Chapter Nine: A Dish Best Served Cold
A palpable, awkward silence filled the interior of the luxury electric vehicle during their return drive back to his building. His grip on the steering wheel caused the knuckles of his long, skeletal hands to turn white as his thoughts circulated with a chaotic brew of second guesses and blind rage. While he was pleased to have a name to go with his vengeance, he fretted over knowing the rightness of bringing Christine to Antoinette.
"How do you know Antoinette?", her small voice pierced the thick stillness of the air.
Unconsciously, he gripped the wheel tighter, the rubber grip squeaking slight with the friction beneath the taut skin of his hand. He decided he could be honest, yet vague.
"We met through a mutual acquaintance.", he calmly replied, his tone polished.
"That was…a brothel?", he could hear the discomfort in her voice, could almost hear the underlying question she was seeking to ask. If she was not such a sweet, timid little thing, he was certain she would ask if he had used such services. "She told me you designed it."
"I have designed many things.", he responded, grateful for the new line of questioning.
"Your home. You designed that as well?"
"The interior, yes. I have no need for a flashy exterior."
She looked out the window and sighed, her breath causing a small circle of fog to appear on the cold window. Oh, to have that breath caress my skin, he mused longed.
"She said her daughter had been assaulted too.", she almost whispered. "She said you were there for her family when it happened."
Erik nodded, recalling the terrible details.
Daroga had called upon him late one night in a stormy fury, demanding Erik's services.
'I have a job for you.', Daroga said through gritted teeth, pacing back and forth in the modern apartment. 'It's for Antoinette.'
'The prostitute you've become romantically entangled with requires a contract killer?', Erik scoffed, 'Good heavens, Daroga. What have you gotten yourself into?'
'You don't understand, Erik, she did not ask me for this. I'm doing this for her. I love this woman, I'll do anything for her.', he had pleaded. 'She has a daughter…something terrible has happened.' Daroga had fallen in love with the stunning older woman. How the two met was of no consequence to Erik, but he had seen how committed his partner in crime had grown over the course of a year.
'Give me the details.', Erik relented with cool professionalism.
Antoinette had a teenage daughter, a sweet little thing named Meg, and she had ensured her daughter had everything she never did. Antoinette may have been a member of the underworld, but she was a doting and loving mother. Everything was done so Meg would never have to live the life that she had, a life of shadows and crossed lines.
Meg was a little ballerina on the cusp of stardom when an alcoholic stagehand named Joseph Buquet decided to put his filthy, barbaric hands upon her. Unlike Christine, Meg was not able to escape the full monstrous act that followed. The effervescent little woman was never the same after that. Dulled, darkened, sullied by the act of one odious little man. It was as if a crystal glass, pure and clean, had been dipped in mud.
Buquet made his exit from this world with a rope around his neck and a helpful toss off a catwalk. The police called it an accident and swept the whole sorry mess under the rug at the insistence of the theatre managers.
Yet while Buquet surely received his just reward for being such a despicable ogre, little Meg never returned to the stage. What followed were two unsuccessful suicide attempts and years in and out of psychiatric clinics.
'He robbed her of her very soul.', Antoinette had wailed when he personally delivered the news of his job's completion. 'How does she get it back?'
There was no answer he could give; his soul had fled long before he knew he even had one. All that walked the earth was the shell of a creature, not quite man and not quite a corpse. Music was the only thing that made him feel complete and it was merely temporary. One cannot sustain themselves with mere songs their entire life, and yet, he had done just that.
Christine had her arms wrapped around herself and Erik thought it looked as though she were trying to keep her soul inside. The thought of her life's essence slipping out and into the ether was too terrible a though to bear.
The neurons in his brain began to spark in fanatical succession. A thought was forming there. It began to crystalize and take shape in the dark of his subconscious until it came crashing into the forefront of his mind like an uninvited visitor.
"You'll not sleep at that shelter ever again.", he spoke with conviction. "From now on you will stay with me."
The words were out, and he waited for her arguments, waited for her to beg and plead with him to let her out of the car.
Instead, her retort almost stopped his heart, "Only if you take your bed back, I'd rather take the couch." She's agreed, he thought with wonder.
"I will not agree to that, but I assure you, I will see to it that you get your own space."
Less than a quarter hour later, he was opening a door connecting to the kitchen in his apartment to reveal an empty space which echoed terribly. The walls were covered in unfinished plaster and insulation, the floor was rough concrete.
"I had considered creating a music room in here, but I wish for it be yours instead. It will be a far more worthy use.", he coolly informed her, while inside his body was stirring at the thought of having her so near all the time. "I will have it ready in a week, perhaps two…you will require your own bathroom…until then you will stay in my room. That is not up for debate."
"You're building me a bedroom? Why would you do that?"
He did not know. She was merely an obsession, a means to distract him from the monotony of his wicked little life. Wasn't she? Would he not grow tired of her endless presence? His draw to her was borne of insanity, and yet he would be a fool not to see the telltale signs of something else, the softening of his being when she was near, the gentle way in which he longed to hold her lily white hand.
Towards her, he felt a tenderness he did not believe he possessed. He had combatted this unfamiliar feeling, but like a rat chewing through concrete, it had slowly gnawed through the impenetrable wall of his heart and built a cozy little nest with nothing but scraps. Now that it had imbedded itself, he knew he was doomed. He always believed himself to be a sociopath, but even sociopaths can love…that bit of knowledge was far more frightening than any other he possessed.
Yet the madness was still there, the desire, the lust, the marrow-deep ache that resonated in his bones at the sight of her. How could he endure it?
Instead of answering her query, he simply suggested she sit by the fire while he prepared them some evening tea.
When he handed her the piping hot cup of herbal peppermint, slightly sweetened with honey to obscure any off flavor of the sleep-inducing drug he had dosed in it, she murmured gratitude. Her fingers brushed his as he handed it off and it ignited something in his belly.
"Will you show me how to use your record player?", she humbly asked.
He gestured towards his collection and allowed her the time to select an album. Her small fingers carefully pulled the selection from the tight confines of its alphabetically precise location and presented her choice, Kid A by Radiohead.
She listened carefully as he showed her how to operate the turntable, what buttons on the receiver to depress when turning on the surround speakers, watched her dainty fingers as they carefully slipped the vinyl from its transparent plastic sheath. He demonstrated how to use the record brush prior to playing the album and finally watched as she delicately dropped the needle at the start of the first track. The satisfying hiss of the needle against vinyl gave him goosebumps every time.
They lounged back in their customary places, sipping their teas, while 'Everything in its Right Place' filled the room. By the time the album had reached 'How to Disappear Completely', she had finished her tea, and was sobbing uncontrollably against him. The combination of sorrowful song and recent events had affected her. Unsure of what to do or how to respond, he patted her awkwardly in a sorry attempt at offering solace, but the heat of her body was penetrating his clothing and driving him wild.
By the end of 'Optimistic', she was out cold, slightly hiccoughing in her sleep like a child. He gathered her into his arms and carried her dutifully to his bed. Tucking her into the bedding, still fully clothed, he reached over and shut off the light. A disturbed idea entered his brain and he impulsively acted, pulling off the mask and pressing his naked face into her thick hair and breathing her in. I am doomed…
The drug was necessary, although a blatant and gross violation to her person. He needed to be assured of her lack of awareness for what was to follow. She must not know he was absent from his home this night.
Carefully closing the bedroom door behind him, he left to complete his mission.
It was ridiculously easy to locate his target via first name and location of employment. The man was everywhere on social media, not at all private about his comings and goings. Erik hardly needed to do much hacking to find the address of the residence, it was almost disappointing. There was no challenge, not even when he eventually found himself standing by the idiot, passed out on his couch while inane television shows played loudly in the background.
Just enough sedative was injected into the neck of the man to keep him from waking during his transport.
Scouring the apartment, Erik found the collection of trophies the vile man had taken from each of his victims. There were hundreds of Polaroids featuring dozens of different women hidden in a shoe box under the man's bed. They were degrading, dehumanizing images. The claws of disgust sank in deeper when he found the ones featuring Christine.
He tried not to look at it too long, catching just a fleeting glance at her naked figure. Her body was beautiful but he hardly needed a photo to know that. Folding the Polaroid he held in his hand so the portion showing her naked form was hidden from view, he focused on her face. The image was just slightly out of focus and overexposed, but even with the slight distortion he could still see the fear in her eyes, could see the utter helplessness in her expression.
He could not wait to kill this man with slow precision, so much so that he was practically giddy. There were many sharp blades and skewers and needles, heat and electricity, all sorts of delightful little tools at this disposal. It was rare he was given an opportunity to leisurely torture a man to death. It had been so long…
Erik hoisted the unconscious body of his prey and made quick work removing him from the building undetected.
An hour later he was slapping the face of the man forcefully. Sufficient enough time had passed for the low dose of drug he had given to have worn off. The lashes fluttered open and the man's brow furrowed, he looked around himself in the well-lit interior of the small chamber he now found himself.
"Ah, you are awake.", Erik purred with delight, like a lion pretending to make friends with a gazelle. "Hello, Brad."
The man began to panic, yanking at the restraints which bound his wrists and ankles, keeping him in the old, steel dentist's chair. "Who the fuck are you? What the fuck is this?"
"Do you like it?", Erik gestured to the hexagonal space with mirrors for each wall. "It's a torture chamber." He spoke as though it was quite commonplace to have such a room in one's home. "I find it's more effective when my victims can watch what I'm doing to them from all angles."
Brad began to wail for help and jerking against the confining chair.
"It will do no such good to make a ruckus.", Erik tsked, "This chamber is soundproof, nobody will hear you on the other side. You'll only serve in hurting my ears and further irritating me."
"I'll do anything,", Brad pleaded, "Please, you don't have to do this. I didn't do anything to you!"
Erik turned to the small medical table by the chair, which held a tray with neatly arranged tools by size. The cardboard shoe box of Polaroid photos sat next to the gleaming metallic implements of agony. His spidery hands lifted the box to show Brad. Giving it a small shake to illustrate its contents, Erik looked sternly into the eyes of his victim.
"These women would certainly not vouch for your innocence, dear sir.", he coldly retorted, placing the box back upon the tray. "You have been a very busy beaver, but your reign of terror is over. You will not harm another woman ever again."
"Please…I…"
Erik did not allow the man to finish before flipping the folded photo of Christine out of his pocket and showing Brad her face. "Do you see her?", he rasped, his voice filled with toxic malice, "She is everything and you are nothing." He reverently placed the photo back into the confines of his pocket. "I had considered having her face be the last thing you see, but I've changed my mind. You are not worthy to die to such beauty. Instead, you will have the honor of dying while looking at mine."
With that, he removed his mask, displaying every inch of his horrid corpse face to the terrified man. Brad's eyes grew large as saucers and gleaming with terror, while his mouth flew agape in a soundless scream.
"Now,", Erik said, while picking up a small scalpel, "Let us begin."
I'd like to believe that a modern Erik would listen to all sorts of music, and who wouldn't have something as influential as Kid A in their vinyl?
Hope you are all safe and healthy! Thanks for all the positive feedback!