Intrigue

31.12.2019

“Do you think these medicines have helped you at all?”

“No.” The answer was unhesitating.

“How do you know?” He was intrigued; and did not bother to hide it.

“It’s just a feeling I have,” replied the patient.

“Similar to the feeling you have when you kill?”

“No,” said the patient. “That’s different.”

“Why?” He bent forward, leaning his elbows on the table.

“I like to kill.” This was said matter-of-factly.

He leaned back. “Then why are you here, getting treated by me? You should be out there, plotting the death of your next victim.”

“It doesn’t work like that. I don’t plot to kill someone. That never works.”

“Then what do you do?” No patient had ever intrigued him so. It was a pity she was a psychopath and a convicted serial killer to boot. It might have worked had she had a mere dissociative identity disorder or something else that could easily be dealt with.

“I just use whatever’s handy.” She shrugged and her eyes moved from his face to his tie and back.

“Oh. That sounds like an awful lot of risk.” Now, why was he making conversation as if they were golf partners stopping for a cup of tea before another round?

She shrugged again and picked up a pencil from a stand on his desk. “If it doesn’t work, there are other ways.” She fingered its sharp tip.

“And what if there aren’t?”

“I’ll wait till there are. There always are.”

Her confidence intrigued him. He’d heard stories of her from the other prison inmates and wardens. A mastermind, they’d called her. They’d laughed in his face when he’d mentioned that he’d been asked to be her new therapist. Poor dear, one inmate had called him, shaking her head.

“If I really wanted to kill someone, there would be no lengths I wouldn’t go to.” She looked upwards and he followed her eyes. They were pinned on the chandelier right above his head.

“Alright.” He should stop before she got more ideas. “I’m going to give you a new drug. I want you to take it once everyday. And I’m still going to have you come for daily sessions. Does that sound too hard to do?”

“Not at all.” She smiled her first real smile. “But I must warn you, I like killing too much to stop. You may find me a difficult patient.”

He couldn’t stop himself from returning her smile; it was strange how compelling she was. “I am willing to take that risk.”

She rose and held out her hand. “I did warn you.”

He rose too and shook it. “Well, consider me warned.”

She moved to the door, with a fluid grace, looking for all the world, like a dancer between performances, dissatisfied with her last and anticipating her next.

He shook his head quickly. Wrong analogy to have used; it was too close to reality.

“You didn’t hear what I said, did you?” She had a slender hand on the frame of the door and was regarding him with a kind of tolerant amusement.

“No, I’m sorry.” He apologized, trying to take his eyes off her and concentrate on what she was saying.

“Well, I was saying that there aren’t any lengths I wouldn’t-“

“Yes,” he interrupted hastily, ignoring a prickle of unease in his back as he ushered her out of the room to the officer who would escort her back to her cell. “You’ve mentioned that.”

                                                                      *

They faced each other across the desk in his room, she sitting ramrod straight on her chair, he leaning his elbows on the desk.

“Killing is an art form. Like a seduction.” She ran her fingers over the seam of her faded dress.

“Really?” Funny choice of words, he thought. It was a pity she was his patient. It would definitely change things if she weren’t. And of course, if she didn’t have psychopathic tendencies.

“Yes, that’s why I found it so interesting.” She smiled at him, and took a biscuit from the plate on his desk.

“You find art interesting?” He leaned back in his chair. Though it had been more than two months since he had first met her, he was still learning new things about her. Everyday, after their sessions where he’d first induce her to talk, then hypnotize her briefly, they’d sit and have tea in his room, and he’d engage her in conversation.

At first she was reticent, and showed little enthusiasm for anything unrelated to death, murder, or injury. But slowly as he persisted, she began to open up about her interests in music, and now, art.

“Yes, I used to paint, before jail.”

“You mean before you started to kill.”

“No. Before jail.” She relaxed in her chair and looked out of the window, her eyes softening, looking like a young artist with a hint of a dream in her eyes. “I painted portraits.”

“Of people?”

“Of people, of animals. Whoever intrigued me, I painted them.”

He waited for her to say something like, “and then I killed them,” but she did not. She continued to stare out of the window as if lost in another world. As long as she wasn’t in a world where she wielded weapons and household items with intention to cause death, she could dream all she wanted.

He was proud of his progress with her. Not only had she begun to talk of her killing habits with the use of the words, “was” or “used to”; but also she stopped singling out harmless every day items like pens and paperweights and launching into an explanation about how they could be used to injure and then kill.

After his first real meeting with her, he quickly rid his office of sharp pencils, his tie, even his chandelier, and a hundred other things she could potentially get her hands on. It became easier after that, to work with her, to help her.

And he enjoyed her company. She was smart, witty, and had seen a lot of the world. She also knew at least eight languages. She had been to places even he had never seen, and answered all his questions about them, with details and anecdotes of her time there. And nothing she said during these conversations was related to murder.

He sighed under his breath. She was so lovely. And he was sick of practicing restraint. If only she weren’t his patient. And if only she was well. What he wanted may never actually happen, of course. But who could deny him the right to dream?

At that moment, she turned and smiled at him; and so beautiful was she that all thoughts of restraint and caution went out of his head and words that he had been fighting to conceal fell unbidden, from his lips.

                                                                 *                *

“Here’s to three years.” He lifted his glass briefly before taking a sip.

She smiled and said, “I thought we were celebrating you tonight? And not us?”

“Me? Why?” He sat down a little unsteadily on a pile of books on the floor, and the glass rolled down his lap to the floor, staining his favourite birthday pants. “Oops.”

She smiled as one would to a clumsy child and bent to pick up the glass. “No more drinks for you, I think.”

“Why not?” he grumbled. “I’ve hardly had any.”

“Very well, just one then.” She handed him a fresh glass.

“Thanks,” he said and reached for it.

She bent again and sat next to him, staring at him for a long moment. He was too busy gulping down his drink to notice. Then she leaned over and pressed a passionate kiss to his mouth. He responded with such enthusiasm that the book pile they were sitting on collapsed and they both rolled to the floor.

He laughed a little giddily and tried to stroke her face. It felt wet.

“You’re crying,” he said. “Why?”

“I love you,” she whispered. “That’s why.”

A few hours later, they sat by the window, she tucked into the crook of his arm, her head on his shoulder.

“This is the best birthday,” he said. “The cake you made is exquisite. I could eat it everyday.” He leaned over to cut himself another piece.

“Then you’d soon grow sick of it,” she said, taking the plate from him. “That’s enough cake now. You’ll get indigestion.”

“No, I won’t,” he said, licking the icing off the knife.

“Yes, you will,” she said, taking the knife away from him.

He sighed and leaned against her. She sat quietly for a moment, just savouring the feel of him. Then, quick as a whip, she turned and pressed the sharp side of the knife to his bare arm.

He screamed. Blood sloshed out onto the carpet, the chairs, the cake, him and her.

“Did you-?” He slumped onto her, his breathing ragged and uneven. “Did you just-?

“Yes,” her voice was as soft as the whisper of the wind.

“Why?”

“I had to.”

“But you were getting well,” he rasped, clutching his arm. “You were becoming,” he gasped for breath, “almost normal!”

“I was,” she agreed. “Frighteningly so.”

“But, you said you loved me,” his voice was growing fainter, and his grip on his arm, looser.

“I did say that,” she agreed, lifting him with surprising strength. She laid his half paralyzed body on the sofa.

“You didn’t mean it.” His fingers were turning blue.

“I did.”

“But then why did you-?”

“I did say there weren’t lengths.”  She ran the bloody tip of the knife she held up and down the side of his neck.  “But you my poor dear, wouldn’t listen.”

A solitary tear trickled down her face and dropped onto his still body.