The show must go on.
My assistants quickly understand that they cannot hold back either. They are my assistants and for that reason they have become subordinates.
Involved. Accessories.
I watch as they look over at him.
“What was that just now?”
I provoke them for an answer.
When one cries, I slap both across the face.
“I didn’t hear you!”
I’m the person with the camera. I’m the master walking the line I’ve drawn. My pet remains on all fours, waiting and enjoying what he sees.
If I wanted to, he would take them for me.
They would resist and in resisting they would be perfect victims.
But not right now, I tell myself.
That time may come, but not at this point, so early, so fresh on our trail.
My assistants are armchair social scientists. I ask them what they did just now.
You’ll never hear their voices unless I feel a need for them to be recorded on camera. You don’t have to hear them to know that they are inadequate.
They are fearful. They also looked at him not with fear, but with something else.
And I will keep track of what that “something else” might be.
“You are involved,” I’m saying.
More about the study.
It was their fault that they failed to understand what this was about.
“Didn’t think you signed up for this?”
And sure they’re quick to shake their heads. I turn to my pet, and he is commanded to stand back up. He’s done so well I want to kiss him.
But I don’t. Not yet.
The camera wouldn’t capture it correctly.
They’re watching, so I bite him.
I tell him to bite back.
Drawing blood, I spit at them. Blood splatters across their faces.
“This has always been the same study. It seems you both never fully understood the cost of doing what you love.”
Brunette pees herself. I tell her to take off the clothes.
I force her to remain naked even though there are spares in the trunk.
Both up off their knees, I have him walk up to them. I have my pet show them the footage, both of what he did to Demon and what I filmed of them just now.
I take the camera from him, and he goes back to his car.
He waits, but knows what the waiting will do:
It will leave a time discrepancy in our records.
But this was needed. Their loyalty will now be set in stone.
When I show them the final bit of footage, of both tasting each other, they are wondrously everything I expected them to be. I’m saying that they are my assistants.
Both shut up and become obedient carbon copies of me.
To any viewer, they look just like me with different affectations.
Hair color, tan lines. . .take your pick. What’s your type?
I am everybody’s type.
To all of you, they will be just what I need when my hands are full.
Camera captures the brunette completely: spread cheeks, on all fours, wet. When that’s over, I’m saying, “Now does it all make sense?”
They both nod, slowly.
He mouths, “I love you,” from the driver’s seat.
As I drive off, I’m mouthing the very same words looking back at him via the rearview mirror. Only him and I know the full extent of their meaning.
Data recorded.
7.
My pet is taking requests.
Would you care to die by his hands?
He’ll love you right until the end.
Your deepest, darkest fantasies will come true.
And you too will be mine.
Why watch what you don’t understand?
1.
I drove through the storm to get back to the limelight of this study.
Wanting so very much to see him back there, but instead I see the storm clouds, the rains set to downpour. No amount of rain will wash away what’s been done and what will become the basic facts of my disgust. The facts, they’re both of these sentences:
They slowed it down. They didn’t assist.
I blame the assistants for his death.
My pet has no one to kill.
The assistants shiver but they don’t see me, equally wet from the storm, shivering. I’m red hot on the trail.
We’ve no one for him to kill. His would-be second, the man that had been called the “Butcher of Brooklyn” was executed.
I had them drenched. But the rain wouldn’t wash away how I felt.
How I feel. So maybe, wanting them to better understand. . .
Then I see it and that’s all it takes.
It is done.
Two cars behind, in the lane to my right, a blue van. The blue van, the one we had been following since finding out that the Butcher was no more.
He thought she could replace me, huh? Thought marrying into something would wash away his past? If watching rainfall teaches you anything about consequence, let it be the fact that nothing completely washes away. Everything that disappears washes up somewhere else.
The Butcher of Brooklyn, he’s all washed up.
He got married to this woman. He got married to her just so that he would have someone visit him in jail. And it looks like she married out of the Butcher’s life, opting to start on another.
It’s all in the blue van: Two kids, a dog, and will you look at that. . .
The man driving, that couldn’t be the Butcher, could it?
Butcher’s veins were pumped full of a lethal dosage.
He’s a corpse in a grave six feet under. We’re too late but this, the blue van, will have to do. Oh well, look at that: She seems to understand that they’re being followed.
I want to say hello.
I’m having trouble juggling all the possibilities. So much can go wrong when traveling down the interstate. So much—and I’m looking to have us be one of those wrong turns.
Side-by-side the blue van, I have them wave. I have the blonde drive so that I can do what needs to be done. I’m flashing my bare chest and so that means they have to show theirs too.
What do they see, what do they see?
The camera sees them.
My pet drives past us, pulls in front of the blue van and speeds down the interstate.
Preparing for elsewhere, I imagine. But this, this is ours.
My pet, I’ll show you later. I’ll show you everything.
We’re playing a game; can’t you see? Cat and mouse, and who might be the mouse here?
Look at me: Would you consider me anything like a kitty cat?
Meow.
The guy driving doesn’t seem to think so. He speeds up, passing cars, switching lanes, doing his best to create distance.
Every time we get close, we touch each other. Metal on metal leaves dents. It leaves scars.
Our convertible is fine. I’m liking the dented look, the look of heavy petting. In adoration of the well explored body.
I stand up on the front passenger seat.
Order the assistants to leave their tops off.
You’ll see it. You’ll see it!
I have the guy see. More importantly, I have her see.
I know she sees us.
“Why don’t you look?!”
Camera pans to the back seat. Dog barking, fogging up the window.
I wave to the dog, shouting the words, “I have a pet too!”
The kids are crying.
I look at the young boy. I blow him a kiss.
I touch my left nipple. I shout, “We’re all wet!”
Blue van speeds up again.
I shout, “Hey I know you!”
Guilty by association, we are wet bodies past the storm, looking to get past this, looking to pass on the fact that he was ours to kill and because the Butcher is dead, they’ll have to do.
Next of kin. Executer of estate.
> She shows up on every record. I’m all about fairness. Look at my fair skin. I can be as tender as porcelain, as honest as long as you play fair.
If you’re not, I’m snapping my fingers. Blonde is driving faster. Brunette is handing me oranges. If not. . .
“We’re going to have to play a different game!”
I whisper those words, the words exclusively understood by no one but my perfect pet, as I hurl that first orange at the blue van. It lands on the windshield.
Continuous shot as I tend to the oranges. Each hurled orange is an expression of adoration.
Each hurled orange is one more scar to heal, a dent to mark the blue a different color.
She sees me now. And I’m telling her, it’s because of him. Yes, him. Her husband, the one that’s dead. The one that’s alive and cowering behind the wheel hears me. He hasn’t heard of the information, hasn’t figured his wife for one attracted to a serial killer.
But then, no one is until they are. By then they are in bed with a killer, and they just might be like me, wanting so much to change them. Make him better.
She knew the moment she saw me. Butcher must have told her all about me.
Up until now, there was nothing to prove to her that I exist. But see these? I cup them, I feel them, the van on the side of the road, I push her face into them.
Smother her. And then, “Yes, for the camera.”
Butcher liked to cook the bodies. We’d do a little roadside cooking.
I have them hold the camera just so that he can see. You’ll want to see this.
I’m sure you’re interested. I have one of the assistants look in the back of the van. Sure enough he has a portable grill.
I ask the young girl, “How was the picnic?”
Of course she isn’t valuable enough to be given a line in the script.
Sure—I enjoy this. I enjoy it more because you’re watching.
I enjoy it because he’s well ahead of me, he’s moving on.
He’s got an appetite like me.
We’re all hungry,
You can cut a whole lot from the human body before it becomes fatal. I force her to try some of her meat.
“Tender huh?”
The assistants look the part but I warn the brunette, “You better not!” when she breathes deeply, wave of nausea hitting her hard.
“Eat it.”
We all have a taste.
Marinated in her own blood, it tastes a little flat, but the meat, it is tender.
Perhaps the man behind the wheel is a bit of a wife beater. . .I look at her arms, the side of her face, there are bruises, signs of a lesser man’s weakness.
This troubles me. I see those with no fight in them as the weakest, most disgusting of the bunch. The man behind the wheel won’t look me in the eye.
I shout at him. I have the assistants pull him out but he holds onto the wheel for dear life.
“Fine,” I say, realizing that he’s not worth the effort.
He’s not really alive. “Maybe you won’t feel this,” I say right as I slam the door on his arm once, twice, three times, before locking him in that van.
“Kids, circle around.”
None of this is for the cars passing by. No one will stop. They will drive faster. Danger ahead. You should know of the dangers one can experience while driving.
Fade to black as the lights go out. It is sunny, a kind of natural stage light on our red convertible. Tops off, we continue driving. The assistants have no mind to resist now. I took care of it. I had the assistants do something they’ll never forget. Think about it: It’s not difficult to take a person’s life when they do nothing to save it.
“Wait on the side of the road kids,” I’m telling them.
Their father hasn’t moved from the driver’s seat. Not even a single flicker of fight in him. Oh, what a surprise. I hand the young boy the rest of his mother.
“In case you get hungry.”
The boy doesn’t look me in the eye. He looks at my chest. Looks at their chests too. He’s bound by the urge. I see it and tell him, “You’ve got a lot of potential.”
I glance up at the kid’s dad, watching me. I tell the boy, “Don’t grow up dead like your dad.”
I let him feel my breast. He starts crying. The girl looks at the bag. Blood leaks from the bottom, drips down to the asphalt.
No rain will wash away the memory of our game.
The kids will take it with them. Define the rest of their days.
We know each other, don’t we?
You’re watching this, and I’d like to think that we liked the way she tasted.
2.
We’d really like to know what you think. A few episodes in, we’re getting to that point of the show where your suggestions become an integral part.
This is as much your show as it is his or her, so please, if you can spare a few minutes, vote!
Your opinion really does count!
Each questionnaire is answered anonymously, so by all means, be honest. Use the extra room to write in a more personal response. We’re building something together, folks, and it’s important to us that we see in her exactly what you’d like to see; we want what’s best for him. Many have already voiced their opinion on what a natural born killer like him should act like, and evolve into, and so it’s really moments like these that become imperative for the functionality of his training.
She does need your help, and the camera, you see, is always watching.
You’re never anywhere else but right up front.
1. Should the mystery involve more of the assistants or less of the assistants?
a) More b) Less c) Other:
2. The woman has been seen topless. Would you prefer more or less nudity?
a) More b) Less c) Other:
3. The man has yet to have a serial killer name. If you could name him, what would you name him?
4. The network wants to know: is a half hour twice a week more attractive than one hour once a week?
a) 2 Half-hour episodes b) One-hour episode c) Other:
5. The woman has quickly become quite the antagonist, and yet audience and critics equally, have had trouble placing where she fits. What do you think she is, to you? What does Claire mean to you?
a) Protagonist b) Antagonist c) Other:
6. The man hasn’t said a word. His trust is in the woman’s hands. The master/pet dynamic hinges on trust. Would you like to hear from him at any point?
a) Yes b) No c) Other:
7. Would you like to know how many exes the woman’s had?
a) Yes b) No c) Other:
8. What part of the mystery are you currently enjoying the most?
9. What part of the mystery are you currently enjoying the least?
10. For you loyal viewers that watch every single episode, what is it about the show that keeps you coming back, week after week?
Thank you for your time. The mystery has only just begun to unfold; we can’t wait to show you more.
She’ll show you everything, if you let her.
3.
She tasted pretty good. I’ll admit it—but it was an appetizer compared to the main course.
I’m hungry, aren’t you? I’m driving, the yellow lines of the highway quickly setting me into a daydream. I look back at the assistants; they cover their breasts with their arms, ashamed of their nudity. I look at myself. I see no reason to be ashamed.
This is a body. A body is supposed to be used.
I’m in a daze thinking about how he didn’t get to taste her.
I’m imagining a scenario where my pet takes it upon himself to treat me to a very special dinner where everyone is there, watching, as we try a number of different delicacies.
At some point we both laugh and say, “We aren’t cannibals.”
But I’m also imagining a scenario where we are. It becomes probable the moment it becomes worth watching. And you can imagine to the full extent, a horizon of possibilities.
I don
’t have time to check the footage before sending it to him but, you see, that’s what makes this all the more interesting. We aren’t seeing what I want to see; you’re seeing everything. He’s showing me only what happened; when everything happened. I’m left breathless and horny.
The drive is torture when I’m hungry.
I call him just to see if he’ll be all that he can be. And yet again, I’m impressed.
He isn’t supposed to use his phone. I’m picturing what he’s done: Probably lost the phone. It’s probably under the driver’s seat or something.
I think about what he’s filming—did he really decide to go ahead with the next?
If he’s there first, I’ve told him to wait; an obedient pet will only keep to the rules long enough until an opportunity arises to do something that’ll win favor.
He wants to please me.
I need to be pleased.
The assistants are in each other’s arms, asleep.
Looking at them, the way they look, I think; so young but too old for new liberties. They won’t understand what I’m doing; they’ll likely figure me for the worst person they’ve ever met. And what we’re doing, I’m under the impression that they don’t feel they’ll make it past this.
This isn’t an occasion.
This is the one occasion—the one to end all.
I have big plans for my pet and me. They will be able to join us. . .but only if they be as obedient as possible. They must be just like me.
But not like me. If that’s confusing, it’s because you aren’t them and your life isn’t in danger. I could easily let my pet have his way with them. I’d use both of our cameras.
Get two angles of the same kill.
I’d watch both tapes twice, just to whet my appetite.
The hunger is unbearable. Where’s a restaurant when you need it?
The hushed nature of this drive causes me to doze just enough to forget that I need to take this next exit. The assistants wake up when I make a sharp turn off the interstate.
My Pet Serial Killer Page 19