Free Thought Crimes by Tim Richards

was of a low order. Otherwise, he’d be of no use to researchers, not even as part of the placebo group. If you are going to make a living as an experimental subject, you need to think of yourself as the author of your own destiny. Your heart’s only palpitating because that’s how you’ve chosen to order things. If you really wanted the flutters, jabs and appetites to stop, you’d make them stop. This decisive shift in perspective allows you to twist anxieties into thoughts that favour your own interests. Everyone at the Institute is at your service, not vice versa. An experienced subject kowtows to no one.

    Laura handed Sam a stack of photographs. She was more inclined to use visual stimuli than other Jackets he’d dealt with. Did Sam find the pictures arousing? In the first, a young brunette rather like Laura was fellating a particularly thick penis. Yes, the image was arousing.
    When he was aroused by an image of this kind, was Sam imagining what it was like to be this man squeezing his big penis into the woman’s mouth, imagining his own penis inside that woman’s mouth, was he imagining his own penis inside the mouth of a woman this woman reminded him of, or was he imagining what it might feel like to take a huge erection into his own mouth? Could Sam describe the nature of his empathetic interaction with this image?
    She was so skilled as an interviewer that Sam could forget Laura’s true purpose was probably to measure a sense of loss, or some revived capacity. Her researches almost certainly had nothing to do with sexuality, fellatio, or physical response.
    Most research strategies were about obscuring the true purpose of the study. Participants were less likely to arrive at pertinent suspicions or guesses when sexually aroused or consternated.
    â€˜Now I’d like you to look at this next picture.’

    The community of people who make their living from participating in research studies is small. Over a period of time, Sam became acquainted with several of the subjects he’d met in waiting rooms at the Institute. Very occasionally, he might meet one of them outside the confines of the R.K. Howarth Building.
    He’d first met Warren during a study three years earlier, and they sometimes chanced upon each other in cinema foyers. Professional etiquette requires that you never discuss the precise nature of your experiences, or speculate on the possible significance of your participation. Still, there were obvious subtexts and meanings that couldn’t be ignored.
    Bumping into Warren as he pushed a trolley down the frozenfood aisle of the supermarket, Sam told him that it was good to see him looking so well. Warren said the same. Sam looked well.
    What purpose would be served by telling a man he looked wretched? Warren must have known about the stoop, and the tics, and the incessant blinking. He knew the risks. So Sam lied, and then thanked God that he had the good fortune to be Mr Placebo.

    Of course, the question arose whether Sam should mention meeting Warren in his journal. Some silences are too loaded. No researchers would want their subjects to be indiscreet, let alone conspiratorial. Frankness can cost you. But Warren had to be noted, since not all meetings are as accidental as they seem. You need to consider the possibility that Warren was there to test your candour as a journalist. Sam was careful to document their meeting truthfully.
    â€˜Warren looks like shit.’

    If you must let your imagination off the leash, best to fantasise about your part in making the world a better place.
    Whenever Sam saw disabled people in the street, he felt as if he was touching them. He wanted to reassure them that he was giving it everything he had. ‘Be patient … Soon .’
    Did Sam want their gratitude? Maybe. In that respect, there was no difference between him and the Coats and Jackets. We all like to feel appreciated.

    It’s unwise to spend too much