Chapter 22

You last until the following evening. The temptation to check your messages becomes unbearable after dinner. Your wife is upstairs preparing for bed, and you are alone at the computer when you discover a new discussion bearing your username. Somebody has collected several of your posts and arranged them chronologically, beginning with your earliest cautious inquiries and ending with your angry demand for evidence.

Beneath them, the author has written a brief observation. "Watch how quickly curiosity turns into hunger." The thread has already attracted several replies. One member predicts that you will disappear once you discover what Max really does. Another suggests that you are merely pretending to be married. A third remarks that husbands like you are the reason the performances continue.

You read these comments with growing resentment, but the accusation that you are pretending to be married irritates you most of all. You have never lied about your circumstances, and you resent being dismissed by people who refuse to provide even the simplest evidence of their own claims.

You open a new discussion. This time, you dispense with the cautious language of an amateur researcher. You state plainly that you want to see Mangler Max in action. You want photographs that show more than a masked man posing beneath theatrical lights. You want footage of a genuine performance, preferably from beginning to end.

You want to see the moment he selects a wife, the husband's reaction, and what follows when the enormous masked figure begins his performance. You want to know what happens to the women afterward, why their husbands appear so devastated, and whether any of the stories about permanent consequences are true. You explain that you are prepared to pay for legitimate material, although you make it clear that you will not send money to anonymous strangers offering unverifiable photographs.

Then you add a sentence that you immediately regret. "I need to see what he woukd do to my wife." You stare at the words before submitting the post. You could change your wife to the women, which would make your interest sound less personal. You could remove the sentence entirely and preserve some appearance of detachment. Instead, you leave it exactly as written.

The responses begin arriving within minutes. Some people mock you for finally admitting what they believe you wanted all along. Others accuse you of seeking material that no decent husband would willingly watch. One particularly unpleasant commenter asks whether you have already started imagining your own wife beneath Max's enormous gloved hands. You do not answer, but the question leaves you staring at the screen long after you have finished reading it.

Over the next several days, you become increasingly reckless. You post late at night, sometimes remaining awake until two or three in the morning. You revisit discussions where nobody has responded and demand to know why. You challenge obvious frauds, argue with established members, and offer increasingly generous payments for authentic photographs or recordings.

When somebody claims to know a former participant, you send repeated messages asking for an introduction. When another member mentions a performance that supposedly took place in New Orleans, you spend hours searching old event calendars and nightclub listings, convinced that some forgotten advertisement might establish the date.

Your desperation becomes a source of entertainment. People begin tagging you in discussions that have nothing to do with Mangler Max. They send photographs of ordinary theatrical performers and ask whether you have finally found what you are looking for. Somebody creates an image of a wedding cake with Max's gas mask protruding from the top, accompanied by a caption mocking your marriage.

The more attention you receive, the more determined you become to prove that your questions are legitimate. You tell yourself that you are investigating a mystery, not indulging an obsession. Yet the distinction becomes increasingly difficult to maintain. You are no longer satisfied by the possibility of discovering whether Mangler Max exists.

You want to know precisely what happens during his performances, and you have begun to imagine that the people withholding this knowledge are deliberately tormenting you. One night, after an especially frustrating exchange, you write a message that is more revealing than anything you have posted before.

"I don't want another photograph of him standing around. I don't want another stupid story about how terrifying he looks. I want to see what happens when he chooses somebody. I want to see the husband's face while Max is doing whatever the hell he does. I want to know what makes these men sit there and watch. Somebody has to have recorded it. Somebody has to know." You submit the message and immediately close the browser.

For several minutes, you sit in the dark, listening to the ordinary sounds of your house. The refrigerator hums in the kitchen. A car passes outside. Somewhere upstairs, your wife turns over in bed, and the faint creak of the floorboards reminds you how completely separate her life remains from the strange world you have entered. She has no idea that strangers are discussing your marriage, speculating about her appearance, and treating your fascination as an invitation to ridicule you both.

You feel ashamed, but the shame does not extinguish your arousal. Instead, it becomes entangled with it. You are beginning to resent the very people whose attention you have spent weeks trying to attract, and you are frightened by how much you still want their approval. You want one of them to stop laughing, take you seriously, and finally tell you the truth.