Trembling With Fear 2/12/2023

Like Minds, by Martin Fuller

The bar is a crowded morass of the lost and lonely, filled with the ever hopeful, ever needy. She hates the thought she may be classed with the emotional dross circulating around the room. For the fifth time she glances at the printout photo of her date, reading again his brief message stating time, date, and location of their rendezvous. 

Uncertainty gnaws at her, making her unsure about this one. His interests apparently coincide with hers and he looks her type. But bitter personal experience of the dark web has taught her the path to a perfect partner is laid with dangerous traps. Its ‘special’ dating app, whilst admittedly exciting, could produce its own pitfalls.

She spots him quite suddenly, sitting at the bar nursing a drink, seemingly just gazing at the multitude of bottled spirits lining the bar wall. Her instinct forces her to appraise fully her potential date. Behind the whisky and gin bottles is a mirror. He’s checking the place out using the reflection. A careful man. An intelligent man, or a predator looking for his next meal?

‘To Hell with it,’ she thinks, and decides to initiate contact and see where the night might lead. Her hopes of surprising him are shattered as he spins round on the bar chair just as she approaches him.

‘Hi, its Samantha, right?’

She realises he’d already identified her as his date – probably as soon as she entered the bar – but had let her approach in her own way and in her own time. Hyper-alert and sympathetic to her self-sense of security. He was good. Very good.

‘Yes, call me Sam, as in Son of Sam, but not male. I’m one hundred percent feminine.’

She smiles the smile of many kills. All white teeth, bunched cheeks, and creased eyes. She knows how to disarm suspicion.

He returns the smile with one of his own and a practiced look of sincerity.

‘Wow, that’s a great mask he can wear. What’s underneath apart from bone and tissue?’ she wonders.

He buys her a drink. She reciprocates. He’s on bourbon, she’s on vermouth, but they mix together well, forming a deadly killer cocktail.

The conversation starts with small nick-nacks of casual conversation. They avoided politics, religion, and their jobs. No mention of star signs, as they both wish to avoid the word Zodiac. They need not go into their favourite colours as they somehow know blood red is closest to their hearts. Slowly a relationship evolves, growing like a blood stain on a white fur rug and a bond of like-minded people develops. The big questions are now lined up, ready to be asked.

She initiates the ground zero moment.

‘So, Michael, how long have you been… playing with people?’

The question is laid out diplomatically, yet it breaks the barrier standing between them.

‘Eight years fully, but my apprenticeship lasted two years. Fumbling bloody acts with animals then some botched attempts at abductions. It took a little time before I became inspired. Haven’t looked back since. And you?’

‘Four years fully but like you made mistakes at first. I like…poison. Slow poison if possible. It allows a chance to appreciate the..’. Her voice playfully trails off.

Michael finishes her thoughts.

 ‘The power. The exquisite joy of bringing pain and death. The knowledge of what true control feels like.’

‘Yes. Yes Michael. You think like me. And your playtime is..?’

‘Less subtle. I do enjoy the kidnapping. I’ve developed a much better strategy and now enjoy access to an isolated place uptown. Nice and quiet, a studio where I get to take my time and let my artistic streak take over. Still perfecting my skills, you see. I admit I’m a bit too bloody and I must develop my patience. You, Sam – well, you inspire me to refine my methods.’

There is a tender moment where they look into each other’s eyes. No love, of course, is kindled there. Sociopaths find love hard, but a respect and admiration have taken root.

‘Sam, would you, well if you want to I mean… like to see my latest toy. He’s like a frightened puppy, still coming to terms with his incarceration. Relatively untouched, so if you would like first dibs, well, be my guest.’

Sam smiles that crocodile grin at the appearance of fresh meat. She blesses the blackest site on the web and the true connections it has created for likeminded people. Michael is handsome, and in earnest. How could a girl say no.

‘I’d love to. Can we nip to my place first. I have some special tools I’d like to use if that’s OK?’

‘I’d be honoured’ says Michael, who in truth has decided Sam would be too good a subject not to play with and maybe keep alive for the rest of the month.

Sam, who has already spiked Michael’s drink with an incredibly painful and slow-acting poison, feels she is in heaven at her fantastic performance, but Heaven is one place which neither will ever get to see.