No 3 ~ Part 1
A YOUNG GIRL was walking the lonely streets of her countryside hometown. Rain was dripping on her black umbrella. No cars were on the street. Only the sound of raindrops falling on the ground and her clattering teeth guided her through this dreary night. From time to time an unwanted tear ran down her pale, sorrowful face.
“Maybe I shouldn’t have picked a skirt to walk outside at night, when it’s raining.” She laughed inside herself and tried to get rid of the tears with these pointless, stupid words.
The girl walked until she reached the dark railway underpass. It was only a dark, sparely lit underpass, but tonight it gave her even more creeps than usually. Maybe these feelings were caused by this silent unpleasant thought that crawled inside her skull and made her paralyse and kept her staring at the half dark underpass.
Somebody was hiding there. She imagined that somebody was coming closer, but she wasn’t sure about it and assumed it to be an illusion. Somebody with the wish to kill was coming closer and she, with her wish to die was standing there, as if she would be waiting.
She made a few steps backwards, then turned around and slowly walked away. She walked back home again. Only one thought was constantly repeating in her mind.
“Come. Come and get me. Try to take my life away.”
It was just a glimpse of this disturbing emotion that lit up to a gigantic inferno.
She had always kept this wish in the darkest corner of her soul, tried to lie about it to herself, but it was there since a very long time, hidden. And it had only grown stronger and deeper. All in all she still didn’t care about it and still tried to keep it down, so she didn’t realize that little change. That little, unstoppable thing that was activated by her paranoia that somebody was following her... If she had known that she was right with that feeling.
When she got back home she got in big trouble with her parents. They just had to let their frustration out on her. So after a seemingly endless hour of quarrelling she went to her room. It was only nine pm, but after this fight she was so tired that she only wanted to go to sleep. Although she felt those close looks when she changed her street clothes to a white medium long nightgown she tried to calm herself down and ignored them. She pretended them to be simple imagination.
As she always did on rainy, dreary nights she opened her window and then went to bed. The blonde sank down on her cushions and soon fell in a light slumber.
It was almost midnight when the person whom those staring eyes belonged to dared to enter the girls’ room through the open window. He hadn’t been sure how long to wait but now he was sure that his moment had come.
“Time to kill” he thought and his lips almost automatically tear apart to a demonic grin, but already closed again in the next moment.
He couldn’t need it to get lost in his imagination. Right now he needed to be concentrated. With as silent as possible steps the boy walked across the room over to his victims’ bed. The only really remarkable noise came from the raindrops, dripping down on the wooden floor ever now and then.
He loved this special moment very short before killing his new target. He loved how blind they were until it was too late and his knife already stuck in the victims’ throat. He had seen this young girl standing in front of the entrance to the underpass. At that time the boy was in search for a new victim and found – her.
Carefully he pulled down the cover that hid his victims’ body. He took a close look on her, when suddenly an amusing idea hit his mind and made him smirk like a moron. As careful as possible he kneeled over her lap and cautious pulled up her nightgown with his still cold fingers and uncovered his victims’ milk white belly. Then he slowly took his knife out of the pocket. He was about to drive the kitchen knife into her belly, already caught by the imagi-nation of her bleeding out to death, when an unexpected sound brought him out of concept and made him stop abruptly. It was only a small sigh that made him curious and nervous.
For a moment he got insecure. Shall he stab her immediately or wait for her to open her eyes. His victim had already made the decision. Eyes with the colour of a stormy sea glanced up to him. He couldn’t quite construe her look. A bit of anger, tiredness, probably curiosity and maybe even glee flickered in her eyes.
“Who is this? Am I dreaming?”
She glanced up to this strange person kneeling over her.
“Is he about to kill me?”
She looked straight into his dark, almost black eyes and tried to stand his looks that pierced straight into her soul. A weird kind of anticipation filled her body and gave her goose bumps. She started shivering. Probably because some drops of water had fallen on her naked stomach, but she hadn’t recognized them. What she had recognized was the huge kitchen knife the boy of her age held in his again rising hand.
“Go to sleep” He muttered with a deep voice almost as if he tried to seem angry, but couldn’t hide the bubbly feelings he had in his stomach.
“Wait.” She replied whispering with a shaky voice, whilst raising her left to stop him, but failed, because his hand never came so near to her. Her eyes were closed in fear and expectation that he would push the blade into her body, but nothing happened. She waited to be sure, but nothing happened.
“What?!” He seemed to connive to her interruption although he sounded slightly angry.
“You are about to send me to sleep for eternity, so can I bid you for one last favour?” She asked blushing before even phrasing her favour. She looked aside to cover how ashamed she was, although it wasn’t even light enough for her to really see the features of his face.
“Depends on what is your favour…” He said nonchalant while letting his hands sink down on the mattress.
“Make me happy…for the last time…” She stuttered with a breaking silent, slightly sweet voice.
A small raspy sound of surprise came out of his steadily grinning mouth. She looked at him again, still only perceiving a shadow of the boys’ face.
“And maybe tuck me in before…” She interrupted herself.
“Before you murder me…” She averted her eyes of him.
Suddenly his hands rushed up to the height of her chest and bumped on the mattress. He quickly bent over to her face as she started up and gasped, when suddenly his lips met hers in an, at the first moment, unromantic way. A shiver beset her when she felt his tongue stroking along her upper lip.
Did she revel in this weird, up to now unknown feeling?
Yes.
“What the hell.” It was a small thought.
The only clear thought the girl had while this strangers tongue was dancing in her mouth. It was a kiss embossed by curiosity and full of passion. They kissed until breath got scarce.
A pale blonde with cheeks blushed to a dark red colour and her eyes closed, was the next thing the lifting boy saw.
“So, that’s how a girls’ kiss tastes like.” Popped in his mind and made him blush too. Wary he lay next to her and watched her. He was waiting for the girl to open her eyes again. She was taking deep breathes, her lips were trembling and her eyelids were fluttering.
“For Satans’ sake...”
He watched her chest rise and sink while he considered if she would like to neck with him again. His own stupid imaginations made him smile bright.
“What is he waiting for? What am I waiting for?”
She held her eyes closed although she would have rather opened them, but she didn’t dare to.
“Maybe I should say something.”
The girls’ mind was too empty to word something fitting for this totally new situation. Her face felt like it was burning. She tried to calm down by taking as deep as possible breathes.
“Wonderful” Was her next thought.
Well, she considered it to be, but the word has unintentionally very silent slipped out of her mouth under a deep sigh. She wouldn’t have even recognized it - at least not until she heard him laugh next to her.
“Thank you.” He answered, obviously trying to keep calm.
“But tor now you should for now you should go to sleep.” He whispered in her ear.
“Go to sleep.”
She played her part in this game.
“Alright...” She consented, closing her eyes again.
She snuggled against his chest, feeling the humidity of his hoody and the kitchen knife lying right between them at the height of her lap. He pulled the cover over her, up to her shoul-ders and started stroking over her head to make her fall asleep. As she lay in his arms he could feel the actual beat coming from her body.
“What a weird girl” He shrugged.
Did he feel sympathy for her?
“Damn it no!”
He was just pretending to be nice until she fell asleep.
Then he would slice her into tiny bits. This is part of the game, nothing more. He tried keep-ing calm.
“Hm…he wants to kill me, but actually I’m lying in his arms - How insane!” She stopped herself from thinking. She tried.
“He’s cold.”
She tried to heat him up a little by hugging him tighter. Somehow she felt a little nervous. Nevertheless she was lying in the arms of a stranger whose face she hadn’t seen clearly yet and besides she had already kissed him.
Was she a slut? Was she about to fall in love?
She was about to die soon.
The man, the boy in whose arms she was lying was the cause of this. - Although she felt some strange kind of sympathy for him. Some way she even felt sorry for him. He had only come to kill her and she was bothering him like a little bitch.
“Sorry for bothering you.” She whistled into the white fabric.
It must have been really late, no sane being would ever excuse to his murderer.
“Don’t worry about me.” He seemed to smile as she glanced up to him.
“Do you always smile?”
“Always.”
“Does that mean you’re happy?” She retorted naïve.
“No. I wish it would be that easy.”
He sounded bitter.
“I didn’t see you smiling yet. Are you sad?”
“Right now I feel sorry for you.” She answered with a soft voice.
“You shouldn’t feel sorry for me. Remember, I am here to kill you.”
She got lost in her mind, so she closed her eyes. This strange situation remembered her of something she had missed and never cared about.
“Maybe it’s better to die.”
The girl felt like she was asleep.
It was pitch black inside herself and she felt an inner rumble like a flower standing on a sun-ny place that’s trembling in the wind. Then she felt a sudden pain, but her brain didn’t register it properly. It hurt, but didn’t feel that bad - at least not bad enough to make her wake up immediately.
“Is this how people die?”
She was wondering as everything got lit by a bright light. She felt like going blind. Dazed she opened her eyes.
She had opened her eyes.
“Aren’t I supposed to be dead?”
Her eyes hurt from the sudden brightness. Her mind felt empty for a moment. Then her brain started working. Everything seemed normal… at least for a few moments. The girl turned aside and tried to get up but a strange unexpected pain impeded her. It came from her stomach. Gingerly she got out of bed and walked over to her make-up table to take a look at herself in the mirror. She looked at her reflection.
Her nightgown was stained with blood and two thin lines were carved into her cheeks to make her look like she was smiling. She raised her arms to touch the cuts. They weren’t too deep, but maybe they had to be sewn. She pulled her nightgown up to see the cuts on her belly too. Terrified she discovered that her signs she didn’t know. Terrified she discovered that her arms were cut too. Curious she inspected those cuts. It looked like messy words were carved into her arms.
“Go to sleep.” She whispered entangled.
Abruptly she got giddy and her head started aching. This was already a part of her morning routine. She stumbled a few steps backwards and sat down on the chain next to her. She tried to make up her mind.
“He spared me.” She blushed and started giggling.
She didn’t know what to do next. Most of those cuts had to be sewn, but if her mother day them she would probably not believe her what happened. It was Friday and she had to go to school.
She dressed up and sneaked out of the house. She had taken her school bag with her and a black envelope she had found in the letterbox. She went to her doctor, who sew the cuts and gave her an excuse for the lessons she had missed. He told her to come back in two weeks to tie the ropes. She arrived at school in the middle of the third lesson. She tried to ignore the looks of her classmates and gave the excuse to her homeroom teacher.
After school she went home, not knowing that her mother was already waiting got her. Her mother was angry at her, because the teacher had called her. The girl tried to explain her that she didn’t know what had happened. It was all a big lie, but still a better truth than what her mother believed and what she got punished for.
The next few days got lost with spending the free hours at home. At least she had enough time to read the letter she had gotten again and again. She didn’t really know to feel about those words this boy, she didn’t even really know, had written to her. They were so sweet and gave her a warm cosy feeling as if her heart had fallen into a slumber, but then she looked at what he had done to her and didn’t understand.
My darling!
“I am nobodies’ darling” She insisted and continued reading.
My darling!
I may not know your name or anything other like this about you, but this isn’t rally significant for me. What I know for sure is that you managed to steal my heart right out of my chest with just one kiss. And now I’m bleeding to death until I can see you again. I hope you like the present I left you. I made you smile to thank you for being such a kind person.
You were one of the first people that treated me like a human being and not a human being and not like a horrible insane monster.
But still, I am a horrible, rotten person. That’s how I am. I really hope you appreciate these words and maybe even understand how I feel. I guess at that point you are one of those rare people that could under-stand me.
Every time she finished the last line she could stop smiling. Despite it was a bit painful be-cause of the cuts in her cheeks.
“What a twisted situation.”
The young girl had never imagined that something so weird would happen to her. Just be-cause of a kiss.
The week had passed and another boring school day was up to be managed. As almost every day her classmates made fun of her and her cuts. She only responded them to mind their own business, as always.
Not so usual about this day way the fact that she received a little box this evening. No signs of an address were written on it. The only thing that was written on it, were the words “For my darling” on the upside. Carefully the girl carried the box to the living room and left it on the table.
“Shall I open it now or later…?”
The pointless nonsense that came out of the TV made it difficult to keep focussed on one thought, so she decided to open it now. At first sight it only contained a huge glass bottle, but when she took the bottle out of the box the girl almost let it fall on the floor. It was a heavy bottle filled with a strange liquid in which a heart was swimming. Quickly she put the bottle back in the box and sat back in place. She was nervous even though nobody except her was at home. She tried to focus back on the TV when the regular program switched to the news that was on at every full hour. Some old fashioned dressed woman was talking about economy, politics and upcoming demonstrations. Then she turned to the local news.
“Yesterday evening a young boy was found dead. He was the victim of a murder…”
The girl in front of the TV-Screen started listening properly, but everything she kept in her mind was the phrase “His heart was missing”.
Automatically she looked at the box.
“Is it really…Can it…be?” Her own heart was pounding heavily as if a rock was about to squeeze it.
“That’s his heart! He ripped another persons’ heart out of the chest to gift it to me.”
A bittersweet feeling overwhelmed her the longer she was staring at the box.
“Hm…” This small tone broke the non-existing silence around her.
Again she stood up. She took the box and carried it upstairs in her room. Her parents shouldn’t see it.
Only hell knows what they would do.
First, the girl put the box into her closet, but the later the evening got the more she wanted to have it near her. And so the bottle that contained the heart wandered from the closet, underneath her bed to on the sofa, the bed and the bookshelf to finally end up at the desk next to her text books. Hesitating, but curios she opened the box again and took the bottle out of it. Excited she started laughing as she sat back on her chair and viewed how the heart was swimming in the liquid. She giggled and gently took the bottle to place it on her makeup table. As the girl took a second glimpse on the box she discovered a piece of paper on the bottom of it. Surprised she took the paper out of the box and read it. It was a single note with a smile painted on it.
“This boy is such a weirdo.”
She was still smiling happily.
A few days later another school day had just finished. She walked out of the school building, annoyed about all her classmates. They were still not tired of making fun of her cuts.
“Why is it always raining when I’m outside…?”
She took her umbrella and started to walk to the bus station. She didn’t want to miss the bus another time. As she walked, surrounded by crowds of her classmates a particular figure dressed in black pants and a white hoody appeared at her left side.
“Hello.”
She looked at him surprised.
“I’m sorry, but do we know each other?” She replied as catty as it was possible for her.
“Not at first term, but maybe you can remember the boy who made you smile, darling.” His voice faded to a whisper.
The girl felt an upcoming heat. She blushed.
“It’s you.” She whispered. “The boy…you’re the murderer. You sent me that heart!”
“So you can remember me.” He laughed.
“Yes. Now I can remember you clearly.” She stopped at the bus station. “Call me Serene.”
“Jeffrey. Jeffrey Blalock.”
“You seem to be pretty infamous, why didn’t I recognize you?”
He let out a small laughter.
“That’s not your side of life. I am known to those fucked up people looking for gore. I’m here to scare public.”
He looked around in the crowd.
“Go over there to that emo girl. Ask her about me.” He instructed her. “I bet she’ll know.”
“That’s cliché…” Serene replied but did as he asked.
Serene walked over to that girl all dressed in black. She was listening to music.
“Excuse me, can I ask you a question?” She tapped on the girls shoulder.
A young girl with black hair and purple bangs looked up to her.
“Of course!” was her answer as she took down the headphones.
“What do you know about Jeffrey Blalock?”
Her eyes widened.
“Jeff the Killer…” She stuttered irritated. “Jeff is a murderer. He had lived near here, in a suburb. He even attended the local school for a short time, until he got in trouble with some bullies. He killed them as well as he did with his family in the night he was discharged of hospital.”
“Thank you for your answer.” Serene said, surprised about the effect Jeffreys’ name had on the girl.
“W-Wait! Why did you ask me about him?” The girl stopped Serene from walking away.
“Because he told me to.” Serene looked over to Jeff.
The girl followed her looks and discovered that Jeff was staring at them.
Frightened the girl turned around immediately.
“O-okay…” She whispered.
Serene went back to Jeff.
“Alright, that was convincing.” She said it terse with a small smile on her lips.
“As I expected it to be.”
The bus arrived and they got on. The bus was filled with people, mostly Serenes’ school-mates. Serene put her umbrella in her schoolbag. Immediately the people started staring as Jeff took off his hood and revealed his face, but she ignored their staring as much as she could. She leaned against the glass wall behind her while Jeffrey grabbed the holder on the right above her. They haven’ been so close since that night ha had sat on her lap with a kitchen knife in his hand. The bus started to drive off. For a short time they were both silent, just looking at each other. Then his right hand reached out to touch the cuts on her cheeks as she blushed. His cold hand stroke over her cheek.
“You’ve let them sew your cuts…”
She nodded.
“I’ve gotten in big trouble, because my mother believed that I did this.”
“I like them. You look so pretty darling.” He was whispering as if it was a secret.
“Thank you.” She responded.
He let out a small laughter
Now that she was facing him, the boy who came to murder her and ended up kissing her, Serene got shy. Actually she didn’t really know what to say or how to behave. Her heart was making a big deal out of this and her lungs supported it. So Serene stopped thinking and started to just act, always however it seemed to be right in that moment. Serene glanced up straight into Jeffreys’ dark eyes, but she couldn’t stand his look. She felt as if he would look straight into her soul. Ashamed her eyes wandered to the crowd. For the first time she real-ized the amount of people staring at Jeff and her.
Overwhelmed of the situation she didn’t know what to do. Suddenly she felt like burning. The heat that had developed in the last five minutes was suddenly almost unbearable for Serene. Jeff bended over to her to whisper in her ear.
“Keep it cool. You’re doing well. These people are only looking, nothing more than eyes that focus in one direction. Did you ever squeeze a persons’ eye? After that it’s easy to ignore staring eyes.”
Serene got totally puzzled by Jeffreys words and started laughing.
“I don’t actually care about it.” She giggled. “It’s just because I know what they’re thinking.”
The bus stopped. Finally Serene could escape the situation by exiting the bus with Jeff.
“I know it too.” He retorted as he grabbed her hand.
“Oh, look at them, what a cute couple.” He tried to sound like somebody else, like he was imitating the voice of Daisy Duck.
“Are we a couple?” Serene asked with a bubbly voice.
“I think so.” He laughed. “You aren’t one of those girls that kiss every boy, are you?”
“No.” She started giggling. “I swear you endowed me my first kiss.”
“How innocent” Jeff teased her.
Serene didn’t respond, she just gave him a look.
The time passed by fast and soon they had reached Serenes front door. For the first time today Serene felt fear. What would her mother say? She opened the door.
“Here we are. That’s my home.” Serene said obviously a little nervous.
“Very nice.” Jeffrey responded after looking around a little.
Nobody seemed to be at home, what Jeff felt to be the best. He wasn’t really keen on meet-ing Serenes parents.
“Let’s go to my room.” She suggested after taking her shoes off and grabbed his hand gently.
“Oh, shit!” was Jeffreys’ next reaction as he heard the yelling voice.
“Serene!” The voice yelled. “Are you home?”
It was Serenes mother that appeared in the hallway.
“Hi, mum.” Serene said suddenly shy. “I didn’t expect you to be home already.”
“Today is my free day.” She smiled.
Serenes mother was a woman about 40. She had neat blond hair, a little darker than Serenes’. Her blue eyes were looking bright, but seemed to hide something.
“Oh, you brought a guest.” She said with an icy voice.
Jeff stretched himself and walked over to her.
“Hello, Madame.” He reached out to shake hands with her. “My name is Jeffrey. I’m pleased to meet you.”
She ignored his hand and gave him a hatred glare.
“Is that the boy that gifted you this horrible smile?” She asked now turning to her daughter and completely ignoring Jeff.
“No, mother, he is not.” Serene replied in an unnaturally polite tone.
Her mother just nodded with a blank expression on her face.
“Come Jeffrey, let’s go to my room.”
He turned away from Serenes mother and walked over to her room with her.
“What an unfriendly bitch…”
The reaction of this woman remembered him about his own mother. She had been the same kind of person, disassociated from her child, slightly dominant and not very attentive. Prob-ably she tried to be a good mother, but in the wrong way. At least his mother was dead now. Serene sighed frustrated.
Serene closed the door after Jeff.
“Why did she do that?” She walked over to her bed to sit down. “She’s always nagging.”
Anger filled her heart with those thoughts. Again she sighed frustrated.
“You kept it.” Jeff laughed gleefully.
She raised her head to discover that he was standing in front of her make-up table looking at the heart.
How he was acting, like a little child, it was so sweet and made her smile.
“Of course I did.” She walked over to him.
Softly she placed her arms on his shoulders and kissed his cheek. He started to smile too. Serene could see it in the reflection of the mirror.
“How will this story well end…?”
Jeff turned around to her and laid his hands on her waist. Then he kissed her forehead and then her cheeks as his hands wrapped around her tighter.
“How can somebody treat such a wonderful girl like this?” he thought as he kissed her again and again.
In a sudden he lifted his girl up and carried her over to the bed where he sat down, placing her on his lap.
They were making jokes, talking about music and other things they liked or just laid next to each other. Many weekends and days got lost like this. Even Serenes’ parents, who still weren’t present very often resigned to Jeff and that he even slept over from time to time. When Jeff wasn’t with Serene at night, then he went out and killed people.
Once after he had killed another girl he showed up at Serenes’ place. She was sleeping, so he knocked on the window plane. It was raining cats and dogs. After a while Serene woke up and discovered Jeff standing outside in the rain.
“Oh my, what has happened?” She stunned as she had opened the window and Jeff climbed inside.
He was laughing like a madman, his clothes were blood-stained and he was dirty and wet.
“I killed her.” He laughed panting. “She was so weak, so I killed her. Little bitch, I killed her, totally butchered her.”
“Pssst…” Serene pressed her index finger against Jeffs’ lips. “Who did you kill?”
“Janine.” He was giggling. “I even got you a little souvenir.”
He handed over a little black book.
“That’s my diary. She stole it.” Serene was whispering.
Her eyes wandered to the book and then back to Jeff.
“Oh, oh, I have something else for you.” He giggled again and grabbed something out of his pocket. “For…for you.”
He handed over a pair of blue eyes.
“T-Thank you.” She stuttered and gave Jeff a smile.
Her heart was pounding heavily as she looked at those things in her hands. She didn’t really feel sorry for Janine or something like that, it was just strange, because this was the first time Jeff had killed somebody she knew.
She put the things aside and looked at Jeffrey. Although he had done these horrible things, he seemed like a little child to her, at least for the moment. She took his hand.
“Come.” She said softly and led him to the bathroom, where she prepared a bath for Jeff.
She made him take off his clothes to put them in the washing machine. When Serene came back she carried a bundle of clothes with her. It was one of her fathers’ old pyjamas. Serene sat down on the edge of the bathtub.
“How…” She looked at him. “How did you kill her? How was it?”
Jeffrey had already calmed down again. He seemed surprised about her question.
“I stabbed her multiple times. She had been asleep, but it made her wake up. Quickly I pressed my hand against her mouth so she couldn’t scream. The first thrust directly pierced her midriff, so she immediately slumped with a cold look of terror in her face. Then I slit her throat along the lines of her arteries and cut open her stomach. She seemed to still be alive as I dipped my fingers into her blood to write my mark on the wall. Everything was full with her blood. It was so messy. Finally I shoved her eyes out of the sockets.”
Lost in her thoughts Serene was staring on the floor while Jeff was talking. At the end she nodded. Her heart was pinched and she felt dizzy. Again, one of those strange feelings was messing with her. She laughed, totally out of control, but then abruptly stopped and covered her mouth with her hands.
“No! No! No! Oh, no!” her mind screamed.
Jeff observed her and tried to understand her behaviour. As she glanced over to him she smiled widely. Serene helped Jeff to wash his hair and after he was dressed up, they went to bed.
The next morning Serenes’ parents went off to a five day long business trip, so they would come back next Tuesday. That was the reason why Jeff decided to stay at Serenes’ place. He wanted to take care of her while her parents left her alone.
Panic overwhelmed Serene as she woke up. It was still dark. Serene didn’t know where this panic exactly came from, so she immediately got out of bed. Jeffrey was nowhere in the room, as far as Serene could assess, since it was too dark to ever see much. Fear came over her as she touched her left arm and felt something wet. A burning pain paralysed her.
“Oh my goddess…” She whistled standing in the middle of her room unable to move.
Serene didn’t know how long she was standing there, touching herself to figure out how many cuts and injuries there were. A burning pain always rushed through her body. Desperate she started crying.
“J-Jeff…?” she asked into the night as she had calmed down, tears were still streaming down her face.
Endless, dead silence until she heard a response.
“Yes?”
“What happened? Jeffrey, tell me what happened! Tell me that my assumption is wrong!”
“Did you see it?” He giggled. “Did you…see my present?”
“Your…present?” She stuttered. “So you really did that!”
Then she felt arms wrapping around her waist from the back.
“Did you do that?”
“Yes.” Jeff was speaking in a whisper; his head leaned against her neck. “You look so pretty now, like a masterpiece of art.”
“Am I nothing more to you than a living canvas!?” She yelled trying to push him away. “I am not just a canvas you can draw on with your knife. How can you be such a monster!?”
Serene turned around. She liked at him expect that he would warrant, but the cold expres-sion he had on his face told her something different. She almost repented of her words.
“You are more to me than that. That’s the reason why you are still alive, opposite to the oth-ers. And I love to touch you. I can’t imagine anything more delightful than placing cuts and stitches on your tender flesh. The fact that you are still alive should be the first thing to tell you how much you mean to me.” He talked in a calm way, but Serene could actually feel how much she must have hurt him.
She had a shooting pain in her heart, it felt squeezed and pinched.
“I am sorry for who I am. I may not be the best person in the world, but you don’t have the right to call me a monster. You seem to forget, I am that monster that loves you and all those cuts and stitches are meant to be reminiscence.”
Her heart broke softly, shattering to pieces and made her cry because she recognized that these cuts were part of showing his love to her in his twisted nature. Single tears ran down her face.
Serene was certain that he had done this to her when he had one of his psychopathic epi-sodes and he wasn’t even aware of that. This was the first time she realized how disturbed he really was. She also realized that this hurt the deepest parts of her soul, because she actu-ally really cared about him. About half of a year had already passed by since they had met for the first time. That little bit of empathy Jeff had, it was for Serene.
Moments of silence separated then. Serene was looking at the floor as she thought about all that. Jeff wasn’t looking at her. He just stared out of the window, his arms folded in front of his chest, when suddenly the crying girl laid her arms around him and started apologizing.
“I am sorry. I – I didn’t mean to hurt you…” She snivelled and pressed her head against his chest. “Please, never ever scare me like this again.”
He opened up his arms and put them around her as he responded.
“It’s alright…I didn’t want to scare you.”
“Let me do the same.” Serene said as Jeff sat down on the bed.
She went over to her desk to fetch a needle and a spool of thin black thread.
“What do you mean?” He asked curious.
I want to give you an everlasting memory. Like the scars on my skin will last those stitches will do too.” She smiled as she switched on the bedside light and then sat onto Jeffs’ lap. She took his under arm and started sewing. She pieced the needle into the flesh of her lovers left arm slowly forming the characters of her name in a handwritten style. His skin was slowly turning red, the longer she sew, fortunately it didn’t take her long for it.
“It looks really good.” She smiled. “What do you think about it?”
“I like it.” His fingers softly stroke along the characters of his girlfriends’ name. “You did it really well. It’s pretty.”
Serene was thinking a lot about the whole situation, as she lay in bed to sleep. She tried to get clear thoughts about what was going on. She knew that she really liked Jeffrey, probably even loved him. She also didn’t have a real problem with his bloodlust, but all this murder-ing was the result of his psychopathy. That also was the reason for his violent behaviour against her, what is a really sad thing, because Jeff would probably never ever really love her the way Serene loved him. His lack of empathy made it almost impossible for him to really love somebody, still Serene defied that hopeless and believed in his good sides.
