Title: Tempus Fidgets

Author: A.A.Aaron

Jackie-boy must be getting quite desperate in his attempts to capture Buffalo Bill. Of course he isn't desperate enough to come visit me himself, but still he was willing to risk exposing a young student to me. Oh, I'm sure he gave her the usual warning about not letting me get inside her head. Apparently he feels that that absolves him of any responsibility for what will happen.

Actually, his choice of messenger showed a spark of intelligence. Not having seen a woman in eight years I was susceptible to the charms of this comely young miss to the extent of impressing her with my olfactory skills and my ability to tell her a few truths about herself. I detected certain qualities in her that may prove useful for my agenda – integrity, courage, ambition, courtesy. Jackie-boy appears willing to sacrifice her, and who am I to object.

Chilton was responsible for a careless error in security on Barney's day off several months ago. As a result, a pen came into my possession. I have been patiently grinding it during sleep-time hours into the shape of the key to my cell. The visits by Clarice provided me with the opportunity to put my plans into effect.

It was her third visit. As in the earlier visits, she entered the cell block alone. She saw what appeared to be me lying on my cot. Suddenly she found herself grabbed from the shadows, one arm twisted behind her, the other covering her mouth and nose cutting off her breathing. As she struggled frantically, I whispered to her, "If you attempt to scream, I will be forced to strangle you. If you continue to struggle, I will be forced to dislocate your arm. I will now relax my hold."

I relieved the pressure and was pleased to note that she gasped softly but did not struggle and made no attempt to scream. I could smell her fear – it was like a festering swamp – but she was able to suppress it. I admired the display of courage that I had previously recognized in her. There was only the slightest tremor in her voice as she asked, "What are you going to do to me, Dr. Lecter?"

"I'm going to use you to effect my escape."

"You know they won't play the hostage game with you. I'm expendable. They'll force your hand and we'll both wind up dead." She spoke with urgency, and I tasted with delight her suppressed fear.

"Well, Agent Starling," I said, "In that case, I had better take my pleasures while I can." Her eyes widened and she opened her mouth, but I wasn't really interested in anything she had to say. I grabbed her head and gave it a powerful twist, breaking her neck and killing her instantly. I then undressed the corpse and paused to admire the smoothness of skin and the muscle tone; an enjoyable pastime but not one on which I should spend too much time. After all,I had several matters to attend to in a limited time. I still had to scalp her and don her clothes and lipstick.

I felt a touch of regret as I dressed myself in Clarice's clothes. The world was already beginning to seem a less interesting place. I sternly put the thought aside; my freedom was much more important to me than the life of a bystander, however attractive she may have been.

I had observed that we were about the same size, and her clothes, while somewhat tight on me, were not unwearable. Her purse showed good taste, as I had noticed on her first visit. I searched through it and found her lipstick, a tasteful muted shade, and a compact with a mirror inside. A weapon would have been nice but was not really necessary. In the absence of a sharp-edged tool, I performed a rather sloppy scalping by tearing out her hair in convenient-sized clumps. Her purse yielded a plastic comb which I broke into a number of pieces. I used these comb pieces as bobby-pins to attach clumps of her hair to the hair on my head. I observed the final result in the compact mirror. In the subdued light of the corridor, my appearance in Clarice's clothes with her hair and lipstick was adequate as a disguise and satisfying to my sense of whimsy.

My escape was almost anticlimactic. Barney was a touch inattentive as he opened the door to the dungeon area. This cost him his life. He had been courteous to me over the years and I felt a twinge of regret as I ripped his throat out. The remaining guards could hardly be considered a barrier as I disposed of them singly and in pairs. I had a special program prepared for Fred Chilton, the Director of the Hospital, but unfortunately he was unavailable. It was just as well. He knew he could count on a visit from me, and it suited me to let him stew for a while. It would augment the flavor of his sweetbreads.

Once I was out of the hospital my freedom was assured. There remained the routine tasks of performing a carjacking, robbing the unfortunate owner of his clothes and cash, and disposing of his body after removing the sweetbreads. Then it was off to one of my many safe houses.

I was relaxing in a comfortable chair, listening to the Goldberg Variations, a glass of Chateau d'Yquem at hand. I felt myself dozing off. A new aroma had superimposed itself over the existing fragrance of cooking meat from the kitchen. I spoke without turning.

"Well, hello Clarice."

"Hello, dear. How was your day?"

I shook myself awake. I wasn't seated in my comfortable chair in my comfortable home; I was back in my dungeon in the Baltimore Hospital for the Criminally Insane. Agent Starling was not present although she would be visiting me shortly. But she would hardly be addressing me with terms of endearment.

The most important item on my agenda was to escape. I had a key that I had fabricated after several months effort. I also had a plan that had been tested in my memory palace. Still I was dissatisfied. I berated myself: The plan was difficult enough to come up with – a brilliant achievement. I was justifiably proud of having conceived of it. Yet instead of self-congratulations I was nit-picking because the plan left an F.B.I. trainee dead – as though that were of any significance compared to my achieving my freedom. Still, I supposed it would do no harm to examine my options, to see if there was some way for me to escape without harming Starling. As it happened, I was successful. Clarice, under Jackie-boy's instructions, offered me a view in exchange for information about Buffalo Bill. The offer was unauthorized. I pretended to be hurt by their perfidy and arranged for Clarice to be taken off my case and out of harm's way. I was transferred to a facility in Memphis with security features more to my liking. Clarice paid me an unofficial visit there and I gave her some additional clues that she could use to capture Buffalo Bill, although I was indifferent to the fate of his latest captive. At one point in the discussion our fingertips touched and I was overwhelmed by an emotion I had not felt since I had lost my sister.

I was able to modify my escape plans despite Clarice not being available for my impersonation and despite not having a key to my new cell door. The key that had taken me months to fit my old cell door was relatively easy to convert to a handcuff key. My two guards did not know me very well and were a trifle careless. I prepared a lesson for them that would have improved the future performance of their duties, but alas, they did not survive to take advantage of it. It was just as well; they were not very competent.

I took the liberty of removing the face of one of the dead guards and using it to disguise myself as a critically injured guard. I dumped the rest of his body down the elevator shaft. The impersonation was completely successful. I was rushed into an ambulance where I disposed of the paramedics and made my getaway.

I spent the next decade traveling and enjoying the fruits of my freedom. When an old enemy caught up with me, it was Clarice Starling who rescued me from being tortured to death. I, in turn, saved her life, and provided her with psychiatric guidance. She elected to join me as my life partner and over the years we have marveled at having found the perfect love.

I was relaxing in a comfortable chair, listening to the Goldberg Variations, a glass of Chateau d'Yquem at hand. I felt myself dozing off. A new aroma had superimposed itself over the existing fragrance of cooking meat from the kitchen. I spoke without turning.

"Well, hello Clarice."

"Hello, dear. How was your day?"

I turned my head to look at the most beautiful woman in the world.

"Perfect as always."

Epilog

"Are you sure you want to go in with me, John? There really isn't much to see. Mostly he's curled up in a corner of his cell."

"I'm just interested in seeing what you get out of it. Has he spoken at all to you?"

"Not a word to me or to anyone else. Not since the first couple times I visited him. We thought we might have achieved a breakthrough but he soon reverted back to his 'Silence is Golden' philosophy." As usual, her rising excitement was indicated only by the increase in her slight West Virginia accent.

"You told me once that he isn't a true catatonic."

"I was putting it in layman's terms but basically that's it. He has conscious control over his state but chooses to remain shut off from the real world."

John Brigham shuddered slightly. Clarice continued, "It's not as bad as it sounds. He has enormous mental resources. He's been known to go for over a year without uttering a word and then emerge from that state perfectly sane."

John raised an eyebrow and Clarice caught herself, "Oh, you know what I mean. A normal person would have gone bananas under such isolation."

"Speaking of isolation," said John, "my mom volunteered to keep the kids over the week-end."

"In that case, let's wrap this up and get goin'. Time's a'wastin'."

"That's my little soulmate," said John.

Fin