by Mandy White
She did things to me orally that I’d never dreamed were possible. I had plenty of experience satisfying a woman that way but had never been on the receiving end of it before. Rita taught me how to enjoy the pleasures my body had to offer. I loved her; at least I thought I did. Our relationship was the closest I ever came to feeling love for anyone besides my family.
Rita was one in a million, so it was pretty tough to comprehend when I learned she was fucking around on me.
With a real man.
I discovered her affair purely by accident. I don’t know how long she would have gone on deceiving me if I hadn’t come home early from a hunting trip to my father’s cabin at Harrison Lake.
Rita admitted she wasn’t the outdoorsy type but had no objections to me taking my usual trips to the cabin. She understood the major role hunting played in my life. Her idea of rustic was staying at a resort with a view of the mountains and all the conveniences of home. I respected her preference and wouldn’t dream of forcing her to go if she didn’t want to.
On that particular trip, I bagged a young bull elk on the first day and didn’t see the point in staying any longer. Elk meat was the cream of the crop when it came to wild game. It had a flavor somewhere between venison and beef, and was preferable to moose, which could be dry and tasteless unless you knew how to prepare it. I usually had my moose meat processed into sausage but damn, a person could only eat so much sausage. Rita was a vegetarian, so…
I arrived home two days earlier than expected. Loud music echoed through the house. She was home. Rita always listened to music when she did housework.
I smiled, heading upstairs to change and shower before surprising her. The bedroom door was slightly ajar and I wandered in nonchalantly, not expecting to find her there.
Rita was there, and she wasn’t alone.
I didn’t see her at first. All I saw was some guy’s hairy white ass bouncing up and down. It took me a moment to register what was going on; I actually thought for a moment that two strangers were fucking in our bed and Rita had company. I was a little offended that she would let them use our room.
Then I heard the woman making sex noises and I recognized her voice. It was Rita.
“What the fuck?” I roared, dumbfounded.
They stopped in mid-hump, even though he looked like he’d been almost ready to finish. They stared at me in open-mouthed horror, especially him. He jumped to his feet and dodged first from one side to the other, trying to find a way past me. He was a big guy; he probably outweighed me by a hundred pounds, mostly muscle except for a bit of a beer gut. A guy that size could have thrown me aside like a rag doll and run out the door. Wasn’t like I could have stopped him.
The dude was so shit-scared that he ran past me and out the front door into the street without even stopping to grab his clothes first. At first I thought Rita was going to follow him because she looked just as terrified. She glanced from side to side as if looking for an escape route, even though she knew damn well where the door was.
It was then that I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I would have laughed if the situation hadn’t been so shitty.
I had just finished driving back from the mountains and then helping my butcher haul the quarters of my elk carcass out of the back of my pickup into his walk-in cooler. Rifle in hand, clothes smeared with blood… I was quite a sight. I must have looked like a murderous psycho to someone who didn’t know any better. No wonder that poor fucker ran without bothering to grab his clothes! I almost felt sorry for him… almost.
I had experienced love, and now I had experienced the negative side of love: heartbreak. It sucked worse than anything had ever sucked.
Rita tried to justify her actions, of course, using the lame excuse that she was bisexual and needed to be with both men and women. She should have just told me she didn’t love me because it would have hurt less. Telling me that she needed ‘both’ was the ultimate slap in the face. She might as well have said that he was a real man and I was not, and was therefore equivalent to a woman. Of course, I’d always known I wasn’t a real man, so how could I have been so naïve as to think I that could pass myself off as one? Rita had told me numerous times that I was all the man she needed and I had been stupid enough to believe her.
I refused to accept Rita’s apology, which wasn’t even an apology. It was just a flimsy attempt at making an excuse for her behavior without showing a shred of remorse or even promising it wouldn’t happen again.
I kicked her ass out of my house that night, tossing her a hundred bucks for a hotel room. I couldn’t look at her anymore. I told her to send for her things and I would have them ready the next day.
I never saw Rita again.
Losing Rita had left a hole in my heart, but it had also left me wiser and more guarded. I understood from that moment forward that women were not to be trusted and that I was an unlovable freak.
No one except for Cammie would ever truly love me. I was destined to be alone forever, but as long as Camille and I had each other, I was okay with that.
Now Camille was gone. For the first time in my life, I felt truly alone.
~ Chapter 21 ~
Polarity
Being alone was something that had never really bothered me before. I’d always preferred my own company to that of other people. The loneliness I felt in the months following Cammie’s death hit me hard and unexpectedly. I’d experienced loss before, first with my mother’s death, then my father’s more recent passing from a stroke.
Camille had always hated confrontations and did everything in her power to avoid them. I, on the other hand, welcomed any opportunity to tell someone off with my acid tongue or give an asshole a punch in the head.
Some might have considered my career choice to be an odd one, given that I didn’t fit the typical geek stereotype but to me it seemed natural. I couldn’t imagine myself working in customer service or sales of any sort. Eight hours of continuous interaction with idiots was bound to result in bloodshed before the end of the day.
I enjoyed working at Internet Works Unlimited, a small computer store that I owned. IWU offered repair service, upgrades and tutorials for people who needed help learning to use their computers. I employed a couple of willing tech students to do the tutorial work and run the front end while I took care of the repair work. I preferred to work alone with the computers, which, unlike people, were predictable and fixable. During my absence, I had closed the shop and posted a sign referring customers to the students, Zac and Dustyn, who were happy to take the jobs on a freelance basis.
Camille was my polar opposite when it came to people. She hated to be alone and always sought to surround herself with adoring fans, particularly of the male persuasion. I never understood her need to be near people, just as she never understood how I could be alone and not be lonely.
We lived vicariously through each other. Even though we didn’t share each other’s little social idiosyncrasies, we understood each other on a much deeper level than anyone could ever comprehend.
I enjoyed being difficult, daring people to challenge me. Camille had trouble saying no to people for fear of offending them. She couldn’t take rejection. Her fear of confrontation had led her into abusive situations more times than I could count. She expressed herself beautifully in writing but seldom did so on her own behalf.
At first it amazed me that she chose stripping as an occupation and that her highest aspiration was to become a famous actress. It seemed contradictory but in a crazy way it made sense. Choosing a job that placed her in the spotlight, stripped down to her most vulnerable form was Camille’s attempt to conquer her insecurities. I mean, after strutting around a stage buck naked in front of a couple hundred leering men, speaking your mind should be easy, right? The constant attention she got from men made Camille feel wanted, liked, loved, even. Not all insecure women get the urge to cast off their clothing and dance naked around a pole but it worked for Cammie.
All of Camille’s men we
re abusive. It was always the same story, like a sad and tragic play starring Camille, repeated over and over. The names of the cast members changed but they just kept following the same tired old script. As the lone audience member, I would have walked out long ago if the leading lady hadn’t been my sister. I was so tired of listening to Camille make excuses for one loser after another:
“He had a rough childhood. He just needs love. I can change him.”
Blah fucking blah.
Camille used the textbook excuses as if she was the first one ever to think of them.
She refused to acknowledge that she kept repeating the cycle of abuse. Each time it was the same pattern. The men were attracted to Camille for her looks, then treated her like shit because they didn’t care for her as a person. No matter how devoted she was, they were impossible to please. She twisted herself into an emotional pretzel, trying to mold herself into what she thought each man wanted her to be.
At the end, I didn’t think Cammie even knew who she was anymore. With the quantity of drugs and booze she was consuming, I doubted she cared.
~ Chapter 22 ~
Solitude
I tried to resume a normal life. I immersed myself into my work, until I discovered I couldn’t stand interaction with people anymore, even in small doses.
In the past, I’d managed to deal with clients when necessary. After I returned from LA, my attitude had changed, for the worse. I started to imagine myself killing some of my customers – an activity that would certainly not be good for business.
It was the holiday season and my student interns were finished for the year. I would be running IWU by myself until mid-January.
I realized I had a problem one afternoon after watching a woman storm out of the shop, laptop clutched under one pale, flabby arm. She had purchased the computer from a major electronics outlet a few months earlier and had brought it into my shop to be repaired, claiming that it “didn’t work right”.
I asked her all of the obvious questions:
“Did you contact the store where you bought it? I’m sure it’s still under warranty,” I suggested politely. With her outdated hair helmet, she looked like a poor imitation of Patsy Cline. Pasty Clone, I called her secretly.
It wasn’t that I didn’t want her business, but when an electronic item such as a computer malfunctions less than a year after purchase, getting it replaced or repaired under warranty isn’t a problem. People generally came to me for help after warranties had expired or when they needed help in learning to use a computer.
“Warranty?” she snorted. “This is the second goddamn time I took it in there to be fixed and they keep giving it back to me in the same shape as when I gave it to them. I’m done dealing with them. It doesn’t work! Just fix the fucking thing! I don’t care what it costs!”
I accepted the job and took the laptop home with me that evening to find out what was ailing the thing. I found absolutely nothing wrong with it.
The following day when Pasty Clone returned, I explained that her computer was working perfectly from what I could see. I asked her to describe the problem she was having with it.
“Well, it doesn’t email and I can’t get it to find the things I want.”
I checked the settings in Windows Mail using one of my own email addresses and it worked fine. I noticed that she had no email account of her own configured and pointed this fact out to her.
“Yes, I do have an email address! My internet company gave me one!”
“And what is your email address?”
“How the fuck am I supposed to know? They’re the ones who set it up!”
“Well,” I explained as politely as possible, “your internet provider may have given you an address but you still have to set it up on here before you can access it.”
“No I don’t! They did it from their office! They said it was all ready to go!”
I felt a headache coming on. For a moment, I saw her entrails draped festively over the entrance of the shop. I closed my eyes to force the image away. When I opened them again, the same green and silver garlands framed the door as before. I masked a sigh of frustration with a subtle calming breath and tried again.
“Okay, so you mentioned that you couldn’t find things with it. What things?”
She looked at me like I was a complete idiot.
“I don’t know, anything. I want to find stuff on the internet but it’s totally useless.”
“Can you give me an example?”
“Like, I wanted to do a criminal record check on someone but it doesn’t work.”
“Did you get a membership at a site that offers that service?”
Again, with the computer-guy-is-a-complete-fucking-idiot look.
“Membership?” She shook her head, but her hair-shell didn’t move. “No, I pay my internet bill. That’s all the membership I’m getting for any internet stuff.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Did I really have to try and explain the internet to this dumb bitch? Was this my punishment for being a mass murderer?
“Yes, you pay for your internet service but the services you access on the internet are something different entirely. Paying for an internet connection does not automatically give you free access to every site on the web.”
She glared at me. “I would say that it does. Otherwise I’m going with a different company.”
“I’m afraid that won’t make a difference. It’s the same no matter who your internet provider is.”
“So, are you going to fix this thing or not?”
“What exactly would you like me to do?”
“Make it so I can access the websites I want!”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
“More like you won’t. I know you hackers can get into anything. I’m paying good money and all I want is for you to make it so that I can get into all the sites that are on my computer!”
“The sites aren’t actually on your computer. They are on the internet and they belong to the people who own those sites. Each site has its own pricing and membership policies.”
“So you refuse to fix this piece of shit then?” she barked.
I sighed, letting my frustration show this time. I saw red blood, glistening on the green and silver tinsel…
What lovely holiday colors.
I shook my head in defeat.
“I can’t fix your computer, ma’am.”
“Why the hell not?”
“Because your computer is not broken. I’m afraid you’ll have to pull your head out of your ass and learn how to actually use the fucking thing!”
The angry bitch stalked out of my shop with her hateful guts still inside her body, completely oblivious to the fact that she had been pushing the buttons of someone who had no qualms about turning her insides into Christmas decorations.
It was then that I realized I needed to take a break from work for a while. I had been finishing up jobs and not taking on any major ones in preparation for the holiday season. Pasty Clone was my final customer.
I closed for the holiday season a bit early that year and instead of the usual two weeks, I decided to leave it closed indefinitely until I could hire someone to manage the shop for me. I didn’t really depend on IWU for money anymore; my father had made some wise investments before his death, leaving me with a stock portfolio and a hefty sum of money. I continued to run the shop for no reason other than it gave me something to do.
I didn’t see much point to anything anymore, now that Camille was gone. I no longer had any late-night drunk-dialed phone calls to look forward to or long letters written on rainbow stationery, describing a life every bit as colorful as the paper.
The worst part of having Camille gone was the realization that I no longer had anyone to rescue.
Nobody needed me. It was disconcerting to feel not needed, especially when I’d never realized that I even wanted to be needed. I’d always thought of myself as a loner and a bit of a cold-hearted prick. If I were to psychoan
alyze myself I’d have to guess that I’d been replacing my bitterness over being born a eunuch freak with the belief that I was somebody’s hero. I was nobody’s hero now that my damsel in distress was dead.
I felt like I could disappear from the face of the earth and nobody would miss me. I was self-employed, with enough money that I didn’t need to work. Nobody was expecting me to show up anywhere on Monday morning and nobody was waiting for me to come home at night. I could just fade from existence if I wanted to.
I thought about my father’s cabin at Harrison Lake. It was where I stayed when I went hunting or when I just felt like getting away from the city for a while. The place held more fond childhood memories for me than any other place, even this house. I had grown up there, hunting and target shooting with my father and fishing for trout in the lake’s frigid waters.
I wondered if I could make a life there. What if I decided to just walk away one day, sell this house, move to the woods and live like a hermit? It sounded more attractive the more I thought about it.
The problem was, I knew it wouldn’t be wise to live at the cabin full-time. It was my favorite getaway but removing myself completely from society, electronics, television and the internet didn’t seem like a wise move, given the dirty deeds I had done in California.
I needed to keep an eye on the news, just in case any more mention was made of The Feeder. I had been watching the news in Los Angeles since my return to Canada. As far as the press had reported, the case of The Feeder was officially closed. The city had reeled in shock from the news that the killer was none other than Detective Caleb Barton, the very man who had been trusted to solve the case.
Dead from an overdose, with a blood-alcohol level well beyond the fatal level, Caleb’s death was ruled accidental. There was some scattered speculation about suicide but the evidence was inconclusive. A search of the detective’s home revealed enough concrete evidence to link him to nearly all of The Feeder’s victims. The whole sordid story unraveled when one after another, prostitutes started coming forward to tell of their experiences with the pimp known as Diamond Vinnie. He was confirmed to have borrowed the identity of one of his victims, one Vincent Dimone, to use as a street name. Identification with Dimone’s name and Barton’s picture was found in Barton’s wallet. CNN had a field day with it, of course. If there was a memorial service for Barton, it hadn’t been made public. It appeared he was cremated and put to rest with as little fanfare as possible.