The blood rushed thick,so thick. Making pools around my ankles. Pools, sticky like sweat. Pools like rain turning into a flood. It pounded in my organs, swelling the skin, irritating the surface. I was dizzy from the loss of blood.

It didn’t stop me from running.      

   My muscles ached. All the nerves down my spinal column were ripped, torn, and mutilated, making a mess of my receptors. There was an earthquake colliding in me. 

   Despite all that, I ran.         

   There were bubbles of breath and blood, bubbles made from holes made from stab wounds in my skin. I would have fainted from the pain were I not so focussed on the way my feet tumbled against the ground.

   When you’re running for your life, you learn to look beyond physical limitations.

   I could hear him. Right behind me. Was he close enough to reach me yet? Close enough to grab at my skirt? Close enough to tickle the nerves of my neck?

   I wouldn’t dare look back.

   I wondered how close he was.       

   Branches were slashed down in his wake, an indication of his rage. His panting was so heavy and excited, brimmed with lust and aggravated, primal pleasure.

   Was he close enough to grab me?   

   I kept running.        

   My instincts told me to scream, fight. I knew that neither action would help.

   Everywhere, unearthed roots and awkward dips in the underbrush threatened to trip me, send me tumbling and curling up into the dirt, my skin bruised, my lungs collapsed, my doom sealed. What would I look like then, tumbling over some stray bit of rock, arms flailing, blood and sweat spraying, mouth wide open in desolated shock. Would the dull burn of my overworked bones be enough to make me give up? Or would I scramble upwards, paranoia screeching in my lungs, and force myself to keep running?

   Such thoughts made me snatch desperate glances at the ground below, so as to ensure my fear would not come true. So fucking desperate.

   Oxygen was a long-forgotten luxury. My lungs were now living on panic. Panic. Pure and clean. Simple and true.

   Yet somehow my feet still managed to press and spring, my arms still managed to pump, and I still managed to run.

   Did he yell something to me? My heart was pounding too hard to hear. I could only think of his knife, no doubt still clutched in his fingers. I could only think of my blood still licking at its tip.

   I tried to remember the last time I laughed or looked to the sky, or tossed my hair with exhilaration. Such pleasures seemed so long passed.

   My lungs were burning, and I tasted blood in my mouth. Were all of my insides bleeding by now?

   I couldn’t feel my fingers. I swayed in my step, but kept running.

   Everywhere, my skin was feeling tight. Dizziness mutated into nausea, and I felt so surely that this was where I would die. I was to die at the hands of a maniac on the trail of some shabby forest. The trees would mark my grave site. My flesh would melt into the grass, fertilizing the soil, and I would continue to nurture baby trees long after my Missing Person signs had been taken down from cork boards.

   Despair overtook me.  Sweat dripped in my eyes, stinging them, causing my eyelids to jerk, sporadically blocking my sight. My lips cracked and bled. I felt like I was going to vomit. Would I die there, covered in my own bodily fluids, a victim to chance and fate?

   Then, I tripped, catapulted into a frenzy. Thunder tumbled through my veins as I fell onto the mossy ground, out of coordination and into utter vulnerability. I skidded, and my knees and hands were the first to brace themselves against the impact. My skull ached, confused by this swift turn of events.

   For a while, it seemed there was nothing left to the world but me and this pain. Until I heard his footsteps right near my head.

   If I’d had time to gather hope, I may have prayed. But it was too late for that. I was beyond praying. I was beyond running. All I did was roll onto my back, and silently admit surrender.

   Before I blacked out, I felt his hands underneath my armpits. As he tugged me to my feet, I thought I heard him whisper,

   “Time to take you home now, pet.”

   Bastard.       

~

   I’ll admit it: I love it when they run. A woman’s body wiggles so excitedly when it runs. Their legs kick up in the air like deer, trembling under the weight of stress and desperation. It’s such a pleasure for the eyes.

   You can’t judge me for that, sir. If you saw them run the way I do, you’d like it too.

   Their blood pumps so much harder when they run. Their blood is hot, all fluid, all angry, all too willing to leak. Blood always tastes better when it’s fresh and terrified.

   When she ran, I imagined just how fast her pulse was, just how much sweat was slipping down her tender, supple skin. I thought of how every gland, every pore, every molecule, every fibre in her body was secretly craving my knife, to feel it graze the skin and slice through.

   I do not hate women. I love them. I love the way their insides look.

   When she ran, my heart went straight to my groin. There is a painful flirtation in a woman when she runs.

   As she slipped out and bounded off, I could tell she was different. Indeed, she was the most kindred of spirits I’d ever entwined myself with. This girl wanted my knife. She needed it. She needed the violence even more than I did.

   She was lovely when she smiled, and gorgeous when she screamed. When that blithe curve of the lip mutated into a horrified shock and a sanctioned pain, I so wanted to kiss those lips and have that look remain there forever.

   Her knees were so pretty curled up in my car, but all the more attractive when spun into the air. And those ankles! So small I could have wrapped a hand around each and snapped them like fleshy twigs.

   She must have known that I love the chase. Why else would she have run so artistically? Yes, it was our little game to play with each other. Fear was her favourite aphrodisiac.

   There was no way I was going to lose her in the forest I knew so well. Besides, I needed the chase. It was what made my craving lash out with acute precision.

   She trembled, and I moaned in pleasant agony. I like my ladies shaken, and shaken well.

   Not only is fear an aphrodisiac, but a spice for the body. Blood seasoned with fear is always the sweetest.

   Without fear, a woman is tasteless and bland, thick and dry. Without that zip in the blood, a woman is of no interest to me. But add just one dash of pure terror, and that woman will become everything I need to survive.

   Never could I find satisfaction in a girl with a stiff upper lip and firm resolution. Those skanks have nothing in them but modern machinery, essences of the latest factory perfume and wires where their cunt should be.

   But a girl who is completely open, exposed and emotional… a woman who will scream for mercy or beg for release… now that’s a girl worth running after.

   Her legs were so flamboyant in the breeze, unsure of where to turn next. I could have kept in time with her easily, but I didn’t want to risk losing her. Her distress was far too enrapturing. I needed to learn what her flesh tasted like, and what naughty sorts of secrets she was hiding between her legs. I needed to feel her body squirm, her chest cave, her mouth squeal. I needed to see her tears smear her make-up into smudges, making her all the more beautiful and all the more vulnerable.

   The smell of her blood in the air spun me into mania. I called after her, liberated by my sins.

   My knife needed to kiss her skin again, to tease the tips of the nerves, then go deeper, deeper, deeper, until she was begging for more. My knife had to nest in the darkest caverns of her meat.

   Her legs buckled. Soon, she would be completely at my mercy, and I couldn’t wait until she was back in my arms again.

   Until she was ready to take my knife back into her.

   Violence is among the purest instincts of man.

   When she tripped, I was ready for her. I bolted, exuberant, panting, sparkles erupting in my eyes like fireworks on the fourth of July. The world was bursting with perfection, and it was all for me.

   I could have just done her right then and there, left her body as feed for the worms. But I couldn’t finish it like that. I had to do a girl like her right.

   I had to hear her screaming when I gave the final stab.

~

   My eyesight failed me, at first. There was a tug at my skirt, like a dog was nibbling on the edge of it. My thoughts strayed to places of unequivocal balance, where the wind was still and music kept a safe place for colours in the sky. In the darkness, I was safe. Behind my eyelids, I was safe.

   But the darkness could not protect me forever. Sure enough, my eyes creaked open, adjusting to newly found light and dingy surroundings. My optic nerve split with slashes of brown and cases of shadow, and it soon became apparent that a certain man was staring at me. A certain man I’d hoped had just been a nightmare.

   He grinned like a jackal, hungry for my blood.

   I found I was strung to a ceiling, wrists tied, ankles bound, like my life had mutated into some grade-b horror film. 

   The wound in my waist had begun to coagulate and collect germs, but I felt no pain.

   Would you believe me if I said I wasn’t scared? True, the fight or flight response was stirring in my blood, but mentally, I was resolute.

   I imagined slithering through my bonds and leaking onto the unfinished concrete, becoming a soapy substance he’d have to mop up.

   He wouldn’t be able to hurt me if I evaporated into the air.

~

   She pawed at the air like a cat sunning itself. She bat her confused little eyelashes. When those eyes finally sat on my face, I wanted them to pop straight into ecstatic terror. They didn’t.

   This disappointed me. There was no need for her to hide her excitement. We needed to be completely honest with each other. Deep down, every girl dreams of having a blade stuck deep into her.

   I grabbed her chin and brought her close so that she’d understand I’d won. I grazed my fingers against her trembling knee, muscles still weak from our game. Her cells screamed and salivated, begging to be touched, invaded, explored. Her nerves had no idea just how much they needed pain.            

   When I tried to kiss her, I finally got a noise. She cried out like a cat with its tail caught in the garage door. There were little spasms under her skin, spasms that assured me she wasn’t as scared as she was excited. She wanted to feel the pain just as much as I wanted to give it to her.

   Up and down her body I stared, creating mental marks where I’d like my blade to kiss her.

   I couldn’t wait to spread her wide open against the floor like a bearskin rug, stretch out her skin so thin and fresh I’d be able to wear it as an overcoat. I couldn’t wait to see her insides glow and palpitate, the reds and browns and purples smearing inside each other, until soon it would all fade into a dismal, deadly gloom.

   Soon, she’d just be a stain. A stain on my cock and my fingers.

   The most intimate relationship is the one between the killer and his victim. No one could ever understand what passion and closeness is found in the giving and receiving of torture, or how touching it is to not only look into a person’s eyes, but dig in so deep that you can see everything that’s lying underneath. 

   I had looked long enough. That blood smear on her shirt was gushing sensually, naked without a pair of lips squeezing out the last drop. So I knelt down, worshipping the sensitivity in her soul, and lifted up her shirt. At this, her mouth, which had pursed into a grimace beyond human limitation, now started blurting out fearsome little fears, pleas and promises, words that stirred me into rapture such as ‘no’, ‘please’, ‘beg’, ‘don’t’. I felt exclamation points dotting the end of every short urgency:

   “Please, don’t do that! I beg of you! Let me go! I won’t tell, I promise!”

   Of course I took in the sight of her hard, trembling nipples with a moan of lustful frenzy, but that wasn’t what I really wanted. What I wanted was her blood. And there I saw it, my own handiwork gawking at me with humility and awe, whispering, ‘Please, please, put your tongue on me. Lick me up, lick it alllll up…”

   So I did. I put my mouth on her wound with half a mind to suck it dry.

  My cock was nearly bursting through my jeans, driven mad by this weak little lady who was built to be dominated. Breathing heavy, hands still holding her shirt above her breasts, I allowed my lips to be overwhelmed by her red juices. Her taste was one of temptation and sweetness. Her sobs only made me suck harder, and I thought of her pretty face wetted with tears, contorted with hopelessness. She wriggled on the wall, and I imagined the strain it was putting on her wrists. With every struggle, she’d get weaker (though hopefully, not so weak that she’d stop screaming).

      I lapped around the edges of the bloody chasm with my tongue, going slow- I wanted to savour her taste.

   “You taste amazing. Perfect. Best one yet.” I stood to my feet and whispered this in her ear. She flung her head away from me, wincing. What an honest girl, I thought. So honest and open about fearing me. No attempt to be strong. Nothing but submission and begging noises.

   “I’ll bet other parts of you taste even better,” with this, my hand stroked the hem of her skirt again. She let out a plaintive cry, everything below the neck shuddering. I smiled, forcing her cheek to press against my own rough stubble. I wanted to scrape up her skin.

   “You’re scared, aren’t you.”

   Her eyes bored into me. We shared a very special moment then, a moment that bound us as one.

   “Deep down though, you like it. I can tell. Every single bitch secretly loves to be terrified.”

   Another shudder, another wince, but no answer. My fingers twirled around her skirt, inspecting the fabric, letting my eyes explore the skin just below. Then I placed my hand up higher, just inches away from her mound, the part that every woman tries to hide, the part that every woman only reveals to those that she desires more than air. I was welcoming myself to her private world of pleasures, no invitation necessary.

   She asked me to stop, but I was just getting started.

~

   Being violated does some strange things to the mind. I drifted off in a way to protect myself, thinking of jogs in my neighbourhood, dew droplets on grass. Anything from the beautiful to the basic to the absolutely distorted. Even leftover bones on plates and spills of pop on tables. Anything but that man’s daring face and endless eyes.

   His eyes. Like whirlpools of sharp decay. Ever spinning, growing deeper and deeper, disposing all hope left in life. His eyes were the last doorway to hell, the one doorway that could never be closed.  When he started touching me, my mouth took control, saying what a normal hostage would say, begging what any human would beg in my situation. I played the role quite well. I let my life become a horror movie. I let myself become everything he’d hoped I’d be.

   Why? I knew what he wanted from me. I figured that maybe if I played along with his sick fantasies, things would work out.

   My mind was somewhere that very few people have been. Little dollops of fresh air spiced up the horizon, with a sun that began to melt and freeze and melt again, until every ray was crooked, every shadow strangely mutated. Beads of liquid on my face pooled slowly, calmly marching down the rim of my cheek, so far away, yet carrying everything important that belonged to me. All that was left in tangibility was pain, and surrealism was my only escape.

   I sketched rain drops dancing in puddles, making instant footprints like tiny little feet. My blood became rain, a senseless, common thing, wetting my skin and pulling at my immune system. My tears became the sky, shadows, a breath of air, a shimmer from a mirror. My tears became my future falling away from me. Everything that I wanted to be and could have been was compressed into those specks of salt water trickling down my face. So slow, but so sure.

   I couldn’t stay there forever. Like my blackout in the ravine, my mental escape was trivial and temporary.       

   Then terror came crashing in. That sick demon, that twisted creature stroked me where no one had ever touched. NO. DON’T. PLEASE DON’T TOUCH ME THERE…

   He was the first person I ever shared a sexual moment with, and I hated him for that. He stuffed a thumb inside me and everything stretched, boiling red. Fingers became a disgusting thing. 

   My wrists and ankles were burning from every little movement I made, and my brain was already knee-deep in dizziness from the blood loss. I could smell my own blood on his mouth as he dragged my face in for a kiss.

   It was either be kissed or be killed. So, I bided my time and let his tongue shove in my mouth, curling around on my own. He bit away at me, ripping the suppleness of my lips, tearing until there was no area untouched.  Every little place he touched would smart, even as his hand rubbed me raw down below.

   It was not the movement that mattered. Regardless, my body refused to respond to his hand and its shameless manoeuvres. There was no way to clear anxiety from my head, and absolutely no way that nausea dancing in my gut could be replaced with any kind of passion. I was beyond the luxuries of energy. All I could do was hang from my crooked wrists, and let him claim as much of me as he wanted.

   ‘But he will never claim my heart,’ I thought sternly, sniffling through the blood and tears that were congregating on my chin. ‘My heart and brain belong to me.’

   Completely awake to his stale breath, his heaving chest, and most of all his wandering hands, I couldn’t stop my mouth from running away. My vocal chords were thick with phrases that made no sense to me, and that didn’t even strike a reaction on my abductor’s face. His rubbing of my clitoris turned into harsh, sudden pinching, and I once again begged for release ‘till my throat was hoarse. When I stopped babbling and started to gasp for new air, he murmured in my ear,

   “Aw, do keep screaming, do.” he slapped his mouth on mine for another kiss, then smacked me suddenly. “No? Fine. Save it then.” His one hand went to his belt, and I heard a scraping sound as steel on leather. Then, there was a cold knife laying flat on my stomach.

   Chills flooded all through my abdomen. It was like for a moment I’d forgotten his true purpose for tying me up. It was as if a part of me had hoped that he would invade me, beat me, and let me go. But we were not in some alley in the wee hours of a Friday night on the bad side of town. We were in what I could only assume was his house, a place where he could take his time, and no one would hear my screams.

   This would not be an issue of anxiety-ridden rape, with him knocking me unconscious then scattering into the dark like a rat in retreat. He could take as much time with me as he wanted.

   Between sections of my brain, anxiety curdled. I was victim to the devilish whims of this monster. This man with teeth like razor blades.

   “You’ve already had the pleasure of meeting this blade. It’s already gotten a taste of your gut.”     I tried to curb his hand from touching me, but he already had the nerve to push another finger in. It hurt terribly, and the burning sensation in my labia continued to gripe and groan.  How I longed to hurt him. Or would he just enjoy that? Would he feel we were connected, exchanging pain back and forth like sweet nothings?  

   I felt as though I would vomit. Nothing in the world was safe anymore. Not picnics on Sunday or parties on Saturday. Not libraries, not birthday parties. He was raping all of me, and destroying everything I loved.

   I tried going back to those jogs near the park, tried to imagine my feet thundering smoothly on the pavement. Tried to imagine skipping over fallen branches in the fall. None of it came to me.

~

   When my knife is against a girl’s writhing frame, I need to know that she is giving me her complete attention. I cannot have them flitting about in another world when I need them, right there, in the moment with me. Torture and abuse are a conglomeration of the senses, a meeting of worlds. I need to know they’re feeling it just as intensely as I am.

   I saw something in her eyes, something that told me she was drifting away. I had to snap her back into my arms. Whatever could I do to enhance the pain again? Then I realized that with this one, it wasn’t so much her body, but her brain that needed invading. So I kissed her again. I wanted to erase every other mouth that had found her lips before, have her forget any other man that looked at her nice or called her pretty. I wanted her to feel like we were the only people left in the world.       

~

   My thoughts drew circles around my soul, closing it down, sealing it shut.

~

    That bitch. She was avoiding my gift to her, the gift of pain. How dare she!

   “Look at me, slut!” I slapped her, felt the vibrating skin on my palm. “You can’t leave me alone here! I need this!”

   My voice broke, for an instant. I wondered if that was why she opened her eyes again. Maybe she did love me, after all.

   I calmed down. She did love me. I could see it in her eyes. She loved what was happening, what we were sharing. Eyes are indeed a gateway to the soul, and I saw everything in hers.

   To keep her awake to me, I pressed the blade down just enough to split skin.

   Tears sprinkled her innocent angel face, and I took up my knife to catch some of the drops and mix it with her blood. Tears and blood are the most beautiful things that could ever come out of a person. They hit your heart harder than poetry.

   I dug into her with shallow cuts, to encourage the blood flow without killing her. She swayed from the wall, neck weak, jaw sagging. I dug my hand up into her insides, fisting her all the way through, sure to stretch out those beautiful, virgin walls. She was so tight, contracting the more she whimpered. I moved half my arm in and out, forcing her to become wet.

   A woman’s body is built to betray her.

   I wanted to bite her lips so hard they would slide right off her face. To make her beauty last forever, I would have to break her down into digestible pieces and release her into the world. That is the true way of things. Art and sex and death and beauty are all the same essence, compartmentalized into sections.

   Humans are just groups of cells mashed together. The soul is just a clump of memories sewn tightly so they won’t fall apart. And a murder is just one rest stop on the road to magnificence. The people in the world who haven’t killed are doing nothing but repressing their finest instincts. Once you approach that purity, you can never turn your back from it.

   I needed to feel her, to know her fully, her blood had to speak to me, tell me secrets that nobody had ever heard. So I drew new incisions on her skin that would collapse and dry once her heart had stopped beating. I made delicate patterns on her already so delicate body, and my head thrummed at the beautification taking place. She would be the most unique corpse I’d ever created.

   The scars and grooves on her disjointed body would cause tremors in the newspapers and anxiety in the police stations. They would haunt the nightmares of detectives for years and years to come. Through her mangled, dead form, I would live on in legend.

   Surely she could realize how vital her role was in my world? How much her pain meant to me? How much we were sharing with each other?

   I couldn’t help but kiss her everywhere, with both my lips and my knife. I kissed her all the way from her strung up wrists, to the tips of her dirtied hair, to the tears that trailed as far down as her breasts. Hoping to maybe crack some ribs, I doubled back and punched her in the stomach. She lurched forward and spluttered sobs. It was a perfect moment, and I decided then and there that I had to have her. Immediately.

   It was as if there was too much happening in my mind for me to manage her torture gracefully. I had all the time in the world, yet urgency was springing around in my system like a rocket. My erection was so thick and red hot, and I had to show her exactly what she was doing to me.

  We were meant to share everything together.

   I didn’t have to worry about her running or fighting when I took her down from the wall. Because I knew deep down, she wanted this as much as I did.

~

   He woke me from my daze, my trembling constitution. Shock flowed through my wrists when they were released and I tumbled into his arms. What was he doing? Letting me go, or readying himself for the kill?

   I pretended I was basking in the sun, reading in my bed, safe. Everything could be warm, yes, warm and soft and OH GOD WHY DOES HE HAVE TO KEEP TOUCHING ME THERE…

   I didn’t bother thinking what was going to come next. When people are built for a killing, there is no reasoning with them. There’s no question of if they are ever going to kill- the only thing to ask is when.       

   I tried not to allow reality to come too quickly. Instead, I imagined pulling my fingers across that old, worn fabric of my bedspread, tracing the lines of embroidery. But then he bit my breasts and threw me to the ground. When my head hit the floor with a decisive clunk, blood invaded all those happy memories. Everything had been broken down into terror and imminent destruction.

   “Open your eyes, my pet. Let me see that silky blue again. It matches so well with the red…”

   My vertebrae snapped to attention of his words, and despite the fact that my brain was curdled and blood had begun to lazily collect inside of me, I obeyed him. For him, no. The truth is, I wanted to look at him. I wanted my eyes to somehow manage to haunt him in his sleep. I wanted to ruin his whole life like he’d ruined mine.

   Once again I was met with those unchanging eyes, spooled with hate. Was it hate or was it lust? Which would have terrified me more? Which kind of desire was more poison, more potent?

    My lip didn’t even quiver when he lifted my skirt high over my stomach. PLEASE DON’T TOUCH ME THERE AGAIN, PLEASE DON’T…

   I was screaming on the inside, but I wouldn’t give him the pleasure of hearing it.

   He rolled me over, face to the floor, blood dribbling in my mouth, head swaying in the fierce hold of impact. His hands covered me, suffocating every sense of self, and then I felt every nerve between my legs rip.         

   The nightmare of his knife, the trauma in his lips- none of it compared to that moment when he tore through the very core of my femininity, and pushed past barriers I’d built up since birth. There is always meant to be one thing for each person that is special and private to them, and with one fell swoop, one burning, wretched thrust, this man took that away from me. I was officially abandoned to pure, humiliated pain.

   Grunts, moans, and nasty cusses were flowing from his mouth like vomit, filling my ear up with their gross unholiness. I tried to scramble away, my feet kicking themselves up in panic. I went back to the moment when I tripped and fell in the woods. If it hadn’t been for that damnable dip in the ground, I could have escaped from this monster’s claws.

   “LET ME GO, YOU SICK FUCK! LET ME GO!”

   This time, I let him hear me. I lunged, bit, swore, and kicked. I wouldn’t let him take me easily.

~

    “Now there’s the scream I was looking for!”

   She was just struggling so I could dominate her more. I punched her down and bit her hard. Her yells and cusses and cries made her muscles squeeze even tighter on me.  She had muscles in her cunt strong enough to chaff my cock. I loved it.

   The way one’s body pulls and lurches when trapped in fear, as if thrown into bowels of bliss; it’s enough to drive the man inside of you mad. The instant I pressed through her naturally wetted walls, I knew I was the first to feel her. And wasn’t she lucky, to have her first experience of carnal, physical love revealed to her in the most violent and honest of ways. She wasn’t embracing the pain enough to keep her fluids moving and dried up quickly, but that didn’t matter to me- all I needed was the raw connection of her skin collapsing on my own. Wrenching in and out, shoving, pushing, being consumed by her very essence.

   She was mine, all mine. There was nothing left in her that I couldn’t touch or control.

~

   Then, something strange happened. Again I watched as my average, happy life was swarmed by this man’s savagery and contempt. I saw every pleasant evening writhe in agony, and thought, ‘No. I won’t let him do this to me.’.

~

   I panted, basking in the rush as orgasmic fluids rose in me. I couldn’t wait to come inside of her, and then slice her all the way open with my blade. Watch my cum shoot inside of her, then out all the holes I’d made. Pull myself out and push the knife in, slicing all the way up her pretty stomach, letting her intestines loose. With my peak would come the even more pleasurable sensation of ripping this lovely thing to shreds.

~

   His mind was far away, unlike my own. Where he was lost in the satisfaction of my rape, I was completely lucid and livid. He didn’t even protest when I turned on my side; in fact, I think it enhanced his sensation. I let him have his way, calming my insides, shutting down the parts of me that longed for puddles of rain and orange sunsets. I let go all those parts of me, and replaced them with the steely resolution to survive, no matter the consequences. The hand that held his knife was right against my shoulder, trembling with each invasive push into me.

   His grip on it was weak.

~         

   The way she turned on her side- yes, she wanted it. I knew then that she longed for my knife, just as she’d longed for me to be plunging inside of her.

~

   A scramble, a struggle, a kick. I took him completely by surprise.

   My leg pushed against his chest, flinging him backward and onto the floor. Oh, how stunned and feeble he looked as he crashed to the ground. It thrilled me in a way I’d never felt before. For the first time, pleasure pooled between my legs. Blood became a lubricant.

   The knife lay like an arrow between us, pointing directly at his quickly deflating erection. Before he had time to regain his composure or sense of superiority, I grabbed his own weapon and slashed down on his penis, still exposed in full view.

   His howl reached and burst through the ceiling with its high, unruly pitch. I sawed and hacked as he mewed, squealed and scrambled like a pathetic dying animal, kicking and clawing and biting and gnashing. I’d never felt a love so vicious before! We were one, he and I, connected by my blade. It was the best game I ever played.

   His blood exploded on my hand, arm, and face, mixing with my own, dribbling down my mouth. The taste was unexpectedly sweet, like liquid candy.

   There was no way he could fight then. His eyes rolled around in their sockets as if deranged, his tongue hanging loose, chest heaving with breath-like spasms. I crawled up from his mutilated hips to his startled, mortified face, and smiled cruelly.

   “You taste amazing, pet.”

   I watched as my hand dug the knife into his belly. It would have taken a considerable amount of force, but my arm didn’t feel a thing. I was drenched in hostility, beautiful and pure. There wasn’t a single ounce of pressure or pain on my demented form. I felt nothing but titillating inspiration, as if art were unfolding right in front of me. 

   But my taste for justice was not yet quenched. I was sure to masticate him, to make his corpse the worst sort of sight to see. This mutilated sack of viscera would haunt policemen for years to come. I ensured that no piece of skin remained whole, until his carpet and couch were oozing with his blood. As I let the knife fall, I finally understood.

   The most intimate relationship ever known is with a killer and her victim. Nobody else can ever understand the closeness and connectivity when you drive a blade into someone’s body, and feel their life disintegrate. It’s an intense romance you can’t even imagine until you breathe it in, and let it consume you.

By Caitlin Hoffman