Married to Plastic: The Man with Five Doll Wives
Originally written in 1999 and published in 2014.
It’s 1999, and I’m with Russell Howard….not Russell Howard the comedian, this is Russ Howard, a 42 year old self-employed guy from Maidstone who has a string of long-term relationships with plastic dolls instead of women. Russ is quite open about a lifestyle many would consider to be bizarre, and he talks about these ‘wives’ of his freely as if they’re real people. I’m not allowed to take pictures inside his house, but he has told me that no question is ‘off the table’. This is just as well, because I’m not – technically speaking – a journalist: I’m just a dabbling freelancer who likes to write about extraordinary people….and the best thing about extraordinary people is that they invariably love being written about.
The first two ‘wives’ have been pretty ordinary: number one looked quite exotic and expensive, while number two, I’m fairly certain, is a copy of that doll you always see on the adverts that cries all the time and fills its shorts when you leave it alone for more than twenty minutes. Naturally, I didn’t say any of this to Russ. I’m not stupid.
‘Mr Stone – allow me to introduce you to my third wife, Jess. We met at university.’
‘University? Seriously?’
‘Yes. It was a beautiful Sunday afternoon, the campus was hosting a toy fair, and Jess was an unexpected bonus on a stall of exquisite handmade ladies.’
Handmade ladies? I just say: ‘Wow.’
‘Wow indeed. It was love at first sight…..for both of us.’
He opens the door, and I look down at Jess, who is staring across the room with that fixed, vacant and frankly terrifying glazed expression that all dolls have. I notice that some of her face has melted, and I point this out to Russ.
He nods gravely. ‘Jess was involved in a fire when she was younger. She barely escaped with her life: she’s a very brave woman.’
I whistle between my teeth, but I’m suddenly conscious that this is a hastily chosen, totally self-imposed, last-minute assignment and that very few people actually know where I am. What if this guy is the real deal? What if he genuinely believes his dolls are alive? What if – taking some inspiration from horrors like The Human Centipede – he actually murders people who visit him and puts random bits of them into the dolls? My imagination is now working overtime.
‘Do you mind?’ I ask, leaning down to examine Jess but secretly going for a sniff to see if I can smell anything… rotten about her.
Close up, it turns out that Jess is rather heavily made-up: lipstick, mascara, eyeliner, the works. I wonder if Russ does this every day with each of his wives, or if it’s once a week (roughly the same timeframe I use to clean out my son’s goldfish…and he’s a dirty little b*st*rd).
There’s a question I’m dying to ask. It’s THE question: the only one that we both know is going to be awkward.
I clear my throat. ‘Do you….er…..are you properly man and wife?’
‘Are we….?’
‘PROPERLY, you know, man and wife.’
He smiles as if he is totally prepared for the question. ‘Oh, yes: we were married in a pagan hand-fasting ceremony not far from here. I’ve married all my wives both officially and ceremonially. I’m a deeply religious man.’
We lock eyes briefly, and I wonder how much of a battle it’s going to be. In the end, however, my pathetic level of patience subsides.
‘Do you have a physical relationship with them?’
‘At last, Mr Stone: you get to the point, as it were. You’re not going to dash off as soon as I’ve answered this, are you? Only, your email suggested that you were genuinely interested in my situation, here.’
I try to look as sincere as I can, and say: ‘It’s just one of a million questions I have to ask.’
‘Okay, Mr Stone: I trust you! No, I’m afraid I do not have a physical relationship with any of my five wives.’
‘You don’t?’
‘No.’
‘What: not at all?’
‘Not at all.’
‘Even in the early days?’ I say, thinking about the number of marriages that tend to fizzle in the bedroom after the first few years. ‘When you were, like, just dating?’
No….not even in the early days, I’m sorry to say. There is nothing of that nature between any of us.’
‘So you’ve never-‘
‘Never.’
I smile and make a face that indicates I understand the situation, but I haven’t got a clue where to start. I don’t mean to be vulgar or disrespectful, but if he’s not having Happy Time with these toys, I find myself a bit confused by the entire situation. Surely, if the guy is cracked enough to go to incredible lengths to ceremonially marry long pieces of plastic, there must be something monumentally strange stopping him from doing the sideways shuffle with each new Barbie he picks up? What is it? I need to know.
‘Mr Stone: can we continue?’
‘Er….certainly!’
‘Then do come this way, please. You must meet Sally: she’s number four!’
I’m trying to keep up my enthusiasm, but my mind is now racing away, firing raft after raft of inappropriate questions into the mix. Is he doing something else with them? Is he taking them out for dinner and just not plucking up the courage to make a move on them? What is going on? If he’s not in a physical relationship with these things, then what – when it comes right down to it – is the actual point? Surely he’s just a collector with a weird approach?
I suddenly realise that it might be me who is slightly depraved, and not him. I was so sure that the whole thing was a form of fetish that I didn’t stop to consider for one second that it might not be.
We both continue up the corridor, but en route to the door that he’s indicated leads to Sally’s bedroom, we pass a small office where a smartly dressed, reasonably attractive girl is tapping away on an old-school typewriter. She looks up and smiles as we pass.
‘Your secretary?’ I ask, nodding back at the room.
‘Clare? Oh, no, Mr Stone: Clare is my girlfriend. This way, please.’
I just stand in the corridor with my mouth hanging open, and I have to run to catch him up when he gets to the door.
‘You have a girlfriend?’
‘Yes.’
‘A real one?’
‘The last time I checked, yes.’
‘But…does she – I mean- er – don’t your wives mind you having a girlfriend?’
‘Of course not! It would get very lonely if I was completely on my own in the house. Ah, here we are: I’d very much like you to meet Sally, my fourth wife.’
I smile, regain my composure and walk boldly into the room….but I’m lost: just completely lost.
All in all, I was at the house for just over an hour, and I never fully understood exactly what was going on. It somehow didn’t seem right to ask if he was sleeping with Clare…..mostly for fear that he might actually say ‘no’.
Recently, I found myself thinking about Russ and wondering what he’s up to now. I got such a wave of nostalgia for the man that I even popped round to my in-laws because I knew they had a doll exactly like the ones Russ had been marrying for the best part of a decade. I cuddled her, sat her on my knee and even started to chat her up, but it was no use: I couldn’t get past the fact that – when it came right down to it – I might as well start flirting with all the frames around the windows in my house. Plastic is plastic, and the only piece I regularly take on a date is my debit card.
