Joe Haldeman by Tool of the Trade

Author:Tool of the Trade [Trade, Tool of the]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Published: 2011-12-14T21:56:48+00:00

My heart started to hammer. Could he be making this up to scare me?

“I grew up on a farm. My first sexual encounters were with animals. Once a sheep tried to get away from me, and I killed it. The blood was … exciting beyond expression. I made it a practice. Hurting them, sometimes killing them.

“When I was older, after Stalin, I sought out partners who did not mind pain, or enjoyed it. Most of them were other young men, though I preferred women. Older women. I would have liked you.” I was not especially grateful.

“I was accepted by the MGB, which was one of the KGB’s predecessors, and after a couple of years they posted me to Germany. That was a godsend, since prostitutes there were often amenable to sadism, and there was no … political problems. In Russia I was often afraid that one of my partners would exploit our relationship.

“After a few years, though, my superiors evidently got suspicious. I hired a prostitute from my usual source. As it turned out, she was actually one of our agents from another city. She played the part with enthusiasm. But once she had ample evidence of my proclivities, she revealed who she was and ordered me to stop. It was bad timing on her part. As much out of anger as desire, I killed her. She was the only one I ever killed. Of course I wasn’t able to cover it up.

“But for various reasons I was valuable to the NKVD. So I was allowed to be castrated as an experiment in … attitude adjustment. What do you think of that?”

“I don’t know what to think. I hope it’s a fantasy you’re using in order to scare-“

“No.” He turned around and slowly exposed himself: crotch as featureless as a plastic doll’s. Catheter and bag, no penis. As he methodically redressed, he continued. “So I am no longer a sadist in the strictest sense of the word. My only sexual activity is a periodic shot of testosterone, to prevent glandular imbalance.

“However, I find I do still take a sort of detached pleasure in inflicting pain. And I know a great deal about people’s reactions to pain.” He leaned over the table toward me. The burning cigarette was about a foot from my bare chest.

“If you’re trying to frighten me,” I said, “you’ve succeeded. I’ll tell you anything you want to know.” The quaver in my voice was genuine. “I’m no hero, heroine.”

“That is a problem.” He moved the cigarette closer; I could feel the heat from its ember on my left breast. “People will tell you whatever they think you want to hear. Rather than the truth.”

The chair back creaked with the force of my retreat from the coal, as he brought it to within an inch of the nipple. I closed my eyes tight and even so had to turn away. A crawling, tingling sensation raced up and down my back; my guts churned. “I’m going to be sick,” I said through clenched jaws.

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