Yet More Proof That I'm a Gay Sociopath At Heart...
There’s no really easy way to kill someone. Trust me on that...I’ve poured a whole lifetime into fruitless research, and the whole ordeal is heartbreakingly impossible. Even when you’re lucky enough to be killing someone you’ve never had the distinct joy of meeting, passions run too high in the art...there’s too much emotion...and so that one last moment as they gasp their last breath and look into your eye with that cliche deer-under-headlights stare and you can feel the silent scream rising in their throat, where your souls connect. Your victim becomes your slayer, the roles reverse, you completely take them into you and suddenly the pain you’re inflicting is little more than pleasurable self-mutilation. That is, I’m sure, why so often murder is compared to sex: after all of the
meticulous planning and imagining, the whole experience comes down to one climatic moment. And suddenly, a fixation is born: after experiencing the joy of the moment, the best you can do is to try and relive it again and again. In due time, your life is lived entirely in the pursuit of this one, incredible, long-ago
moment which you play out repeatedly, always feeling the thrill of the first. Regardless of the changes and circumstances, it’s always the first time. A few weeks span between, of course, but in your mind there’s always cold blood running. And yet for all this, there’s a little heartbreak every time.
The true secret to a successful murder is your victim; no one can kill a man they have no emotion toward, or murder would be infinitely less vile a word than it now is. Instead, the killer waits for a single moment imbedded in everyday life when they meet someone’s eye and there are just sparks. (For those of you not in the practice of murder, it’s often mistaken for love at first, this fatal choosing. You can’t breathe, palms are sweating, you see no one but them. You feel as
though, should your momentary gaze be lost, your heart will break.) For some (myself included), this is the beginning of a total obsession. You find out all you can about them, follow them, memorize them, get into their heads--you get as close as you can without ever meeting them or experiencing love. Then you make your final move, achieving the most total and final victory one person can possibly have over another...you end their life with your own hand.
Myself, I remember my first time in absolute, vivid detail. I was working as a photographer at the time, taking pictures of people I saw on the streets of New York, and taking what odd jobs I could when necessary to pay for my film. She was walking with her family, looking painfully beautiful and pristine, dressed in all white like an angel. She could have passed for Joan of Arc in a heartbeat, having maybe three years on Joan’s 15. She was rushing to catch a bus...it was my one chance before she faded into the other 6 billion people in the world, none of which cared for her like I did in that one moment. As gently as I could, I jabbed her hip with my elbow, which sent her purse spiraling to the ground. Reaching for it, I locked my eyes on hers and mumbled an apology. She smiled warmly and nodded her acceptance without a hint of irritation. She was so forgiving, in fact, that I almost felt guilty for palming her driver’s license before I handed back her purse and she assumed that she had walked out of my life forever. Then I rushed back to my little apartment and just stared at it for an hour and a half. The next few days I spent entirely on the internet, researching her. Through several PI servers, I came to know her name, past, life...including the address of her parents’ lush Vermont mansion. The next day I bought a bus ticket to Vermont.
I knocked on the door to her house the sunny morning of May 27, my heart pounding with nervous anticipation. She breezed down the stairs in a plain white dress, gently tugging a comb through her thick golden tresses. “Coming!” she shouted in a mellifluous voice that sounded strangely disconnected from her crimson lips.
“Are you...” I pretended to check the card as she opened the door, pretended that I hadn’t uttered her name a thousand times over the past few hours’ drive, “Lara Blake?”
“Yes...yes I am, but I don’t want to buy--”
“No, no...I’m not a salesman...I just came to return this.” As I handed her the license, her mouth formed a small “o” of surprise.
“Oh my God! Wherever did you find this?!”
“Umm...” I hadn’t prepared for this, “You left it on a bus seat down in New York...I’m a bus driver...it took me a few days to track you down.” She was going to wonder why I didn’t just mail it to her...damn! However, to my extreme relief, she just smiled again, offered me a monetary reward (which I promptly but graciously declined) and muttered something about having to go. I left the driveway reluctantly, wishing she had at least invited me in for coffee, and found a little motel room downtown where I could wait for night to fall.
That night, in the moonlight, I climbed a rose trellis to her window, too happy to even cuss at the rows of protruding thorns that met my blistered hands. Finally, I reached the top and pried open the splintering window pane. When I stepped in the room, it was flooded with moonlight and she was sleeping like an Egyptian princess. So intently did she sleep, in fact, that I feared she was already dead, up until the last moment. Then, as I leaned over what was to be her deathbed, knife in hand her thick eyelashes fluttered slightly then slid open. She l looked so like a beautiful porcelain baby doll at that moment, that I half expected her to sit up and coo “Mama!” She didn’t, however...instead she looked at me with such profound, submissive sadness, I nearly cried. She knew perfectly well what was going on, and knew that there was nothing either of us
could do to stop it. All of a sudden, the room’s air of resignation left and reality kicked in...her mouth flew open to attempt a scream, so I gruffly grabbed her shoulders and shook them. When that didn’t work, I took the knife I had nearly forgotten and pierced through her heart. Her scarlet blood pooled over her cotton pajamas and seeped through the expensive-looking white sheets. Suddenly, I had a strong urge to hold her and barricade both of us with the stained linens, but I denied the longing, instead cradling her to my chest for a single, priceless moment. Slowly, regretfully, I let her limp form fall back onto the mattress, letting my trembling hands caress her black face one last time, and finally let her go. Then I began the long, slow descent down the trellis and back to the rest of the world.
