Celia has received a phone call from a local psychiatrist's office asking her to visit the doctor. She returns the call and asks what it pertains to, but the woman says only that the doctor wants to see her as soon as possible. Celia makes an appointment and the next day goes to the doctor's office.
Celia enters the psychiatrist's office and tells the receptionist her name. The woman buzzes the doctor who immediately comes into the waiting room.
Hello, Mrs. Mackey. I'm glad you could come to see me. How are you?
Hello, Doctor. I'm fine. What did you want to see me about? Isn't this a bit unusual?
Come into my office where we can talk. Have a seat.
Doctor, is this about Ken?
Yes, Mrs. Mackey, and it's very important that we talk. You see, Mrs. Mackey, I can't divulge doctor patient confidentiality without Ken's permission or unless someone's life is at risk – the patient's or someone else's. I've been urging Ken for months to bring you here or ask you to visit me. I finally had to imply that I'd have to file a report with the police if that didn't happen. This is quite a touchy matter, and I don't really know where to begin.
As you must know, Ken has been seeing me twice a week for the last two years. Before that, he had been seeing several other specialists in this state and others for the previous seventeen or eighteen years. Ken has a serious problem and it controls him. We haven't been able to cure it or even keep it in check. I'm sure you're aware that he has a sex addiction that drives him to extremes. I know what he does to you and other women from what he tells me and from the files of eight other doctors that he has seen.
Mrs. Mackey, Ken is a ticking time bomb; he's liable to explode at any time. He has used women since he was about twenty to fuel his addiction and give him a certain amount of peace.
I know that sounds strange because he certainly doesn't give women peace. You must be a saint to have put up with him for this long. At this time, the one thing he has used to keep a lid on his addiction has been denied him, and that's why I think that he's become dangerous. You're thinking, "How could he be more dangerous than he's been all along?" I'll explain.
Ken's life is a paradox. On one hand he has everything going for him: looks, money, power, women, you name, it he has it. On the other hand, he is so strongly addicted to sex that it controls every aspect of his life. But, Mrs. Mackey, he doesn't have the physical capacity to do what his addiction drives him to do; therefore, he resorts to abusing women to offset his lack of ability to consummate his need. You're thinking that I must be mistaken. He has half the women in Mackey to have sex with and that should satisfy him, but he's physically unable to do that. Ken is sexually dysfunctional. Yes, he can get an erection and ejaculate - - - once. That only whets his appetite, but he can't perform a second time. And this is why he abuses women. Ken is the male equivalent of a nymphomaniac, Mrs. Mackey. He does not get satisfaction from a single sexual encounter. He must try over and over and over, but it never happens. He is unfulfilled.
He gets only a taste of what he needs and then his body fails him. His paradox is that he has access to his desire – many women, but he doesn't have the capacity to sexually utilize them. He is outraged that these women can't turn him on enough for him to continue having sex with them, so he abuses them to punish them for their failure, for his failure, and to give him the power to make them "feel" him sexually. The damage he inflicts on them is his substitute for entering their bodies and ejaculating in them. Do you understand this, Mrs. Mackey?"
"I think I do, Doctor, but what can I do about it. I'm a victim of his addiction. And please call me Celia."
"There is absolutely nothing you can do about it, Celia. He has been to every known specialist in this part of the country and one in Europe. He has sought out alternative medicine and even quacks. He has had so many testosterone needles and acupuncture needles thrust into him that he says he feels like a pincushion. Of course, he passes that pain along to any masochistic woman who'll put up with it.
Some quack had him sit on hot pads so long that he said it felt like his testicles were being fried. He passes that heat along to his women in the form of hot candle wax. Everything he is subjected to, he forces women to endure. If specialists can't help him, there is certainly nothing you can do to help. In the meantime, Ken is drinking more and more heavily to dull the anguish and frustration of his sexual dysfunction.
Unfortunately, Celia, your marriage was a terrible mistake. It's not your fault. You were a victim of circumstances – your pregnancy and your father and his father forcing the marriage. But marriage and fatherhood just moved Ken into another phase of his addiction. If he ever loved anyone, it is Karla. He never beat or abused her except to have her perform oral sex on other women. Marriage to Karla might have ameliorated his addiction but certainly not cure it. The more women that were available to have sex with, the more frustrated he became. Karla may never have put up with more than one other woman at a time, and Ken's addiction might have wound down to some degree rather than escalate."
"Oh Doctor, I feel terrible. I could have had an abortion and refused to marry him. I'm partially to blame for the pain and humiliation of his 'witches'."
"Celia, we don't know that. What I said was very simplistic. It may not have been any different if you hadn't married him. His inability to sexually penetrate women led to substitute measures. He needs to have women feel and experience his sexuality. The sjambok that he uses is made from a rhinoceros' penis. Can you see the implication there? Striking a women's rear, thighs, and genitals over and over is a substitute for intercourse. Seeing the welts and bruising he's inflicted is a substitute for ejaculation – for his semen. She has felt his sexual power and has retained his substitute seed."
"I do see the symbolism of those acts, Doctor, but why does he have to humiliate them so?"
"Celia, if you're referring to the panty gags, that is easily explained. Ken has learned from an early age how to turn a girl or woman on. He knows instinctively how to press her buttons to make her juices flow. Unfortunately, her very smell of arousal nauseates and disgusts him. Instead of reveling in that aroma of her femaleness, he is sickened by it. He knows that the scent will not stimulate him to sexual activity. And because he can't stimulate her orally because of that scent, he needs another woman to provide cunnilingus in his place. Then he must punish the women by increasing that odor as much as possible. It's an ever-increasing upward spiral.
If you mean why he puts foreign objects into their vaginas and plugs into their anuses, it's rather obvious. Since the women aren't stimulating him to erection, those objects are a substitute for his penis, and he wants them as large as will fit into the women's orifices.
As far as sending them home naked, he finds it necessary to have the women feel his power even after they have left him to go home. Naked, they are still aware of his influence over them. Ken doesn't think up these cruelties out of a clear blue sky. They are manifestations of his innermost needs.
The reason I had to speak with you is that Ken has reached his boiling point. You and other women he has in his grasp are in imminent danger. He doesn't think: "I'm going to damage or kill someone." However, he has come close to doing just that and one of these days, he will go over the edge. You really have only two choices. Allow him to use the sjambok, his substitute penis, which will only delay the inevitable, or you must get far away from him. Well, you can see where he is headed, can't you?"
"Yes Doctor, thank you for the warning. I realize that must have been very difficult for you do."
Celia drives home and repeats to Karla what the psychiatrist had told her. Karla tells Celia not to feel guilty about marrying Ken and that she has actually saved Karla from making a similar mistake.