meaningful than my usual cab ride. I also found my cruelty to Miss Reingold, refreshing. I used to enjoy being nice to
her.'
`I wondered why she was crying. What happened?'
`I accused her of bad breath and body odor.'
`Jesus.'
`Yes.'
`That was a horrible thing to do. I'd never do a thing like that.'
`I hope not. But the city health authorities had issued a formal complaint that the entire building was beginning to
stink. I had no choice.'
In the ensuing silence I heard his chair squeak; he may have tipped back in it, but from where I lay I couldn't tell. I
could see only part of two walls, bookcases, books, my cobweb and a single small portrait of Socrates draining the
hemlock. My taste in soothing pictures for patients seemed dubious.
`I've been pretty cheerful lately too,' Osterflood said meditatively, and I realized I wanted to get the focus back on my
problems.
`Of course, habit breaking can also be a chore,' I said. 'For example, I find it difficult to improvise new methods and
places for urinating.'
`I think . . . I almost think you may have brought me toward a breakthrough,' Osterflood said, ignoring me.
`I'm particularly concerned with my next bowel movement,' I went on. `There seem to be definite limits as to what
society will stand for. All sorts of eccentricity and nonsensical horrors can be permitted - wars, murder, marriage, slums - but that bowel movements should be made anywhere except in the toilet seems to be pretty universally considered despicable.'
`You know that if . . . I felt that if I could just kick my little girl addiction, just … lose interest, I'd be all right. The big
ones don't mind, or can be bought'
`Also locomotion. There are only a certain number of limited ways of moving from spot A to spot B. Tomorrow, for
example, I won't feel free to jog to work. What can I do? Walk backward?'
I looked over to Osterflood with a serious frown, but he was immersed in his own thoughts.
`But now … lately … I got to admit it … I seem to be losing my interest in little girls.'
`Walking backwards a solution, of course, but only a temporary one. After that and crawling and running backward
and hopping on one foot, I'll feel confined, limited, repetitious, a robot'
`And that's good, I know it is. I mean I hate little girls and now that I'm less interested in fucking them I feel that's …
definitely an advance.'
He looked down at me sincerely and I looked sincerely back.
`Conversations too are a problem,' I said. `Our syntax is habitual, our diction, our coherence. I have a habit of logical
thought which clearly must be broken. And vocabulary. Why do I accept the limits of our habitual words. I'm a clod! A clod!'
`But … but … lately … I'm afraid … I've sensed … I'm almost afraid to say it…'
`Umpwillis. Art fodder. Wishmonger. Gladsull. Parminkson. Jombie. Blit. Why not? Man has limited himself
artificially to the past. I feel myself breaking free.'
`. . that I'm, I feel I'm beginning to want, to be like . . . little boys.'
`A breakthrough. A definite breakthrough if I can continue to contradict my habitual patterns as I have this morning.
And sex. Sexual patterns must be broken too . .
`I mean really like them,' he said emphatically; `Not want to rape them or hurt them or anything like that, just bugger
them and have them suck me off.'
`Possibly this experiment could get me into dangerous ground. I suppose since I've habitually not been interested in
raping little girls that theoretically I ought to try it.'
`And boys … little boys are easier to get at. They're more trusting, less suspicious.'
`But really hurting someone frightens me. I suppose - No! It is a limitation. A limitation I must overcome. To be free
from habitual inhibitions I will have to rape and kill: His chair squeaked, and I heard one of his feet hit the ground.
`No,' he said firmly. `No, Dr. Rhinehart. I'm trying to tell you, raping and killing aren't necessary anymore. Even
hitting may be out.'
`Raping, or at least killing, is absolutely necessary to the Random Man. To shirk that would be to shirk a clear duty.'
`Boys, little boys, even teen-age boys, will do just as good, I'm sure. It's dangerous with little girls, Doc, I warn you.'