Serial (5 page)

“Sounds good,” he said and shook back, “enjoy,” he nodded towards the soundproofed room.

After they left, I dismantled the drum kit and left it near the front door. I’ll take it down to the dumpster later on, let somebody make the find of the century.

I dragged a thick, hand woven silk rug into the room, then various pieces of furniture and decorative items. It ended up looking like a boutique spa hotel, the perfect spot to get to know her.

The en suite bathroom was the only room that suffered with the addition of the panels. Gone were the imported Italian marble walls and floor, but I had insisted they soundproof it as well, just in case I needed a piss break while jamming with my bros. They bought it of course.

I thought it looked perfect. Some toiletries and make up I ordered online. Clothing and pajamas, probably nicer than anything she’s ever had, also ordered online. I had to go into Victoria’s Secret to guess her size. I purchased quite a few silky gorgeous items while there. I thought I should have a few items she would recognize, coming from her background. I doubt many women in her situation would understand or appreciate something from Carine Gilson.

That would come in time, she would learn to appreciate the better things in life, once she was tamed and accepted that she was mine.

I didn’t know where I was going with this, and honestly, I was a little afraid to follow it through and find out what my end game was.

In the back of my head I had this Disney style love story where she falls in love with me, her captor, and we lived happily ever after.

Maybe I would have to call John some time soon. Maybe she would be accepting of my love and provide the healing I needed to end my killing spree.

If only I didn’t like it so fucking much.

Chapter Five

Jude

She was there again, in the morning. I felt like giving the old Tom Cruise fist pump and dancing on the restaurant booth at my good luck.

I was as casual as I could possibly be when I slid into my usual spot and flipped the plastic menu around, pretending to read. In fact, I was surreptitiously studying her fine, round ass.

“Hey you,” she said as she approached, coffee pot in hand, “I think this is starting to be a regular thing. Are people going to start talking?”

This is only my fifth time in here, but of course I’ve jerked off across the street at night more times than I can count. I immediately felt a jolt of panic, thinking she meant this, but she didn’t. She couldn’t.

“Yeah, I come here for the coffee,” I replied and held out my mug. I swear it was even more beat up than the last one I had.

“Is that it?” she asked and winked before she turned around. I was a little taken aback, I hadn’t imagined her so bold. I liked it; I liked a woman who would struggle a little before submitting.

The place was packed today, looked like a redneck convention or something. I did stand out like a sore thumb, going against everything I strove for…but somehow she was worth the risk.

She came back and took my order. As she stands there writing it down, I noticed her wrist was severely bruised and she was holding her pen carefully, as if in pain.

A surge of anger flowed through me imagining how she got this. Did one of these fucking shitbags grab her this morning?

“Are you ok?” I asked and motioned to the bruise.

She went bright red, not the cute little flush of color I liked to see, but a deep rouge of humiliation. “It’s nothing,” she said and brushed it off, “I caught my arm in a door.”

Even worse, she must be getting the shit kicked out of her at home. Domestic violence. I didn’t see a ring, or get the feeling she was married, must’ve been some boyfriend of hers. The thought left a wash of red rage clouding my vision as I pretended to accept her story and ordered my breakfast.

I couldn’t concentrate on the paper because of the rage. It’d been over four months since my last kill, and the idea of some fucking lowlife hurting my pet left me with an acidic taste in my mouth and a throbbing in my head.

She brought my breakfast and I helped her set the plate down to compensate for her obvious discomfort.

“Thank you,” she said and blushed again, “it’s really nothing. I’ve had worse, I’m just such a klutz.”

“I can’t help it, I was raised a gentleman,” I replied and watched her eyes. She looked sad, their normal bright, clear blue looked a little clouded with grief. Somebody was hurting her in more ways than one.

“You’re lucky, that seems to be a rare thing these days,” she told me and hovered close, as if not wanting to leave my side.

“It seems to be, doesn’t it?” I said and added, “I hope you don’t have any more accidents…”

At that moment the cook shoved his fat, sweaty face through the service window and yelled, “Service, table nine! Come on sweet cheeks, get a move on!”

She glanced away, then back at me and said, “Enjoy your meal,” and was off.

I still didn’t have a chance to get her name. I wished this place made their staff wear nametags, it would’ve make this game of cat and mouse so much easier.

She was too busy to chat with again, so I left another very generous tip and exited as she was clearing off the counter. I paused in the Range Rover and watched her rush to my empty table and pick it up. I’d left a fifty this time, just because money meant nothing to me and she meant everything.

She looked around and tucked it in her pocket with a secret smile on her face. I liked being her secret, and I liked being the reason she was smiling.

Hooking up with me would mean oceans of tears being spilled before our time was through, so it truly was the least I could do to bring her comfort before I brought her to me.

***

I was getting to know her shift schedule. She mostly worked nightshift, she seemed to prefer it, but Tuesdays and Wednesdays she worked during the day.

It was Sunday, two in the morning, and I was in my usual spot across the street watching her with the couple of patrons in the place at this hour. Drunken assholes, by the looks of things.

She practically floated as she walked, her hair was loosely piled on top of her head and the look suited her, softened her.

I couldn’t see her captivating blue eyes from here, but I could imagine them shining bright as she laughed at a joke or chatted with a customer.

It had been over a week since I went in there, and way too long since I’ve killed. I couldn’t help it though, I wanted to see her any chance I had and that got in the way of plotting murder.

I had been spending some time in my newly leased storage space downtown. I’d decided that once she came to live with me, I wouldn’t be bringing women home but I didn’t want to get rid of my equipment all together.

It was late; I should’ve headed home an hour ago. Early breakfast with the family, as usual. I contemplated leaving without jerking off, but couldn’t seem to do it. Almost reluctantly, grudgingly, I unzipped my jeans and pulled my cock out. It’s been hard for hours, thinking about her. I wanted her bright red lips wrapped around it, I wanted to gag her and flood the back of her throat with my cum.

I stroked faster and watched her saunter from table to table, changing the ketchup bottles by the looks of it. Once again, she was a little domestic goddess to me, a saviour and promised normalcy.

I felt my balls tense and reached for a napkin with my other hand. “Fuck, yes, take it, you little cunt, “ I whispered, my voice harsh and low and almost startling in the otherworldly quality it possessed.

I reached my apex, my release, my peak, my pinnacle…and spurted hot, thick cum into the napkin I’d taken from her restaurant.

I exhaled and let myself relax just long enough to clean up and tuck my cock back in my pants.

I wadded the napkin up and slid it into my pocket; I wanted to keep it. My cum and her touch, our lives merging perfectly on the white paper.

I sighed and started the engine. Tonight I was in a rented Jeep Grand Cherokee. I always made sure to angle my vehicle so the lights didn’t shine into the window across the street, but something caught her eye.

She looked up and seemed to follow my truck with her eyes as I made my way onto the street and took myself home.

I was spent by the time I reached my bed. I fell asleep clutching the napkin, holding it to my chin like a talisman, the bright white object that would find me at the center of my dream and bring me back, safe from the harm in my own head.

***

My mother’s laughter was contagious. I arrived a little late this morning, but she got over being cross when I produced a bouquet of flowers. Women, even mothers, would forgive a lot of things if one presented them flowers.

We were seated in the bright sunshine on the wide, tiled back terrace. Mom’s flowers were displayed proudly in a large crystal vase on the low side table next to the dining set. Her trusty housekeeper stood in the shadows just a few feet away, ready to leap to my mom’s command.

I didn’t know where my father was. He had a golf thing, from what I could remember.

“Jude,” she said after we shared another giggle over my father’s latest hobby attempt, cheese making this time. “Did you hear about your friend, what is his name again, Anthony? The one who has ties to Seattle shipping?”

“That would be Marcus,” I replied and popped a cherry tomato into my mouth. I rolled it gently on my tongue, loosened it up, and sheered it in half with my sharp teeth. The juice squirted down the back of my throat and almost made my eyes water with the intensity of flavor.

That was part of my problem, part of why I thought I was different, why I killed. I felt too much, I tasted too much, and even my sense of smell was heightened compared to normal. I was starting to believe I might be the next step on our evolutionary ladder, the next rung, just a little farther ahead than the rest.

Let’s face it; killing remorselessly did have certain biological advantages. It allowed me the freedom to make choices based on benefit to my position over brute emotional reactions to a situation at hand.

“Yes, yes, Marcus. The red headed one. Anyhow, Susanne, down at the golf club was saying he’s engaged now. Can you imagine that?”

“He is, and yes, I can imagine it. It must be something rather pleasant one would assume,” I replied and reached for another tomato.

“I wish you wouldn’t act so indifferent about this,” she said with a frown, her perfectly sculpted eyebrows dropped in the centre quite comically. “Your father and I worry about you, you’ll be thirty in a few months and have never had a steady girl. Why, you’ve never even brought a girl around for dinner.”

It’s the same conversation almost weekly. My parents fretted uncontrollably that the family line would die out with me.

It was ridiculous, as there were fucking Hollisters in almost every major business venture in the US, but they weren’t directly sprung from the loins of good old mom and dad.

“I do have somebody,” I said quietly and devoured another tomato as she processed this information.

“You do? Oh Jude, that’s wonderful, wait until I tell your father,” she said with breathless excitement. “Please, tell me all about her.”

“Well, she’s not from a great background,” I said, the only honest thing I could really say about all this, “and that’s why I haven’t brought her to meet you. She’s very self conscious and is terrified you might judge her because of it.”

“Oh poo,” my mother replied, “tell that girl that I didn’t exactly come from a great family. And at this point we’ll pretty much accept anybody you bring home, we’d be delighted to meet her.”

My mother’s idea of ‘not a great family’ was a net worth in the millions instead of the billions, but I didn’t point this out.

“I will bring her over the moment she’s ready,” I said and reached for my mimosa. My head was pounding again and I needed a nap. “How’s the fundraiser coming along?” I asked, knowing if I needed to deflect my mother off a topic that was the one that would do it. She hosted the annual children’s hospital fundraising event and took it very seriously. It was probably the only job she’d ever had, and I will say she did very well at it.

She launched into stories about catering and performers and all the associated drama, and I allowed myself to imagine
her
sitting here with us, laughing and talking to my mother. She might be wearing a light summer dress, her skin smooth and white, and her hair thick and healthy. She would have her hand on my knee as she told a funny story about something we’d done during the week.

She would bring me in from being an outlier and place me comfortably in the middle, where every other normal person resides.

***

Tuesday morning was a fucking nightmare. I slept in; I hadn’t been sleeping well at all and had woken up in a cold sweat around one in the morning. I couldn’t go back to sleep, and when I finally did, I slept too deeply.

I didn’t have time to swing by the Waffle House to see her. I wanted to see her, I craved her, but I was denied.

That put me in a pissy mood all fucking day, which of course trickled down since I was the boss.

The office was a place of bad energy and cranky fuckers by the time I left at three thirty. I had to get out of there early and see if I could catch her at the restaurant.

I was a junky, and I needed my fix.

I pulled up across the street, parked on the curb instead of at the insurance place, and was about to get out when I saw her.

She was leaving, alone, and in a hurry. I must have caught her at the end of her shift, it was just past four now.

I was about to pull away when I realized something, I had my kill kit with me today, I was going to take it to storage after work and hadn’t been able to yet.

Not that I wanted to kill her, but I did have a couple ropes, a sheet and a bottle of chloroform in the case. All handy things if I were to, say, make my move and bring her home.