The Devil's Bull

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Be careful when you dance on the Devil's doorstep.

You never know when he might come out and ask you to come inside.

(One of my Grandmother's sayings.)

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Doctor David Ryan Richardson rose groggily from the couch in his basement TV room and staggered upstairs to the shower. Despite not feeling well, he desperately needed to clean up and get ready for a very special night on the town. He was going to a Halloween party that he could not possibly allow himself to miss.

The previous morning, for the first time ever, he had cancelled all remaining appointments for the day and returned home sick. Unlike many of his doctor friends, he was almost never sick. That was probably because, unlike most of his doctor friends, he wasn't around sick people all of the time, at least not physically sick people.

One of the reasons that David had become a Psychiatrist was that metal illness was not contagious - that and the fact that it gave him clear access to very vulnerable people who could not protect themselves from his sadism.

Dave had always known he was a sadist, even before he knew what the word meant. And he always knew that he was going to become a doctor, even before he knew what all was involved in making that happen.

His mother had named him David Ryan so his initials would be DR. One of his earliest memories was of her telling him that he already had doctor in front of his last name, now all he had to do was become one.

Most people become doctors because they want to help people, but not David. David knew very early in his life that he did not want to help people. David wanted to hurt people, or at least he wanted to watch people suffer. He became a doctor because his mother wanted him to become a doctor, and his mother was rich enough to pay for his medical education and powerful enough that no one, including David, ever went against what Mother Richardson wanted - at least not for very long.

Medical school was a nightmare for David - especially residency. Classes were not a problem. He held a perfect A average throughout college and med school. David was brilliant - perhaps beyond brilliant, so trying to learn all that a doctor needed to know was not the problem. The problem was.... all those suffering people you were supposed to care about... all those worried relatives who expected you to "understand"... all those do-gooders continually trying to talk you into a volunteer year or two in this or that Godforsaken country... and especially, all those sick people coughing and sneezing and oozing their filth and contagion all over you, trying to drag you down into the depths of their pit of woe. For David, THAT was medical school and it was only his fear of his mother's power that kept him there into his residency year. Residency was even worse because he had to come into close contact with the puss and pestilence of everyday hospital life.

There was one shining spot in the midst of that dark hole of blackness called residency, and that was psychiatric rotation. Most of the other residents dreaded a cycle through psychiatric, but there David found his home. Others would complain of the poor demented souls who looked at them with such pleading eyes, begging to be released from that terrible prison of torment and pain created by their own minds. The sense of helplessness in the face of such hopelessness drained the energy from almost every other student..., but not from "Doctor Doctor." He thrived on it.

The name of the on-call in the psych unit was never written out fully on the contact board. Even the doctor's full initials were not used. Instead the initials of their first and middle names were written on the board in the slot permanently labeled "Dr." When David was on call it read, "Dr. DR." Thus, David became known as "Doctor Doctor." He liked that nickname and often used it to refer to himself.

The other residents soon learned that Doctor Doctor was willing to trade assignments, and by making regular trades, David was able, for the most part, to avoid the normal wards which he hated, and the others were able to avoid the psych ward which they hated. It was a perfect arrangement. Normally, the supervising doctors would have objected to such continual trades, but David seemed to be such a natural in the psych ward and to have such a rapport with the patients, that they let it slide.

The other residents, and even some of the supers, were amazed that, when assigned to daily group sessions for the "permanent resident patients," he could sit and listen for hours to them tell their same tale of woe over and over again. What they did not know is that David wasn't really listening to what these demented souls had to say. Instead, he was warming himself in the glow of the pain and suffering that exuded from their bodies with every word they spoke. That's why Doctor Doctor was not worn down by these useless attempts at therapy as were almost every other resident forced to participate in these sessions with the lost and unreachable. Instead, as he sat amongst their pain, he was fed... nourished... invigorated... by the feast of despair and anguish laid before him, which he sucked greedily into his body.

He sought and was accepted into a full, four year psychiatric residency, and following that went into partnership with a Psychiatrist at the hospital who was nearing retirement. During his four years of residency and another four years of partnership, Doctor Doctor honed his techniques of counseling and therapy, but more importantly he perfected his techniques of selecting, using and abusing certain, specific patients.

It was a given that Psychiatrists, male and female, would use their position to get a little sexual satisfaction once in a while. As long as it wasn't too blatant, and as long as there were no public lawsuits, such activity was treated with a blind eye. But sex did not feed and invigorate David. Inflicting pain did, and that type of mistreatment of patients was not treated so leniently.

Doctor Doctor extensively read the histories of doctors, lawyers, teachers, pastors, and others who had been brought down by mistreatment of those entrusted to them. The lesson he learned from that record was clear. If he mistreated everyone, eventually everyone would know. If he mistreated a few, several would know and would corroborate each other's stories once the story of one came out. But if he chose one carefully selected patient at a time as his "play puppet," and if he made sure that selected person was not around later to testify against him, the worst that could happen would be a situation where it was the word of ONE certifiably deranged person against that of a well-regarded and highly respected Doctor of Psychiatry who had worked so hard to help so many people - all of whom were willing to publically testify on his behalf.

At first David selected people with masochistic tendencies, preferably with suicidal overtones. Such people would allow him to hurt them emotionally, physically, and mentally because, deep down, they enjoyed it. But Doctor Doctor found these relationships did not feed him adequately or warm the coldness that often permeated his soul. The flicker of the flame of pain and suffering within these people was actually weak, and all too often that flame was overwhelmed by the fire of the pleasure of release that came within or after the pain. That fire of pleasure did not feed David. It burned him and drove him away.

It was a part of David's plan from the very beginning that if a puppet was not satisfactorily working out, or if he had just grown tired of them, he would dispose of them. That sounds difficult and risky in and of itself, but when a mentally unbalanced person is standing on the edge of the cliff of self-destruction, it is remarkably easy for someone, properly trained and skilled, to push them over that precipice while at the same time leaving a records trail that looks like all of the while they were trying to pull that poor, demented individual back from the edge.

Several rejected play puppets went over the cliff before Doctor Doctor finally refined his selection criteria. He discovered that he did not want a masochist who was drawn to pain because of the enjoyment it gave them - despite the cost of that enjoyment. What Doctor David needed, and carefully sought out, was a pain addict who was drawn to pain because they needed it - despite the fact that they derived absolutely no pleasure from it.

Some masochists progress - or regress - into pain addicts. David had even helped one or two make that transition. It starts when the person is no longer driven by the pleasure of being in pain, but rather by the unbearable distress of NOT being in pain. Like a junkie craving a fix, they begin to crave pain just to make the distress of withdrawal go away. And exactly like a junkie building up a tolerance, the pain they crave becomes more and more severe in order to give them their fix. Eventually it gets to a point where they no longer derive any pleasure at all from the pain, but are driven solely by the fact that the pain of being without pain is worse than the pain of being in pain. That is usually the point where they self destruct or seek someone to destroy them.

Although Doctor David knew that it was an impossible quest, he dreamed of someday finding the perfect play puppet. He even knew exactly what the perfect play puppet would be. That sadist's unholy grail would be someone addicted to pain, but not willing to end their suffering through the tough road of therapy and life-style change that would release them from their addiction. At the same time that person would not be willing to end their suffering through the simple road of ending their own life. This ambivalence trapped that person permanently in the prison of their own mind. This person would seek pain, but then shriek in true agony when that pain was received. The warmth given off by that kind of pain and suffering could nourish David for a long, long time.

Seven months ago, Doctor Doctor was growing tired of his latest play puppet and gave her the final tap at the top of the precipice. He often did pro-bono work. Shelly was a "charity case." His counseling with her was non-fee. He even arranged to pick up the portion of her in-house treatments that the entitlement programs didn't cover. When she committed suicide, outwardly he was devastated that someone he had worked so hard to save had taken their own life by stepping in front of a bus. Inwardly he was laughing to himself about how simple it had been to put her in front of that bus.

All he had needed to do was to point out an article in the newspaper about someone who had been hit by a bus, and then add, "At least it was over so fast he didn't suffer. One minute he was here, the next in he was in oblivion."

David knew that Shelly took the bus to and from her appointments with him and to work. He also knew - because she had told him - that the express busses, which also drove in the curbside "Busses Only" lane with the regular busses, did not stop at Shelly's bus stop.

David's comment was an "impulse grenade," and he had pulled the pin and dropped it into her mind so smoothly that she didn't even feel it lodge in her subconscious. Doctor Doctor had waited until after the session had wrapped up and the recorders were turned off to accidentally pick up the paper lying on his desk and make his comment. No video or audio was running, so nothing would appear in the records trail should anyone ever take the time or effort to go looking.

Three weeks later, the grenade exploded. Shelly was going to work. She stood at her bus stop and watched the express bus coming. She knew it wasn't going to stop. It wasn't even going to slow down. It never did. But then, as it approached, suddenly the image of a quick doorway into oblivion flashed into her mind. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and stepped off the curb.

David had the front page story on the break room bulletin board for several weeks, but took it down because he was afraid that someone might notice that he smiled deeply whenever he looked at it. Now it was in a folder in the rack on his desk. He knew it was there, and he knew what it said. That was all that was necessary. His smile was just as broad as he glanced at that folder. In fact, the other day just looking at that folder had caused him to suddenly need to call Debra, the records clerk, into his office to review some case records.

Debra was a sex addict whom David had "cured." At least her husband and her family thought that she was cured because she no longer wore provocative clothing or snuck out of the house at night to troll the bars. What he had actually done, however, was to change her addiction from general sex to sex with him. Those modest, loose fitting dresses and skirts that she wore were merely to disguise the fact that while at work she wore nothing under them except a dildo harness that kept plugs firmly in place in her cunt and ass.

She was not a "play puppet" for his sadistic pleasure, but merely a "normal" doctor-patient sexual release like several others whom he occasionally used. He had cultivated each of them carefully and was fairly sure that none of them would expose him, but even if they did, such scandal would, at worst, bring a letter of censure from his peer review board. More likely it would be just a "strongly worded verbal warning," and a notation in his records that "a client complaint had been investigated."

Debra had removed the harness and both dildos before coming up to the office. David had texted her to say that he needed to review "two files." That meant he wanted her available for immediate sex. "A fast review of a case" meant to leave the harness in place because all he wanted was a quick blow job under his desk. "Several files," or "some case records," meant he actually needed records work done.

Debra was a properly trained medical records clerk. It was her job, among other things, to load the disks into the recorders at the beginning of the day. For some complex legal reason, the recorder had to be in the same room as the camera and microphone, so that meant going to David's office first thing each morning to insert the properly labeled disks. It also meant returning to the office after the last appointment of the day to remove the disks and file them. An "overnight disk" was always left in the machine so that the doctor could record any emergency or evening session.

The disks were not the only things inserted in the morning. Debra would set the disk case on a chair, reach up under her dress, remove her white "granny panties," and hand them to David. She would then flip the dress up over herself, bend over and place her hands on the floor so that David could see her sex and ass. He would carefully fold her panties and place them in a locked drawer of his desk. From that same drawer he would remove the dildos and the tight leather harness. The anal plug was vented so that gas would not build up in her bowels during the day. The dildo in her cunt was remote controlled so that sexual passion could build up as David toyed with her during the day if he so desired. The remote connected to the internet so Doctor Doctor could access it from anywhere he was, even outside the building.

For several days following Shelly's death, David "toyed with" Debra incessantly throughout the day and had called her up to review two files each day. At least once in the morning and once in the afternoon he had found the need for a fast review of a case. Debra knew that something was different when, on one of those occasions, he had her strip completely and lay over his desk rather than just flipping her skirt over her back. She squirmed and grunted as she tried desperately to remain quiet while his hands squeezed her breasts forcing her higher and higher into orgasmic bliss.

Three days after the accident, Debra was under his desk when a colleague called about a referral. The friend handled a lot of court-ordered therapy and had a case that baffled him. He thought it was more in David's field of expertise and was wondering if he would accept the referral.

The patient's name was JoAnne. She had walked up to an officer on duty at a street corner and slapped her in the face. Then she resisted arrest by kicking the officer between the legs. The fact that it was a female officer made the officer's response no less violent. JoAnne had suffered two cracked ribs and pepper spray burns to the face and eyes plus a tazer burn to the side when she still would not stop kicking and flailing.

There were no drugs in JoAnne's system. She appeared very normal and courteous in court and passed all psychiatric evaluations. What brought about the court-ordered therapy was primarily the fact that JoAnne, after collapsing to the ground and while she was still vibrating from the tazer shocks, looked up at the officer, smiled sweetly, and said, "Thank you. I needed that."

The backup officer's evaluation was "That bitch is crazier than a crack whore."

Dr. Morrison's evaluation was a little more clinical, but no less biting. "She's not truly a masochist," he told David. "We did the fully monitored image screening with pussy probe and everything. The physical tests say she receives no pleasure or sexual stimulation from pain, but the mental tests say she craves it - is almost addicted to it. I understand you have handled a few other patients like this. Would you be willing to take over her case?"

The unholy grail had been dropped on his desk like a gift from above. David knew that JoAnne was not self-destructive because she did not attempt to force the officer to kill her. But at the same time she knew and expressed the fact that she was addicted to pain. In Dr. Morrison's short summary, Doctor Doctor could see that JoAnne was an addict who wanted a fix, not a cure. Hopefully, he could keep her dancing on the edge of destruction for many years.

She was going to be the play puppet of all play puppets, but first he had to make her his. And he had to move slowly. One does not suddenly grab the unholy grail as if it were a common cup of tea. One caresses it and strokes it and slowly works one's hands around it until it is yours.

After his sessions with JoAnne, David would take copies of the disks home and listen to them while he masturbated himself or had sex with his sex addict neighbor. The neighbor was also one of his former patients whom he had groomed for his sexual release. Her moving in next door was not an accident. For someone who could easily manipulate someone else into killing themselves, maneuvering someone into moving next door when the house was up for sale was child's play.

Besides, her husband was a part of her illness and didn't really want her to improve. He enjoyed the thought of her having sex with other men as long as she made the pretense of keeping it secret from him and from the world. She would come home smelling of sex and cigarettes and want him to fuck her as much as he desired, as long as he desired, in any way he desired... and he would. Why would most men want to change that?

Whenever Cassie came over to David's house, her husband would tell himself she was coming over for therapy. But then he would make her show him the whip and paddle marks on her ass when she came home. Sometimes he would wait for her on the back deck hoping that this would be one of those times when she ended up running across their adjoining backyards naked to get home. Then he would catch her at the back door, push her across the deck table and fuck whichever hole did not have cum oozing from it.

After JoAnne had been in therapy for several weeks, she began talking about "The Devil's Doorstep." David was familiar with all of the sexually oriented clubs in town because at least one of his patients belonged to each of them, but he had never heard of The Devil's Doorstep.