did ever other time.
He’s a good friend, and I know he means well. He's also the only man whose come close to being a lot more than a friend, and I know that he can see the fears I'm trying to outrun right now.
I just . . . feel like I’m losing something if I let anyone control me. I’ve seen the bruises and wounds on the women the Creeper has killed. They are restrained. They are injured over a period of weeks or days. I don’t know if it’s breaking them that makes him kill them finally or what. I am not an investigator. The dead are my priority, not the pursuit of the living. But I can tell he wants control.
The Creeper is determined to pull me into his perversion, but cowering would give him power.
That isn’t a path I’m willing to take.
Despite that, I’m not so foolish as to spend my evening aimlessly walking around in public. I let myself into my more-or-less boyfriend’s building, walk to the third floor, and use the key Andrew gave me last year. I sent him a text a half hour ago. He didn’t reply, but he never travels more than an hour or two from home, so if he’s not here right now, he will be soon.
He’s not the sort of man who would ask me to cower—or to submit to anything. He doesn’t try to take control of my life or freedom. It’s why he’s in my life at all.
He won’t call me out on the way I test myself. He’d understand that I needed to get out of the house. I needed to know that I wasn’t crippled by the fears that I couldn’t quite put to rest. I don’t know how to sort through what it means that a killer has decided to notice me.
I’ve never met the Creeper, but I do know him. I know he’s right-handed. I know he’s of average build. Both were theories I shared with the Durham police because of the bruising on Christine Megroz’s body.
I see things that let me know him better than I would ever want to know anyone capable of such violence. I chose to protect the dead, to shepherd them to their rests, to ease their families’ pain.
I didn’t choose to be a detective, but a serial killer has forced me to think about motives, about his identity.
“Jules?” I hear Andrew before I see him.
Andrew is wearing a towel. I swear the man showers three times a day. I won’t say he’s overly body-conscious, but he’s definitely aware of his body in a way that’s unusual to me. I like his attention to his cleanliness and fitness most of the time, but I sometimes worry that his obsessive showering is a hint that the scent of my work lingers on my skin.
I drop my things on his sofa and close the distance. He’s a smart man, sweet in ways I appreciate. If I were a different person, I’d tell him I need to talk, but I’m here to feel alive. Andrew is handsome in the way typical of the sort of man who spends more hours exercising than in the library, but I know for a fact that those muscles actually come from riding a bike or walking everywhere. He’s an environmentalist and a part-time researcher.
He doesn’t resist when I remove his towel. He doesn't need words from me, not to tell him what I need, and not to tell him how I feel.
Andrew understands me, all the words I'm not saying, and in short order my shirt and skirt are on the floor. As lovers, we fit. He knows that sometimes the only thing that matters is feeling the world go silent. It’s not a show. It’s not about racing to orgasm. Those are perfect on other days, but the desperation that drives me when the job gets too much is different.
Skin on skin is all that matters when I feel like this, which means that being bent over the back of the sofa is exactly right. His hands roam, holding my hips then stroking up my sides.
Touch is everything.
My mind falls into that glorious place where there are no thoughts, no fears, no worries or self-consciousness. All I know is that I am safe here. I don’t need words or voice; I don’t need to see him. In these moments, I am alive as I can possibly be.
Andrew gives me a space where I can