Bone: A Dark Billionaire Romance (With bonus book Exhibit!)

by Noir, Stella

  I lean over to Jasper. “That would never happen”, I say.

  Jasper is my best friend. He’s not quite as knowledgeable as I am about serial killers and horrible acts of bloody, inexplicable murder, but he is passionate, and he does come along to every sick thing I drag him to, even if he spends half the time wincing, pretending he likes it.

  “I know, right?” Jasper whispers. “Surely he’d cook the meat first.”

  We watch as the torturer, in this film a character called Tomlin Sharp, begins to eat his victim out, but not in the conventional way. He gobbles up her liver, swallows down her pancreas, feasts on her spleen and works his way through her kidneys. When he’s finally full, the poor girl is left with nothing but a pair of shriveled lungs, and a barely beating heart. The rest of her chest cavity is completely empty. No stomach, no lower intestines, no appendix or gall bladder.

  Tomlin puts his knife and fork down, wipes his mouth with the corners of a tea towel, and makes his way behind the chair. The girl is still begging for mercy, as though there is some slim chance he’ll let her go, and when he does, she’ll make a full recovery. With his foot on the back of the chair, he tips her over. Out of the cavity he has just created, hang lungs that look like a pair of under inflated footballs.

  There are slats in the chair that expose the girl, and just before the scene fades to black, we see Tomlin lower his pants, his huge cock springing into action, ready to slide inside her.

  There is an audible groan in the audience, before the credits roll.

  I’m about to launch into a diatribe, but I just can’t be bothered. My expectations were low enough to not feel all that disappointed. I jab Jasper in the ribs to let him know it’s time to go and we follow the herd back out into daylight.

  ***

  Jasper covers his burger in ketchup from a clear sachet that looks just like a blood transfusion bag. I won’t point that out to him because I know it’ll put him off his food.

  “So what did you think?” I ask him.

  Jasper shrugs. “Ok, I guess. It wasn’t very realistic was it?”

  I sigh. “They never are anymore”, I say. “I think they are finally running out of good ideas.”

  “Maybe they just need more inspiration.”

  “We need another good serial killer for that”, I say. “We haven’t had a really good one for ages. No one like Hunter.”

  “Hunter wouldn’t have eaten them though, would he?”

  “No, not Hunter. Felix Lopez might have done, he liked to skin his victims, boil what he took off so it was tough like leather and walk around with it on under his clothes. Gray Guthrey used to like chopping people’s cocks off and feeding them to the guests at his hotel without them knowing about it. Not many people go for the eating internal organs and then having sex with their corpses, especially not at home, alone, where nobody can see you.”

  “She wasn’t dead at that point”, Jasper points out, his mouth half full of burger.

  “Actually, you’re right, it’s not quite necrophilia, but it’s pretty close. Necrophilia is badass though. There is nothing like fucking the dead, especially if you dig them up first. That’s original. I’d like to see much more of that.”

  I give Jasper a wide smile, wondering if he can pick up on my sarcasm.

  “You’re sick, you know that?”

  “You’ve known me a long time, Jasper, you already know that about me. Our relationship is based mostly on the fact that we both get fascinated by the macabre.”

  “No wonder we don’t have partners.”

  “Partners are overrated”, I say, and I wonder if he can see through my lie. I had half wondered about whether Jasper and I could get together, but he’s not my type and I’ve known him for so long he’s practically my brother anyway.

  “You know, I guess it just puts people off. You’re hot, there’s no doubt about that, but you’re sick. You know, it’s not the most appealing quality. I think it freaks people out.”

  “I’m not looking for a partner anyway”, I say.

  “That’s bullshit”, Jasper says. “You’ve been looking for a partner for as long as I’ve known you.”

  “You just don’t want to have to come to the cinema with me and watch sick films.”

  “Have you ever wondered why you like it? You know, the crazy sick shit that you’re into. All that snuff and torture porn stuff you get kicks out of showing me.”

  “Everyone’s got hobbies”, I say with a big smile on my face, twirling the straw in my milkshake.

  We eat in silence for a while. Soggy chips and low grade beef burgers. I’m not a victim of sexual abuse. I’m not from a broken home. I’ve never killed anyone before, or watched anyone get killed, not in real life anyway. I guess I am just a little bit sick. I can’t help if it turns me on, both physically and mentally. I guess I just like what I’m not meant to see, I guess I just like the taboo.

  “What would you do if you met one in real life?” Jasper suddenly asks me, his eyes going wide. It’s the kind of conversation I absolutely love.

  “I’d pick their brains”, I say. “If they didn’t kill me first.”

  “With a knife and a fork?” Jasper asks, his eyebrow raised.

  It’s such a bad joke I have to pick up a french fry and throw it at him. Jasper ducks deftly, and it lands on the table behind him.

  “Anyway, if they did kill me, I suppose that’s the way I’d like to go out. It’d be much more interesting than getting run over, or having a heart attack, or something else conventional and boring. Imagine that, being fucked to death by a serial killer, you’d go down in history.”

  “You’d be dead. For most victims it’s not a very dignified exit. I can’t think of many that have gone in a nice way.”

  “Frank Cope used to kill his victims with massive doses of pharmaceutical drugs”, I say. “That must have been quite an enjoyable ride.”

  “You’d still be dead”, Jasper points out. “Wouldn’t it be much better to be the serial killer rather than the victim? Nobody remembers the victims.”

  “I do.”

  “Yeah well you’re weird, nobody else does. Not even the police.”

  “If I was the serial killer, I’d have to do the killing then. I’m not sure either of us are cut out for that.”

  “If it was a case of kill or be killed”, Jasper says, “I know which I would choose.”

  He slurps away at his choca-mocha smoothie, no sense of irony at all on his face. I knew there was a reason we were friends, it’s because deep down, he’s just as strange as I am. There is no way Jasper could be a killer though, he’s far too much of a softie.

  “Will you come tomorrow?” I ask.

  Jasper looks at me suspiciously. “You know I’m behind with my studies. My parents are going to stop my allowance if I don’t make it through this year.”

  “Please, Jasper, I need the numbers. I’m on the edge of making this work, and with more people it’ll look more professional. Besides which, you’re like a good luck charm to me. I don’t feel nervous with you there.”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “You can help me when I get stuck, prompt me with names of victims or bloody anecdotes I may have forgotten.”

  Jasper frowns, his eyebrows forming a long furry line in the middle of his forehead.

  “Ok, you can hold my umbrella then for when it rains.”

  “You don’t need me”, Jasper says, taking a break from his drink.

  “I’ll buy you lunch afterwards. Please, Jasper. I need this to start working for me.”

  Jasper raises his eyebrows and sighs. “Alright then, but don’t rope me into talking, you know how nervous I get with public speaking.”

  “Yes”, I say, clapping my hands together excitedly. “Thank you, thank you. We’ll start at ten, handing out the flyers.”

  “The flyers?!” Jasper complains.

  I nod, slurping away at my drink to avoid talking to him.

  “It better be a good lun
ch”, Jasper says, already resigned to it.

  Chapter 4

  Maude

  I have a group of four people. It was eight, but half of them dropped out, sickened by the long explanation I gave on how Langley liked to leave different parts of his victims in different mailboxes around the city. If they couldn’t stomach the facts, why did they turn up for a serial killer tour in the first place?

  Jasper holds my umbrella and looks at me nervously. I can tell he can’t wait for this to be over. Of those that have stayed with me, one looks like he is taking notes for a potential sequence of equally gruesome murders at some point in the future, I have a pair of Japanese tourists that don’t seem to be able to speak English but have been taking photos and nodding enthusiastically since we started, and a guy that looks like he’s got lost on the way to a Calvin Klein model shoot in the city.

  He’s dressed sharply, has the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen, and tousled hair that falls around his shoulders so perfectly I have to keep looking at him to check that he’s actually real. Honestly, he’s so hot, I can hardly concentrate on what I’m saying. He keeps smiling at me encouragingly too, prompting me sometimes when I’m stuck for a word. I have no idea what he is doing here. The only thing I can think is that perhaps he’s from out of town and he’s got time to kill between photo shoots, or that he’s lost his mind and is just as crazy as the people I’m diligently describing.

  We’ve arrived at the end of the tour. As I stand at the entrance to the house where Peter Yalzut cut the throats of sixteen Lebanese children, the Japanese couple insist on taking a series of selfies with me and Jasper, who I think they see as either my glamorous assistant or my put-upon boss. While they try and drag the hottie and the crazy into the frame too, both of whom resist graciously, they smile radiantly and babble to each other enthusiastically in their native language.

  I tell them Peter Yalzut is one of the only serial killers in modern history to only kill children. I tell them that he was a religious fanatic and a well known member of the community. I tell them that when he was finally caught and the house was excavated, they found the remains of twenty six other children buried in shallow graves in the basement of the property, children that had come into the country unofficially, and had never registered their details with any agency. As far as the country was concerned, they were ghosts and because of the number that were found, were constantly referred to in Yalzut’s trial as the alphabet boys and girls.

  I tell them that Yalzut killed himself in a prison cell while awaiting conviction, although it is unsure even to this day, how he managed to get hold of the means to do so.

  I like Yalzut. I mean, what he did was obviously despicable, but as a character, and the style in which he went about his work, and from a purely psychological point of view, he is fascinating. I could go on for hours about his methods, about his vision and why he did what he did, but Jasper is looking at me with hungry eyes, and the Japanese tourists are beginning to look a little restless, now they’ve taken photos of almost everything they have around them and there isn’t much left to photograph. I smile.

  “That’s it”, I say reluctantly, desperate to continue talking, but aware I probably shouldn’t. “I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Does anyone have any questions?”

  I think the guy that looks like a serial killer in waiting is about to ask a question, but what he does instead is take a cigarette out of the packet he removes from his top pocket, light it deliberately, turn away without giving me so much as a thank you and walk back up the street.

  The Japanese couple look at each other briefly, look to Jasper and then over to me.

  “Finish?” the woman asks in strong, accented English.

  “It’s finished”, I say. “If you’d like to leave a tip-?”

  I don’t even need to finish the sentence before the man has taken out his wallet, fished around inside and pulled out a fifty dollar note. My eyes go wide when I see it, but I try not to let on.

  “Very good, thank you”, he says, and hands it over.

  An orchestra of bowing, hand pressing, smiling and one last photo follows, before they rush hurriedly back out to the street and off towards some other appointment or goal.

  When I look up, the hottie is leaning casually against the wall with his arms folded, smiling at me. His look is so smoldering it’s making my panties melt. For a second my mind is blank, and then when I do go to speak, I trip over my words. Out of the corner of my eye I see Jasper giggling away to himself, and it makes me even more flustered.

  I don’t know how this guy has done it, but I feel completely incapacitated. Incapacitated and super turned on. Suited and booted isn’t really my style, but it’s more about the look he has in his eye than the way he’s dressed. Instantly, I can tell he’s one of me. Either that, or I’m about to be arrested by the sexiest IRS agent in the world for operating without a license. Thankfully, with my inability to speak, he begins to fill in the gaps.

  “You know your stuff”, he says. “Not many people know much about Yalzut, which is a shame, because he’s a real artist. I’m Christopher by the way, Christopher Alexander.”

  He extends his hand and I take it. Finally words come back to me.

  “I’m Maude”, I say, losing myself in his eyes, and holding on to his hand for a little longer than perhaps I should.

  Jasper coughs. When I look at him, he’s holding my umbrella out and smiling, his head tilted ironically.

  “And this is Jasper”, I say. “My faithful assistant.”

  “Pleased to me you”, Christopher says, his eyes going to Jasper briefly, and then coming back to me at full pelt, like the sun coming out from behind a cloud.

  “How long have you been doing the tour?”

  “This is the third week”, I say. “I’m hoping it’s going to get more popular.”

  “I wouldn’t have guessed”, Christopher says, “you seem like a natural to me.”

  “It’s kind of my field”, I say.

  “Ah ok, are you a criminologist?” Christopher asks.

  I have to giggle a little at that, and it makes Christopher smile too. Perfect teeth, full lips, this guy is something else. “No, I just mean. I’ve got a bit of an obsession, that’s all. Maybe it’s a little unhealthy.”

  Christopher regards me for a moment. I can’t tell what he’s thinking, but the look he gives me is raw, animalistic sexuality. Like he either wants to fuck me, eat me or kill me, and perhaps all three. The thing is, even though I should probably feel intimidated by that, it just turns me on even more. Maybe I am sick.

  “Tell me”, Christopher says, a mischievous glint in his eye. “What do you know about Bone?”

  Chapter 5

  Christopher

  This girl is incredible. Young, attractive, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, passionate and full of raw energy. Just listening to her speak about these things sends shivers up and down my spine. We’ve decamped to a cafe to talk about my proposal. I’m utterly convinced she’s the one I need to run this thing, so it’s just a matter of getting her on board. I have to be careful not to scare her off, but to be honest, I think it might take something quite strong to do that.

  “The thing I love about Bone”, Maude says, the sugar from the pastry square still glistening on her lips, and matching the sparkle in her eyes, “Is that he hasn’t finished yet.”

  “What makes you say that?” I ask her.

  Maude leans in towards me, as though what she might be about to say could be dangerous in the hands of the wrong people. “He’s taken a different bone from every one of his victims, right?”

  “Ok”, I agree.

  “If his goal is a full skeleton, something no-one else has ever even tried before, he’s got some way to go.”

  “There are two hundred and six bones in the human body”, I say, “that’s ambitious even for a master like Bone.”

  Maude gives Jasper a look for slurping too loudly on his drink, and he takes the hint. He apologizes quietly, be
fore removing himself from the booth entirely, and entertaining himself at the arcade machine in the corner.

  “I still reckon that’s what he’s got planned”, Maude says, as though she’s the first one to come up with the theory.

  “It’s going to be hard when they execute him”, I say, just to see her reaction.

  “Garimund Bartner?” she says. “Please. You and I both know he’s not the one responsible. Garimund fits the profile, but he’s not clever enough to do what Bone has done.”

  “How do you explain the absence of victims then? Nothing since 2013.”

  “Either Bone’s changed the way he does things, or he’s waiting for the right moment.”

  “Every single one of his victims has been found so far. He doesn’t hide them. It’s part of his game. Every single one has been killed in the same way, and every single one has been a woman, a virgin, and under the age of twenty five. He is as methodical as the best of them, that’s what makes him so interesting.”

  “Then he’s biding his time.”

  I nod. “Maybe he is.”

  There is a moment of silence that passes between us. I already know without needing to ask her. She’s a virgin. She blushed when I said it, and looked down towards the table. With this type of girl there is absolutely no doubt.

  “You said you have a job offer”, Maude says, returning to the reason I’ve brought her here.

  “I do”, I say. “I’ve been fascinated by Bone for all of my life. I’ve been fascinated by the macabre, the dark and the obscure, but as far as I’m concerned, Bone makes everyone else pale in comparison. The guy is a master at what he does. He’s a sick bastard, let’s make no mistake about that, but he’s a true master. Twenty seven bodies discovered so far, twenty seven bones taken.”

  I raise my left hand and wave to Maude. “That’s the left hand entirely he’s made up.”

  “Just another one hundred and ninety nine to go”, Maude says with a smile, and I can feel my cock tingle, the head begin to swell and gently press against the cotton of my boxer shorts.