Stockholm Syndrome? - Chapter 12: Chapter 12

I didn't normally dream. That night was different. I didn't know if being intimate with the boy was in my subconscious or if it had been the result of what transpired that night, but I found myself dreaming of him moaning my name. It was a dream to be embarrassed about yet it was something I didn't want to end. We almost reached new heights together until I felt myself being drawn to the present.
I spontaneously awoke and for a few seconds I cursed my body for inadvertently betraying me. I'd been so close to intense pleasure I had never felt. Down below underneath my sheets, something was standing ramrod straight. I almost grinned but I realized something else.
The boy wasn't on the bed.
I could recall our night of passion, every stroke and every explosion. I could see his eyes in my mind's eye. I just couldn't see him in the room.
I pushed the sheets away quickly, cursing myself for letting my weakness get the better of me. In a moment of desire that I couldn't even begin to describe, I had let my guard down. It was the first time I had experienced desire of that sort but I should have known better. The boy was my captive after all.
I shouldn't have been swayed by his soft porcelain skin or the eyes that held no secrets. I shouldn't have gotten to know how tight he was or his soft moans of pleasure.
I put on my boxers and raced to the kitchen which was nearer to the main door. If the boy was trying to escape he'd be there. There was a secret passageway just behind one of the walls in the master bathroom, but I doubted he had located it. The passage was one of the additions I had made to the house. It allowed me to escape if someone came looking for me and somehow gained entrance into the house.
I walked into the kitchen to a sight I didn't expect to see. The boy was slaving over a stove while humming a song. He was fully clothed. He didn't look like someone trying to escape.
I leaned on the kitchen entrance wall.
"What are you doing?" I enquired firmly, raising a brow.
I caught him off guard because he jumped slightly. He turned to me.
"God your voice is scary", he said and moved a little to the side of the stove. I could see a frying pan there.
"I'm making breakfast", he said simply. "If I'm on death row I deserve to eat something I at least like. Death-row inmates get offered a special meal of their choice on the last day, you know".
I raised a brow, finding him making breakfast in my kitchen made me question his sanity. Most kidnapped people would have been looking for ways to escape or something to threaten me with, not ways to please their palates. I doubted even food addicts would simply 'make breakfast'.
"Most people would be finding ways to escape", I mentioned dryly.
"Believe me I tried. I couldn't come up with a password beyond "psycho" and "maniac". Even "shitface" didn't work", he said.
"Phone?" I asked pointing to the telephone just next to the stove.
"Are you deliberately trying to annoy me? You know very well even your phone has a passcode. I nearly broke the damn thing! And of course looking for my phone or yours yielded nothing", he said.
I shrugged with a grin on my face. "What are you making?"
"Pancakes", he said.
"With what?" I asked. I couldn't remember buying anything that would make a pancake.
"You'd be surprised what you have in here", he said. "And yes, I checked the expiry dates".
"You know, according to William S. Burroughs; nobody owns life, but anyone who can pick up a frying pan owns death", I said.
"I'll hit you with it once I'm done eating", he grumbled without looking at me.
"Just don't kill me, because you'll be trapped here. After several attempts on the security computer, my house will go into lockdown mode. And as you've probably noticed, there's not much to eat here. You'll end up eating your own toes", I said.
He snorted and turned to me. "So you are my knight in shining armor now?"
"Maybe"
"Considering that you put me in this situation, I think you're a jackass and a lunatic. Now that we've got feelings out of the way, how on earth did you manage to live here?"
"I have a job", I said shrugging.
"Doing what?" he asked in a tone that suggested he didn't believe I did anything besides kidnap teenage boys.
"Art", I said simply.
His eyes lit up. I knew he liked art and photography. "You paint? Those paintings I saw, you did those?" he asked as he set a fresh pancake on a plate that already had 3.
"I don't paint", I said.
"Oh. Disappointing", he said.
"What? Were you hoping to glance into my soul through my paintings?" I asked with a smile lurking.
"You have a soul? I always just assumed there was nothing but a dark abyss in there", he said.
I chuckled. "I'm an art dealer. I buy and sell paintings, sculptures et cetera", I said.
I could tell he was trying not to seem interested. He was failing miserably.
"Business or art?" he asked turning his attention to the pancakes to try and hide his interest.
"Both. I don't sell everything I buy. Some pieces appeal to me", I replied.
"Are you a big shot in the art world?" he asked.
"You could say that. I try to stay under the radar. But I've sold more pieces than I've cared to count. People say I have an eye for art and the same eye for business", I said crossing my arms. I was still leaning against the wall.
The boy peered at me and quickly turned his head. It was then I realized his interest in my work wasn't the only thing he was trying to hide. I was practically half-naked. He couldn't get himself to actually look at me without his eyes travelling to my abdomen.
"I should be cuffing you right now, but I won't. I'm going to get dressed. If you try something stupid I will return you to the basement", I said.
"With that attitude, I'll eat all of these pancakes by myself", he said as I left him in the kitchen.
It was a short journey to my bedroom, but it was laden with a lot of thoughts. My thought process focused on one thing in particular; what happened between the boy and me the previous night and how he was reacting.
I didn't want to overanalyze things, but there was no denying the way I had felt being intimate with him. My desire for sex was usually unabashed carnal desire. There were no feelings involved or anything beyond my own satisfaction. With the boy it was different in both respects. I didn't just desire his body; I desired his mind, his soul and the way he made me feel. Yes, I felt something. I felt the drive to connect with him on an intimate level, to hear not only his moans but his thoughts too. It was ecstasy cut with the finest neurotransmitters that was flooding my body at that moment. Like the drug, it was just as dangerous.
My need to satisfy him, to drive him to the depths of pure pleasure was part of everything I had stood against. Yet seeing him with a smile lurking behind his closed lips and his eyes closed had made me feel good, happy even. It was beyond something I had experienced ever since I locked my heart away years ago.
The boy seemed unfazed by what happened. He was back to his usual self. It was something I appreciated, but his lack of reaction bothered me. I didn't know what I expected him to do or say, I just expected something.
In my room I thought about his outburst, the thing that had instigated us sleeping together. He'd said mom was a coward, that she chose to leave.
The more I thought about it, the more I was thinking that what I was doing was ridiculous. I was holding a boy against his will so I could punish his mother for having an affair with my dad, which had resulted in my mom's suicide. It had made sense at the time I constructed my revenge plan. She deserved to suffer, I had always thought. The one thing that meant a lot to her was her son; why not take that away from her?
It wasn't going to bring my mom back. If I killed the boy nothing would change. His mom would someday heal and I would be left with guilt and innocent blood on my hands.
I had blamed him mom for my mom's suicide, but in part I blamed myself. I didn't see the signs. I was caught up in my own anger about dad that I left home more. I spent all my time angry and mom spent her time depressed. I should have known that she was unstable, that she had reached her breaking point. Instead I was oblivious to anything but my anger.
The boy's mother didn't take mom away from me. Correlation does not imply causation. She pushed the first domino, but mom could have gotten out before the depression consumed her. She didn't.
I put on some clothes as an effort to try and distract myself from my thoughts. I was headed towards a dangerous path and the discovery of something I didn't want to face.
I went back to the boy, who was sitting in the living area and eating. He'd placed a plate of 4 pancakes and a glass of juice on the glass table, presumably for me.
I walked into his view.
"There are placemats you know", I said as I took a seat next to him.
"I'm sorry, I was getting used to eating like an uncivilized person. It's what being locked up and fed stale beans does to you", he said.
I grabbed my food. The pancakes smelled divine.
"Thanks", I said.
"Don't sweat it. It was the least I could do after you punched me in the face", he said not even looking at me.
I turned his face to me nonetheless. A bruise had formed near his cheekbone. The swelling was mild. A little scab was forming on his cut lip.
"Seriously, you can't just grab my face like that!" he said.
I let him go slowly. "I'm sorry about last night", I said quietly.
He put his fork down. "From the way you looked at my face I wondered if you weren't sleepwalking when you hit me", he said.
"I don't sleepwalk", I said.
For a minute we focused on our food. The boy made delicious fluffy pancakes. He'd put some syrup that I didn't even know I had. As I ate I wondered why I didn't just keep him as my cook. If he made anything else as delicious as the pancakes I would have to seriously consider that. I smiled at my thoughts.
"You are smiling, that's good. Maybe you won't punch me for what I'm going to say. I am sorry for what I said about your mom. It was uncalled for and is not a true representation of how I feel", he said.
I didn't say anything.
"Look, I don't think she's a coward and that she chose to leave you. I was angry", he said.
"I think she is and did", I said quietly.
It was the path I had been trying to avoid but now I had entered it. I no longer blamed the boy's mom for my mom's suicide so there was only one person to blame. Marianna de la Cruz chose to leave her 10 year old son. I had to raise myself while living with uncles who didn't care about me. My childhood was marred with hard labor until I ran away.
"Oh", the boy said quietly. He seemed stunned.
I focused on my plate.
"Hey um..." the boy said. He seemed reluctant to talk, but decided to. "I've never had someone close to me commit suicide, but I have a mom that didn't want me. Strangely I think this is different even though it sounds similar. I think your mom loved you. I think that maybe she got overwhelmed by the situation. Maybe she blamed herself and got into a habit of cognitive destruction", he said.
I just nodded.
"How was your mom before the suicide?" he asked.
Some silence rained before I said, "She was great. She was loving and proud of me. She always wanted me by her side".
"Remember that person. I've been here long enough to know something is someone's fault with you. But maybe it's no one's fault this time", he said.
I sighed and just looked at my plate.
"So why is your house so...nuclear lab-like?" he asked. His voice was cheerful, deliberately trying to dispel the gloomy silence around us. He didn't know he was opening a can of worms. "Don't tell me you did all of these for me. I'd be flattered".
"I'm a contract killer, a hitman if you want to call it that. Was actually", I said casually. There was nothing casual about what I had said. There was nothing simple about laying it all out there for the boy either. Some feeling was driving me to be foolish. I could only think of one feeling.
His jaw hit the floor.
"You could say something", I suggested.
"What the fuck?! You kill people for money?!"
"Killed", I corrected.
"It makes no difference you shithead!"
"You were pissed when the newslady called Len your boyfriend", I reminded him.
"Fuck you! This is freaking serious! How many people have you killed?" he shouted standing up.
"I didn't count", I said shrugging.
"You are screwed up, you know that? You are the most screwed up person I have ever met in my life!"
"Sit", I ordered.
"No!"
"Fucking sit or I will make you, and I don't think you want your teeth out of your mouth", I warned.
He fell onto the couch, further from me than he'd been.
"It's not something I'm proud of. I can't even excuse it. But it wasn't about the money. I was hired to kill people and I did that. I always thought it was just a job, but guess what? I killed murderers", I said.
I stood up and went to get a small case near the TV. I returned with it to the couch and proceeded to take out pictures out of it.
"James Harvey", I said and threw a picture to the boy's lap. "Was embezzling money from the company he was the CEO of. Killed the accountant that tried to expose him along with the accountant's girlfriend"
"Glen Collie", I said and another picture flew. "Druglord's son, ordered the murder of an innocent man and his whole family for their land".
"Fransesca Simeone" I said and threw a picture. The boy didn't even bother trying to catch it. "Killed a prostitute who threatened to expose her brothel for child trafficking"
"Martin Smith, raped a young gay boy and beat him to death", I said. I didn't throw him the picture this time.
"You know what these people have in common? They are powerful, all of them. Some even have ties to the police. No one was going to do shit about it, but I did. An eye for an eye makes the world blind? Well it's not like those people were making the world any better", I said.
"What about the people who hired and paid you? Don't they deserve to die?" he asked.
"They do. They certainly do. Would you like to grab a gun and shoot me?" I said.
His face displayed confusion. "You aren't making sense".
I looked at the innocence in his face. He was pretty and god knew if anything happened to him I wouldn't hesitate to commit murder.
"I hired myself", I confessed.
"What? How? How was that even possible?"
"It was possible because I tried not to put my feelings into "work". It was work. It had to be separate from me. And so I sent myself requests and paid myself. Archer you won't understand. I knew what I was doing was wrong and so I created a persona, someone fearless who would do the job. Seth Hurst, Axel Haynes...someone without a conscience", I said.
"I'm starting to think you have dissociative identity disorder", he said.
"Someone with DID doesn't know the existence of their other personalities. I took on identities willingly", I said.
"So who the fuck is this? Who am I talking to? Who did I sleep with?" he yelled. He was almost pleading.
"Felix", I said clearly. "I've been Felix the entire time. This wasn't a job", I said.
He didn't say anything. His hands were crossed. He was biting his lip, trying not to lash out.
"I don't expect you to tell me what I did was right or understand. I don't even want you to. I know how you feel about it and I feel the same way too. I was so angry at your mom I didn't think people could change. I wanted to get rid of all the scum in the world I didn't stop to think that I was acting a lot like them. It's why I decided to stop. It's why I..."
The telephone in the kitchen caught us off guard. Its tone cut through the room. The boy looked up, I didn't.
"You are just going to let it ring?" he asked.
"Yes", I gave him a curt answer.
The phone rang until the answering machine kicked in.
Hi. Not in. Leave a message.
"Hi Seth, Ricky here. So you haven't called me the last couple of days. Your cell phone is switched off. Have you gone somewhere? I hope not because I miss having that machine of yours in my mouth, never mind in me. Oh...so sexy! Damn, I'm touching myself just remembering your delicious body. Call me soon. I have something special for you that you won't be able to resist".
I groaned and cursed with every cell I had. I only did it internally though. I should have just answered the phone. I didn't expect the psycho hooker to be the one calling me.
"TMI. Girlfriend?" the boy asked.
"No, and that's a guy", I said.
"Well your boyfriend sounds like a girl", he said and stood up. "If you want me I'll be in the dungeon you call a basement chaining myself up".
He stormed off, huffing as he walked. He'd even left a pancake in his plate. I sighed and put my head in my hands. For a second I wondered why I had reverted to Felix. It was bringing me more trouble than it was worth.
I sighed. It was worth the trouble. I'd gone for so long convincing myself that I was delivering justice that it didn't work anymore. There was no justice. It potentially made people safer, but at the cost of my soul?
I removed a phone from my jean pocket. It was a different phone from the one I'd given Archer to call his mom. It wasn't even registered to me.
I made the phone call that would change my life. I confessed to something. No one could tie me to the murders and any confession would be seen as obstruction to justice. There was something I could confess to and I had the proof somewhere in my house.
The police said they were on the way after I'd given him the address. Living at the secluded part of town meant they would take a while to get there.
I had just hung up when Archer marched himself into the room.
"I forgot my pancake", and "oh, the door is locked", he said in a bored monotone.
"You don't have to go back there. The police are on their way. I told them you are here", I said. My voice was grim even though I tried not to show how I was feeling.
"You called them?" he asked quickly.
I nodded. "You'll see your mom soon". I tried smiling but it came out crooked.
"What about you?" he asked eagerly.
"Prison of course. I won't get the same amount of years as murder, but it'll be something, right? Trying to convince them of murders many of which were ruled natural deaths won't work. Archer, I don't want to kill you, not anymore. I don't want to hurt you. I screwed up in the worst possible way and I'm sorry. I'm sorry", I said.
He looked straight into my eyes for quite some time. I couldn't tell how long. I was just mesmerized by his eyes. There was no anger. He was leaning on the kitchen counter and I had an urge to just touch him
"You are definitely screwed up", he said slowly. "You are fucking screwed up, more human than I thought you were and just as foolish!" he yelled.
"I'm trying!" I yelled back. I was almost pleading.
"I don't want you to try stupid. I want you to let me go, right now. Let me walk. Open the door and just let me walk. I'll walk faster. I'll run even..."
"Archer", I said quietly. I was confused and didn't even know how to tell him to explain.
"I don't want you to go to jail. It makes me just as screwed up as you, but I don't want you to go there. Okay? If you let me walk no one will know I was here. They won't know you exist", he said.
"You want to...protect me?" I said, uncertain. It was dawning on me just what he was saying.
"Yes! I don't know why I would want to protect someone who fed me beans but I do", he said.
"You don't have..." I said and he interrupted.
"I want to. It's the most ridiculous decision I have ever taken in my life, but I want to. Now stop talking, the police will get here", he said.
"Okay okay. You can take a car, one not registered to me. You can leave it anywhere. I'll remove traces of your presence here", I said standing up.
I was about to walk past him when he pulled me to him by the waist. He planted a short kiss on my lips before pulling back. My instinct was to claim his lips back. The beautiful taste of his mouth wasn't a once-off.
He pulled back and looked into my eyes. "I want you to promise me something Felix".
It was surreal to hear my name being said by someone else. It sounded beautiful coming from him.
"Anything", I said.
"I want you to promise that you won't kill anyone, ever. No murders, no kidnappings", he said.
I looked in his eyes when I said, "I promise". I knew I meant it.
I wanted to continue kissing him but time wasn't on our side. I had to physically get him out of the house and remove any traces of him.
I went to go get his phone after his request and walked him to the garage. We picked a car. We said our short goodbyes. I couldn't tell if it was as hard for him as it was for me. He had a poker face on, even after I kissed him lightly on the cheek. He got into the car and I opened the garage for him. Soon he was speeding down the road.
I returned to the house and settled on the task of removing traces of him and coming up with an excuse about the phone call. There was only one thing to do, pretend it wasn't me. I could get charged with perverting the course of justice and wasting state resources or something similar. It was obviously a minor offence than kidnapping.
I was still surprised by the boy's decision. I had been ready to confess and serve time, but he didn't think it was a good idea. He –who was my prisoner – didn't think it was a good idea turning myself in. I had deprived him of a week with his family and friends, yet he was protecting me. It was as bizarre as it was wonderful.
When I walked into my bedroom I was reminded of the night of passion with the...Archer. I couldn't call him the boy anymore. I knew his mind and his passion. I knew his soft spots and moans.
"Archer", I whispered to myself.
And then I made one of the hardest decisions of my life. If what we tried to pull off was successful, I was going to disappear from the town. I had enough money to start over somewhere else. I wasn't going to stalk Archer or risk seeing him again. His life was fine without me in it.
Leaving my Fort Knox house wasn't ideal. I wasn't in danger from "people who hired me" but I'd killed powerful people who had connections. Someone was bound to come looking for me.