Hannah Bronto - Lovers in paradise

"Who?" Jocelyn asked. "What other woman?"

"I told her she was pretty," Commissioner Moran went on, oblivious to the question. "She began to get nervous. She asked me to leave, but I didn't want to leave. I wanted to stay and talk some more. There was so much I wanted to say to her… so much. Then… something happened. It's funny, but I can't remember what it was. Something silly, I think. Something Effie misunderstood. Women are always doing that, you know. Misunderstanding your good and honest intentions. Anyhow, she began to scream – the stupid bitch. I told her to stop but she wouldn't. She began to scream louder… so I hit her. Not to hurt her, you understand, but just to, make her stop. Effie fell down… and her skirt went up above her waist. She had nothing on under the skirt, and she was sprawled there on that floor, with her legs wide open, and her cunt hanging out."

His voice was rising, and he realized it, and consciously softened it. He shrugged helplessly, then continued: "And then something – snapped in my head. The next thing I knew I was on the floor, between her thighs, and I was fucking her. She continued to scream and hit me, so I hit her again to make her quiet. She got very still – like those other three women did – like she used to, as if to say I was no good, that I really couldn't satisfy her." He shrugged again. "I got off of her. There would have been no purpose in remaining on top of her. She wasn't enjoying it and neither was I. I sat and thought for a long time, wondering what to do, knowing I had to do something. I realized there was only one solution: she had to die. So I killed her." He picked up the blaster again, stroking it almost sensually. "I killed her with this."

I strained against the cords. "But why did you kill the second woman? Why did you kill Shelley Charles?"

He laughed again. "You made me do that, Mal," he said. "It was your fault that I had to kill her too."

"Me? Why me?"

"It was your suspicion that the murder might have something to do with Effie knowing her killer." He nodded. "That was very perceptive of you, Mal, I have to give you that. Of course it was most unfortunate for poor Miss Charles. I didn't know her at all. I merely picked her at random, followed her to her apartment, and did what I had to do. I murdered her. She was my sacrificial goat. I killed her as a way of throwing you of the track. I reasoned that your theory would fall apart if there was another murder. And I was right: it did fall apart. We even convinced you to abandon the idea. I thought it worked out rather well… for awhile. I must have slipped up somewhere, however, or you wouldn't be here now. I bet it was that damned psychiatrist. That's where I messed up, isn't it?"

"That's right, Spens. That's where you messed up."

"Oh, well, never mind. It's not really important, is it? I mean, whatever mistakes I made will be erased shortly. None of us will leave this room alive. It's a shame really. I liked you, Mal. I really did."

"I like you, too, Spens. I still do, in my own way." My wrists were bleeding where the friction rub of the plasteel cords were chewing into my flesh. "Tell me one thing, though. What started all of this? What made you begin raping the women in the first place?"

"She did." He pointed at Jocelyn with the tip of the blaster.

"Jocelyn?" I shook my head. "I don't believe that. What does Jocelyn have to do with this?"

"Jocelyn?" For a moment he seemed confused, as if he never heard the name before. "Oh, no… not Joce – not Miss Wolfe. But someone like her. Someone very much like her."

"Is that the other woman you were talking about before?" I asked.

"Yes…"

"Who is she?"

"My mother." Commissioner Moran slumped against the edge of the dresser. "I loved her, the bitch."

"Tell me about her, Spencer," I said. The blood was running hotly down my hands, making my fingers sticky. "I want to know. I want to understand."

His eyes got misty, and he seemed to be looking far away somewhere. "She was a beautiful woman, Mal. Striking, breathtaking, exciting! She was a powerful woman, too, and forceful. Very, very demanding. She had a mind of her own, and no one told her what to think or how to act. She was a taker, Mal. Some women are like that: they take what they want from life. They don't wait or ask – they take. The bitch… the hateful bitch!"

"What did she take, Spens? What did she take from you?"

He sobbed. "She took my manhood. She took it from me… she stole it from me. I was no good after her. I had no confidence left. I couldn't believe in myself as a man. She made me… impotent."

"Tell us about it, Spencer," I urged softly. "Tell us. We want to hear about it. We want to understand what she did to you."

"I was thirteen when my father died." He shook his head. "I don't remember him very much. It's almost as if he never really existed. Maybe he – no." He shook the thought off. "Anyhow, he died. My mother took his death very badly. Somehow in her mind I took his place. Me, a boy of thirteen. She depended on me, she leaned on me, she called me her 'little man'. God, I hated that term: her little man… Anyway, soon after my father's death I was sleeping with my mother, satisfying her insatiable sexual desires. I matured very early, probably because of her help, and I learned all about sex from her. I did everything to her, and she did everything back to me. To me: her son. A boy of thirteen. I loved her… I loved her desperately, until…" His voice choked off.

"Until what?"

He shrugged. "She remarried. A new husband. Our relationship ended. Forever. As if it had never happened. She loved her new husband and she abandoned me. She didn't even treat me nice any more. I never forgave her for that. Never."

"And so, through these other women, you were getting back at her," I suggested.

"Yes… yes! That's what I was doing. I was punishing her for what she had done to me. I hated her for what she had done to me: that's why she had to be punished I punished my mother through those other women: through Effie Spade, and Miss Chan, and all the others. The punishment took the form of rape because rape was such a terrible crime in our culture… and I wanted to make her suffer! I wanted to humiliate her – the way she had humiliated me! – for what she had done to me."

He stopped and shook his head, as if that thought he had tried to push away before was somehow hanging tenaciously on. He continued: "But I got… confused. Like I did before with Miss Wolfe. I began to see my mother all over… in every woman who looked like her." He began to giggle in a silly, high-pitched titter. "That was something you never caught on to, Mal – the physical similarities between all the victims. Think about that: with the exception of the first two, probably because the pattern hadn't solidified in my own thinking yet, all the women looked alike. Even poor Miss Charles looked like her: memories of my mother." He giggled again. "In fact, if you look very closely, Mal, even Miss Wolfe rather fits into that same image, don't be think?"

I looked at Jocelyn. She shuddered visibly.

"Actually," he continued, "that was the reason I put her on the case with you, Mal. The real reason. You see, Miss Wolfe is going to be my neat victim. My next rape and murder victim."

"Oh my God…" I said softly.

"And so we have come to the end of this discussion. Once again it is time for actions to speak." He put the blaster down on the dresser again and began to undress, "I think I'll allow you to watch, Mal, and then I'll kill you. I've never had an audience."

In numbing fascination, I watched as Commissioner Moran stripped all his clothing off. He stood stark naked, except for his rimless eyeglasses, in the middle of the bedroom floor. In a final fitting irony I watched his cock rise from flaccidness to the longest and thickest erection I have ever seen in my life. I remembered the Gynecological Reports on all the women: "a cock of enormous size and thickness, used with blunted brutality." The shaft was at least ten inches long, and as thick as my wrist around. The cock of a giant on a man who would never be older than a thirteen year old boy.