Love in the Time of Serial Killers

Fuck that. I'd rather be seen as a little rude than risk being taken to a second location.

The truth was that I had been alone, for a while. But it had always been the way I liked it, where i called all the shots and I was responsible only to myself. It never felt lonely. Now, suddenly it did.

I don't regret any of it... Not the last few weeks not today... I don't regret giving you my heart, Phoebe. I just wish you'd taken more care with it.

This is why I preferred to keep people at arm's length. Things got so much more complicated when you actually cared if someone sent you a text, or accepted an invitation, or wanted to hang out.

He reached up to gently pull the elastic from my hair, combing his fingers through the waves as they splayed over my shoulders. Even that massage on my scalp felt good, and I closed my eyes, swaying into him. "You're so beautiful," he murmured against my mouth, his hands still in my hair as he kissed me. This kiss was different from the ones in the pool, somehow--- slower, more exploratory, as though he had all the time in the world and he wanted to spend it with me. Meanwhile, I felt restless and pent-up and like if I didn't have him inside me right then I would explode. My insistent hands on his towel and underwear must've given him the hint, because within five seconds we were both naked and twined together on the bed, kissing and touching everywhere we could. I took the hard length of him in my hand, and he shuddered against me as I rubbed my thumb along the silky head of his cock. "Ah," he said, his voice sounding strangled. "I won't last long if you keep doing that." "What, this?" I said, and did it again. I liked seeing him this way, out of control, his eyes glittering and wild in the low light of the room. But then he turned the tables on me, flipping me over so I was pinned on my back, and he kissed his way down my throat, stopping to suck one aching nipple in his mouth, roll his tongue along the swell of my stomach before he found my clit. I bucked involuntarily, my hips grinding into him as if my body knew it needed more even before my mind did. He licked and sucked, his tongue doing wicked things inside me, until there was no way I could hold myself back even if I wanted to. I clenched at the sheets, gasping as I felt my orgasm shockwave through me.

I can see why you'd doubt relationships, and family, and love," Sam said. "It sounds like a tense way to grow up, and I'm really sorry you had to go through it. But, Phoebe, your parents were just two people. Ted Bundy and whatever his girlfriend's name was were two people. Hell, Bonnie and Clyde stayed together until the bitter end, and even they were only two people. You can't extrapolate your worldview from such a small data set.

You're sweet," I said. "Sweet on you." I groaned at the cheesiness of that line, giving him a playful swat. But the truth was that it wormed its way into my heart regardless. It made me dream, for one night at least, of something I hadn't even dared to as a young girl lying in this same bed--- that all the pink heart valentine, sappy love song stuff might be real, and be something I could have.

He ran his hands along my shoulders, the ridges of my collarbones. His fingers sank into the tense muscles of my upper back, massaging in deep, sensual circles that caused a moan to escape my mouth. "You deserve to be taken care of," he said, and then his hand was on my hip, directing me. "Here. Let me do this properly." I turned around, scooting back until I was nestled in between his thighs, and he resumed his slow ministrations, his thumbs digging into the space between my shoulder blades. "Tell me if I'm too rough," he said quietly into my ear, but I could only shake my head. It felt amazing. He ran his nails down my back, the sensation sending a delicious crackle down my spine, before calming the activated nerve endings with a rub all the way down to my lower back. His fingers hooked in the waistband of my leggings, my underwear, before tugging at the stretchy material of the leggings. "Now these," he said. "Only these." I had to stand up to comply with that command, rolling the leggings down from my hips and stepping out of them. It gave me a chance to see Sam's face, his eyes hooded, watching me. Any questions I may have had about whether this was only about my pleasure were answered in that look, and further by the hard ridge of his jeans against my ass when I took my place back between his thighs. I half expected him to touch me in a more explicit way than a massage of the shoulders, but he simply returned to the slow kneading of my back, no more improper than what you might ask a friend to do, albeit with fewer clothes. It made my body scream to be touched---- I wanted his hands everywhere, on my breasts and in my mouth and in between my legs. I ground my ass against his erection through his jeans, trying to send him a message. "Shh," Sam said against my ear, less a command to be quiet and more a soft sound of indulgence. "We have time. We have all night.

It was wild, that someone could be a complete stranger, and then just weeks later be one of the most important people in your life.

It caused a warmth to bloom in my chest, the idea that we had enough of a relationship at this point that I had things to tease him about, that he knew me well enough to know I might.

I leaned back against him, my hair splayed out across his hard chest, my head resting on his shoulder, my throat exposed. "You feel so good," he said, his breath hot on my neck. It was pornographic, the scene we made. Me with my knees up close to my chest, my legs spread, his fingers still working on me. Somehow the fact that he was still wearing his jeans, that I could only see the outline of his knuckles through the thin cotton of my underwear, only made it feel more so. But it was a vulnerable position, too, the way I was so open to him, the rasp of his voice in my ear. When I came it was so sudden it surprised me, my body clenching around his hand even as I grabbed his wrist, holding him there until the last of the aftershocks rippled through my body. Finally, his hand skated back up over me, leaving a streak of wetness on my nipple from where he'd been inside me. I watched Sam's profile from under my lashes. The way his mouth parted as he rubbed that wet nipple with his thumb, the way he bit down on his lower lip.

His hands came up to my cheeks, his mouth insistent on mine as he deepened the kiss. He had my lower lip between his teeth, giving a soft nibble while a whimper came from the back of my throat that didn't even sound like me. My nipples were tight and aching, rubbing his chest through the thin fabric of my bra. His hand slid under the fabric to cup my goosefleshed skin, his fingers rolling my nipple in a sensation so exquisite it almost hurt. "You have great boobs," he murmured against my neck. "Can I say that?" My bra was half-askew by now, one strap falling down my arm. "If my boobs are out, you're contractually obligated to say that.

These books promise closure and justice, but ultimately they reinforce the reality that so many lives are interrupted, so many dreams unfulfilled.

The pulsing heartbeat of true crime, of all human stories when you got right down to it, was we all wanted and hoped and dreamed and loved, but we had no control over what happened in the end.

Tried to picture being so sure about that one person that I wanted to legally make a promise to love them forever. Tried to forget just how little forever really meant, how little it had meant for people like our parents who maybe should've never married at all.

Maybe it just felt strange, having to acknowledge that he was a real person with a past and a present and a life beyond the little snippets I observed and pretended I could draw conclusions about.

Your dad wasn't a big talker," Sam said, his voice a rumble against my chest. "As you know. But I feel like I could tell, from the way he checked his mail, that he was super proud." I bit the inside of my cheek. "Could not." "Oh yeah," he said. "You should've seen it. He'd do this shuffle down the driveway--- it screamed that his daughter was about to become a doctor, he was obnoxious about it, to tell you the truth--- and then he'd open the mailbox and peer inside. Then he'd pull out the envelopes and start sorting them like he was reading through the paper you presented at the pop culture conference last year, the one about masculinity and monstrosity in The Shining---" I propped myself up on my elbows. "Wait, how---?" "I Googled you," Sam said. "Anyway, then he'd amble back up the driveway, his gait making it clear to the whole neighborhood that his daughter was strong and empathetic, smart and hilarious, and gorgeous.

Finally, he scraped just his knuckles along the pulsing core of me, the friction intensely erotic through the damp fabric of my underwear. My body jerked involuntarily at the touch, but then just as suddenly it was gone. He curved his hands under my ass, gripping my cheeks as he shifted me closer. I heard his sharp intake of breath at the contact, and I relished it, that sign that he was just as turned on as I was. He cupped my breasts, rolling my nipples between his fingers in a way that instantly made my breathing shallow. "I love how you fill my hands," he said. "I could just come thinking about your tits. I have come just thinking about your tits.

I glanced down. My arms were pushing my breasts together, making my cleavage look even deeper than usual. "Oh my god," I said. "My tits look amazing." "I know," Sam said. "That's my point." "They may never look this good again. Take a picture." "Don't tempt me." I slid up against his body, until I felt the hard length of him on my thigh. "We can start with the space thing in, like, twenty minutes," I said. "Forty-five?" "An hour, max." "I can work with that," he said, and grabbed my ass with both hands, pulling me on top of him.

Encounter w/ strange man June 3, approx. 2 a.m. White, 5'9", slightly scruffy, shaggy brown hair. Ripped T-shirt, jeans, no shoes. Origin and destination unknown, believed to be night wanderer. I chewed on the end of the pen, wondering if I should include any other details. It had been too dark to tell what color his eyes were. His voice had been deep, with a rasp, almost... but I couldn't write that. If my body was found in the woods behind the house, and investigators were competent enough to do a forensic analysis of this notebook, I didn't want editorializing words complicating the narrative. Words like compelling, or god forbid, sexy.

I always imagined that I'd get at least one moment when my dad would be really proud of me, and I'd be able to tell. He never would've said it - that wasn't his style - but just some moment where I knew. And now I would never have that. I hadn't realized what a different kind of grief that was- the loss of all the potential moments that would never be, not just the past moments that already were. I'd focused so hard on that past, where my relationship with my dad had been so complicated, but forgotten that I used to dream of a day when it wouldn't be that way.

Phoebe" he said, and there was something different in the way he said my name. He wasn't telling me to stop, and he wasn't telling me to go. It was more like he was telling me to stay right here, in this moment. Like there was something special about it.

I'd never admit this out loud, but sometimes I was grateful to people who were automatic huggers. It took the pressure off me to initiate anything, and it felt nice, being embraced even for a few seconds by someone you cared about. The problem was that my list of people I wanted a hug from was pretty short.

Lately it felt like my entire life was one big AITA thread and the answer was always yes, it’s me, I’m the asshole.

The entire funeral had been a blur. My dad’s death had come as a shock-he was still in his fifties, he was supposed to have plenty of time left. But the whole day had felt surreal, like I was in a dream, or in someone else’s life. I hadn’t known what to say or how to act, and so I’d just kind of shut down, retreated inside myself to the place I could always go as a kid when I needed some quiet.

I feel like I grew up afraid of so many things," I said. "There's just so much uncertainty in life, especially when you're a kid . . . you don't know why your dad is upset, or why your mom puts up with it, or whether you'll ever have a true friend you could talk to. It sounds twisted, but by the time I was a teenager, there was something almost comforting about reading about serial killers. It was like, here, be afraid of this. Focus on this. There's uncertainty, and open questions, but it'll all get wrapped up at the end. Justice will be served, the victims will be remembered, whatever. It was only when I started reading and rereading some of those books more closely that I started questioning what justice meant, or truth, or even fear.

Where do you think Barbara’s going?” Shani asked. “The crawlspace?” I suggested, and Conner and I both cracked up.

If you think about it,” I said, “she has all those outside cats and still encourages the birds to come. Pretty dark.

Already a few days in this house was inching me dangerously close to REDRUM territory.

Shit, had I used irregardless again? I’d carelessly used the word once in a five-page response in her class, and she’d double-underlined it and written NO in the margin.