My Pet Serial Killer

by Michael J Seidlinger

  They’ve set up a little reception in the conference room across from the class room.

  The head of the department keeps me within arm’s reach the entire time as if I’m his pet and he’s making sure I don’t run away.

  When has he had an opportunity like this during his reign in the department?

  I’m a lowly student but they see something that I’ve already seen. This isn’t just research. For me, my presentation is not yet complete. They have an array of finger foods ranging from cheese and crackers all the way up to store-bought sushi.

  When I reach for a piece of sushi, an assistant professor asks, “Why are you wearing latex gloves?”

  I’m lying—as good at lying as I am at observing, “I was going to use it as an example, but I totally forgot to incorporate it into my presentation. I guess I was nervous.”

  Chuckle. Acceptable reply.

  Everyone stands around and mingles while someone turns on the projector, letting a situational crime scene drama be the backdrop of the reception.

  A joke or two regarding the show spreads throughout the faculty.

  Two doctorate candidates make a game out of pointing out the seemingly endless possibilities made possible in the crime scene drama.

  I’m enjoying a piece or two of sushi but I’ll admit to being a little more concerned than normal. I try not to appear any different than normal as one professor after the next offers their congratulations about my successful thesis defense.

  The show is interrupted by the laser sound effect and the title Breaking News.

  A hush falls on the entire reception as the words Gentleman Killer Arrested scrolls across the screen for the first time.

  The news report immediately settles in on how he was apprehended.

  Video footage of his capture at one of the more popular night clubs in the city as two undercover women agents put into use the profile submitted to them by a young graduate student. It shouldn’t be difficult to wonder who provided the information. It quickly dawns on everyone in attendance, and the next thing I know the department chair is shaking my hand after implying that I’d be a shoe-in as a doctorate candidate at the department.

  I merely smiled and, as expected, everyone else filled in the gaps.

  Like any mystery, their minds wrapped around what was missing.

  They commented on my presentation and how I successfully created accurate footage of the killer tending to his victims. Set side by side the details provided by the local news, my information and profile is a perfect match.

  They treat me like a genius.

  It’s only now that I can relax.

  I half-listen to their compliments as I observe the news story, his face appearing on screen. I’m imagining how it happened. How it must have felt for him, everything seemingly coming together again, on the rise, only to have it implode on him, crushing him completely.

  “Who did you get to act as killer? So amazing, so prescient, so candid!”

  “I can’t believe he let you film him erect like that!”

  What was most obvious was how cutthroat it all was. Not two hours ago, a young man now sitting alone in front of the food, pretending to be really hungry, had been the department’s pride and joy. In two hours he had the limelight stolen by none other than me.

  His face cast against the projector screen, I don’t feel anything for him either. I feel neither joy nor disgust. It is what it is. But what I’m beginning to realize now is what I have to do next. I can wait it out awhile, but I’ll again feel the way I always feel. I’ll begin to feel my independence, my single presence, and I’ll feel that loneliness. When that happens, I have trouble living with only myself. I feel like coming apart, the fight spilling out and I, myself, becoming what I’d rather have with me instead.

  I’ll end up where I end up.

  I’ll have to start searching.

  2.

  The mystery is a man.

  The mystery is a woman.

  The mystery is you.

  The mystery is me.

  Do we tell stories or do we tell lies?

  As long as there’s the element of mystery, we’re telling no story at all. We’re revealing shades of reality, shades of ourselves.

  After long, it becomes evident that the mystery consumes us all.

  3.

  “What are you doing here?”

  “What do you mean? I visit all my ex-s.”

  “You had me arrested. . .”

  “No, no. That’s not true. You were faltering. It was only a matter of time before you fucked up your legacy.”

  “But. . .”

  “Hey now, I’m just here to make sure there are no hard feelings—only physical harm!”

  That look, I’ll admit it’s priceless. Worth the long drive to the state prison and the annoyance of having to see someone I’d otherwise never again desire to see.

  “Oh come on. . .don’t worry about it. What’s prison but another cage? Hmm? You’ll get used to it. You adapt well. Prison is good for the fight within. It keeps you sharp. Maybe you can start something in here!”

  “Not with how everyone views me.”

  I’m shaking my head, “The rain will wash away whatever remains of their short attention spans. By month’s end, they’ll have forgotten. They’ll be like. . .Gentleman who?”

  But he’s not buying it and he’s obviously not supposed to. This is mostly for me. I’m beaming, really acting like I’m having the time of my life.

  This is actually an important part —the follow-up—to make sure I show him what he lost. My support, my beauty, my poise. . .

  And I don’t stay for any longer than a minute. I’m standing up, “Well I should be off. I have a class I need to teach in an hour and a half!”

  I don’t say goodbye. I say nothing more. He’s not saying or doing anything.

  He’s just watching me leave, leave for the last time. Down there he’s shrinking into himself. He’s barely a man, much less a killer.

  My plan, by design, is fully complete.

  4.

  She stood at the bar not drinking, just watching, searching, keeping an eye on the situation of the club. She observes the manager of the club:

  He reports earnings on an hourly basis.

  He makes sure no clubbers get trampled.

  He watches the alcohol intake because he doesn’t trust his bartenders.

  He keeps track of who’s lost and who’s found.

  He knows his business is temporary. It’ll transform when the current trend is over into a theme that caters to the next trend. And then the next trend after that—and so on.

  He understands the only constant is the game.

  The pickup game.

  She observes, takes her time. If not tonight, there’s tomorrow. The day after that. As long as it takes, but she’s found him before. She’s certain there are plenty more.

  This is supposed to happen. Him? What about him? No. . .

  There’s no fight in him.

  She moves through the crowd keeping distance like she’s capable of her own invisible bubble of space. Though she’s dancing, she isn’t dancing with anybody. She isn’t dancing in rhythm with the song.

  She seems out of place.

  People don’t seem to notice her.

  No one notices a naked woman on the dance floor.

  There is no waiting for a song to end. The perpetual rave is treated with perpetual dance.

  The setting of the pickup game might do well to be considered a ritual, one where the ultimate purposes is to possess someone else.

  There is a man.

  She notices him before he notices her.

  He’ll get as close to her as he can but he’ll never reach her, not unless she thinks he’s her type. She walks casually to the back lounge and through the door. Seconds later, a woman, fully clothed, passes through, closing the door so that no one can see what’s back there. A bit of bright light pours out just before the door can be closed.
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br />   She returns and stands where she can be seen.

  He spots her.

  It’s just another rainy night in a club that takes on a series of purposes depending on the person and who’s picking up who.

  This is the club where people are discovered and ruined in one night.

  This is the club where you know you’re being watched.

  This is the club where danger is written right into the tagline.

  This is the club where she gets to look exactly like she wants to look and she hopes to find him, someone just her type.

  The man, she finds him interesting, the way he walks, his glow. . .

  He has potential.

  She waits until he tries to walk over before she interjects and makes first contact.

  Hello, my name is. . .

  Hello, my name is. . .

  I’ve been called quite the intellectual, he says.

  I’m often told I’m a mystery, she says in return.

  She’s thinking about it. It’s obvious she knows what she wants, and who knows, maybe he really is it. It’s early. Plenty of time.

  It’s not too late into the night to be found. He’s hoping.

  She can tell that he wants her.

  But does she want him?

  Is he her type?

  She accepts a drink and accepts a seat at his table where they stare at each other, a silent exchange of eye contact and facial gesture. He looks away to the dance floor. She observes him as he watches them dance. He’s holding back. There’s something he wants to say, something he wants to do, but doesn’t. He chooses not to because it’s what he’s always done. It’s what he felt was right. She winks at him. There’s a killer on every corner, even if they don’t know inside if they have what it takes. She’ll show them how.

  On one condition, and one condition only. . .

  The audience, the viewer.

  0.

  What did you think? I don’t really know; it hasn’t sunk in yet. I liked it. I hated it.

  You hated it?

  It was too indulgent. It didn’t know if it wanted to be a thriller or a mystery.

  I’d like to think a thriller is a mystery. I would have liked it if the mystery was solved. It was solved. Was it?

  Was it really?

  Yes!

  Then what happened?

  It was all in Claire’s head!

  No it wasn’t!

  Yeah, I don’t believe it’s all just a lie. Claire is real. The killer is real.

  The real Mystery is who the next killer is and what that means for the rest of society. The fact that her type is something capable of being found in a crowd.

  Was it really based on a true story?

  Probably.

  Which killer was it?

  Umm. . .

  So the Mystery is that Claire was insane and that she was an accomplice?

  I guess.

  What did you think about the voyeur element, how she started watching him from afar? I personally loved it. I thought it was cool how they made us sit back like we’re watching some sock-puppet play.

  Yeah, some of the cinematography techniques were interesting. Like the “false” technical difficulties in the middle.

  Yeah but what about Claire?

  What about Claire?

  Is she supposed to be us, “normal sexually active

  socialite?”

  That’s kind of up for debate.

  True.

  Yeah. The entire thing was filmed to be two things at once.

  Sometimes three.

  Sometimes three. Yeah.

  I like how they brought us into the film.

  Well, as much as they could.

  Right.

  You know, the more I think about it, Claire might an undercover cop.

  What the fuck?

  That makes no sense at all!

  Hey. . .shut up! I’m trying!

  What we have to mention is Claire is a succubus. . .but for, like, killer instinct. Or something.

  No, no—you’re onto something there. It’s like she knew ahead of time that the killer wouldn’t meet her requirements.

  Whatever they were.

  Right, it’s not really explained what her demands were expected to be satisfied.

  That’s how it works.

  The whole film is about the fetish and the allure of the fetish.

  Fetish?

  What fetish?

  Sex, violence, destruction—apathy—all that shit.

  I don’t think so.

  Does anyone else agree with me?!

  I agree that the film was about the possibility for the “impossible” to actually occur near us and through us, the so-called normal people. I also think that people can choose to be good people but sometimes they simply don’t have control over the result of what they’re doing. They could be helping someone, but that someone might actually be a killer and they simply didn’t know it. Maybe we’re all insane. . .

  The film is trying to show how subjective everything is.

  The whole “I see one thing. . .you see another.”

  You mean subjectivity.

  Right.

  What I don’t get is the point of the sponsor.

  Huh?

  “Nothing Ever Happens.”

  Yeah, what was that?

  Makes me want to look it up and find out.

  I know.

  Then the sponsor succeeded.

  I want to know more.

  What else is there to know?

  Plenty.

  I want to learn about the Gentleman Killer.

  I want to try and find Claire downtown at the clubs.

  Or at the parties.

  Yeah, or at some party somewhere. . .

  And maybe that was the point too.

  Of the film?

  Of course the film.

  It wants to support the crimes of others.

  Stop thinking so superficially. The film is entertainment. What’s sick is that we considered this “entertainment.” When it’s BASED ON A TRUE STORY it makes it even more interesting because we get to glimpse a fragment of the world that isn’t next door.

  But the killer is everyone that has the capacity to kill.

  Yup.

  Huh? You didn’t catch the fourth wall breaking

  cleverness?

  Yeah I did but what are you trying to say?

  The mystery is trivializing the “fiction” by making it “now” and “real” because we are watching. We are involved. We are able to note things and commentate. We’re also characters of her mind.

  That’s cool.

  I get it.

  It falls back on subjectivity again.

  Subjectivity is cool.

  It’s so loose and yet so tight.

  Still, I’m not sure I liked the film.

  What was it called anyway?

  Umm. . .

  They don’t have any posters up.

  That’s strange.

  Yeah it is.

  No one remembers the film?

  Really?

  If we really wanted to, we could argue that it wasn’t a film. . .

  None of it was real. . .

  Okay, now you guys are starting to freak me out. Can we just go get food now?

  I want to get drunk, real drunk.

  I want to talk more about the killer.

  We will. When we’re alone.

  Let’s get something to eat.

  Something to drink.

  Right.

  Cheers!

  All in all, I think it was a good film!

  (whispers) Me too but everyone’s a critic. Someone will like it and someone else will loathe it. That’s the way it always is. Creating at all means putting yourself out there.

  Everything’s a date.

  We’re all trying to “pick up” and seduce people into befriending us.

  Just like what Claire does.

  And so it revolves.

  Man, you could argue
about pretty much anything. . .especially if it’s meant to be argued.

  Food.

  Petty pleasures. . .

  Is anyone else hungry. . .?!

  We’re leaving!!!

  Okay, okay.

  Good film.

  Whatever it was called.

  YOU’RE MINE.

  Every body is found.

  1.

  I’m different. I’d be the first to confess to this.

  But how different am I really, compared to you?

  We all have the same needs. We all need a place to call home. We all need friends, financial sustainability, and hobbies. We all need to feel ambitious even if we can’t be sure what to feel ambitious about, and there’s no doubt that we will all grow older. We might feel wiser, when the complete opposite tends to be true. We grow comfortable, reticent, against the introduction of new pleasures and new bodies to our lives. We all need so much but we never find it all.

  We need love like we need to stop lingering on why we haven’t found love.

  That’s where we are different. That’s not me. No way.

  I’ve found what I’ve been looking for.

  And if he’d ask, I have a dozen reasons why:

  Reason 1—I love you.

  Reason 2—I love you.

  Reason 3—I love you.

  Reason 4—I love you.

  Reason 5—I love you.

  Reason 5—I love you.

  Reason 6—I love you.

  Reason 7—I love you.

  Reason 8—I love you.

  Reason 9—I love you.

  Reason 10—I love you.

  Reason 11—I love you.

  Reason 12—The biggest reason of all:

  You love me more.

  2.

  There’s always a need to keep ahead of the curve.

  If it isn’t one credential it’s something else. They want me to prove to them that I can be a professor. They want me to prove to them that I can offer more to academia than the adjunct. I have taught classes. I have been a student for decades. But they want more. If it’s not one thesis, it’s another study. There’s always one thing left thing to do.

  That’s why I’m here. I’m not teaching today—no—but they have me here early; the first round of classes haven’t started yet and we’re already in a stuffy meeting room in the Sociology/Criminology department. They cram us all in—the four tenured professors alongside every single adjunct and PHD candidate that are here for reasons that have to do with what I’ve already said. All here because we have reason to contest, reason to be something more than what we currently are.