Chapter Ten

 

Joshua

“Come into my parlor,” said the spider to the fly. I smile at the sight of Tamara on the video camera, scanning the room, desperately seeking out avenues for escape but pretending not to. I watch her body language, learning her little tells, drinking in all the secrets she’s trying to hide from me.

What is the “bad thing” she moans about in her sleep? Why does she cry out to her mother that she’s sorry? What nightmares torment her…other than me, of course? I’ll find out soon enough.

Conquering her body is the easy part. I’ve already done that. Her soft little moans, the way she squirms helplessly as I tease her with my tongue, the way she pants with desire when I massage the numbing cream into her throbbing flesh… It’s delicious, watching her twisted up with agonized, unsatisfied lust for me. She’s strong, my girl, moving through her days in a haze of fear and sexual hunger, forcing herself to deny what she wants so badly. But she’s fighting a war that she’s already lost. The first time she whimpered for me, I knew I had her.

And what a prize she is.

I can’t fully understand what it is that makes her so different from any other woman I’ve been with. She’s pretty, but I’ve buried my cock in so many beautiful women that their faces all blur into one. Is it her inner steel underneath that sweet, spicy exterior? Is it the song of the brave wounded bird that sings to me? Or the push and pull of her desire fighting with her need to hate me? She saw what I did to Jorge, she knows that I kill humans for sport, and she despises me for it. But she wants me. And it’s tearing her apart.

In the end, it doesn’t really matter why she’s the one for me. All that matters is that I’ll make her fully mine.

I’ll invade the dark corners of her mind and steal every last part of her. I’ll slay the demons of her past and be her hero and her destruction all in one.

It won’t be easy, but nothing worthwhile ever is.

Poor girl. So strong, so brave, so doomed. She never stood a chance against me.

I see the way her eyes wander to the window, while she keeps her head perfectly still. What she doesn’t realize is that it’s her stillness that gives her away. Most of her body goes rigid when she’s doing something or thinking something that she doesn’t want me to be aware of. I watch for that, and then I look even closer, seeing the movements that she can’t quite conceal. For instance, when her gaze slides to the window that she so desperately wants to pry open, her shoulders rise just the tiniest amount, in perfect rhythm with her gaze.

She’s announcing her intentions without saying a word.

She thinks she’s being clever, but she has no idea what she’s up against. I’ve been studying human behavior in all its forms since I was in diapers.

It started with my father; I used my powers of observation to learn how to survive him.

Then, after I escaped and found myself in a big, bright, strange world, I was forced to embark on an entirely new field of study: how to be a wolf and yet blend in with sheep. It was hard for me to fit in anywhere at first; there was a glaring spotlight of “otherness” shining on me. The expressions on my face were wrong. My reactions to everyday situations were off. Despite my physical attractiveness, people found me repellant. The things I said frightened or repulsed them.

I didn’t let it discourage me in the least. It was just another game, and I would learn the rules. I excel at winning. That’s why I was the only member of my family to walk away from my father’s house of horrors deep in the woods, with a broken little girl limping along behind me.

I started obsessively watching television and reading books, so I could see how people behaved. I read books about charm and charisma, and meticulously applied the lessons. I mimicked ordinary humans. I read fiction and biographies and took notes on the appropriate ways to react to everyday situations.

I was a quick learner. It didn’t take me long to develop the charm and charisma needed to make people do whatever I wanted them to.

I experimented for a while, pushing it to see how far I could make people go. It turned out there were no limits. I could drive people to suicide, to madness. I could make girls fall obsessively in love with me and carve my name on their faces. I could make people kill for me, give me all their money, break up marriages without a second thought.

Passing for human doesn’t come naturally to me, though. It’s a constant effort not to give myself away as “other”. Monstrous. Terrifying. Yes, it’s important that people be afraid of me, but they have to be the right amount of afraid. If they want to run away screaming, then I cannot trick them into doing things for me, nor can I lure them into a false sense of security. I need them to trust me long enough to sign contracts that will ruin their lives and make me even richer. And I can’t ever become a suspect in the various disappearances that I’m responsible for.

So I am always learning, always studying, always forcing myself to pay attention to how I am interacting with people.

Right now, as I study Tamara, I am learning about myself as well.

Apparently I am capable of a wider range of feelings than I ever knew. I still can’t name these emotions, though. This is puzzling. My IQ is genius level. I’m not used to unanswered questions.

I don’t believe that what I’m experiencing is the emotion known as “love”. The way I behave toward Tamara does not seem to fit any description of “love” that I’ve come across. After all, if I loved her, would I enjoy hurting her so much?

But I also enjoyed hurting the gorgeous escorts I used to bring back to my house. My feelings for Tamara are something different. Once the escorts are no longer useful to me, once they’ve made me come, and I’ve shown my mastery over their flesh by forcing screaming orgasms on them, I feel an absolutely urgent need to get them away from me. If I were forced to spend too much time with them, I’d probably kill them.

I don’t want Tamara to go away. I want her to stay with me forever—so, of course, I’ll keep her forever, because I always get what I want. I wonder if my strange urge to keep her near me is a good thing. Does this mean I’m becoming more “human”, and if so, is that a desirable outcome?

I frown at the screen, concentrating, as if staring more intensely will somehow reveal the answers to this mystery, but nothing comes.

The way I feel when anybody but me hurts Tamara is new too. When I kill rapists and serial killers, it’s not because I care about the fact that they’re hurting people. I’m focused on the predators, not their victims.

But for some reason, seeing anyone other than myself harm Tamara affects my ability to control myself. When I saw that guard try to rape Tamara, he signed his own death warrant, and my only regret is that I didn’t get to spend more time with him. When I saw Elizabeth bullying Tamara, I felt an emotion inside me that I believe people call “rage”. I get angry, sometimes, sure, but “rage” is an out-of-control kind of anger. And when she slapped Tamara…well, the only reason Elizabeth is still alive is that I made certain specific promises to her a long time ago.

As I was slowly, calmly beating Elizabeth bloody, I let her know what a terrible mistake it would be to ever hurt my Tamara again. I told her that if she ever laid another finger on her or hurt her for any reason other than self-defense, I’d drop her off in the middle of New York City and she’d never see me again.

That’s probably not true. I don’t take foolish chances, and abandoning Elizabeth would be too risky. If she failed me, I’d have to kill her. However, the best way to get people to do what you want is to threaten them with what they fear most. Elizabeth is terrified of leaving this house, and of being away from me. She’d literally rather die. So it’s an effective threat, and I believe she will comply.

I would prefer not to have to kill Elizabeth, because of her absolute loyalty to me, but it wouldn’t disturb me very deeply.

I turn my attention back to Tamara. Her fingers keep drifting back to that collar, which forcefully thrusts her chin up and wraps around her neck like a pair of choking hands. It was a good choice on my part, because she’ll come to loathe it more and more in the days to come. Its removal will be a desperately desired privilege, which she’ll have to earn.

The expression on her face right now is pure misery. Lips quivering, glazed eyes staring straight ahead, facial muscles slack and hopeless. She doesn’t understand or appreciate it yet, but I was telling her the truth when I said that her imprisonment is the only thing keeping her alive.

I am supremely selfish. That’s not a put-down, it’s just a fact. My needs must come first, always, and I need to keep her away from the police, or I’d end up either in prison or on the run. Neither outcome is acceptable to me. Like all psychopaths, I’m self-serving and hedonistic and addicted to being in control. A jail cell just wouldn’t work for me.

So bringing her here was my way of protecting her.

She also doesn’t yet understand my absolute need to dominate. It’s the driving force of my existence. With every situation I find myself in, every challenge I face, every person who spends any amount of time with me, I have to establish my superior position. It isn’t a decision I make when I meet someone; it’s just a part of what I am. Even if I’m just saying hello to a stranger, I need to see that “cornered prey” response, that little spark of fear and submission in their eyes, the look and the body language that tells me that they acknowledge who’s the alpha. If I didn’t see it, I’d keep pressing until I got what I want. It never takes long.

I can’t just keep her prisoner and let her be herself, because “herself” would be defiant and disrespectful, and it is not in my nature to accept that. It’s a logical progression. If I am to let her live, I must keep her here with me. If I keep her here with me, I must take away her free will and independence.

If I were able to explain it to her—not that she deserves to know anything—I’d explain that in order to survive, she must surrender to me completely. A equals B equals C. She’ll figure it out soon enough. Making her bow to me and call me Master isn’t nearly enough. I need every last part of her. Her mind, her desires, her every waking thought. I will own them all.

I turn to my computer, using a software program I designed to hack into the computer system of the NYPD.

I see that just this morning, two people reported Tamara missing. Her landlord, and the director of the battered women’s shelter where she volunteers. Tamara failed to pay her rent, and there was also a pile of mail on her doorstep. And the director of the battered women’s shelter called Tamara and never received a return call, which according to her statement was completely unlike Tamara, so she called her three more times, then went to the police station to fill out a report.

I would have preferred if it had taken longer for her to be reported missing, but it’s not going to be a problem. Tamara has no living family. I’ve checked. Nobody to go looking for her. In New York City, the disappearance of a girl like her—poor and with no close relatives to push the issue—will barely make a ripple. It hasn’t made the news yet, and it probably never will. More than thirteen thousand people are reported missing every year in New York City, and the disappearance of anyone over the age eighteen, when there are no signs of foul play, will not get a lot of attention.

It’s interesting, though, that her neighbor across the hall, Heather, hasn’t reported her missing. When Tamara started working for my company, I had a very discreet private investigator on my payroll follow Tamara for a bit, due to her strange effect on me. I learned that she had no boyfriend, that she worked all the time, and that she packed food in her purse so she could give it away to homeless people even though she could barely afford to feed herself.

And I know she was good friends with her neighbor. Or at least, it appeared they were friends, as I understand such things. When Tamara had free time, which was not often, she spent it with Heather.

I make a quick call to the investigator, using an encrypted, untraceable line, and ask him to check up on this Heather person. Heather works at a bagel shop, and she wants to be an actress. There are various ways to start conversations with her to find out why she didn’t bother to report Tamara missing. Maybe she’s just a selfish bitch; I know I wouldn’t have reported Tamara missing if I’d been in Heather’s shoes. I mean, how would it benefit me?

However, the way she is acting is not the way that normal people act, so it should be checked up on.

I glance at Tamara again, then deliberately turn the screen away from me. She’s occupying a lot of mental real estate these days; perhaps too much.

I force my attention back to more pressing projects and mentally review my tasks for the rest of the day. I expect Philip Morton from Morton Media to give me an answer tomorrow after he meets with his board of directors. I’m not interested in his newspapers; I’m interested in the valuable real estate that his various newspaper offices occupy, and I’ve also been promised a healthy fee by his competitors, who want me to shut down his printing presses for good.

I’ll be making calls to various interested parties who want to buy the Morton real estate, setting them up against each other, creating a bidding frenzy. I mean, Mr. Morton hasn’t said yes yet, but he will. I’ve never failed to acquire a company once I’ve committed to taking it.

I’ve also got people on the inside. Mr. Morton was desperate to cut costs, so when that new janitorial service approached him, offering him a forty percent saving over his old provider, it must have seemed like a dream come true. Unfortunately for him, I own the janitorial service—a shell company that can’t be traced back to me. And they’re planting listening devices in his office, reporting back to me regularly.

I also need to make a decision about my latest hunting project. Should I do it soon? Should I wait a few months, now that I’ve got Tamara to keep me entertained?

Killing Baxter quickly didn’t fulfill my needs. It’s not just the killing that answers that raw, primal call howling up from the depths of my soul. It’s the rituals. Drawing it out. They need to run, they need to fight. I must crush them slowly. When I hurried with him, it left me unsatisfied.

My favorite prospect is a judge who takes bribes to let abusive men keep custody of their children. I’m also interested in one of the people who’s slipping him payments. A man named Steven Hamilton, a wealthy child molester who will be granted full custody of his two little girls in a few weeks, at his next court date. Up until now, Steven’s only been allowed weekly phone calls to his children, but thanks to a million-dollar donation to a Swiss bank account, the judge has decided that Steven is successfully reformed and his ex-wife is being unfairly hostile to the father of her children. What’s wrong with a little incest, as long as you keep it all in the family?

I am debating whether I should kill the judge or Mr. Hamilton. Both are in good physical shape. Judge Gatwood takes boxing lessons and plays racquetball, and Steven Hamilton studies Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Steven is younger and appears to be more physically fit, though.

Maybe I should force sweet little Tamara to make the decision. The idea brings a smile to my face.