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I had to park a couple blocks from Yee’s Restaurant and make my way past laundries, jewelers, and groceries filled with dried everything from fruits, noodles, and mushrooms to sea creatures. Aquamarine lampposts were topped with oriental fixtures and provided street names in English and Chinese characters.
I paused to admire the crispy-skinned poultry hanging in the steamy front window of our lunch spot. Leaving the heads on the roasted birds was off-putting to some diners but I found it more appealing than pressing chickens into nuggets. Before I could open the door, a severe-looking woman with short gray hair and a shorter temper stepped up and asked my name through clenched teeth. I admitted my identity and she handed me a large manila envelope, saying the doctor was running late but wanted me to read the contents while waiting. Turned out she was the good doctor’s receptionist, who didn’t appreciate my earlier cleverness on the phone. Then she turned on her heel and left.
I went in and reminded myself that Yee’s was known for its food, rather than its ambiance which was by-the-numbers Chinese shlock: woodcuts of tigers, washed out paintings of mountains, paper lanterns with red tassels, and gilded dragons. Having snagged a spot in the back corner, I ordered some green tea which a recent article in the Chronicle promised would cure cancer, burn fat, strengthen hearts, and shrink prostates. I just wanted something to stave off the damp chill.
Inside the envelope was a scientific article copied from the Journal of Sex Therapy. The case study described a man whose mother died when he was a child. When the kid was ten, his father caught him masturbating and beat him severely. Shortly afterwards, the socially awkward lad started keeping “a little zoo” of ants that he allowed to crawl over his inner thighs much to his pleasure (nothing was noted about how the ants felt). As an adolescent, he began masturbating while cockroaches and snails crawled over his scrotum. In his early twenties, he tried having sex with a woman but found it unsatisfying, two legs evidently not appealing to him. So he returned to his menagerie. He found his frequent insect encounters both irresistible and revolting.
At the age of twenty-eight, he sought treatment at a psychiatric clinic for what he called his “disgusting habit.” Counseling improved his interactions with women, but after a year he was still sometimes drawn to his six-legged petting zoo. According to the therapist, this was a definitive case of formicophilia: “an uncommon form of zoophilia in which erotic arousal and orgasm are dependent on the sensations produced by small creatures creeping or nibbling on the body, especially the genitalia, perianal area, or nipples.” The authors named the condition by combining the Latin words for ants (formica) and love (philia) while managing to heroically avoid any allusions to “ants in the pants.”
Dr. Chen’s reading assignment accounted for one of the videos Dennis found at the Linford’s—and probably explained Lane’s insect pals. I was hoping for a continued tutorial as the good doctor came into the restaurant looking somewhat harried. She composed herself on the way to the table, and greeted me cordially if not warmly. Before getting into the world of weird sex, we ordered lunch. I was intrigued by the “assorted pork guts porridge” but went with the less bold choice of roast goose lai fun. She opted for the onion and ginger noodle soup, which seemed a shame given the meaty temptations.
“Did you have a chance to read what Mrs. Miller delivered?” she asked, pouring a tiny cup of smoky green tea.
“I sure did. And it shed a great deal of light on the young man who’s wrapped up in the dark mess I described when we last met.”
“Darkness, indeed. He’s living in the shadows of our society.”
“Bestiality is a crime in California, although I’d bet nobody’s ever been arrested for making it with the littlest animals.”
“We prefer the term ‘zoophilia’ as it carries less baggage and refers to the attraction with or without consummation. In any case, you can understand how formicophiles would be quite reluctant to seek treatment, given the stigma.”
“Now that I know there are guys who get off with insects, there were a couple of other videos you might be able to explain.” Her eyebrows arched as she set down the tea cup. “Can you tell me anything about what might be shown on a tape labeled ‘Crush: stiletto and crickets’?”
“You appear to have tapped into a most unusual subculture. To wit, there are men who are sexually aroused by watching women crush living organisms. The video probably shows crickets being macerated under a stiletto heel, although there are certainly variations on this theme.”
“Variations? Such as grasshoppers and tennis shoes?”
“Not as far as I know. A few fetishists settle for fruits, but the more common objects are snails, worms, spiders, ants, cockroaches, and, of course, crickets. Sometimes newborn mice are used, as well. Tennis shoes aren’t noted in the literature, but bare feet, socks, and sandals have been documented, with high heels being perhaps most common.”
“Before our food arrives or my appetite departs, what can you tell me about a video labeled ‘Penis sting: close-ups’?”
“My, you are a wellspring of unusual sex practices,” she said while refilling her teacup.
“I’m not a cultural anthropologist, but there is reportedly an Amazonian people who use bee stings to enlarge the penis.” I couldn’t help but wince, which Dr. Chen found amusing if I interpreted her smirk correctly. “And in the Kama Sutra, there is mention of using wasps for the same purpose. I suspect the video documents penile swelling.” I was left wondering whether her knowledge was purely academic or a tad lascivious.
“I have to ask another question,” I said leaning forward. One eyebrow lifted and she nodded inscrutably. “How the hell do you know so much about the sickos who have become entangled, along with my business, in a death scene?” She started to answer but our food arrived and she wisely waited until the waitress was out of earshot. The crispy skin and succulent flesh of my goose trumped our unappetizing topic—and I was famished. Dr. Chen delicately slurped a few spoonfuls of her soup before adopting a scolding, professorial tone.
“Again, Mr. Riley, let us avoid imposing moral judgments on these individuals. Setting that aside for the moment, my knowledge of paraphilia—by which I mean individuals being sexually aroused by atypical objects, actions or situations—comes from my dissertation. Although my clinical internships were quite prosaic, my doctoral research on the etiology and treatment of sexual deviances included a cross-cultural literature review of fetishes.”
“Like women’s shoes?”
“Well, yes, in part. A fetish involves nonliving objects or non-genital body parts. And clothing, such as shoes or underwear, is the most common stimulus.”
“Followed by?” I couldn’t contain my curiosity.
“Materials such as rubber, leather, and soft fabrics. Fetishized body parts typically include feet, hair, and bodily fluids. But there are also rare stimuli such as stethoscopes, hats, and diapers.”
“Diapers? You’re shitting me.” I thought my response was clever. She flashed a scowl and then resumed her implacable expression. Properly chastised, I tried another angle. “So, you treat deviants as part of your practice?”
“A few, yes. But there’s actually little research on these individuals and even less information regarding treatments. For the most part, fetishists are happy with their lives and don’t seek intervention unless the paraphilia is disrupting their marriage or other relationship.”
“Like if a guy’s wife figures that his having an affair with her shoes isn’t quite normal,” I offered, which produced the slow head shake of a despondent teacher with a near hopeless student.
“You must understand that what constitutes normal behavior is a cultural construct. In New Guinea, there is a tribe where it is typical for children to engage in sex by the age of ten. Mature women in a South Pacific society have sex with adolescent boys to teach them how to please future partners. Bachelors in a Columbian village copulate with donkeys to avoid the Catholic proscription
against premarital sex. The list goes on.”
“Your point being that who—or what—constitutes a socially acceptable sexual partner is a matter of tradition?” My goose was getting cold as I’d slowed my eating to a crawl while trying to take in Dr. Chen’s tutorial.
“Yes, including here. Until 1973, homosexuality was considered a mental disorder by the American Psychiatric Association. And that change happened only in response to a massive, public protest at our national convention.” She sighed and rather daintily slurped a spoonful of soup. “I’m afraid that the leaders in my field had to be forced into confronting their regrettably outdated biases.”
“I suppose that every society dictates who gets to have sex with who,” I said.
“Whom,” she said, correcting my grammar with less reproach than the nuns of my youth. “But don’t leave out when and where. Sex during daylight hours is prohibited by the Cuna people of Panama, while the Bambara of Mali believe that outdoor sex will cause their crops to fail.” These rules would’ve put a real crimp in some of Nina’s favorite trysts.
“So sex is like food, just a matter of taste.” Again with the eyebrows, as she gestured for me to continue. “Most people find blood sausage from my homeland repugnant, and haggis from our Scottish neighbors doesn’t appear on many menus in San Francisco.” Sheep organs boiled in a sheep’s stomach were on par with Yee’s “assorted pork guts porridge” which was presumably not a big seller with the tourists. Nor were the famed thousand-year-old eggs, once a person caught a whiff of sulfurous ammonia emanating from the greenish-black lumps.
“I see your point. The last time I was at the Donghuamen Night Market in Beijing, shoppers could purchase chicken testicles and sheep penis. Or to tap into your line of business, one could also snack on fried scorpions, centipedes, spiders, cicadas, and crickets.”
“And so we complete the circle, eh? Crushing crickets under high heels or between molars is just another source of pleasure.” I rubbed my neck and tried to put together my thoughts, as the good doctor waited patiently. “Look, I can accept that whatever people want to eat is their business, but I can’t buy that ‘anything goes’ with sex. Gays and lesbians? More power to them. Nobody’s getting hurt and somebody’s getting satisfied.” I was thinking of how happy Carol and Anna were together and how much Nina liked to include nature in our sex life. “But there has to be a line.”
“If a person is being mentally harmed or physically exploited, then something’s wrong. But that is a difficult standard to apply.” She scooped the last of the broth from her bowl and blotted her lips.
“Meaning?”
“Meaning that consent between bondage partners can be complicated. That erotic humiliation is not a simple matter. That a dominatrix walks a fine line. That pornography is rife with ambiguity. And, I should add, that psychological damage can come from the shame of violating a religious edict.” As the waitress cleared our dishes, I decided to take one last detour into the dark recesses of the human mind.
“Speaking of damage, a reliable source told me that ‘dangerous shit’—in his words—was happening within the circle that might include my insect lover.”
“Danger can be an aphrodisiac. Fear and sexual arousal are physiologically similar. Five percent of Americans engage in sadomasochism—and fear play is not uncommon. Sex and violence can be deeply interwoven.” I remembered a high school girlfriend who was insatiable after watching me box in the San Francisco Golden Gloves tournament. And according to badge bunnies hanging around the bars, some of my fellow cops were into being handcuffed.
I paid the bill and thanked Dr. Chen for her time. She chided me for deceiving Mrs. Miller and said, “Such behavior will no longer be rewarded.” I felt like the child of a psychologist-mother and decided there would be few worse fates for a kid. I also decided that I needed to pay Stefan and Michelle a visit to figure out Lane Linford’s place in the depraved network. Maybe his perversion was a ‘social construct’ but it was my goddamn society and I wasn’t going to look the other way if girls were squashing mice or guys were humping donkeys. Actually, I might’ve looked the other way if I hadn’t been dragged into San Francisco’s version of a vice cop’s wet dream.
CHAPTER 16
The buxom redhead at the Pleasure Palace told me that Michelle usually spent Tuesday and Thursday afternoons at home, “field testing” new products with Stefan. So I headed to the Tenderloin, looking for the address that Reverend Williams had given me. At the corner, I found the Korean grocery, along with an ambulance, a patrol car, and two cops doing their best to keep a growing crowd from getting out of hand. I parked a block away and moseyed down to the action which consisted of a ragtag mob of elderly Asians shouting in multiple languages while inadvertently preventing Pak Foods from selling any dried seaweed, fish sauce, or bean paste.
A wrinkled woman was declaring in broken English that the neighborhood would be improved without whoever was being removed by the ambulance, while a man whose weight and age were about the same shook his finger at one of the cops and said that this—whatever “this” was—would have been prevented if the police had done their job stopping the pyuntay (or something like that). Others grumbled about the yang nom—presumably the same people as the “filthy deviants” who those with a greater grasp of English were disparaging. I took this all to mean that Michelle and Stefan’s recreational activities were well known and had led to a need for medical assistance.
With San Francisco’s finest occupied by an impending riot of octogenarians, I made my way around the side of the building to the stairway leading to a second floor landing which I presumed the medicos had used to access the apartment. There, I found boxwood and holly in brightly colored pots on either side of an elegantly crafted door with stained glass inserts. The door was ajar and a yappy Yorkshire fervently and futilely guarded the opening.
The tiled entryway was a black and white checkerboard affair leading to a living room evidently decorated by Walt Disney on an acid trip. The furniture consisted of mismatched geometric shapes featuring primary colors. The rugs scattered around the polished, cherry wood floor featured abstract patterns of navy blue, fuchsia, pastel pink and sea green. Artwork, or whatever was hanging on the walls, was evidently the result of Escher and Picasso trying to outdo one another. I heard agitated voices coming from above, so I headed to a spiral staircase with no two stairs of the same color or material.
As I climbed upward, someone was frantically warning others to be careful and not get too close. Around the circular landing at the top were a number of doors, one of which was opened into the source of the excitement. I took it to be the master bedroom, although it might also have been a compromise between a playroom and a gym. In the middle of the room was a king-sized bed surrounded by thick, pastel ropes making it look like a Sesame Street boxing ring. And in the center of the bed, as if knocked out in a fight, lay Michelle. However, she wasn’t wearing boxing gloves or, for that matter, anything else. And she wasn’t unconscious—she was quite dead, as was apparent from the bluish tint of her creamy skin.
I could smell vomit and the white satin sheets and bearskin bedspread were stained with what looked to be frothy, pink saliva that was also smeared across her face. A distraught man wearing a short, silk robe with a gold-and-maroon paisley pattern and a white fur collar was standing between the paramedics and the body. I took him to be Stefan, and he was torn between wanting help and allowing anyone near the bed, as if whatever had caused Michelle’s death was still lurking. One of the paramedics spotted me at the doorway and sidled over as his partner tried to calm Stefan.
“Sir, you’ll need to leave,” he said to me, keeping an eye on the drama. I expected my presence wasn’t going to be welcomed, so I had a story ready to go.
“I’m with the medical examiner’s office. The police figured the scene was worth our checking.”
“The officers didn’t come up, so how would they know?”
“I guess the crowd out there sho
uting good riddance to their decadent neighbor was enough to create suspicion.”
“Okay, but I haven’t seen you before,” he said, not yet convinced of my legitimacy.
“Transferred from Sacramento. Too much heat, too little seafood.” I patted my pockets and grumbled about leaving my identification in the car while explaining, “Dr. Machalek sent me, not that we’re looking for work. I don’t see anything to make this a crime scene, not that anyone’s getting close to the body right now.” The mention of the grizzled old cutter did the trick.
“It’s a weird one, pal. The guy calls dispatch to say his wife is dying. We get here and he won’t let us near the body. He keeps telling us to stay back like something in the sheets is going to get us. But he won’t tell us what, if anything.”
“Let me try.” The guy shrugged and I stepped into the doorway. “Stefan,” I said sharply to get his attention. He stopped in mid rant and looked at me quizzically. “These fellows are here to help. Come out here while they do their job.” He paused. “Now,” I ordered.
Stefan’s head swiveled between me and his wife. “Okay,” he said, still agitated but emotionally spent and vulnerable to a commanding voice. “But please be quick about it,” he told the paramedics. I gestured for Stefan to step out of the room. He had slicked-back hair, a narrow face, and a neatly trimmed goatee. Stefan was as slight of build as Michelle had been sturdy. I told him to wait for a moment and went into the bedroom.
The paramedics had conducted their check of non-existent vital signs and were preparing the body for transport. While they did their job, I made a quick survey of the room and went over to the far side of the bed where I found an empty glass jar next to a large pile of gray fur, as if someone had skinned a giant rabbit. When I picked it up, the result was a cat costume—the sort of thing you might rent for a Halloween party, with one alteration. There was an opening in the crotch. One of the paramedics glanced over.
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