Hungry, thirsty, tired, in discomfort and sleep deprived, removing any of these elements as reward for the behavior I sought. It slowly would place her under my control. I could have beaten her into submission, but she would never have become mine, not in the same way she would with the reward system.
Beating her into submission would have yielded similar results, but she would only give herself to me physically. I didn’t desire just her body—her soul as well.
I kept her nose pinched so I could remove the tube with ease.
She cursed me again with spittle and some of the liquid choking up. I told her to save her energy for she would need it.
Satisfied she couldn’t retch up the concoction, I pulled the vinyl shower curtains closed around the tub.
Since the hook allowed for a swinging movement of her body, I installed the curtain with suction cups to hold it in place to catch any fecal matter I knew would expel from her in about two hours. When it was over I would just hose her and the tiled wall off.
Leaving her alone to the cramps she would experience, I flipped the lights off—pure darkness. All worked her toward being mine.
I knew in two hours the medication would cause her discomfort and within three hours she would lose all control of her bowels. It would flush her system of any nutrition, making her hungry and thirsty faster.
With the flicking of the lights, she released a moan. I figured she had become used to the smell, but I gagged. I flipped on the vent.
Peeling back the shower curtain, I found a distraught girl who had lost some fight, but she still had her spirit and one green eye. She had colored contacts, or did. She was down to one. Green-eyed redheads are rare, still it was her fire I loved.
Caked around her mouth and streaming down her chest was dried vomit. Splattered shit sprayed around the tub and between her legs. She had nothing left inside her. She was the nastiest she’d ever been and we both knew it. Shame masked her face. Her arms hurt, and her legs cramped down to her toes.
I attached a garden hose with a pressure sprayer tip to the faucet. Taking care of the wall and the tub first I cleaned her mess. She struggled against my spraying her legs with icy water. The high pressure stung like cold needles. She would get warm water. I left her face and mouth dirty dumping a bucket of ice water over her instead. She shivered, but my goal was not to freeze or even water board her, it was to keep her from drinking.
After she was clean I rolled up the hose. It stayed secure in another room.
“Please.” It wasn’t begging.
My finger touched the light switch, I paused.
“My legs are cramping. Please let me down.”
Interesting.
She hadn’t asked to be released, just down. No girl begged in such a way before. She contemplated some convoluted escape plan.
I flipped the lights off.
“Fucker! Let me go!”
I twisted the deadbolt, the kind with a loud echoing click. I secured her in the black room.
There was an escape plan in her somewhere. I doubted she had the strength, but she thought she did if I allowed her down. And sometimes thought is enough. Hope is a lying mistress. People convince themselves their bodies are capable of achieving great feats. When they are successful it’s usually to the detriment of the body.
I recalled reading of a mother who flipped an overturned three-ton tractor off her son. Later her arms and shoulders needed massive surgery, but she did flip the tractor.
I would add time to my check on her clock.
Without hydration her muscle cramps would worsen. I’m sure she cried, but losing extra water for tears only add to her dehydration. I realized I should install a night vision camera in the room so I could check on my girl.
I brought her a glass mixed with laxative and Sprite. She gulped it down.
She would need cleaning again in a few hours. The room had a strong asparagus smell.
“Would you like to come down?” I asked.
She thought about her answer. She still had spirit in her.
“I’m thirsty.”
“You can go three days without water. Not counting what you swallowed when I cleaned you, it has only been some thirty hours.”
The skin shrinks, tightens around the muscles during dehydration and her legs were taut and cramping. She must have had a high tolerance for pain or she refocused it into her anger and hatred of me.
“You’re not ready. You’ll become my work of art.” A great challenge. I had no idea I needed such a project. I was happy with those who were subservient quickly, but not this fiery redhead.
“Don’t you fucking leave me hanging here in the fucking dark!”
I did.
At the two-day mark she may not have broken yet, but she had no fight in her, not until I allowed her to suckle on a wet wash cloth. It wasn’t enough to undo the chapping of her lips.
“Just kill me.”
“Do you want to die?” I placed several heating lamps like farmers used to warm newborn baby pigs.
“I don’t want to be your tortured plaything.”
“If I kill you, I’ll just replace you. It would be your fault another girl becomes my plaything. If you’re here and pleasing, you spare another woman this fate.” Physiological control.
“What kind of sick fuck are you?”
I knew she wasn’t broken mentally. The girl who was not ready to beg for water was nowhere near ready to be mine. I placed a stool in the tub on top of a plastic pad, snaking the cable from the pad to an electrical box wired to the lamps. She could choose to stand on the stool to elevate her muscle aches. Her body weight on the stool would trigger the heat lights on. They would be bright, hot enough to slow roast a turkey, or she could dangle on her toes in the dark.
I gave her eight ounces of water, four of which her body absorbed before she could spit it back at me in protest.
I would install a camera. I never wanted to witness the struggle before, but with her I did. I wondered how long she left the lights on during the last twelve hours.
Her skin may have been a freckled mess, but white areas were pink. She had withstood the heat long enough to burn. He legs had relief. Her body was eating itself for nourishment and demanded water.
Her skin was warm where it had pinked. She was willing to cook herself to give her legs a break. She may have even gotten some sleep. Resting would screw with my plans.
“Are you ready to drink?” Now we played the game, moving her toward being mine.
“I won’t beg.” She still had her soul.
“You know what you need to do.”
“What!” Her chest raised as her heart pace quickened, “I’ll suck your dick if you give me water.” Her tone had an attached ‘Is that what you fucking want, bastard?’
We were a long way from the trust it would take for me to place my cock in her mouth.
“Ask.”
She huffs.
“May I please have some water?”
Smart girl.
I had a liter sportsman squeeze bottle with an attached straw. She could save it up in her mouth to spit it, but she would swallow, and her mouth was barren. She needed the water or all the fight she had to live would be pointless.
She drank about half before I pulled it away. “Too fast. You’ll get sick.”
I removed the stool, but left the pad. It would boost her up an inch or so and provide some relief, but not like the stool. She would get no more chances to sleep.
“Please,” this tone was more of a relinquishing beg, “please leave the stool.”
She had gotten rest at the expense of a sunburn.
“Try and not piss on the pad. I’m no electrician, so I don’t know if you’ll get a shock if you get it wet. It won’t kill you, just send a jolt through you—maybe burn. Imagine attempting to stand on blistered toes.”
I left her in the dark. She could give herself light if she desired.
When I returned in twelve hours, I removed her from
the hanging apparatus. leaving her hands bound. Her kick at me was pathetic. She had no muscle control from being stretched and baked.
I needed to put a hook in the floor near the tub so I could secure hands while I laid her out, in case there was fight left in the girl. A half decent shot to my nuts and theoretically she could reach the door. A spirited woman was perfect for my chamber’s field test.
The upstairs door was bolted. She’d never get it open.
She had anger and it radiated off her, but she had lost the ability to move. I had to carry her from the bathroom. Her legs cramped tight. The muscle spasms bubbled the skin. Any movement radiated pain. If she behaved I’d feed her a banana, nothing sexual about it. She needed the potassium. Her toes curled, and she whined from the pain of touching her sunburn.
I watered her and allowed her a bite of banana after I secured her arms to the headboard. As I massaged and worked loose her cramping legs, she never lost her fiery hate of me. Her green eye glared along with the brown one. The chocolate brown seemed milky without the contact. They were beautiful. I had yet to admire them. Given the chance she would stab me.
I allowed her another bite of the fruit. Her stomach couldn’t handle food yet.
She never asked. Never protested. She accepted the water and bites of food, yet her eyes never lost the ‘I will stab you’ stare.
She must have realized eventually I would assault her. I undressed and cuddled against her, her body rigid in resistance. I would have to pry her legs open when the time came.
I rubbed on her with some sex oil. Her body required moisture. What people don’t understand is no matter how badly a person refuses a sexual encounter the sex organs will betray the brain with the proper body stimulation.
It made her hate me more. Her body gave way to my fingers and the pleasure they brought. Once she was properly prepared I slipped the dog collar around her neck. I had bought several of the same design. They allowed me to grip the strap and remove the hook. I controlled the pressure on the throat so no accidental latching would occur. No dead girls until I was ready. It was enough of a risk to choke her to unconsciousness the first time.
I slid inside her. The death gaze burnt hotter, if it was possible. She only resisted me in her mind. She hated me.
I found my grip on the collar and when the time was right I tugged taut against her thoat. I held it until she passed out. I would break this one. We had all the time in the world.
XII
“WHAT YOU DO makes you one sick fuck,” Jack says.
“We don’t judge,” Jane defends.
“You burnt people alive,” Al proclaims.
“Even in prison committers of sex crimes are the lowest,” Edgars says.
“Gentlemen. We are not here to condemn each other. Remember, we’re here to help each other. If we could have gone to a doctor in the real world maybe we wouldn’t have done what we did, but it is not an option,” Jane says.
“I may be a bastard for killing women, but no one cares about those girls. They’re forgotten or ostracized by society. People claim it’s terrible some young runaway sells her cooch to survive, but they do nothing to address the problem,” Ed says.
“Enough soap box,” Robert says.
“I’m sure I should have been caught. My first few killing, I left clues I didn’t know I did, but no one investigated dead prostitutes,” Ed reiterates
“If someone did care you wouldn’t have killed them?” Edgars asks.
“I would have been caught sooner, maybe. Or they wouldn’t be out there presenting themselves for payment. If the world cared I wouldn’t have had access to them,” Ed says.
“Nope. It’s the world’s fault?” Edgars asks.
“I’m not going to blame anyone. We have to accept responsibility. But society has a simple solution. You don’t want drugs on the street, you don’t arrest some dime bag dealer, you send in your troops and burn the poppy fields. If the country, you invade doesn’t like it you inform them the next burning will be the entire country. You don’t want these girls out there, you get them the help they need. Many use the dope. Start with ending it,” Ed rants.
“We’ve been over this, we have a sickness. We know there is no help for us. The world sees us as monsters and won’t cure us. I enjoy what I did,” says Al. “How do we fix the pleasure we get from what we do?”
“Is it pleasure? You have the control of a deity over those women. It’s the power you have over them. We all have power over our victims. It completes something we think we are missing in ourselves,” Jane says.
“You need to replace what you do to those girls with something else positive in your life. AA members are to replace drinking with God,” The Plagiarists says.
“I want no god.”
Other murmurs emanate in the dark.
They know what I know, God doesn’t exist. If He did, how could He allow us to do what we do to the innocent? “I think you’re correct. What do we replace our urges with? When the need to do what we do overwhelms us, what do we do instead?” Jane asks.
“We use sponsors, a team member we contact,” says Kenneth.
Damn. Jesse wishes he’d thought of it. He now must get Jack to work with him. He needs the older man as an ally. Jack would turn against this group.
“After this second meeting, we should pair up. If we have an urge we contact our partner. We still use code phrases,” Jane says.
“Just call it drinking. All our urges are the same as alcoholics,” Edgars says.
“Agreed.”
“Are we concluding this session?” Robert asks.
“We haven’t heard from everyone,” Jesse says.
“Jane?”
“As your somewhat unofficial group trailblazer I’ve more stories to confess, if we go back to when I was still a nurse. I grew tired of watching people witness the suffering of their family members as they died.”
XIII
IT ALWAYS AMAZED me how much waste transpires in the practiced medical field. Use a medicine, say one dose from a bottle, for one patient and toss the rest out. Yes, it had a shelf life, but it wasn’t instantly ruined. Some could be used for patients with no money and offset costs. I would draw medicine from a vial that had five doses and use one. I was expected to toss the remaining four and the family with insurance ate the cost.
At first, I sought to help those who could not afford it. But I couldn’t record the administration of the dose without billing noticing. If I didn’t record it, and a doctor gave a contra effective medicine, it would kill the patient.
I faced a conundrum. Help people or help the hospital make money. The longer I nursed the more I understood cured people didn’t receive bills.
I was promoted to charge nurse on my shift, a few pennies more an hour for a lot more responsibility.
I met a young girl, Sarah. She was fourteen, but still appeared to be about ten-years-old. Poor child would never blossom into a woman. Fucking cancer. It was her second bout. She’d won the first at age four, but not really. She had thought she had gone the distance, but no cancer got back up on the count of eight. It was eating her organs. She was the walking dead.
All the treatments did was prolong her pain. All life may be precious, but no one should have to live in a hospital bed.
One evening shift I found Sarah—the little girl—sobbing. Never allow her to have a name. A name makes her a person. To snuff out the light of a person was still bothersome to me at this point.
“Is it the pain?”
“No. Yes. I mean. I hurt, yes, but these tears are for my mom.”
I sat on the bed, offering her a Kleenex. “She loves you.” It was a stroke-her-hair-lovingly-moment, but she had no hair, just carpet-burn stubble.
“I know, she wants me to keep fighting.”
“They make big strides in cancer research every day,” I said. It was true. I left out and your parents will never be able to afford them.
“Can I tell you something, and you keep it p
rivate? Even from my mom?”
“I’ll do my best.” It wasn’t a lie if it wasn’t medical. I’d be able to keep such a promise.
“I just want to die.”
I should have been shocked or said something nursey about how she needed to keep fighting—do no harm shit. But I didn’t have it within me, because keeping this little girl alive was doing her harm. Sometimes keeping people breathing is doing harm.
“I’ve heard the doctors. I won’t win this time. I’m being eating from the inside and it hurts. As an organ fails they’ll hook me up to more machines. Mommy doesn’t want to give up. She thinks the machines are fine to use. She loves me. Do you know she lost her job?”
I shook my head no, but as many hours as her mother was here, I suspected she didn’t have a job.
“She lost it because of me. And when I’m gone, she won’t have anything to do.”
“That’s love,” I said.
“I keep fighting because I love her, but I don’t want to fight anymore. I don’t want to be hooked to a machine. You can’t swim if you’re connected to a machine.”
“Have you told her how you feel?” I asked.
“She doesn’t want to hear it. She has blinders on, whatever that means. She tells me to hush and the doctors will cure her baby.”
I slid my hand over the sheets. I squeezed her fingers as hard as I dared to show comfort, because the poor girl’s arms were purple with bruises.
“Is death what you want?” No sugar coating, I had to know.
“I want no more pain. I know it will get worse and never get better.”
It wouldn’t. Her selfish mother would rather watch her daughter suffer to keep her here than release the child.
“I make you no promise, but maybe if I speak to your mother,” I offered.
“She won’t listen,” Sarah said.
“I just need to know if you’re sure you want your pain to end.” I would take care of her if she did.
“I ask God every night to take me into his arms.”
I tucked the girl in and kissed her forehead. “He will have a beautiful angel when he does. Sleep as best as you can, child.”
SKA: Serial Killers Anonymous Page 17