I secured the house that morning when I left. Days had passed since I’d locked him in my basement. I knew the lack of light made it impossible to keep track of his time with me. Each lesson I gave him became sweeter as he took each lash with the most beautiful whimpers of pain and thanked me for each. Each second which passed made me want to keep him that much more. However, I knew I’d have to tie up the loose end that he represented. He was a weakness I couldn’t afford.
Compartmentalizing my two lives had always been as simple as shutting off the part of my mind that didn't fit the situation. I looked at my life as a person with two personalities living separately from one another. Assassin me killing and/or torturing without remorse. Ending a life caused me no more contemplation than what I'd wear. Human me, my role I played to become a part of society, a thing barely remembered. Except for my success as a lawyer, nothing else about me would cause scrutiny.
I was a simple, plain man who carried himself with an aloofness. I always believed that if you played a role long enough, you could trick your brain into accepting it as fact. I could lie effortlessly.
I went through the motions of court, lunch meeting, and new client consultation at three, no one would look at me and think that I had my office assistant imprisoned in the cellar of my cabin.
Harrison had still slept when I'd left that morning. I placed food and a thermos of coffee on the shelf of his tiny closet. Why I'd stood there for moments I didn't have time to waste, only to watch him sleep, confused me nine hours later. There was something beautiful in the way he'd suffered under the lash of my whip. I'd used it on others in the past—ones I'd paid to endure my punishment. Masochist were easy enough to find, and they didn't require my body's response. They didn’t require the kiss I’d placed to his upper back after I’d cleaned and tended his wounds. I questioned that single act far longer than necessary. A week later, I still wondered why.
The lust existed deep within myself as I'd observed the way he writhed, the beautiful whimpers of his pleas for me to cease. As always, my cock hadn't responded to the beauty in front of me. While celibacy was a choice, it wasn't altogether consensual.
My newest experiment was pornography. None of the many genres had done more for me than annoyed me with the exaggerated moans and vulgarity of sex talk. A scripted encounter without emotion. I found it lacked the elements I needed for study.
I shook my head to clear it of its newest contemplation and stared at the shelves. I'd studied Harrison for years. His obvious enjoyment of food. I knew the ones he savored the most. The scrunch of his face when he only brought a sandwich for lunch. I'd spent a long time peering into the bakery cases. I justified my care in picking his foods as I was charged with his keeping until the time that I saw fit to exterminate him. His comfort was my responsibility.
Glancing down, I cataloged the contents among the food basics. I'd never took care of anything in my life. My needs were minimal at best. I was probably thinner than was healthy, but eating was an unenjoyable chore. When I received no pleasure from anything, what was the point?
Irritation moved beneath my skin at the uselessness of my thought process, and I finished the rest of my shopping trip as quickly as possible. The politeness of the cashier made me snarl my nose, and her glance at me made her start packing my purchases quicker. I'd been away from Harrison for nearly ten hours. I'd kept a watch on him over the course of the day. I knew every move he'd made. I'd set up the cameras when I'd dropped off his food before I’d left the house.
I didn't understand this compulsion to simply watch him. While not classically so, he was a beautiful man. He was handling his captivity well. My second work phone vibrated gently in my pocket, and I paid for my purchases in cash. I was a man who left no more paper trail than necessary. I paid my taxes and made regular deposits, while my other money was sent to offshore accounts for my planned retirement.
Everything was planned down to the day I would leave this life behind and live anonymously in a country far away. My calculations told me I had another ten years, although I understood I was well past my life expectancy already. My body not only marred by the years of my self-harm, but also wounds of my trade. Knife and bullet wounds, a boss that I'd dispatched long ago in retaliation for attempting to blow me up, I'd literally given him my pound of flesh. Craters of missing pieces marred my side and back.
The last time I tried to take someone to my bed for a fuck even I could recognize the disgust they thought they hid before I noticed. Too thin and mangled to be pleasing to someone’s eyes. The study of humanity became more interesting than humans themselves.
We were a demented, cruel people, although there was a minority of our species that seemed worthy of redemption. However, I didn't know many of them, the portion of the species I dealt with daily deserved whatever punishment they received.
I stowed my purchases in my trunk and leisurely made my way to the driver's side door. As always, I memorized my surroundings and the people that took up a portion of the scenery. I knew when I returned home that I could pick out every detail down to how many breaths a person took. Remembering everything kept me alive.
Once seated in my car, I checked the message on my secondary phone. Rarely did I receive jobs only a few weeks apart. A month or two would elapse in order for the heat to die down, or in certain cases, for a case to go cold. My service included a cremation of the person, unless my employer used the victim as a warning to enemies. I'd burned my last assignment down to ash and scattered them over a two-mile stretch of gravel road.
The drive to the park for me to pick up the new job packet took me away from my plans of returning home. I kept to my typical routine of sitting on the bench and staring out over the water. My two personalities warring for dominance. Routine kept me centered. I hadn't taken a life outside of my assignments in years, but my steely control was slipping. Soon I would have to do away with Harrison. I'd make his death quick. Yet he'd cause me to break my rule, no civilian deaths. He's someone who'd be missed even if it was only as a regular who hadn't returned.
I anticipated the questions that would arise when they realized I hadn't reported my employee missing. Lying was second nature, employees left jobs all the time, and I pushed the thought aside.
On my way out of the city, I made several wrong turns. When I felt it safe to assume no one was following me, I headed to my cabin. The supplies I'd left him wouldn't last much longer unless he'd decided to conserve them in the event that I wouldn't feed him regularly. He was a big man, but confined as he was, he wouldn't burn the calories he would with regular activity.
I'd feed my guest and then study the details of the file and start to plan the job. The nuances of the planning stage invigorated me, and it was almost as if it amounted to foreplay. Anticipation building slowly to the climax—the killing. Those were the details I wouldn't rush. The act of killing was the ultimate power. A stranger at my mercy begging for their life. Even through the futility of their pathetic pleas, human nature urged a person to survive.
How could I give them something that I was unsure I could even feel?
Mercy, is that what made me spare Harrison's life? Did I feel something deeper than the visceral nature of my preparations to end his life? I was unsure of a lot in my existence lately. Almost four decades of careful study and mimicking the fickleness of human sentiment hadn't readied me for my unwillingness to do away with one useless human.
Our Earth slowly died with the increase in Global Warming. Crop failures. Malnutrition killing thousands a day. Mother nature was the most prolific serial killer in human history. Humans were no more important than a single speck of sand. Organisms to die out during the next great epoch. None of us were worthy of the space we occupied, yet in our arrogance, we placed ourselves at the top of the food chain. My life was measured in the lives I took and not in the days which passed. I didn't long for the permanence of leaving a legacy behind. As I'd always believed I live on borrowed time. I was nothing more than a loose end that would be tied up in a neat package. Buried in an unmarked grave. A feast for worms. I needed no accolades or a person missing me because it was meaningless when you were alone in the darkness—rotting cell by cell. When my time was up, nothing existed beyond that, and I didn't require some foolish person to mourn when I wasn't worth the emotional expense of bereavement and tears.