell houses for money. At first Gregory tried to appear new age and forward thinking by supporting me in my whimsical notion of employment, but I could see cracks in his character from early on, and I knew he was just trying his best to be what he thought I wanted. I knew that they found it pitiful that a person should work because they had to. His mother, Beatrice could never understand. She was born complete, with all the money she could ever want. She didn’t have to create anything in her life. Her name means bringer of joy, a fact which I find hilarious. Gregory’s father, Mallory, was just as bad. His name means unlucky. It is perfect for him.

  Today's appointment is Long Hill Grange. I have viewed it myself twice, and have been most impressed by it. It is set in an elevated position, overlooking Bowness-on-Windermere. I would describe it as recently extended, offering a splendid blend between traditional and modern. In reality these types of houses often look like two elements joined together, like a marriage that doesn’t really work even though on paper you would have expected it to. The plans often look great, a seamless connection between two halves. In reality however there are many cleverly plastered girders, uneven floors and unusually placed steps that join up the dots. Like a centaur, a creation of mismatched parts that don’t belong together. If we were a house, Gregory and me would never have made it past the planning stage.

  Long Hill Grange is a rarity. It works. It is worth the million pounds that I have placed on it, but still they were expecting more. This overinflated sense of self importance amongst the rich is something to which I have become accustomed. I am always disappointed in myself that I am no longer appalled to hear such remarks as; but the granite alone is worth forty thousand. It’s quite obscene that I don’t see the vulgarity of it anymore. I tell myself that people change. That I changed. But by the same standard, I wonder why it is that I find it so hard to make the changes that people ask of me.

  I find that I do not have much in common with my colleagues. It is strange considering we all sell houses for a living. You would think that we would be able to find something to talk about, but we cannot. I suppose that in itself is the reason, because I don’t sell houses for a living. They know that I go there for different reasons, and that for me it is just an escape from the life I have created for myself. Almost like a hobby. At my wedding, my colleagues chipped in for a card, and they all put some money in as a gift. Gregory’s decision to open the cards in front of the guests as they handed them over seemed genuine enough at first. The first card from Mr. Alabaster, wished us well and was signed on behalf of him, his wife, and his children. I nearly choked on the champagne as Gregory revealed a cheque for fifteen thousand pounds. It was an obscene amount and utterly unexpected. The next cheque, from Mr. Sedgwick and his wife Dana, was also for fifteen thousand pounds. My initial shock was soon replaced by the embarrassment of Gregory announcing the amounts as if the numbers were a lottery or raffle ticket prize. But I watched how the figures ripped through the room like a spark in a brittle summer forest. In fact, I was sure that I saw somebody opening up their card and tearing up one cheque and replacing it with another. The amounts went up and down as if resting on the tide of the ocean until eventually we had a winner. Twenty five thousand and five hundred pounds. Mr. Forsythe, who had outdone his nearest competitor by a mere five hundred pounds, seemed a little too smug for it to be due to good luck and fortune. He became a trusted business colleague of Gregory’s after that, and has been to our house for dinner. When Gregory opened the card from my work colleagues towards the end of the proceedings, I am ashamed to admit that my first thought was, is that all, when I saw a cheque for one hundred pounds. They could see it on my face, and things have never been the same since.

  After picking up the key for Long Hill Grange I got straight back in my car. It’s a Jaguar, something big and not as sporty as I would have preferred but at the time it was purchased I was still trying to be reasonable and show a degree of restraint. I arrived at Long Hill Grange early, and I left my showroom-clean car tucked from view at the side of the house. I stepped into the hallway, and as I had suggested the vendors have left a pot of coffee warm on the stove, and the smell of it mixed with the scent of fresh bread. It makes me feel simultaneously both sick and hungry, and I charge for the toilet. The pangs of nausea are rare and I am getting better at containing them. Occasionally I have felt the vomit rise in my throat but if I swallow down fast enough I can return it to a peaceful slumber, like a trained dragon, full of hot breath but no fire.

  With my composure regained, I make a quick check through the house. I plump up the cushions and straighten the throw on the settee. I open all of the doors so that I won’t have to do so later. It is a mistake in terms of house sale rules, but this is necessary. For me. I check the mantle for dust, and then drop a couple of logs into the hearth. To light a fire
shows the possibility of this house. It announces that inside of this house there is energy, stored for you to grow and prosper. Photographs dictate the life of only one, but the fire burns for the life of the unnamed person. I stifle it with the guard and leave it to burn.

  This is what selling houses is all about. Creating possibility. To give people the opportunity to aspire to the life they witness here. To make them desire. I know the fire and the fresh bread are staged and look false, and so will the people who have arrived to view the house, but it doesn’t matter. As people we have come to terms with false, as long as it suits us and we desire it. False nails, false hair, false breasts, false teeth, fake bags to make us look rich, fake tan, fake diamonds, fake face, fake personality. As long as it looks good on the surface, fake doesn’t matter. But what about fake marriage? From the outside Gregory and me look good, so it doesn’t matter right? That’s the question that I cannot answer, whilst I wait for him to love me like I hoped for when his perfect hand first showed up in my line of vision.

  They turned up early, and I know they have arrived because I can hear the gravel grinding underneath their car. It sounds like a big car, expensive. I take a cleaning wipe from my handbag and wipe over the leather of my gloves before removing them. I wash my hands in the downstairs toilet, turning the taps on and off with my elbow. I do not dry them as I do not know if the towel is clean or has already been used. I wait in the sun room that sits on the west side of the house, with large windows and ornate drapery. It reminds me of the conservatory in which I eat breakfast and which is covered in Charlotte-chosen items, according to Gregory, but yet still doesn't feel like mine.