He loves his friends but he likes the traps better, he thinks. He likes to sit and close the blinds (because there's always a moment of panic, what if the neighbors are watching) and flip through his scrapbook of traps.
Looking at the pictures glued to the pages, it's like looking at an old girlfriend. Only better. Because Fred has all the diagrams for the traps so he can always remake them.
You can't do that to a girl.
When he walks into his room, it is as if a weight is lifted off his shoulders. He has to be careful stepping to his bed, because if he walks on the chalked x on the floor- well, someone could lose a limb. He likes to look up and look at the trap coiled quietly on the ceiling. It's all tense springs and cogs, just like him. But it's peaceful and supine. He can see the beads of oil drawn from the tight, aching corners, moisture breathed onto graceful metal limbs.
They're quiet, yes, but... dangerous. Fred knows he could easily die. Fred knows that the trap is begging to be let free, to release it's aching limbs and spring down to ensnare him. No- embrace him.
It's silly, Fred thinks, but when he looks at that trap his mouth goes dry. He can hear his own heartbeat and it's like, it's like a wash of warmth.
He doesn't know if he wants the trap to wrap its metal limbs around him. He doesn't know if he wants those pincers digging into his soft flesh.
He does know that it wouldn't be like his own release- trembling, shuddering. The release of the trap, the climax, the orgasm, would be cold and mechanical and sharp, swift. But it's driving him crazy looking at the tense creature on the ceiling.
He thinks, when he's not thinking of the machine, that maybe Velma would understand the most. She gets, he thinks, the subtlities of cogs. But she likes her computers and her telephones, and he does not understand those. They're too complex. They don't have the aching bareness of his own works.
He couldn't tell Daphne. Not Daphne. They lost their virginities together, she said, after he rolled off her and tried not to cry, and she laughed and snuggled up next to him. He likes her, he really does, but making love to her just feels wrong. She's sweet, she's pretty, she's hip and mod and groovy and... everything. But he can't look at her and think, oh, she's beautiful. He looks at her and thinks, what kind of trap should I set out to catch that?
And Shaggy... Shaggy and him are friends. But Fred does not like to smoke, or at least, does not smoke often, and Shaggy is just a smokestack that pours out reefer smoke. Fred tries to avoid the back of the van because he knows it stinks of pot smoke and dog urine. So, he thinks, he would not confide in Shaggy.
Fred's father is cool and distant- not unlike his traps. But, no. His traps have passion, they have directive, they have a goal, even if it is bloodlust. Fred's father enjoys sitting in front of the fireplace and drinking.
Fred has plans for a giant mechanical hand that reaches out of the fireplace and crushes his father's head in. He imagines the mess. As an afterthought, he imagines his mother's plaintive wailing at the sight. So he crumples up the diagram and sighs, because it's the tenth- twentieth- thirtieth diagram he's crumpled up that night. He chucks it in the bin.
It's quiet in his room. He doesn't want to get out the net samples and the special diagrams just yet- it's early on in the night, and he knows he would just fall asleep after. He thinks about calling the gang and dismisses it.
He rolls onto his back and his eyes trace the angles and slim limbs of the nymph on his ceiling. Fred thinks that he could get the family cat, see what the trap really does. He dismisses it. He does not like a mess, and he does not like to clean.
It's not that early.
He pumps some lotion into his hand. When he's done, he feels sticky and silly but also, somehow, all right. His mind is still.
His last thoughts before he goes to sleep are vague, distant. Metal arms enshrouding him, piercing him. The music whirr of the cogs.
And the oil and blood slick his way home.