“Psycho Cuck Therapy,” Part 1
by c.w. cobblestone
An elongated onyx statue rose from the carpet like a Mandingo boner, reminding Ed of the very thing he was trying to push out of his mind.
“Lie down, Mr. Katz.” The bearded psychologist waved toward the sofa. “Make yourself comfortable.”
“Thanks, Dr. Gustav.” Ed sank into the cushions, eying the sculpture as he wiped his sweaty palms on his pant legs.
“That’s a Jordan Enrich original.” The doctor picked up his pad. “It’s very provocative. When you look at it, does it make you think of anything in particular?”
Ed shifted on the couch. “Um … er … I dunno. Uh, a pencil, maybe?”
“Okay, then.” Dr. Gustav twirled his pen. “Before we get started you should know what to expect. I practice a very uncluttered version of psychiatry. I believe the answers to your issues lie within you, and therefore I like to keep my input to a minimum. I’m just here to listen. Okay?”
“Um, sure.”
“Great. So, Mr. Katz, tell me about yourself.”
Ed scoffed. “You mean what’s wrong with me?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I dunno. I was just joking around. Sorry.” Ed gulped. “Well, Doc, I’ll just come right out and say it — things aren’t great right now. They suck. A whole lot. My life has always sucked, man. But I guess everyone who comes in here must tell you that, huh?”
The doctor said nothing, allowing the patient to continue.
“So … my wife.” Ed sighed. “She makes it hard, Doc. I’m living in hell.”
“Hell? What do you mean?”
“Well … she just treats me real bad … you know?”
“How so?”
“For starters, she’s … never been faithful. She messed around with me from the beginning. I mean, it started on our first date — we went to her friend’s wedding and she disappeared with this guy for almost two hours while I sat there like a sap. She’s always liked black guys, and she was upfront about that. She told me I could either deal with it or hit the road. She’s so beautiful … like an angel … and I didn’t want to lose her … ugh, so I put up with it. I guess that makes me the biggest fucking loser in the world, huh?”
Dr. Gustav didn’t look up from his pad.
Ed sighed. “Now, she’s pregnant again — and this one isn’t mine, either.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, for starters, I haven’t had sex with Liz in the whole time we’ve been together. I’ve never had sex with anyone because I’m still a virgin. Plus, both the kids are half-black.”
“Oh.” The doctor wrote something down. “And how old are your wife’s children?”
“Um, Kiara’s 4 and Amanté’s 2. Their *** is the father of the one Liz is pregnant with as well.”
“I see. So, your wife has an ongoing relationship with this man?”
“Tyrell? Uh, yeah. He lives with us.”
“Ah. And how long has he lived with you?”
Ed made a sour face. “Ugh … right after Liz had Kiara and we all moved out of state… about a year after the wedding. We moved not far from where Tyrell grew up, so he knows everybody and likes showing off how he’s taken over my ****** and made me into his bitch.”
“And how does that make you feel, Ed? You don’t sound very happy about it.”
“Would you be happy about it? It fucking sucks, man. I bust my ass every day while he lays around with Liz getting high and letting the kids run around making huge messes for me to clean up.”
“Ah, so you’re responsible for all the housework, even though you support them.”
“Yeah, and it’s usually a disaster when I get home from work, especially if Tyrell’s had his asshole friends over. Even if nobody comes over, it’s still a mess. They let their little brats run around everywhere making messes and don’t clean up after them. And the kids are at the age where they get into everything.”
“Well, Ed, that doesn’t sound like a very rewarding existence for you, to be honest.”
“Rewarding?” Ed sniffed. “I’d settle for having one week off without getting the shit slapped out of me. Everyone else gets a vacation, you know? I’d love a week’s vacation without someone smacking me around like I’m their fucking punching bag.”
“Who slaps you?”
“Liz. Tyrell. Their friends.”
“Their friends?”
“Yeah, they all know about our relationship, and they have free rein to hit me if I do something to annoy them.”
“So … what about your ******, Ed? How did they react when your wife gave birth to mixed-race children? What did you tell them?”
“We told the truth. We didn’t go into details, but we said we were in a three-way relationship with a black man who was moving in with us. And … then my ****** banished me from the state. So, we moved down here.”
“Banished you?”
“Well, they’re paying me to stay away. I still get my profit-sharing checks from the store, but my *** fired me as general manager and told me he didn’t want to see me anymore. He said if I moved out of state, he’d keep sending my checks, and that I’d get my share in the will or if they ever sold the store. But otherwise, he said he didn’t want to ever see me again. So, Tyrell moved here with us, and I left my ****** behind.”
“And how does that make you feel, Ed?”
“Well … terrible. But … I mean, nobody in my ****** ever really liked me … but I wanted them to like me. Do you know? What kid doesn’t want his ****** to like him?” Tears welled in Ed’s eyes. His shoulders slumped. “I know I let everyone down. My *** was always talking about the ****** bloodline since the store has been in the ****** for seven generations. And I’m the only boy, even though my parents kept trying after I turned out to be such a disappointment. My parents always said they hoped my genes would skip the next generation since my father was a big man but his *** had been small. So, my wife having someone else’s baby was probably the worst thing that could’ve happened as far as my ****** was concerned. The fact that it was a black baby made it an even bigger mess. It was a huge ****** scandal.”
“How did your mom react?”
“Oh, she was mortified. She kept saying how I’d embarrassed the ******, and how disappointed she was that I hadn’t grown up to be a proper man who could take care of his wife and give her grandchildren. Tyrell was there when my mom yelled at me about not being able to give her grandkids; he laughs about it to this day; he’ll say, ‘Even your momma knew you were a little bitch with no nuts.’”
“Well, that’s not very nice. Does he say mean things like that often?”
“Mean things? He kicks my ass if he gets mad. He treats me like shit, man. Liz, too. And the kids are starting to learn from their parents. Kiara’s turning into a little princess, and she screams at me for any little thing.”
“Screams at you? About what?”
“Oh, anything — ‘I told you orange juice, you idiot, not grape juice.’ Or, ‘Hey, idiot; why aren’t my crayons where I put them?’ She gets ‘idiot’ from her mom — that’s pretty much what Liz always calls me, whether we’re in front of company or not. So, now, that’s my name as far as Kiara’s concerned, too.”
“And Kiara’s parents don’t say anything when she insults you like that?”
“Yeah — they’ll agree with her that I’m an idiot. Oh, Tyrell and Liz ALWAYS take their kids’ sides. I walk on eggshells afraid I’ll do something to upset the little angels because that’s the quickest way to an ass-whipping. And Kiara knows it, too, so she’s always threatening me: ‘I’ll have my daddy kick your butt.’ It works, too. If Kiara wants something, Kiara gets it. On the double.”
“And what about the other child?”
“Amanté? I mean, he’s in the Terrible Twos, so he runs around everywhere, and it’s hard to keep up with him, especially when I can’t be forceful with him because that’s another instant ass-whipping. I have to beg him to stop, but he never listens. His personality isn’t as developed as Kiara’s yet, although he’s starting to get demanding like her. If I don’t get his juice fast enough he’ll start screaming ‘juice, juice, juice, juice, juice,’ and if I can’t get to it immediately and he keeps it up, I’ll get in trouble with Tyrell or Liz.”
“It sounds like you take a lot of physical punishment as well as the emotional issues you have to deal with.”
“Oh, yeah. I’d say either Tyrell or Liz slap me at least 5-6 times a week, and he’ll really lay into me and kick my ass maybe once a month. That’s when I piss him off, or if he thinks I disrespected his kids. It’s funny because my ****** was so big on bloodlines and all that, and Tyrell feels the same way. He always talks about how he’s leaving his legacy, and how his kids are royalty. And Liz, shit, she’ll give her king as many babies as he wants. What does she care? She’s got me to change the diapers.”
“Ed, it doesn’t sound like you’re very happy with your situation.”
“Well, duh, yeah, no offense, but that’s why I’m here. I can’t take it anymore.”
“Okay … so, why do you think you’re at your breaking point, Ed? What brought you here?”
“Shit, I dunno. Just everything. I’m fucking tired of being everybody’s whipping boy.”
“It sounds like you’ve been in that role for quite a while.”
“Um … er, yeah. Since I was a kid. My sister … um, she bullied me pretty bad, and my parents never did anything about it. Nobody in my ****** ever really accepted me. I always knew my *** was disappointed that his son wasn’t bigger, you know, more masculine like all my cousins were. My parents kept trying to have another boy but they had three more *********. They never let me forget how disappointed they were in me, either. My *** take would me out to play catch but the ball always hurt my hand and I was afraid of the ball. So, he’d get mad and call me a sissy. One time, when I was in 4th grade, he made me wear Beth’s dress after I embarrassed him in front of the asshole who lived across the street, whose son was the best player in Little League. The ball hit my glove and I started crying, so when I got home *** made me put on Beth’s dress.”
“Is Beth your sister?”
“My older sister, yeah.”
“And how did everyone react when your *** put you in your sister’s dress?”
“Oh, they all said it was perfect for me.” Ed bit his lip. “Um, after that, Beth would make me put on her dresses all the time. She’d bring her cheerleader friends over and make me do the cheers with them. They got in trouble one time after trying to sneak me onto the cheerleading squad at the Homecoming Game. I got in trouble, too, even though I was too young to even go to high school. But my sister and her friends said it was my fault, and they all slapped me around when we got home. So, yeah, Doc, I’ve pretty much been treated like shit my whole life.”
“And, tell me, Ed … do you think the way your sister treated you may have anything to do with how you and your wife relate?”
“Well, yeah, of course.”
“And how did you meet Liz?”
“She was a cashier at the store.”
“Ah. So, you met at work.”
“Yeah, and my ****** all told me not to date her. They hated her from day one, and as soon as we started dating, she quit her job because my ****** made it so rough on her. When we decided to get married, her parents didn’t have any money to pay for any kind of wedding, and my parents refused to kick in a dime. So, we ended up just going down to the Justice of the Peace with Tyrell as the witness. They took off to Reno for a ‘honeymoon’ and I went home and cried.”
“And when did Liz get with Tyrell?”
“A few months before the wedding. Liz had screwed around with a few guys when we first started dating, but she kept it on the down low and my ****** never found out. After Liz and Tyrell got serious, he started coming over to the house more and more, and I was petrified that someone from my ****** might drop by and see a strange car in the driveway and hear my wife moaning from getting her brains fucked out or seeing this black guy lounging around in his underwear watching TV. Nobody ever did come over, thank goodness. But it didn’t matter, because the jig was up after Kiara was born. So, my ****** banished me.”
Dr. Gustav looked at his watch. “Well, Mr. Katz, our time is up. I think we made some progress this week, and I look forward to our next session.”
“Uh, thanks a lot, Doc. It feels good … you know, just to have someone on my side. I … I don’t know if I’ve ever had that. You’re my only friend in the world, Dr. Gustav. Um … can I call you Henrich?”
“Now, Edward. I’m your doctor, and you’re my patient. We aren’t friends. Okay?”
“Sure, sure, Doc. I didn’t mean to go overboard. I … I was just saying it’s nice to be able to talk to someone … who isn’t being mean to me.”
“Well, that’s what I’m here for, Ed. We’ll see you next week.”
After the patient left the office, the doctor glanced at his calendar and noted that there were two more appointments before lunch. His stomach grumbled and he debated whether to grab a Clark bar from the lobby vending machine before the next patient arrived.
by c.w. cobblestone
An elongated onyx statue rose from the carpet like a Mandingo boner, reminding Ed of the very thing he was trying to push out of his mind.
“Lie down, Mr. Katz.” The bearded psychologist waved toward the sofa. “Make yourself comfortable.”
“Thanks, Dr. Gustav.” Ed sank into the cushions, eying the sculpture as he wiped his sweaty palms on his pant legs.
“That’s a Jordan Enrich original.” The doctor picked up his pad. “It’s very provocative. When you look at it, does it make you think of anything in particular?”
Ed shifted on the couch. “Um … er … I dunno. Uh, a pencil, maybe?”
“Okay, then.” Dr. Gustav twirled his pen. “Before we get started you should know what to expect. I practice a very uncluttered version of psychiatry. I believe the answers to your issues lie within you, and therefore I like to keep my input to a minimum. I’m just here to listen. Okay?”
“Um, sure.”
“Great. So, Mr. Katz, tell me about yourself.”
Ed scoffed. “You mean what’s wrong with me?”
“Why do you say that?”
“I dunno. I was just joking around. Sorry.” Ed gulped. “Well, Doc, I’ll just come right out and say it — things aren’t great right now. They suck. A whole lot. My life has always sucked, man. But I guess everyone who comes in here must tell you that, huh?”
The doctor said nothing, allowing the patient to continue.
“So … my wife.” Ed sighed. “She makes it hard, Doc. I’m living in hell.”
“Hell? What do you mean?”
“Well … she just treats me real bad … you know?”
“How so?”
“For starters, she’s … never been faithful. She messed around with me from the beginning. I mean, it started on our first date — we went to her friend’s wedding and she disappeared with this guy for almost two hours while I sat there like a sap. She’s always liked black guys, and she was upfront about that. She told me I could either deal with it or hit the road. She’s so beautiful … like an angel … and I didn’t want to lose her … ugh, so I put up with it. I guess that makes me the biggest fucking loser in the world, huh?”
Dr. Gustav didn’t look up from his pad.
Ed sighed. “Now, she’s pregnant again — and this one isn’t mine, either.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, for starters, I haven’t had sex with Liz in the whole time we’ve been together. I’ve never had sex with anyone because I’m still a virgin. Plus, both the kids are half-black.”
“Oh.” The doctor wrote something down. “And how old are your wife’s children?”
“Um, Kiara’s 4 and Amanté’s 2. Their *** is the father of the one Liz is pregnant with as well.”
“I see. So, your wife has an ongoing relationship with this man?”
“Tyrell? Uh, yeah. He lives with us.”
“Ah. And how long has he lived with you?”
Ed made a sour face. “Ugh … right after Liz had Kiara and we all moved out of state… about a year after the wedding. We moved not far from where Tyrell grew up, so he knows everybody and likes showing off how he’s taken over my ****** and made me into his bitch.”
“And how does that make you feel, Ed? You don’t sound very happy about it.”
“Would you be happy about it? It fucking sucks, man. I bust my ass every day while he lays around with Liz getting high and letting the kids run around making huge messes for me to clean up.”
“Ah, so you’re responsible for all the housework, even though you support them.”
“Yeah, and it’s usually a disaster when I get home from work, especially if Tyrell’s had his asshole friends over. Even if nobody comes over, it’s still a mess. They let their little brats run around everywhere making messes and don’t clean up after them. And the kids are at the age where they get into everything.”
“Well, Ed, that doesn’t sound like a very rewarding existence for you, to be honest.”
“Rewarding?” Ed sniffed. “I’d settle for having one week off without getting the shit slapped out of me. Everyone else gets a vacation, you know? I’d love a week’s vacation without someone smacking me around like I’m their fucking punching bag.”
“Who slaps you?”
“Liz. Tyrell. Their friends.”
“Their friends?”
“Yeah, they all know about our relationship, and they have free rein to hit me if I do something to annoy them.”
“So … what about your ******, Ed? How did they react when your wife gave birth to mixed-race children? What did you tell them?”
“We told the truth. We didn’t go into details, but we said we were in a three-way relationship with a black man who was moving in with us. And … then my ****** banished me from the state. So, we moved down here.”
“Banished you?”
“Well, they’re paying me to stay away. I still get my profit-sharing checks from the store, but my *** fired me as general manager and told me he didn’t want to see me anymore. He said if I moved out of state, he’d keep sending my checks, and that I’d get my share in the will or if they ever sold the store. But otherwise, he said he didn’t want to ever see me again. So, Tyrell moved here with us, and I left my ****** behind.”
“And how does that make you feel, Ed?”
“Well … terrible. But … I mean, nobody in my ****** ever really liked me … but I wanted them to like me. Do you know? What kid doesn’t want his ****** to like him?” Tears welled in Ed’s eyes. His shoulders slumped. “I know I let everyone down. My *** was always talking about the ****** bloodline since the store has been in the ****** for seven generations. And I’m the only boy, even though my parents kept trying after I turned out to be such a disappointment. My parents always said they hoped my genes would skip the next generation since my father was a big man but his *** had been small. So, my wife having someone else’s baby was probably the worst thing that could’ve happened as far as my ****** was concerned. The fact that it was a black baby made it an even bigger mess. It was a huge ****** scandal.”
“How did your mom react?”
“Oh, she was mortified. She kept saying how I’d embarrassed the ******, and how disappointed she was that I hadn’t grown up to be a proper man who could take care of his wife and give her grandchildren. Tyrell was there when my mom yelled at me about not being able to give her grandkids; he laughs about it to this day; he’ll say, ‘Even your momma knew you were a little bitch with no nuts.’”
“Well, that’s not very nice. Does he say mean things like that often?”
“Mean things? He kicks my ass if he gets mad. He treats me like shit, man. Liz, too. And the kids are starting to learn from their parents. Kiara’s turning into a little princess, and she screams at me for any little thing.”
“Screams at you? About what?”
“Oh, anything — ‘I told you orange juice, you idiot, not grape juice.’ Or, ‘Hey, idiot; why aren’t my crayons where I put them?’ She gets ‘idiot’ from her mom — that’s pretty much what Liz always calls me, whether we’re in front of company or not. So, now, that’s my name as far as Kiara’s concerned, too.”
“And Kiara’s parents don’t say anything when she insults you like that?”
“Yeah — they’ll agree with her that I’m an idiot. Oh, Tyrell and Liz ALWAYS take their kids’ sides. I walk on eggshells afraid I’ll do something to upset the little angels because that’s the quickest way to an ass-whipping. And Kiara knows it, too, so she’s always threatening me: ‘I’ll have my daddy kick your butt.’ It works, too. If Kiara wants something, Kiara gets it. On the double.”
“And what about the other child?”
“Amanté? I mean, he’s in the Terrible Twos, so he runs around everywhere, and it’s hard to keep up with him, especially when I can’t be forceful with him because that’s another instant ass-whipping. I have to beg him to stop, but he never listens. His personality isn’t as developed as Kiara’s yet, although he’s starting to get demanding like her. If I don’t get his juice fast enough he’ll start screaming ‘juice, juice, juice, juice, juice,’ and if I can’t get to it immediately and he keeps it up, I’ll get in trouble with Tyrell or Liz.”
“It sounds like you take a lot of physical punishment as well as the emotional issues you have to deal with.”
“Oh, yeah. I’d say either Tyrell or Liz slap me at least 5-6 times a week, and he’ll really lay into me and kick my ass maybe once a month. That’s when I piss him off, or if he thinks I disrespected his kids. It’s funny because my ****** was so big on bloodlines and all that, and Tyrell feels the same way. He always talks about how he’s leaving his legacy, and how his kids are royalty. And Liz, shit, she’ll give her king as many babies as he wants. What does she care? She’s got me to change the diapers.”
“Ed, it doesn’t sound like you’re very happy with your situation.”
“Well, duh, yeah, no offense, but that’s why I’m here. I can’t take it anymore.”
“Okay … so, why do you think you’re at your breaking point, Ed? What brought you here?”
“Shit, I dunno. Just everything. I’m fucking tired of being everybody’s whipping boy.”
“It sounds like you’ve been in that role for quite a while.”
“Um … er, yeah. Since I was a kid. My sister … um, she bullied me pretty bad, and my parents never did anything about it. Nobody in my ****** ever really accepted me. I always knew my *** was disappointed that his son wasn’t bigger, you know, more masculine like all my cousins were. My parents kept trying to have another boy but they had three more *********. They never let me forget how disappointed they were in me, either. My *** take would me out to play catch but the ball always hurt my hand and I was afraid of the ball. So, he’d get mad and call me a sissy. One time, when I was in 4th grade, he made me wear Beth’s dress after I embarrassed him in front of the asshole who lived across the street, whose son was the best player in Little League. The ball hit my glove and I started crying, so when I got home *** made me put on Beth’s dress.”
“Is Beth your sister?”
“My older sister, yeah.”
“And how did everyone react when your *** put you in your sister’s dress?”
“Oh, they all said it was perfect for me.” Ed bit his lip. “Um, after that, Beth would make me put on her dresses all the time. She’d bring her cheerleader friends over and make me do the cheers with them. They got in trouble one time after trying to sneak me onto the cheerleading squad at the Homecoming Game. I got in trouble, too, even though I was too young to even go to high school. But my sister and her friends said it was my fault, and they all slapped me around when we got home. So, yeah, Doc, I’ve pretty much been treated like shit my whole life.”
“And, tell me, Ed … do you think the way your sister treated you may have anything to do with how you and your wife relate?”
“Well, yeah, of course.”
“And how did you meet Liz?”
“She was a cashier at the store.”
“Ah. So, you met at work.”
“Yeah, and my ****** all told me not to date her. They hated her from day one, and as soon as we started dating, she quit her job because my ****** made it so rough on her. When we decided to get married, her parents didn’t have any money to pay for any kind of wedding, and my parents refused to kick in a dime. So, we ended up just going down to the Justice of the Peace with Tyrell as the witness. They took off to Reno for a ‘honeymoon’ and I went home and cried.”
“And when did Liz get with Tyrell?”
“A few months before the wedding. Liz had screwed around with a few guys when we first started dating, but she kept it on the down low and my ****** never found out. After Liz and Tyrell got serious, he started coming over to the house more and more, and I was petrified that someone from my ****** might drop by and see a strange car in the driveway and hear my wife moaning from getting her brains fucked out or seeing this black guy lounging around in his underwear watching TV. Nobody ever did come over, thank goodness. But it didn’t matter, because the jig was up after Kiara was born. So, my ****** banished me.”
Dr. Gustav looked at his watch. “Well, Mr. Katz, our time is up. I think we made some progress this week, and I look forward to our next session.”
“Uh, thanks a lot, Doc. It feels good … you know, just to have someone on my side. I … I don’t know if I’ve ever had that. You’re my only friend in the world, Dr. Gustav. Um … can I call you Henrich?”
“Now, Edward. I’m your doctor, and you’re my patient. We aren’t friends. Okay?”
“Sure, sure, Doc. I didn’t mean to go overboard. I … I was just saying it’s nice to be able to talk to someone … who isn’t being mean to me.”
“Well, that’s what I’m here for, Ed. We’ll see you next week.”
After the patient left the office, the doctor glanced at his calendar and noted that there were two more appointments before lunch. His stomach grumbled and he debated whether to grab a Clark bar from the lobby vending machine before the next patient arrived.
