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He sat in front of the screen, its light casting an eerie glow in the otherwise dim surrounding. Although trying to focus on the task at hand, he couldn’t stop the events of earlier in the day from replaying in his mind.

His last client had been an elderly woman. The wrinkled, rather large, naked form on his massage table would have repulsed many but to Torsten, it was merely flesh, muscles wrapped in skin. One of a select few clients, she had responded to hints he had dropped about other services that might be provided. Depending on the request, he usually insisted on complete darkness to avoid discovery of his infirmity. The fear of his required adaptations for these encounters being exposed generated enough stress to remove any chance of experiencing pleasure. However, the monetary gain allowed him higher-grade comforts such as the mesh executive chair in which he was currently seated with its plethora of available comfort settings.

Upon leaving the spa area, he had encountered a rather crowded hallway. Men in matching t-shirts milling about their ring-leader: “AND THEN SHE SAID: ‘WHAT’S THAT SMELL?’” The eruption of laughter hit Torsten like a shockwave. He didn’t need to see the “Ass Army” lettering on the shirts to know what these men were. The backslapping by hands that seemed abnormally large to him, appearing to pulse as though the monsters could inflate them at will. Debilitating nausea engulfed him. Sliding along the wall, he barely made it to an exit before retching into a planter. Thankfully, citizens in this fair country were too polite to stare.

Could anyone abide the presence of these conventioneers? No, like kneading a pesky knot from a muscle, he would help relieve pain here as well. In the past, he’d had the luxury of face-to-face killings, revelling in the look of excruciating pain and certainty of death in the victim’s faces. Ah, memories. They had paid the price for his pain. The abject humiliation of countless time spend face down, bum in the air; lost childhood; the simple act of walking without feeling like a porcupine was in his rectum.

The Internet afforded such detail on so many subjects. Perhaps some highly toxic gases for those asses? He barked an insidious laugh at his own juvenile humour.