How I Found My Boss' Dead Body

It's a story I've told a few times in the past, but I got an e-mail saying I should tell the story of how I found my boss' body. Why not?

Years ago I was an employee of the Pleasure Center in Eureka, California. It was, at the time, a sex shop with a slant to female consumers. Now it's corporate owned with jack off booths and glory holes and all the personality of lint. Back then there just weren't any booths or holes.

Bill was my boss. I hated him. He sexually harassed people and was generally an asshole. Honestly, I'm glad he's dead, and about a week before I found his body I did threaten his life when he pushed me too far. Needless to say (but I'll say it any way), that caused a bit of concern for me when I had to call the cops.

The week before I found his stiff body I had wandered into the apartment section of the store and caught his ugly girlfriend naked. His girlfriend was an aging hippie whose breasts could have sorely used a bra few years earlier, as gravity was having its merry way with them. There was an awkward moment when I came in, but then she left. I learned my lesson.

The apartment section of the store was essentially a back room with a kitchen and its own entrance as well as one into the store. I used the kitchen section of the apartment to make silicone anal beads. I was the world's only producer of these special beads. I guess it made me special.

The found Bill on a Saturday. He had been spending nights at the apartment, so every morning I made a habit of checking the back entrance into the apartment. If the door was unlocked, Bill was in. If Bill was in, my morning would suck. As I walked toward the door, I could hear the Smashing Pumpkins coming from the kitchen from the Italian restaurant below.

"A killer in me is a killer in you."

I tried the door knob. It turned. Fuck.

So I let myself in through the store and went directly to the kitchen.

Have you ever walked into a room and could feel electricity? You know, like the television is on with the sound down? I could feel that. The television was on, but there was no sound. I saw the top of Bill's head as I put my lunch in the fridge. He had a mattress on the floor. He was on it. I just caught a glimpse of him, but he looked like he was sleeping. Fucker.

"Bill, I'm in," I said. I wanted to wake him. I didn't want to see him naked. One of those things happened.

"Bill, wake up! I'm here!"

No answer. Fuck twice.

I walked into the "living area" of the apartment and stopped in my tracks.

He was on the mattress. Naked. Sitting up. Back against the wall. Eyes partially closed. Mouth partially open. A cock ring was still wrapped around his lube-slick flaccid penis. His lube-slick hand was starting to turn a nasty shade of purple. He was facing a television that had long since gone to blue screen, indicating the end of whatever porn he had been watching.

"Bill!" I shouted. "Wake the fuck up!"

I don't know what prompted me to shout that. I knew he was dead. He wasn't going to wake up. I was not expecting to come across this. I think I can be excused for my actions.

"Fuck!" I screamed ... right before hitting the wall. I then quickly dialed my future wife.

"Bill's dead," I said into the phone.

"What did he do this time?" She was used to such declarations from me. I say them a lot. Still do.

"No. He's really dead. Not moving. Not coming back."

I then called 9-1-1. Explained the situation to a dispatcher who seemed to get paid only if she couldn't comprehend an emergency call. She didn't seem to understand "dead." "Is he breathing?" she asked. "No. He's dead."

Where I come from, dead doesn't involve breathing.

The paramedics come. At first they are more concerned with the store's whips and devices. Then I get them to see the body. They don't know who I am. I could be his son, though if I was I would have killed myself long before this.

The medics use the utmost in technology to determine his status. Understand, though, that this is Humboldt County, a poor region of California despite the pot. The most current technology available to them was this: The EMT picked up Bill's arm and dropped it to the floor, where it made a dull thud sound.

"Yeah, he's dead."

They all shared a laugh over this, and I cursed myself for not having a camera.

The police were next on my list of people I Had To Deal With. The cop asked me if there was a weapon. I assured him the only people to touch anything were the EMTs. They touched his arm. They had to see if he were dead. According to the way it hit the floor, he was. I guess I could be an EMT. I could lift an arm.

The officer seemed intent on making it a homicide investigation. I was starting to worry about the column I did for a friend's 'zine. It's title? "Murder Your Boss." I was really regretting that one at the moment. Why couldn't I have called it "Fuck Shit Up 2"?

I tried to explain that I didn't think Bill was murdered. I knew how he died. Or I thought he did. He was making amyl nitrate. There was a bottle of it by the bed.

"Well," the officer asked, "how do you think he died?"

"He was using amyl nitrate," I started.

"What's that?"

"Poppers." Wasn't this his job to understand these sorts of things?

"What?"

"It's a drug. Increases the heart rate."

"Oh."

I got it. He failed the EMT test.

"Anyway," I continued. "He was using it while masturbating to a lesbian porno. That's lube on his hand, and the television is on blue screen."

The cop popped the porno out of the VCR. It was a lesbian porn. I was now outperforming the EMTs and the police.

At this point Bill's ugly girlfriend called. "Bill's dead," I said. I didn't have to be nice about it. I didn't like him, and I didn't like her.

"Was he naked?"

Why would she ask that? I didn't think she murdered him, but I do think she was here when he died. It was a first impression. The things she was saying made it seem that way, and then she said she was taking off for a few days for Redding.

That night, after all calmed down, my head started playing tricks on me. I saw the actors on television as they would look when dead. In the bathroom, I looked into the mirror and put my face into the same pose as Bill's dead one. I wanted to envision what I would look like as a corpse.

When I came out of the bathroom, my future wife was asleep on the floor. I couldn't wake her. I freaked out. Screamed at her to wake up.

Rumors ran rampant, as they tend to do when someone is attached to something like a porn store. He wasn't found with a dildo up his ass. He wasn't murdered. (The actual cause was heart disease, I think. The drug use didn't help.) He died jerking off, Astro Glide still matting in his pubic hair.

I was glad he was gone. I was glad his girlfriend was gone. If you think I'm harsh, I defend myself by saying he was a prick. In fact, he was still married and his Austrailian wife wanted nohing to do with him or the business; she was happy to wash her hands of everything.

There's the story. Perhaps one day I'll go into even more detail. But now you know the truth. Think about that next time you jerk off. Is that really how you want someone to find you? Probably not, but you won't stop either way.