I’m not really very smart and I don’t have a lot of money. I love my wife but she’s no movie idol or Playboy model, and anyone who’s ever seen me pants down will tell you that I’m sure as hell not hung like a porn star. I don’t mind people who are wealthy, smart, have gorgeous wives, or are rigged like donkeys but I absolutely won’t tolerate them using those attributes to belittle me.

“My wife’s probably the most beautiful woman in town,” Mike might say.

“You’re absolutely right,” I respond. “You’re a lucky man to have her.” Banter such as that is fine and doesn’t offend me in the least, but if he would happen to say something in reference to my wife like, ‘Christ! I couldn’t fuck her if we were both wearing paper bags over our heads’, then he’d better watch out. A few days later his once beautiful wife might suffer an accident that will leave her face in a condition to scare little kids and dogs.

Same thing goes with wealth. A guy that opines that I’m poor white trash and worthless as tits on a boar will find himself the victim of an incredibly diabolical con that will cost him most of his fortune, and the guy that calls me “Stubby” or “Baby Balls” will likely be talking in a higher octave before too long. Almost a dozen people have seen this dark side of me and none can ever forget it. Ray was the most recent.

I had been working at the firm for ten years when Ray hired on as a part of my team. He was sharp enough but he acted like the job was way below his stature and ability. “I’ll stick it out for a while,” he told me and everyone else who would listen. “I’ll probably make manager in a year.” I doubted it; it took me six years, and I was over my head for the first year after my promotion.

“You ever do these things?” He asked me one day, handing me a Sudoko puzzle from the newspaper. It was a level five and had been neatly completed. In ink.

“Not on company time,” I replied, hoping he’d take the hint without my having to lean on him. Actually, I did do them now and then, but I rarely was able to complete the level four and never the level five puzzles.

“They only take me five minutes,” he said, “and I do them while I’m holding on the phone.” I could also see that he’d done the Friday crossword. Also in ink. Without corrections. No doubt the guy was smarter than me. “Anyone with any education or brains shouldn’t have much trouble with these,” he said casually. Watch it there buddy, you’re headed where you don’t really want to go, I thought, and then walked away before I said or did something we both might regret.

I learned a lot more about Ray during the next few weeks. He brought in a picture of his wife wearing her Miss Washington sash and another of her in a tiny bikini. He also casually mentioned that his wife’s family was incredibly wealthy and that she was the only child and that he really didn’t have to work, ‘but what kind of self-respecting man would just lay around all day?’ “The real secret to scoring a wife like Jane is to keep her happy,” he confided to me one day while we were both in the restroom, “and I’m eminently qualified.” He flushed the urinal and turned briefly towards me as he stuffed what looked like the radiator hose from a ’57 Chevy back into his pants. He would have been the school boy who challenged others to see who’s dick was longest and he would have been the college kid that paraded bare-assed around the dorm with his towel over his shoulder. Fun and games back then but here and now he was treading on thin ice.

I couldn’t fault Ray’s abilities; although just out of college he had a natural sense of what was going on and he meshed nicely into our design team. The other guys in the office seemed to like him, and although I personally didn’t care for his arrogant attitude as long as he kept it in check on the job I could live with it.

My wife dropped in at noon one day and suggested that we do lunch. I had a divisional meeting after that and didn’t get back to my department until late. I came in the back door and was immediately stopped by the conversation that I overheard. “I don’t see how that dumb-ass Carl gets by,” Ray was saying.

“I think he does just fine,” said Howard, another of the design team.

“The only way he gets by is by riding on us,” Ray pressed. “I mean, Christ, the guy can’t even afford a decent car. Did you see that piece of crap that dropped him off? Who was that anyway, his mother?”

“That’s his wife,” Howard patiently explained, “and they’ve had some economic setbacks.”

“Man, what a dog! No wonder he acts like he has a brick up his ass all of the time.”

“Carol’s a very nice lady,” Mike said, “and if I were you I wouldn’t let it get back to him that you’ve been badmouthing her.”

“Why? What’s he going to do, beat the shit out of me? Hell, he doesn’t even have the balls to score a good-looking woman, of course, with that little pencil that he calls a dick he couldn’t keep one happy anyway.”

First of all I was saddened by what I’d just heard. Our team is supposed to function as a team, and although there is lots of room for the various personalities, strengths, weaknesses, and egos of the individuals, the important thing is that we function as a team for the good of the whole. I had learned that when I was still in junior high and it amazed me that Ray had made it clear through college and hadn’t yet figured it out. Secondly, I was pissed. Personal insults towards managers or co-workers are not acceptable, and particularly not acceptable when directed at me. I was surprised that Ray didn’t feel the ice beneath his feet crack apart.

Right then and there I decided that he had to go. His fortune was tied in his wife’s estate and was relatively safe. There was no use disfiguring his wife; he’d just dump her and go out and latch onto another. His insult against my intelligence warranted me slipping him a zombie cocktail that would scramble his brain and leave him drooling in his Wheaties, but if I did that he wouldn’t have been able to even realize how fucked he was. There is only one way to handle an arrogant asshole that is overly proud of his sexual capabilities.

Ray’s hose looks just impressive as it had when he flashed me in the rest room, and its two-inch diameter seven-inch length flops limply across his naked thigh. His balls, by contrast, are rather small, much smaller than mine, and I can easily fit both within one of my hands. He doesn’t know where he is or the identity of his tormenter; he is blindfolded and I haven’t spoken a word out loud. His inherent self-confidence has vanished, and he is pleading with his unknown assailant as he feels the warmth of the shaving soap as it is rubbed into his crotch, then the scraping of the razor and the sudden coolness of the air on newly exposed skin. His mind is probably working overtime when he feels the shoelace slip tight around his scrotum, then the tug and the ever-increasing constriction as the rubber tourniquet is stretched around his scrotum. His protestations, begging and finally his screams reached a crescendo as I pulled the shoelace tight and severed his genitals. I spared the cock of which he’s so proud; it’ll soon be useless anyway and I’d just as soon he retain it as a sad reminder of the way things used to be.

“Welcome to the design department, Sam. Why don’t you tell us a little about yourself?” I welcomed the newest member of our team.

“Uh, well, I was raised in Garden Grove, graduated Cal State Fullerton, and that’s about it, I guess,” the new guy said modestly. “I’d really rather talk about you guys and what we want to accomplish.” I liked this kid. We were going to get along just fine.