The rich scent of cologne filled my nostrils as my personal assistant traversed my office organizing the day's paperwork. His broad body was big and slightly soft around the middle. I'd hired Harrison three years before when his predecessor retired. I'd hesitated to offer the man the position because the moment I saw him, I imagined him chained as my whip met the width of his back. Wanting to hurt a man made me rethink allowing them close. I never entertained the notion of fucking people.
I lived a double life. By day, I ran a very successful one-person law firm that specialized in criminal law. The irony of being a defense attorney wasn’t lost on me. At night, I killed whomever my employer required or when I was bored and took a freelance assignment. I only killed those I felt unworthy of the life they were given. Civilians were strictly off-limits, but that didn’t mean I wouldn’t if the opportunity called for it. Killing was something I'd accepted since I was six and imagined slitting my teacher's throat. I'd never questioned the thoughts that filled my head. My parents were so frightened of me that I'd visited more psychiatrists than I could count by the time I started kindergarten. They tested me for everything, IQ to psychoses, yet hadn’t subjected me to therapy until I was seven.
Guilt was an emotion I'd never experienced. I’d always considered emotion a waste of energy. I’d accepted the depraved thing I was long ago, and I had no qualms about remaining that way.
The only joy I received from my existence was killing. I took pride in my work and inflicting pain was my skill. My employer didn't care how I dispatched them as long as he had proof that I'd completed my job. He didn't give a fuck about my bit of fun. I didn’t follow the societal rules of decorum. If I wanted to take a life, I didn’t think twice about the consequences. Nearly forty years and hundreds of bodies later, I’d settled into the life that worked best for a monster such as myself.
I'd lived a celibate life for years now. Sex just didn't give me any pleasure. When I found a mark who was aesthetically pleasing, their pain was enough in a sense to get me off. I didn’t have orgasms, the contentment I received from inflicting torture was fleeting but enough. My assistant made me rethink my sexless existence, but not enough to chain him in my bedroom to use as I saw fit.
Evading capture for as long as I had was due to the fact that I had steadfast rules. And forming attachments broke my number one tenet I followed. My two lives were compartmentalized in such a way neither would ever intrude on the other. A toy would open me to speculation I didn't welcome.
I placed my elbows on the arms of my desk chair and steepled my fingers, pressing the sides to my lips. Although, as much as I denied my darkest desires, it didn't mean that I hadn't imagined the beast of a man on his knees for me. His broad back stretched his ill-fitted suit jacket. It was cheap and off the rack. His pants were much too loose. The giant of a man screamed submissive from the sweetness of his soft-spoken nature to his habit of averting his gaze. It would be almost too easy to break him. My pretty assistant didn't pose the challenge I craved. His spirit would shatter much too quickly to make the experience fun for me.
People would call me a psychopath and a sadist. After I'd killed my psychiatrist when I was sixteen when he attempted to have me committed, I'd perused my records with great interest. He'd labeled me a danger to society. His recommendation stated I should never be allowed out of a maximum-security facility.
The soft ping of my second phone drew my attention, and I picked it up. I read the coded message. I mentally decoded the single sentence and made note of where and when. I'd arrive at a drop point later tonight and pick up a package with target information including a photo.
I felt the uneasy feeling of a gaze on me and jerked my head up. Harrison looked away and pretended to work. The last task he needed to complete should already be done.
“Have you finished for the day?”
My question had his shoulders tightening. He seemed to steel himself for a blow, and as it had happened over the years, his timidity elicited a curiosity to which I rarely succumbed. My inappropriate imaginings about him caused me to want to hurt whoever caused him to drawback or brace himself. The part of my brain that wanted him and felt that no one else should touch him tortured me.
“Yes, sir.”
His deep voice shook a little over the word sir. I demanded a level of dictatorial professionalism. Too many times over the years, I've seen men such as myself taken down by letting their cover make them soft. I had no intentions of giving up my life. I didn't experience emotion like other people. My emotional cues were practiced in the mirror. I responded as was expected, but a smile to me was simply a muscle reaction—I mimicked expressions yet felt nothing of what they conveyed.
“Then why are you still here?”
He couldn't escape the confines of my office any quicker, and once again, the pleasure I took in his fear filled me with a rare warmth. The movements in the outer office helped me track his path until the lock on the door clicked. I was sure I was alone and unfolded my lean body from my chair. Pivoting on my toes, I stared out over the city.
It was a place created for a hunter. Big, sprawling and dirty—victims roaming the streets unaware of their status as prey. They all felt they were safe from the monsters because they were all easily spotted, but they knew nothing about my kind. We were just an abstract concept on some true crime show they watched in the middle of the night—evil reduced to caricature. My reputation was above reproach, but I was the most prolific killer of my kind.
In moments of respite where I hid away in my cabin, I’d analyzed when I'd become broken. I believed my sociopathy was a result of conception. Maybe something as damaged as I shouldn't have survived to birth. A shell without a soul. I'd attempted suicide a time or two, and I bore the marks from years of self-harm. I'd hoped to feel something—pain proved you were alive—and yet the more I cut and burned, it became nothing more than a minor inconvenience—wounds to heal.
I closed my eyes, drew oxygen in through my nose and pushed it slowly past my lips, repeated until I opened my eyes. As with any normal person ending work, I gathered up files and my laptop, stowing them inside my satchel briefcase. Everything in my life was routine and repetition, nothing deviated. I arrived at my office at six in the morning and promptly left at six at night. Meetings were scheduled as needed. I appeared in court. I was successful at my chosen cover, but as with all aspects of my existence, they were disguises.
The person I truly was deep down—that's who I hid from all I came across. I turned off all the lights as I made my way out of my office. It was time to make my way to the pickup point. When I exited the building, I categorized my surroundings. I knew every inch of this part of town by heart. Strangers weren't a common sight.
No unfamiliar cars or people loitering about, a group of teenagers who took up post in front of the bodega across the street pretended to be more dangerous than they were. Arrogance was a downfall. The quickest way to underestimating your opponent was to think you were superior in battle.
At a safe distance, I pushed the remote start on my key fob and waited a few minutes before I approached to open the door. I tossed my briefcase to the passenger side and slid onto the driver's seat. Even as it appeared that I wasn't, I paid attention to the view outside the windows of my vehicle. The place I'd find my assignment packet was a secluded spot in the city's central park.
This time of day before dinner, the park was filled with people doing their evening runs. Stenton was on the cusp of fall, still holding onto the warmth of late summer and everyone took advantage before the brutal winters started. I signaled to take the turn into the parking area and got out. I removed my tie and jacket, rolled the sleeves of my dress shirt over my scarred forearms.
To everyone else, I was just another businessman taking a stroll after a long day at the office. I inhaled the fresh scent of cut grass and took the path to a bench near a pond in an isolated corner of the area. It was all so cliched really. The clandestine, hidden envelope would be destroyed in my fireplace after I'd committed the details to memory. If I had a sense of humor, I might even find all of this comical, but that was also another sign of humanity I didn't quite get.
I sat down, crossed my legs to rest my left ankle on my right knee and curled my hand under the edge of the seat. The package gave with only the slightest of pressure. I didn't think to open it. I enjoyed the silence of the moment hidden away in a copse of trees where no one had yet started to clear the leaves from the cobblestone paths. The shimmering gradient of the dying sunset playing across the crisp water fascinated me for a few moments, yet boredom quickly grew.
I stood and headed back to my vehicle, deciding on stopping to pick up dinner on the way home.
Cooking wasn't one of the menial tasks that I enjoyed. Yes, I knew how to cook, but only because I tried to camouflage myself. Tried to learn tasks other normal people found enjoyable. It served me well. But how much longer could I stave off the inevitable need for more? Killing was routine, it meant no more to me than the fleeting pleasure I received from it, but I'd lost count of the bodies. Faceless specters forgotten just as quickly as the life drained from their eyes.
I'd made Stenton my base of operation, but I traveled everywhere to complete my jobs. Nothing kept me in one place, how long would the killing sustain me before I no longer had that? I'd exterminated the last of my biological ties to this world decades ago. Everyone who crossed my path, the ones who might remember me were taken out with no more remorse than the strangers I assassinated. I took pride in my work. My hands were stained with blood and everything in me blackened and rotten. I was born a monster with my fate sealed the second I cried out with my first breath.