fluids, depending upon the shameless useless organs associated with
urination, sex was an unspeakable repulsive act. Other people’s
fascination with it only proved to Candy that men and women were members
of a fallen humanity and that the world was a cesspool of sin and
madness Either because she believed his pledge not to kill her cause she
was now half-paralyzed with fear, she stopped resisting. Maybe she just
needed all of her energy to breath with Candy’s full weight-two hundred
and twenty pounds pressing on her chest, restricting her lungs. Against
his hand with which he clamped her mouth shut, he could feel her
inhalations as her nostrils flared, followed by short, hot exhalations.
His vision had continued to adapt to the poor light.
though he still could not make out the details of her face, he could see
her eyes shining darkly in the gloom, glistening terror. He could also
see that she was a blonde; her pale caught even the dull gray glow from
the windows and with burnished-silver highlights.
With his free hand, he gently pushed her hair back from the right side
of her neck. He shifted his position slightly, moved down on her in
order to bring his lips to her throat. He kissed the tender flesh, felt
the strong throb of her pulse against his lips, then bit deep and found
the blood.
She bucked and thrashed beneath him, but he held her down and held her
fast, and she could not dislodge his greedy mouth from the wound he had
made. He swallowed rapidly but could not consume the thick, sweet fluid
as fast as it was offered. Soon, however, the flow diminished. The
girl’s convulsions became less violent, as well, then faded altogether,
until she was as still beneath him as if she had been nothing more than
a tangled mound of bedclothes.
He rose from her and switched on the bedside lamp just long enough to
see her face. He always wanted to see their faces, after their
sacrifices if not before. He also liked to look into their eyes, which
seemed not sightless but gifted with a vision of the far place to which
their souls had gone. He did not entirely understand his curiosity.
After all, when he ate a steak, he did not wonder what the cow had
looked like. This girl and each of the others on whom he’d fed-should
have been nothing more than one of the cattle to him. Once, in a dream,
when he had finished drinking from a ravaged throat, his victim,
although dead, had spoken to him, asking him why he wanted to look upon
her in death. When he had said that he didn’t know the answer to her
question, she had suggested that perhaps, on those occasions when he had
killed in the dark, he later needed to see his victims’ faces because,
in some unlit corner of his heart, he half expected to find his own face
looking up at him, ice-white and dead-eyed.
“Deep down,” the dream-victim had said, “you know that you’re already
dead yourself, burnt out inside. You realize that you have far more in
common with your victims after you’ve killed them than before.”
Those words, though spoken only in a dream, and though amounting to the
purest nonsense, had nevertheless brought him awake with a sharp cry. He
was alive, not dead, powerful and vital, a man with appetites as strong
as they were unusual. The dream-victim’s words stayed with him over the
years, and when they echoed through his memory at times like this, they
made him anxious. Now, as always, he refused to dwell on them. He
turned his attention, instead, to the girl on the bed.
She appeared to be about fourteen, quite pretty. Captivated by her
flawless complexion, he wondered if her skin would feel as perfect as it
looked, as smooth as porcelain, if he dared to stroke it with his
fingertips. Her lips were slightly parted, as if they had been gently
prised open by her spirit was it departed wonderfully blue, clear eyes
seemed enormous, big for her face-and as wide as a winter sky.
He would have liked to gaze upon her for hours. Letting a sigh of