Wet Nightmares

“Relax,” de Sade says in a soothing voice. “Let’s go over your dream in detail…”

“It was not a dream, how many times do I need to tell you,” Kong yells back sitting up wide-eyed.

“Relax, relax,” the doctor says with a friendly smile, “you are not properly relaxed.”

“How can a man relax when his life is at stake?” Kong protests, fidgeting on the couch.

“We’ve gone over all of that before, so lets stay focused here, ” Dr. de Sade acknowledges her patient’s protest. “Okay, describe your experience in detail.”



King Kong does not weigh thousands of tons, nor stands hundreds of feet tall. He is just an ordinary person. He looks up his daily horoscope, attends mass on Sunday, reads self-help books and perpetually remains in psychotherapy. He moved to America when he was a teenager and is a Purple Heart army veteran. Yet he is not rid of his Ape identity.

“It was all a lie, an elaborate deception,” he laments to his therapist and lets out a sigh, “I still get shivers remembering the look on her face. I wish we could go back in time …” He stops, ponders something, then shakes his head with a sudden jerk.

“I understand how you feel,” the analyst interjects, trying to sound sympathetic, “tell me more about it.”

Dr. Alycia de Sade, an Ivy League trained psychiatrist, took on this patient with some hesitation. After a whole week of shrinking heads she is usually bombed out by late Friday afternoon, but that was the only open slot on her scheduler. Her department head decided that, being from Apeland herself, she was culturally more qualified to take on this case. She reluctantly acquiesced. “Another chronic drug rehab?” she had muttered, when Dr. Blabber handed over the patient’s chart. “It’s more than that,” Dr. Blabber had returned. “You’ll find out, I don’t want to cloud your opinion.” At least this patient had Blue Cross Deluxe Plus, she thought, good thing he was not an indigent. Friday afternoons were no time to be altruistic.

He was a corporal in the army, he tells his therapist, and the Pentagon exploited him in its clandestine scientific experiments during the Cold War. “I was used as a gunie pig when I got injured during the aborted hostage rescue mission in Iran.”

“They were subjecting us to massive radiation of all kinds to study the effects on our size and shape,” he alleges. “I was also fed mind altering drugs, like LSD. I even had a physical transformation. It has taken me years to reverse those effects”.


King Kong nails Jesus to the cross for a living at the Trinity Gift Factory where he works now a days. The little plastic jesuses are imported from Taiwan and the wooden crosses come from Yakima, Washington. His catholic sensibilities are stretched to the limit by the time he clocks out. But it’s a paying job and he has a mortgage plus the benefits are good. He needs the psychotherapy so he heads straight for the shrink shop after work every Friday.

“There was that one, well publicized, episode,” Kong continues, “when I escaped from the lab in an altered state and scared some civilians in New York.”

“The rest is all propaganda, Hollywood hyperbole!” he swears. “The army wanted to cover up what it had done to me, so King Kong was made out to be this bizarre monster who terrorized New York City and abducted women up the Empire State building”. He pauses again, swallows hard, and asks “would I be here on your couch, week after week, spending hundreds of dollars, if I really was the monster the army and Hollywood have made me?” Kong’s face shows signs of angst. He hesitates for a moment and looks at her probingly, “you do believe me don’t you?”

“I don’t see you as a monster,” Dr. de Sade reassures King Kong without conviction but looks earnest as she gives him the professional smile. “Now if you are ready, I want you to close your eyes and take a deep breath.”

As soon as Kong closes his eyes, Dr. de Sade stretches back with a silent yawn, and focuses on her writing pad resuming the idle scribble. She’s been drawing overlapping squares and triangles. Usually she just draws circles and spirals. ‘I must be getting uptight again,’ she thinks. A moment later she looks at her patient who is doing as told. Her eyes flick a hasty glance at the wall clock, ‘Good,’ she says to herself, ‘twenty more minutes of this and we’re out of here.’ She wills herself back into focus and resumes her professionalism.

“Alright then, describe your experience in detail. Imagine that you are living through it all over again. Start from the beginning.”

“I’ll read from my journal,” Kong opens his dog-eared notebook, staring at a distant imaginary point, his eyes moist and glassy, and without looking at the notebook he begins in a soft voice, hardly louder than a whisper:

As I walk through downtown I hear an approaching rumble, getting louder. I look ahead and see a shrieking crowd turn the corner like a herd of cattle gone stampede crazy. Screams fill the air as the frenzied crowd heads my way. In the panic struck horde I see cops and firemen running just as fast as those they protect and serve. A taxi flashes past me in a screeching rush.

‘What is going on?’ I ask myself, watching the mad crowd rush by. Someone shouts, “Run, you idiot, or she’ll get you!” The stranger’s frantic warning makes me a little uneasy, but I proceed towards the approaching peril.

It suddenly gets dark as if a thick cloud veils the sun. It surprises me because a moment earlier the sun was ablaze in the clear blue sky. I glance skyward and my heart stops with a thud.

There she stands blocking the sun and looking furious. Peachtree Plaza comes up to her chin as she towers over Atlanta. Her arms folded, she looks down at me with a mocking smile. Her legs are wide apart, and her massive feet each hide behind the Main Post Office and the Federal Building.

Her breasts are bigger than the capital dome,” Kong, back from his trance, looks up at Dr. de Sade, “That is the Georgia Capital Dome, doc, not the one in Washington,” he explains, his inflection back to normal.

“Go on with your story, I mean, your experience. Don’t stop,” she manages to blurt while scribbling on, a bit surprised at Kong’s interruption of his well-rehearsed monologue.

“Okay,” Kong reverts to his narrative, “I was telling you about her breasts. Yes, that’s right.” He resumes his monologue, “Her breasts are bigger than the capital dome and her thighs are a city-block in diameter. Her pubic hair span a patch larger than the green area in Olympic Park. Strands of hair are twenty feet long and jumbled up like enormous ropes dangling from the mast of a tall ship, fluttering vigorously in the wind.

‘Holy Shit,’ I mutter, panic stricken, unable to escape. My knees melt. She brings her foot over me in a swooping step, as if to squash a cockroach on the kitchen floor.

I see her massive sole descend from the sky and duck just before the foot comes smashing down. Pinned to the ground I am caught under the arch of her foot, hardly able to breathe. Two fingers, as large as the pillars of the White House, enter the gap between the ground and her sole. The two giant columns of flesh gently pinch together and grab me by the ankle.

Now I am upside down, as she yanks me out from under the foot and lifts me toward her face. This is the fastest elevator ride of my life. My heart is thrust into my throat and the blood rushes to my head. Negative G forces turn me purple as I hurtle above the tallest building watching the ground shoot away at blinding speed. This is not happening, I tell myself. This must be a nightmare.

Six hundred feet above the ground she lets me go. My ascent halts with a jerk and, for a transient moment, I remain motionless in mid-air. Then I drop like a rock. I gasp a lung-full to let out a shriek but I land on the padded cushion of her other palm.

She raises her extended palm to eye level. It is a huge face, larger than Teddy Roosevelt’s on Mount Rushmore. We look at one another and a surge of renewed horror overtakes me as I recognize her. It is no nightmare. It is worse. It is for real.

There is no mistake: it is Faye Wray alright! The blond I supposedly picked up near the Empire State building years ago when our roles were reversed. I have only vague memories of that event, but she remembers it well.

“I have caught up with you King Kong...and it is my turn to have fun, while you squirm,” she says, her voice sounds like the ocean gale. Her breath has a rancid, foul odor. When she speaks I feel nauseous. I am standing at the mouth of a fire dragon’s cave. The stench of rot comes from her mouth.


King Kong interrupts himself, turns to his analyst and asks abruptly, “Hey, doc, do you think she had not been brushing her teeth or what?”

Alycia de Sade is a little rattled at the unexpected question. She is no longer scribbling triangles and squares. She is back to her soothing circles and spirals. She stops and, remaining deliberately steady, raises her pencil to tuck aside a loose strand of hair, resisting the urge to flick it aside with a quick jerk of her head. She has heard it all before and almost remembers it verbatim but each time he tells the story like it had just happened. Each time he pretends to read but actually narrates it from memory. She has stopped arguing with him and just lets him repeat it over and over each Friday.

(“This is an obsession, you know? You are delusional.” she had told him after he repeated the incident to her the third time.

“Of course, it is,” he had replied, agitated, “how can a man not be obsessed when the woman is after his blood?”

“She is not a real woman, you have dreamed it all up, and no one is after your blood” de Sade had exploded impatiently, but immediately regretted and recollected herself.

“How are you going to help me if you don’t listen to me? No one listens to me. You are just like the rest of them.”

Exasperated, she had given up, “Okay, go on and tell me what’s on your mind, I’m listening.” That was months ago.)

Today’s interruption is new, she notices. Is he breaking out of the thought pattern? He usually does not stop, but right now she is too bored to worry about it. This was their weekly ritual and she was just going to play along and go through the motions.

“I cannot say why she had bad breath, but you need to remain focused and go on with your story, the time is running out,” the doctor commands her patient gently and goes back to her notepad. The page was saturated with idle scribble and those beautifully symmetrical circles and spirals.

“Where was I? Yes, she has very bad breath. Really bad.” Kong continues.

“So then what happens after you recognize her face?” Alycia de Sade is glad to have heard this last snippet of her patient’s delusional rambling, so she successfully pretends to have been following the repetitive figment of his sick imagination. It is at times like these when she wishes she had picked anesthesiology as her specialty. At least the anesthesia patients don’t talk nonsense. She wonders if she even likes dealing with the demented half of humanity. Is it coloring her view of all human beings? This question lingers in her mind these days.

Kong arches his neck backwards and stares at the ceiling, draws in a deep breath and slips back into his story telling trance:

Then I become speechless, and just look at her in apprehension. She does not wait for me to speak. Her fingers curl around me as she begins to squeeze her clenched fist. Only my head sticks out above the coil of her index finger and thumb. Her grip of her palm constricts my body harder than the coils of a giant python. I attempt movement but can’t even breathe. The wind is thrown out of my lungs and I feel something warm and grimy trickle down the back of my legs. I cannot care about personal hygiene now. It’s a matter of life and death.

“So, you miserable ape, you have the gall to fancy me and you want to force me into having an affair with you? You have the hots for me, huh? Have you looked at your ugly face, you beast?”

Words fail me and I stare at her face in terror. “Now you know how it feels to be powerless and scared,” she says with glee. “I’ll give you what you want, you lustful jerk.”


She tilts me sideways and takes me down between her legs. She loosens the curl of her index finger around my shoulders and releases my arms. I immediately cover the sides of my head with flexed arms, fingers interlocking behind the neck, chin pressing against the chest. She gently presses me against the enormous heap of her pubic hair, then she let go of me.

In one desperate grasp I get a hold of a bunch of her bushy pubic hair. I’m hanging from her crotch. She begins to walk as I cling to those strands for dear life.

A few paces later she is in Stone Mountain State Park. She stops at the foot of Stone Mountain and leans against general Lee horse, spreads her legs, and out comes a massive downpour. Someone, it seems, has opened the floodgate of the Hoover dam. She is pissing on me and I am drowning. Death is inevitable, I can choose to fall hundreds of feet or drown in urine. Before I can let go myself, the force of the torrent jerks my grip loose and …

The beeper goes off and Dr. de Sade extends her palm, urgently signaling Kong to pause for a moment. She looks at her digital beeper and picks up the phone. “Could you come in now, please,” she says to someone on the other end.

A burley women, doubtless of Russian peasant stock, enters the room.

“Mr. Kong, I’d like you to meet Dr. Dominex, my new assistant. She takes over when I am on vacation.”

Kong’s eyes pop out with fright as he sees the new face. He jumps off his couch and hides behind the doctor’s desk.

“Send her away,” Kong screams from behind the desk.

The two women exchange glances with a knowing smile and nod. Dr. Dominex leaves the room quietly.

“Now, now,” Alycia de Sade, says with a reinvigorated pitch in her voice, “what got you so upset?”

“Don’t you see?” Kong shrieks, a look of terror is on his face.

“See what?”

“That she is one of ‘them’ and is almost fully formed.”

“One of whom?” de Sade asks impatiently. “What is this you are going on about?”

“She is one of the monster women. They hate me. They hate all men, only most men can’t see it. There is an infection spreading around that gives people a blind spot so they cannot see the transformation.”

“Oh, so you can see something that most people are blind to?” de Sade asks mockingly.

“Yes, I can see it. You have to be free of the disease to be able to see it clearly. So you must be one of them also. Because if you couldn’t recognize it in her then you must have the disease too.”

“Oh, so now I am also sick?” de Sade asked with an amused look about her. “Who in your view is not sick?”

“I am not,” Kong replies, rather smugly.

“Isn’t it a bit strange that you are the only one with a clear vision and that everyone else is blind to this, this, absurdness that you think of as reality?”

“Yes, it’s a tragedy,” Kong says with a sad voice. “Life is so difficult when you can see clearly what goes on around you. I wish I could have a blind spot also.”

Alycia de Sade, looks at the clock, “Okay, we shall have something to talk about next week, the hour is up for now.”

King Kong reluctantly emerges from behind the desk and bolts towards the door. Just then Dr. Domenix’s long stretched hand reach in from the hallway and grabs him by the nape of his neck as a cat grabs its kitten. She has him in a pincer grip between the thumb and the index finger, lightly lifts him off the ground and dips his face in the toilet bowl, soaking his head. She then dabs him against the towel that hangs from the nearby stand.

Doninex and de Sade exchange glances and smile, “He already looks well on his way to recovery,” Alycia says to her colleague. “Just take him out the window and place him on the street outside. He won’t have to wait for those elevators.”

Dominex reaches out and carefully places Kong on the street outside. The massive hand disappears and Kong is on the busy sidewalk by himself. He is drenched, not in urine but in cold sweat, yet its all the same. A good-looking young woman passes by and gives him a polite smile. He wonders if he should smile back or pretend he doesn’t see her? He also wonders if he should return next Friday and if it’s worth the hundred dollars? He wonders if he is alive or dead, and whether he is a man or a beast? He wonders if beauty really exists or if it too is a symptom of another kind of a blind spot that fails to see ugliness.

The air is brisk and a chill is falling from the evening sky. He begins to walk home, for what else is there left to do?