Data recorded.
A fantasy is worth pursuing.
1.
I held the tape in my hand, told the assistants to get in the trunk, and hit play.
After the first minute, I couldn’t help myself.
2.
I watched. I’m watching. I’m being watched.
Every frame tells more of the story. In every frame, there he was, or rather, there is where he’d be. And you’d see too, what I see.
I’m seeing him, not even a gimmick or a name to call his own, but I see him acting like he’s been at this for a dozen kills. A dozen kills to his name. I might consider that he remains nameless. Nameless—because we haven’t discussed names.
I’ve yet to tell him what he could be.
This is his first and his first is mine.
He’s mine and he’s showing me everything.
Nothing held back. He turns on the showers, just like I expected. He waits in the shadows, exactly as a killer should. You want this. You want this bad. But you wait, wait for the guard’s cue. Wait for the Demon’s due. Matter-of-factly, you are a man waiting to do something you’ve never done before. My pet, my perfect little pet, you are young but the way you stand, the way you are in no way nervous, the way you remain in the shadows, not a single error in both filming and fighting back nerves, you are everything I had hoped for.
He’s filming the Demon led to the showers.
Demon doesn’t understand.
Or Demon knows well what’s about to happen.
No one else here, Demon notices.
He’s adjusting the angle, zooming in close on Demon’s face.
I see it in his eyes. . .That’s worry. Oh, I can hardly contain myself.
And then the guard is cuffing Demon in place. Guard doesn’t look back. Guard was paid well. The camera moves; my pet is moving. He’s doing exactly what he’s supposed to.
New killers usually lose touch with the fight; they stutter and stumble. Looking into the eyes of their victim, they lose their nerve. They become careless. They usually want something but not the laceration or gunshot. They’d rather lie to themselves than go through with it.
But not him. He’s made this film just for me.
And I’m sharing it with you.
Watch, are you really watching? Our mutual mystery is unfolding.
There’s the knife, the liquids, the gloves.
There’s the fear, the fear so much better when it’s the fear of a killer.
Demon gets down to his knees. I can’t quite hear my pet’s voice over the sound of the shower, but I can hear Demon’s guttural shrieks as he uses the knife to dislodge Demon’s left eye.
Held in his other hand, I see that he’s carrying a book. The book is damp and beginning to unfurl. But my pet reads, and he reads in such a way that I can hear only his words, the lines ringing out the words of a true libertine. He reads with poise as if it is where he’s getting his inspiration.
And then I see it: He’s doing what Demon’s never done before.
My pet mimics Demon’s method. Every step of the way, he inserts the blade and cuts. He forces Demon eat what Demon’s made all hundred or so of his own eat before being completely disemboweled. Demon anticipates what comes next as my pet removes an ear.
Demon never did that. Then he’s moving the camera under the shower, no regard for whether or not the camera will survive, in order to get the following shot:
The gouging knife hooks the side of Demon’s mouth. Blood pouring from the fresh wound looks dark red right before it joins the downpour of water.
He’s capturing that very moment. He’s filmed this for me.
Every frame was his to choose, his expression, his sole means of showing how much I mean to him. He’s reading and being the true representation of the book’s myriad of possibilities.
The camera continues filming, and I imagine he’s used a waterproofing shell, something a young killer wouldn’t think of until it was too late.
He asks Demon, close up shot, “Are you a cockmonger?”
He’s tearing out pages from the book and placing them on top of Demon’s head. The pages clump together, sagging and sticking to the shape of Demon’s head like fresh biopsied skin.
He runs through a number of qualifications.
“If you aren’t a cockmonger, are you one of the servants?”
Page torn.
“How about one of the boys?”
The camera pans down to see that he’s stored the knife in Demon’s side for safe keeping. It remains lodged in what I imagine is a punctured kidney.
“How inventive,” I’m catching myself say aloud.
“One of the girls?”
Demon doesn’t have the means of saying anything other than sounds.
Another page torn.
My pet took the tongue out between shots. The blood from Demon’s mouth pools and dribbles down the sides of his mouth handsomely. I’d imagine it a nice addition to what Demon never did. He’s aiming the camera lens on something else, something I hadn’t been shown yet.
He has removed Demon’s genitals and reinserted them up Demon’s anus.
I gasp—amazed at his creativity.
My pet is performing to the full extent that Demon never could.
“You fancy yourself one of the Lords of Sodom?”
He rests the camera on Demon’s shoulder. Watch as he wanders over to the chemicals. Three jugs, and I can imagine the sound of the screams long before they finally pour through the tiny camera speaker. He picks back up the camera.
The tape skips over the next few frames but I can still hear.
“Then let me wash the shit from your skin. Let me make sure you look the part.”
He pours a pink chemical.
I’m imagining the smell, licking my lips.
My pet kicks Demon in the chest. Given that he’s in a kneeling position, the impact causes him to fall onto his back.
“Would the Marquis share the pleasure with you?”
He’s rolling Demon onto his stomach, severed penis removed and sliced to pieces. He’s throwing them into a plastic container where they will be dissolved.
“The pleasure is all mine.”
Knife is dislodged from Demon’s side. He’s barebacked with the knife.
He’s careful not to show his face on camera.
That’s not what my pet would do; it wouldn’t fit what Demon would do. And I’m finding myself completely satisfied and even a bit compelled by his accuracy. His reenactment becomes true revision. My pet fixes the errors of another. Demon is written off with his inaccuracies. He is dissolved like his genitals are dissolved in the container.
He’s reading more from the book, but the book has come to pieces, and there’s little left but a sliver and the damp glue mush of a spine. He’s placing the leftovers of the book like a ball-gag in Demon’s mouth.
“You should study your influences before joining their side.”
The white of my knuckles show the strength of my grip.
Demon has one thing left to do:
Die.
My pet helps, using a clear liquid poured into the open cavity of Demon’s groin.
With it over, he’s ripe with the adrenaline release but he doesn’t let the quality of the footage falter. I’m witness to a long ornate panning shot across the entirety of my pet’s first kill.
The showers are shut off.
The imagined chemical stench overlaps the smell of stomach acids and partially digested food, excrement and other bodily fluids.
Nothing seems to faze him.
Soon he’s dripping in something other than tap water.
He cleans up and keeps each frame perfect:
As if I had been there as this happened.
With him. Him—who can only be mine.
The tape skips and then stops.
Duration over. This isn’t data; this is the mark of my pet.
He is no longer the virginal menace. He has tried
and exceeded my expectations.
I cannot help myself. I drive a few miles with the assistants in the trunk.
The sun is clear and shining, not a glimmer of rain in sight.
3.
Maybe you didn’t watch the entire tape, or maybe you did.
So you’re a viewer now. You are privy to information that you couldn’t have known about until watching more than one episode.
You are involved. Aware of the ongoing mystery.
More so you are enthralled, curious, interested.
You are also slightly ashamed by the level of graphic content. Somewhere you started to reconsider your first impression. You might not fully understand what is about to occur, but you’ve got an inkling that it has already happened. What you are seeing isn’t always live.
It may be that the woman on camera has been filmed in a different capacity.
It may be that the woman on camera is shown in a certain light that might not be straight-on.
She might be partially abstracted, and him, who has quickly become the reason anyone is watching, feels more like an extension of the woman’s initiative, her needs, rather than someone you, the audience member, can fully relate to. But then there’s that concern:
Why are you relating to this at all?
It is obscene; it is full of gore and violence.
Sexual undertones quickly expand into the literal.
And this has only just begun, that much is clear.
Why do you watch?
And why does the woman seem to be holding back, made half of what she really is?
You are full of questions, and for that reason alone the mystery becomes increasingly complex.
You must see more.
You want full-frontal.
The show will at least give you that. It will peel back the skin and show you how foreign the human body can seem. A nightmare is unfolding as a man and a woman begin their affair.
The road is their cradle; the camera is their affection.
With each tape there will be a kill. With each kill there will be more to who he is.
Gimmicks are first impressions.
The reality of your interest is in your cooperation.
Your attendance.
You are given a look, and, upon invested in the mystery, the show becomes a part of your life.
She becomes a part of your life. He becomes key to every single potential concept of crime and deviant behavior. The longer you watch, the more you will come to see her as part of your life.
You then shudder to think what it must be on the flipside.
She sees you as part of her life.
She could be anywhere, and anyone. She just might be coming for you.
He is quick to follow her every command. . .
4.
So, you know, given the way the world works, I still manage to be surprised.
I’m surprised by his behavior and how he exhibits no hesitance, no resistance either.
Against my own rules, I call him. And this is what we say to each other.
“I love you,” as I’m letting the assistants out of the trunk.
“I love you,” as he’s pulling out of a parking space, heading back to the interstate, headed for his second.
“I love you,” as I’m back behind the wheel, the assistants barely able to hold back tears.
“I love you,” as it’s clear to him that I’m proud of my pet. Master is proud.
“I love you,” as he makes it clear that he did it for me. He’ll always do it for me.
And again, speeding down the interstate, “I love you,” because I’m beginning to see the possibilities. Master just might know what you are now capable of.
“I love you,” as the assistants begin complaining.
“I love you,” as he’s coming down from the adrenaline rush. My pet quick to demand more. And my, oh my, do I want to see him.
“I love you,” as he’s back on the interstate, the name clear, the plan never more clear than now, sight and sound vivid, bold, and impossible to enjoy.
My pet can’t enjoy anything I haven’t allowed him to enjoy.
He wants more, craves more.
And I crave him.
“I love you” are the words that summarize our actions.
We need nothing else.
This will be his training.
He will be fully mine and, in turn, he will have his legacy.
The road twists and turns but he’ll be around every corner.
I’ll be underneath it all, the one controlling the puppet, the one curating the shape and size of the mystery. “I love you,” as he and I are back into position.
I keep him on the line.
I demand that he does the same.
He won’t refuse me.
My pet.
5.
What am I picturing?
Is it possible for me to fully capture what I know he’ll be?
I’m picturing a name that won’t yet be a name, not until the media begins noting his work. He will be notable before noteworthy, a slight mention before he becomes a movement, something everyone can’t stop thinking or talking about.
I’m picturing the fact that he kills the already killed, the ones that are less human as they are the very reason prisons still exist, will be the reason why our plans will go off without much of a hitch.
I’m picturing his method, and how it takes into question their method.
I’m picturing how each kill is exactly how my ex killed.
I’m picturing my perfect little pet having no problem with that.
I’m picturing yet again a lack of policing, a fumble, the authorities three days behind at their best.
I’m picturing the way he’ll appear to the general public.
I’m picturing something pleasing. They will cheer for him more than most.
I’m picturing a sort of image—one they’ll use mostly because so many have killed using gimmick, have tried to become as much a menace as they were practitioners of the fight we all hide within.
I’m picturing they’ll cut him slack.
I’m picturing a social media presence wherein thousands upon thousands praise his work and quickly spread buzz like wildfire.
I’m picturing real fires, burning down prisons and whole towns, roads and all.
I’m picturing my perfect pet, and he is perfect. He is all I see.
I’m picturing the end of this interstate, down south, where no one can see.
I’m picturing something different. I’m picturing a nice twist.
I’m picturing the entire mystery becoming an ongoing hot topic.
I’m picturing how easy, how pleasing to the touch, this will be.
I’m picturing full arousal when his work is viewed as a whole.
I’m picturing debate, discussion, and extensive studies on his method when it’s all said and done. I’m picturing a subgenre, a new category, an entire estate based on the intellectual property of his namesake. I’m picturing the past as a sort of roadmap, the one that I’m currently navigating.
And most of all, I’m picturing what I’ll have him do to me; what I’ll do to him when a mystery meets its natural conclusion.
Most of all, I’m picturing its would-be solution.
Master and pet—there will be no doubt between the both of us.
But you, you’ll have to ask.
And because you’ll ask, I’m picturing the kind of ending you’ll want, and it’s an ending that’s a bit too predictable, and too obvious. You really don’t think it’ll be that simple, right?
I’m picturing you, with blood on your tongue.
I’m picturing an entire audience watching.
An entire audience waiting and reacting.
An entire audience spreading the word.
My pet, my perfect pet, your potential nearly gets the best of me.
I can hardly hold back, and by the time I reach the next mile-marker, I will have determined that there
’s no reason for holding back.
I’m picturing how I’ll taste you when you’re once again in my presence.
I’m picturing exactly what you’ll be, my pet, everything they were, but better.
And I’ll teach you. On one condition, and one condition only.
6.
We have reason to meet in person. You don’t ask why. You don’t ask why.
Him and I, we meet because I want to meet.
We aren’t made to meet at every juncture; it will slow us down, but a heartbeat is bound to quicken its pace when something happens, and I mean something really happens.
I’ve made the rules, and a concession is in order.
My petty assistants have been startled; they have begun to understand the true nature of this study. I’m a social scientist willing to record the data true to its source.
I take the next exit, driving down a side road full of quiet two-story homes.
In minutes his coupe is behind me.
In the minute after he parks the car, I am behind him.
“I love you,” I’m saying.
He’s saying the same thing.
They are watching, but he knows which one is me.
They are shocked but still watching. Think of the perfect shot and film it as you’d like. It’s what they capture, blonde then brunette passing the camera back and forth as I get him to do as I say. This happens, they might say.
We’re only saying what is destined to make any sense.
“I love you.”
A pet loves his master.
A master must in turn learn to love her pet.
I can still smell the chemicals on him.
My assistants begin to sob, and I’m taking the camera, putting them on the spot.
“Get out of the car.”
They get out of the car with only the slightest bit of hesitation.
The sky above darkens, a thunderstorm will soon reach us.
Lights dim, and the way this looks on camera, the way you see it, it might as well be night.
A tinge of noir based on the way I capture them on camera, I force them to their knees.
“Don’t make a sound.”
We aren’t wasting time on exposition.
My Pet Serial Killer Page 18