Instant Love ... A Certain Chemistry ... By Mil Millington - Part 4

I'm sorry you had to witness that, I really am. You're classy people, some of you, and you shouldn't have to be confronted with that kind of thing. If it's any consolation, just think how Tom's going to feel when you all meet up in the afterlife and he learns that the bunch of you sat there watching him trying to get a quick one off the wrist, huh?

Of course, I've got to take some responsibility myself, and I'm big enough to put up my hands and accept part of the blame - that's why I'm here telling you all this now. When I started this whole thing - you know, the universe and all that stuff - I thought it'd be a nice little distraction. I'd set it up, leave it running, sit back and watch it like a lava lamp - kind of fascinated, kind of just letting my mind drift. You know what I mean? But, anyways, to keep it working you need to have the whole sex thing, and so I put that in the mix. Never though it'd be such a big deal, I swear to you, I really didn't. It's like, okay, I heard this thing about Rachman and Hodgson that other day. These guys are scientists - I'm a real science freak, by the way. Do you watch Discovery Channel? It's great - I love that stuff. You see, I didn't have a clue about how anything works - why would I have? I want a whale, I go, "Boom - whale," and that's it - bada-bing, bada-boom. I'm not going to get all caught up in the details, am I? I mean, the devil's in the details, right? Ha ha- "the devil's in the details" - get it? No, no, I 'm kidding you again. Relax, there's no devil - why would I make a devil? What am I, stupid? But that's a good one, right? "the devil's in the details." Ha ha. Anyways, what I'm saying is, these scientists come along, and they study stuff and investigate and explain how everything works. And I'm, like, "Wow! A whale. So that's how I did that ... cool." So, same thing, these guys Rachman and Hodgson - Stan and Ray - Stan and Ray do these experiments to see if they can persuade people to have, you know, "a thing" for boots. They're basically seeing if they can grow a fetish in the lab, right? Because, they're thinking, some people have these things anyways, so let's see if we can understand how that could happen by trying to make one of our own. And they chose to make one for boots. Don't ask me why. Maybe they think using underwear would cloud the issue, you know, and trying to get folks to have the hots for a gas turbine engine is just making things hard for themselves - so they settle on boots. Whatever, ask them if you want - it's not important to what I'm telling you here. Anyways, they do it. Stan and Ray do these, you know, kind of, conditioning things with volunteers, and eventutally they get guys to go, "Phwoar!" when you show them a picture of a boot.

So, back there, Tom was doing a bit of conditioning of his own. Self-condition: reinforcing his attraction to George by looking at pictures of her while ... you know, "applying stimulation." He didn't know that, of course. He didn't intend to do it, but that's what he was doing all the same. Maybe some of you might want to bear that in mind, eh? Be aware of what you're doing sometimes - just so you avoid getting yourselves more into spin dryers or certain kinds of fruit or socks full of Jell-O than you ever intended. It's okay, I'm not going to name names: you know who you are.

But that's not the most important thing here. The most important thing is what happened after Stan and Ray worked thier shoe trick. You see, they got a result, and they're happy. They go out for a meal to celebrate, maybe, I don't know - and then, because they're straight-up guys, they set about deconditioning the volunteers. Ridding them of this unfortunate boot attraction that's been created for the purposes of scientific investigation. And here's the thing, right .. a lot of volunteers don't want to be "cured." They're into it now. I mean, you can imagine how it is for them. It's like they've discovered a whole new sex or something. They can probably spend the entire afternoon standing looking through the window of a shoe shop; it's probably like watching an orgy for them, right? It's just a programmed reaction ... but that's all "normal" attraction is. I simply put it in there to make sure you kept things going - but to guarantee that, it needed to be powerful. So powerful it has Tom playing five-knuckles shuffle in his dining room when the house is empty. So powerful, right, so powerful that it seems more than functional, it seems precious and mystical to those who feel it. The boot squad don't want to have their desire for a nicely turned insole taken away from them, but would you want your desire removed? If some doctor said to you, "We're going to do a desire-ectomy on you, so that all those feelings you have looking at a film star or a singer or a model or the person across the road no longer get in the way and you can live your life undistracted by such urges, "would you go in for the operation? Like I siaid, this is partly my fault. I make things important for you guys, and then I',m all surprised when you feel they're important in ways I didn't intend. I needed them to be strong: I never intended them to be special.

I'm sorry about that. Really, I am.