Bone Deep

2

He thought of himself as Captain Luv, and when he had sex with his victims he would think, Cap'n Luv is in command now. Sometimes he would say it aloud, drawing out the word "love" into several syllables while affecting the accent of a black crooner. "Here come Captain Luuuvvv," he would say, and they would giggle, or look at him askance, he didn't much care, it was always much too late for them to change their minds. Most of them smiled at him, most were inclined at that point to find anything he did endearing.

"Goine take you apart, girl."

And later he would take them apart, or he wouldn't, depending on circumstances, depending on how severely the temptation gripped him, depending on whether the mania descended and took control of him. There was no way to tell ahead of time, the mania had fooled him more than once, bursting suddenly into his brain just when peace should have reigned, compelling him to do its bidding. So now he awaited it with expectation, half hoping it would overtake him, half fearing it, but in either case powerless to affect it.

He thought of all the girls as his victims, whether he worked on them or not. Lucky victims, most of them, cause he was good, very very good at sex and they always got more than they had ever dreamed of They were always sated when he finished, he saw to that-he kept working until they were, and he was as generous as he was patient. While they were doing it, he had thoughts only for them I and they sensed it, responded to it, and finally surrendered to it.

And if they didn't, there was something wrong with them, it was not his problem, he was certain of that. Some women were just like that, so to hell with them. Strangely enough, it was not necessarily the ones who didn't respond that he killed. There did not seem to be any pattern to his choices. He had given it a deal of thought, trying to figure out what the victim might have done to trigger his response, but he could never find any consistent cause.

Sometimes he thought of himself as a wolf or a lion. some strong and wily carnivore that selected its prey out of the herd from among the weak, the lame, the very young, but that model wasn't right, he didn't work that way in picking the ones he killed. But then he didn't do the picking, that was the key. It was not his needs that made him do it, it was the mania. The mania operated on its own timetable, in accordance with its own hungers.

He thought of the mania as something apart from himself, but he did not disapprove of it, he did not resent it. Far from it. Despite the danger and complications, it was welcome when it arrived and he always felt bereft and depressed when it was gone.

His current victim was named Inge, a young German girl working as an all pair in Clamden for the summer. Summer was a great time to find victims, they came from abroad and they came from the great Midwest to be mother's helpers. They were young, eager, innocent, and lonely, frequently away from home for the first time, disappointed at the dreary and confining routine of cleaning house and acting as baby-sitter, seeking the excitement and sophistication they had expected to find in far-off Connecticut. They were all rebellious in the first place, or they would not have come. And they were dumber than older women; he could had never heard before, sincerity was tell them lies they not so important, they had never seen it anyway and didn't know how to recognize it. It astounded him the things he could say to them, the things they would believe. He usually had no problems other than overcoming their initial resistance to his age. Many of them liked the idea of an older man anyway, and once he had talked to them for a few moments, they saw the sensitive, loving, patient, troubled man within.

Or that's what they thought they saw. What they did not see, because they were blinded by the mirrors of his art, was the wolf that sat in the dark corner, grinning, salivating, laughing softly to himself.

Inge was a groaner, and he rewarded her by taking even longer than usual. The silent ones were difficult, there was too much guesswork involved when they provided no allditory feedback. It was much better for all concerned when he knew how things were progressing, what worked and what didn't, what she liked and what she liked even better. Some of them told him directly what to do, and of course he did it, but there was always an air of command to such a direct approach. He didn't like to be told what to do, he preferred to discover it, to improvise as he went alongand of course, the victim benefited from such an arrangement as well, because he could come up with combinations and approaches that she'd never known before. And sometimes things that he'd never done before. There was art to sex as well as craft, and the permutations were limited only by the imagination.

He continued tugging at her breast with his mouth and she moaned, in her slightly accented English, "You are making me crazy. Oh, you, you." He grinned to himself without removing his mouth from his work. Sliding his hand slowly from the other breast to her legs, he toyed first with her inner thighs, teasing the tender skin until she was arching to meet his hand with her pelvis. When he caressed her tenderly between her legs she writhed and moaned even louder.

Oh, you make me crazy," she gasped. "What you are doing to me? You make me crazy."

Inge was practically bowling now, He wondered if that was the European influence. American girls of her age were usually too inhibited to enjoy themselves so obviously. They went at it, he often suspected, because they thought they were supposed to, not because they allowed themselves to truly delight in the experience.

When he entered her at last, she cried out, then buried her teeth in his shoulder. He pulled away.

"No marks," he said sternly. He had to go home to his wife after this and he couldn't come in spotted with bruises and discolorations as if he'd just been in a fight. She was suspicious enough as it was.

Inge paused slightly at the rebuke, so he withdrew himself partway and lingered there at the very opening, teasing her with it. She went into a series of gasps as if hyperventilating, and when he plunged into her she gave a shuddering sigh. He held still then and took her head in his hand.

"Oh, baby," he whispered, and felt her shake all over in response to the endearment, the clutch of her head, the fingers in her hair. It was amazing what they fell for, what simple tricks they mistook for passion, what passed for affection with them.

He heard the step in the hallway outside the door and stopped moving again, waiting to listen. Before the scratch on the door he put his hand over Inge's mouth. The scratch came again, louder, not quite a knock.

"Inge?" a woman's voice called. Inge's eyes bulged with fear but Captain Luv grinned broadly down at her. Some real fun, he thought.

"Are you all right, dear?" Inge squirmed beneath him, trying to get free, her eyes frantic. She had smuggled him into the house in the dark of night, certain that she would be safe in her own room after the mistress went to bed.

"Are you all right?" the voice insisted. "I heard you giviining, are you sick?… Are you having a nightmare?"

She's having Cap'n Luuuvvv, he thought. How about you? He withdrew from Inge and stepped unhurriedly toward the closet. He would not be caught, he knew that, he had never been caught and he never would. He was too controlled, too cool in a crisis. Even when the mania was upon him, he never got stupid. A wolf did not become frightened or flustered when trouble arose. It became even more of a wolf. Captain Luv was never more himself than when others would be panicked.

"May I come in, dear?" the woman asked, but she was already in the room, the light from the hall casting its beam on Inge, who lay, flustered, on the bed.

With the door still ajar, Captain Luv nestled in the darkness of the closet, holding his clothes, his shoes, his socks. There was no trace of him left behind except for the high flush on Inge's face. He was never careless, always meticulous in the cleanup. Like a shadow, he thought, I am come and gone, leaving nothing behind. No proof, no evidence, not even a suggestion. Neatness in the workplace, he thought. The woman stood next to the closet-he could see her through the crack in the door, the hall light haloed around her head. I know you, he thought happily.

She was a woman in her thirties, a young mother of two. Quite pretty, not that that mattered to Captain Luv; he was an indiscriminate lover, offering his services to the comely and plain alike. He could see her breasts through the skimpy material of her summer nightgown.

Perhaps he would seduce her another time, he thought, chuckling to himself. That would be good, that would be perfect. Only a mother-daughter combination would be better. But he had done that, of course. He would find an excuse to run into her next week and start a conversation. It frequently took little more than that. Just give them some attention.

The mother was trying to comfort Inge, who had inexplicably burst into tears, muttering some incomprehensible nonsense about a nightmare.

Captain Luv could imagine the mother sitting on the bed next to Inge, who would have the sheet pulled up over her nakedness. The mother would put her bare arm around Inge's uncovered shoulders, flesh to flesh, lean her pretty head against the all pair's. Her breast would be pressed against Inge's side. He thought of stepping out of the closet and presenting himself, buck naked, suggesting a threesome. He had to stifle his sniggers at the thought.

Again, he heard the footsteps before anyone else. A heavy tread in the hall, and then a man was in the room.

"She had a nightmare," the woman said.

"Uh," the man grunted. He was wearing only pajama bottoms, his arms crossed over his broad and hairy chest. Standing in the gap of the open closet door, filling the gap with his size, he ran a hand through his rumpled hair. "Pretty loud."

The man cast his eyes around the room. Looking for me, thought Captain Luv. Quite right, too. Can't have young Inge fucking while the kiddies lie asleep next door. A young husband and father should be suspicious, there was an awful lot of sex around these days. Probably not with your wife though, eh? Probably not nearly often enough with the good lady, but not to worry, Captain Luv will take care of that. Please the lady and relieve you of the duty.

The husband turned and looked directly at the closet door. Captain Luv held himself very still, but did not take his eyes off the man. Despite Inge's residual sniffling and the comforting noises of the wife, the room seemed to have gone deadly still. For Captain Luv, time seemed to have slowed down and focused itself sharply on the husband and himself.

He was aware of an itch in the back of his knee, he was aware of the way Inge's clothes felt against his skin, aware even of the vanishingly faint metallic odor of the clothes hanger an inch in front of his nose.

As he watched the husband, who seemed to be in suspended animation, Captain Luv was aware, too, of the beating of his heart. Where others' would be racing with fear and adrenaline, his had actually slowed and a kind of calm that had nothing to do with serenity had come over him. He loved danger, not with excitement but with acceptance, as if it were his natural state, as if he were a bird that had been returned to the medium of the air after a life underground. He knew exactly what to do in crisis, exactly how to behave.

The husband stepped toward the closet, each movement as clear and distinct as if illuminated by a strobe light. It seemed to Captain Luv to take forever, and he watched with amusement to see what the man would do next. Would he hurl open the closet door, thrust the clothing aside, and grab the good Captain? Would he go for a baseball bat, a knife, a gun? Would he see the Captain, recognize him, scream for the cops, make Inge's indiscretion public and ruin the Captain's career? Captain Luv continued to grin. He would get out of it, whatever happened, he would get out scotfree. He believed in himself, in his invulnerability. He knew it.

The man put his hand to the closet door and pushed it closed, sealing Captain Luv into the blackness with a gesture of obsessive orderliness.

Luv wanted to laugh and he put Inge's blouse in his mouth to keep himself quiet. Chewing the taste of cotton, he put his hand on himself and felt his erection. It was even larger than before, threatening to burst the condom with its swelling. He did it for this, he realized.

All the tiresome seduction, the slipping around, the risks, the inconvenience, the going without sleep, he did it all not for the sex.

He did it to get away with it. It was fooling everyone that he loved.

He fooled the victims, he fooled the cuckolded boyfriends and husbands, the disapproving parents. He fooled his wife. He wondered if it would be nearly as much fun if he weren't married.

When the husband and wife had gone Captain Luv came out of the closet to find Inge in a state.

"You must go," she whispered fiercely. "You must go. "

"Can't go yet," he said, grinning at her. "They'll hear me.

"You cannot stay, you cannot stay. It is very dangerous now, you see."

She stood in front of him, gesticulating. Luv, still grinning, pointed at his erection.

"No, no, impossible now," she said, shaking her head.

"Not impossible." He grinned. "It just looks that way. You managed it before."

"No, no," said Inge, looking past him toward the door as if the wife might reappear at any second. "You do not understand. "

"You do not understand," he said, mocking her accent. "Ve shall resume."

He turned her around and took her from behind, bending her over the bed.

She resisted briefly, but without conviction. He took his time, still making sure to please her because a craftsman takes pride in his work, and by the end she was moaning vigorously again, but this time with a pillow stuffed in her mouth.

As his own climax approached he waited to see if the mania would seize him, waited for the great gasping need to possess him and demand her death. He thought that it might, he thought it was due, but the mania didn't arrive, so he let her live. For now.

Luv made a great show of his orgasm, panting hoarsely as it arrived, clutching her to him, then quivering wildly, as if being thrown about by his passion. He knew the victims liked a big display, it made them feel powerful to think they had him, at least temporarily, under their control, to think that something about themselves had brought him to this shivering, spasming end.

"Incredible," he whispered, when he could speak at last. "You were incredible." He would have preferred to utter his victim's name at the end for the personal touch, but experience had taught him that he sometimes got it wrong and more frequently couldn't remember it at all.

Still later that night, safe in his own home, he would make an entry in his secret journal, recording one more victim in a list that numbered 127. When he slid quietly into his bed, his wife stiffed and mumbled.

"How did it go tonight?" she asked sleepily. "Fine," he said, returning to his real self, no longer Captain Luv, leaving that persona between the sheets of some other bed. "Just fine."