Domus Dulcis Domus

My mother was once a beautiful whore. I don’t remember her that way, but I’ve seen photographs, and for a time, she was quite stunning. My biological father is forever lost, reduced to just one of the countless cocks she took inside of her. He could be anyone, but is no one. And had he been around, he’d be just as dead as she is.

Apparently, my mother made one hell of a living for a while as a high-end call girl with a rather notorious agency in Jacksonville. It wasn’t Miami, but in Jax, she was a starlet—the one every man wanted and most got, provided they could pay. She was often on the arms of tycoons and lonely businessmen from out of town—and on the dicks of those who could only afford her for a few hours, or who couldn’t afford to be seen in public with a hooker.

On top of a stupidly high salary for a girl not long out of high school, she often also received lavish gifts—jewelry, clothes, electronics, shoes; one of her clients even bought her a car off of his own lot. A few proposed marriage. My mother was smart enough to know better. Then.

She was only twenty-two when she bought the house I would grow up in, with cash, and still had a tiny fortune stashed away.

Then disaster. Even before I was born, I was a force of destructive reckoning. I’ll never know why she decided to keep me. Maybe she envisioned a better life where she wasn’t deep-throating every prick in Jacksonville with money to spare. A pregnant escort has approximately the same value that I place on human life, and the agency dropped her as if she’d never existed.

She met Cruz when I was an infant. He was a small-time gang thug who married her, got her strung out, and pimped her for street value when the money ran dry. He was a perfect parasite. For nearly ten years, I watched him suck the life from my mother, leaving nothing behind but bruises and a few broken bones. He was cruel and clever, never leaving marks where they’d be seen, and he always stroked her check with the back of his hand, saying: “una cara tan bonita,” just before he’d punch her in the stomach or kidney. Other times, he’d shock her with a cattle prod, then tell her “comportarse, mi pequena vaca”—“behave, my little cow.”

Whereas I was largely ignored by my otherwise occupied mother, Cruz provided me with plenty of attention. My punishment was most often a vicious twist to the tender flesh of my inner, upper arms. Whether it was the radial or ulnar, there was rarely a time that he missed a nerve, and my rather remarkable memory fails to recall a time that I didn’t have extensive bruising surrounding my armpits. Though he was (of course) not the virtuoso I have become over the years, my father was quite proficient at pain.

This was our existence until I was ten. Then one night Cruz just stopped coming home. My mother never spoke of him again.

It would be six years before I found out what happened.

Homicidium Unum

My first was—shall we say—a tad uninspired. Were I capable of it, I might be just a touch ashamed at such an amateur effort. But true genius requires a maturity and sophistication that one cannot reasonably expect from a sixteen-year-old. Everyone must start somewhere, after all. Even the most masterful of virtuosos have their humble beginnings. Even I.

I've never had friends. Not even a friend. At best, I’ve had a handful of casual acquaintances that were oblivious enough to their own survival instincts that they allowed me proximity. Occasionally, these were handy for providing me with things that I desired.

Greg was among those acquaintances. He was a reliable and valuable resource for a time. He provided a variety of things to smoke, all manner of pills, and anything you might desire to wash them down with. But of all he ever gave to me, his death was the most intoxicating.

We snuck into the development late on the Friday before a long holiday weekend. The construction trailer was empty and there wasn’t a soul around for miles. No one had any reason to be on the new subdivision's roads yet and we were far enough from the main drag that no one would see us smoking a little weed.

The interior of the house looked like an intricate wooden spider web. It had been framed, but only the exterior walls and roof were in place. 2x4s spanned floor to ceiling and beam to beam.

We climbed the steps to the second floor and pulled ourselves up onto the attic rafters. We sat—mostly silent—and smoked. After a time, Greg told me that most of our classmates thought I was weird, or that I gave them the creeps. He said he thought I was all right and they were all just pussies. I told him I didn't give a fuck what they thought of me. Then we laughed like idiots amid the ghostly swirls of smoke and sawdust caught in the glow of our flashlights.

When we’d finished smoking, we stepped across and weaved our way through a maze of 2x4s to overlook what would soon be a living area with vaulted ceilings. The flashlights cast white glimmering pools on the grey cement twenty or so feet below us.

“Damn!” Greg said and leaned forward a bit into the emptiness.

I pushed him.

Strangely, he was silent as he fell. I saw everything in slow-motion by the beam of my light. He pitched forward and twisted his body in midair to turn and face me. His arms pinwheeled once, and it appeared that he might be trying to get his feet under him. In the 1.2 seconds he had before the impact, he didn’t have a prayer. His flashlight bounced on the floor with a clank and skittered into a corner. It didn’t break.

Greg did.

He landed ass-first with his legs and head trailing behind, the beginnings of a scream finally forming on his lips. His tailbone surely shattered beneath his weight and the more than 4000 joules of energy created by the drop. Momentum carried him backward and his head swung toward the floor. He’d just begun to shriek when it was cut off in an instant, replaced by a magnificent thud.

Greg didn’t die right away. He lay there for several minutes gasping like a fish as a dark halo spread slowly beneath his head. From twenty feet up in the dim light, it looked black. His hands flapped up and down slowly. Eventually they stopped.

The rise and fall of his chest stopped.

Greg stopped.

And I began.

In Venor

Stalking is critical. It is part of the killing process every bit as much as opening a throat or crushing a skull. It requires an immense amount of patience, but even more so, control. Every part of me screams to finish it. Finish it! But that way lays eventual disaster. Patience. Control. FINISH IT! Not yet. Make sure. Prepare.

A fortnight is usually all that is required to ascertain the patterns of a Non. You are all creatures of habit—quite foolishly so. Two weeks reveals the basic monotony of your existence: your work or school schedule, extra-curricular activities, hobbies, where you like to grab a drink. It is enough time to casually insert myself into your life without you even being aware of it. I often use running as a way to watch the movements and cycles around you. After a week or so people don’t even see that they are seeing me anymore. I become a virtually invisible part of the neighborhood, able to take in all the comings and goings without attracting attention. In that time, I will learn where the dogs are and if they will bark on approach. I will know who is paying attention and who is oblivious.

Almost everyone is oblivious.

If only you knew the danger you might be in. If only you knew the myriad of ways I might end you, perhaps you’d be more aware.

But no. You are so painfully naïve. You are prey that behaves as if there are no predators. You are prisoners to your mundane subsistence, and at any point along it I can easily come and replace it with an eternity of my choosing.

For two weeks I watch. I follow. I lurk in the midnight shadows until after you are asleep. I am jogging around your block when you leave for work. I even tossed you a friendly smile and wave. I stopped to give your dog a scratch behind the ears while you and your pretty wife took him for a walk after dinner. I volunteered to be the third man in your weekly pick-up basketball game at the Y. I am the “cute” guy in your spin class that you and your girlfriends were giggling over the other day.

If I can’t find a convenient time, I will manufacture one. You’ll never see it coming. In those few short weeks, I will have come to know you in ways that you don’t even know yourself. Things you take for granted, I memorize. I study your behaviors. I learn how you react to situations. Do you turn toward the sound of a car backfiring, or shrink away from it? Do you give strangers a wide berth, or approach them willingly? Are you confident and engaging, or an introvert and shy? What do you do for a living? These things tell me more about your psychology than you can imagine. Armed with that knowledge, I can predict whether you will run or fight, bargain or scheme.

Just two weeks. That is all the time I need to safely unmake an entire existence.

But don’t misunderstand—I’ve killed many simply because the opportunity was right in front of me. I might just as soon kill you where you sit reading the end of this blog post. And perhaps I shall.

You might want to look behind you…