Part One. Kissed Awake by A Serial Killer.

Ballads, Bestowing believable ballyhoo before brunch. A short poem by long caged serial killer of 13 - notorious USA's Kenneth Bianchi aka the Hillside Strangler.

It was morning. I must have fallen asleep again, as I woke up with hot American sunshine streaming through the hotel’s ground-floor windows. I looked at my watch; it showed it was 7 a.m. I lay on my side and gazed out the window. I had expected to feel excited when I woke but instead I just felt sick with nerves. Was I going to be afraid of meeting him? Was I going to be repelled by him? I thought of Karen Mandic and the way he had strangled her with so much fury it had cut into her flesh. I saw his beautiful victims swim across my vision one after another. I had been commissioned by Merope Mills of The Guardian. I looked at the contract ...all expenses paid and 50 pence per word.
Outside the window, the water in a turquoise swimming pool was splashing against the sides.
I squinted my eyes at the sun as it streamed into our suite and bounced off the gilt mirrors. My head was pounding unbearably from the glass of red wine I’d consumed the day before.
I walked down the corridor to the dining room and saw a buffet of hash browns, gravy, freshly made waffles with syrup, hot scrambled egg and crispy bacon alongside an urn full of hot coffee with various tiny creams with hazelnut and French vanilla; it was a good spread of American fare. I piled my plate high and went back to the suite in a jovial mood. When I got back to the suite, I laid out my food on the bed. I was just wondering what to eat first when the phone rang.
‘Hello?’
‘How are you? How was the flight?’ It was Ted Ponticelli,
Bianchi’s biographer. I had left him a message late last night on his cell phone to tell him I was in town and had given him the number of the hotel and my room.
‘I’m good, we just woke.’
‘All set to meet Ken today?’
‘Yes, I guess I am.’ I felt slightly irritated. What was this, junior journalist week? What did he want?
‘Why did you send me an email to say he didn’t want to see me?’ ‘Aw, never mind that, you’re here now. Ken gets moody is all; he’s not seen anybody bar me in 20 years. He gets suspicious and he’s not big on trust. By the by, you know you’re not meeting an infamous serial killer today?’ he drawled in his East coast accent.
I sighed. Not only was he annoying, he was patronizing.
‘Look, I’ve met IRA killers. I’ve met gangland assassins. I’m very experienced in crime writing, Mr er?’ I got his name wrong deliberately.
He ignored the hint. ‘Ken rang me this morning. He thinks that he will be pleased to see you.’
‘Great. I won’t get turned away at the gate then?’ I sounded cold and sarcastic but I was still nervous I would screw up a Guardian commission.
‘Nah, he’ll be OK!’
I put on my white glittery suit and felt anxious. I slicked on some pale pink lipstick. At half past one, I was so nervous I was pacing the floor. I felt like a drink but thought it would be risky. Then I thought again and uncorked the bottle of red wine the Hotel had comped me. It was gorgeous but I wasn’t used to drinking in the afternoon. I took two mouthfuls then, paranoid it would cloud my judgment, I poured away the rest and brushed my teeth again.
I looked with horror at my face. The room’s dehumidifier had been on all night in the bathroom and I looked about ten years older than I usually did.The room telephone rang. It was my taxi and it was Rick, the same good-looking young driver who had taken us to the hotel last night.
I felt glad to see a familiar face.
‘Sleep OK?’
‘No, awful, I think it was the jet lag.’
It was only a mile to the prison, which stood in the middle of the countryside. I noted the address 13th Avenue on a road sign. This was the address I had put on all my letters and now I was looking at a road sign saying it. The grey buildings were surrounded by high barbed wire.
Rick was talkative.
‘Lucky man that you’re going to see; you look – wow – you look great. Can I say you look hot in that suit– can I?’
‘It’s my friend Suzy’s,’ I replied as I eyed him from the side.
‘It’s beautiful? Who’s the lucky guy you’re going to see?’
I smiled at him. ‘I’m a writer working on an investigation for a British newspaper,’ I said as I fiddled with my heavy gold bracelet.
‘Oh, wow, that’s really cool.’
I bit my lower lip, praying he wouldn’t ask me again who I was going to visit.
We jumped out and Rick drove off after handing me his card so that I could ring him as soon as we came out and he could take us to a swanky restaurant in town.
I went through sliding glass doors into a sunny large reception area and up to a wide desk; the decor was all monochrome and leather. I felt safe here; it was elegant, clean and professional, like the entrance to a smart American law firm. A young guard behind the desk asked me for my name and typed it into the computer. He had on a cop-style uniform with a peaked cap and asked me who I was visiting. I gave him the name Bianchi. Without looking up, he said, ‘I can’t look up by names, Miss, number of the prisoner, please.’
I said, ‘66963’. I knew it off by heart as I had put it on top of every letter.
He called over a female guard standing nearby and said, ‘Her skirt’s too short.’
The attractive female guard in a similar uniform told me to come over to one side. As I moved behind the desk, I tugged at my Chanel skirt until it lay on my knee. She looked at the hem and said to the man. ‘It’s OK – it’s long enough.’ I smiled over at him.
The guard instructed me to go and buy a white card from the machine that would allow me to buy goods for that amount to give to the prisoner. I put in ten dollars. She patted me down and ushered me through a metal detector, where I had to take off my solid gold bracelet and put it in a little white dish with my purse that then sat waiting for me at the end of a conveyor belt after it had been X-rayed.
There was a row of lockers and I was given a small key so that I could put my purse and anything else I was carrying into one of them. The only thing allowed in the room with us was the tiny plastic white card.
Eventually all the visitors were led down a corridor to the inner waiting room, which was down a short corridor, and we found several other women waiting there, some with children.
It was sticky and hot in the room. An older woman with short grey hair and a delicate face, well dressed in a pink dress that looked like she was set for church, spoke to me.
‘I noticed that they let you off with having that miniskirt on, dear,’ she said with a smile.
I smiled back at her. ‘Oh, did they? I had to tug it down.’
‘They will make all the exceptions for you, dear, because of who you are.’
‘Who I am?’ I felt my anxiety levels shoot up.
‘Everyone knows who you are and why you’re here. You’re interviewing Ken for the English newspapers.’
The place began to fill up with more mothers and Children until there were about 30 of us. I wondered what Bianchi would be like – unpleasant – obnoxious – would I like him – get on with him – all those hours stretched ahead of me like an appointment for major surgery.
I looked at the woman. Talking to her might ease my anxiety.
‘I’m Chris!’
‘Phyllis!’
‘How do you know who I am?’
‘Everybody knows who you are, honey – get real!’
‘Really?’
‘They’ve got the red carpet rolled out for you; you can get away with anything.’
I eyed the silver cross that hung around her neck and wondered who she was visiting. I wanted to ask Phyllis a whole host of questions but I felt increasingly claustrophobic and wondered how many doors we would have to pass through to get to the visiting area.
She carried on talking to me. ‘When I visit my husband Bob, I tell Ken, boy, you get better looking every time I see you.” Ken is the dreamiest-looking man that you’re ever likely to meet. You’re in for a real treat, and he’s a real ladies man.’
I thought to myself, Well, not quite the ladies man, lady killer maybe, but I bit my tongue and glanced at Phyllis’s friendly lined face and her flowery summer dress and pink cardigan. She was a really good and kind woman – I could feel it oozing off her. What was her husband Bob in here for? How long had she been coming here and known Bianchi? I wanted to ask her but felt afraid of her answer. She thought Ken was a lady’s man. Mad. I was so glad for the many sane guards.
I ran out of time to ask her any questions, as the guards came in and we were all told to line up to get ready to go in. We were all led across a muddy yard and followed a uniformed guard with peak cap, handcuffs, chains and a wooden stick that he ran along the bars to make a noise. We went down long, wide white corridors that resembled those in a hospital. We all followed the guard into a massive hall that seemed like a picnic area in a holiday camp, done out in dark wood and light brown walls. It was packed with about 20 armed guards milling around the 20 or so tables.
I could see a bright, well-displayed Jungle Book collage in the large cordoned-off play area/crèche for children on the far side. The guards strolled around and everybody was mucking in to look after the kids who were running around nosily and watching the large TV set playing the Disney Channel non-stop. It was nothing like the grim poverty of English prisons; it was pleasant. I walked over to the senior guard.
‘You know who I’m seeing today?’
‘Yes, I sure do. We have an extra five guards on, just for you and him.’ He grinned at me.
I looked at him, unable to think of a reply, then managed to get out, ‘Is that needed?’
‘He’s probably not going to try anything this afternoon Mam.’
‘Thank you.’
I was being treated well. They knew The Guardian was a well-respected broadsheet and he assured me he would keep a close eye on me.
I saw two uniformed guards sitting at a desk in the front of the hall.
A man with a huge ledger asked me to sign in and I wrote in
Bianchi’s name as the prisoner I had come to visit. He looked back at me sternly and I knew he knew who Bianchi was.
‘Table 12 – the prisoner sits facing us. You can sit anywhere,’ he said gruffly.
I searched for table 12; it was one back from the guards’ table. I assumed they had picked this one as he was their most notorious prisoner and they wanted to watch his every move. I sat down in the chair right next to his rather than opposite, I felt that there was no point coming all this way without finding out who he really was – if that was at all possible. I was so curious to find out how many fragments of ego or personalities there would be on display here today. I didn’t know what to expect. No situation in life had prepared me for this moment apart from meeting the Monster of the Valleys all alone in his cell for so many hours. The two infamous serial killers were not alike. Ken Bianchi was a puzzle wrapped in a quandary. Was there a monster concealed within him or was it something pure evil that had used his body? I was there to find out.
We were surrounded by other tables like diners in a busy restaurant. The tables were wooden topped. The term Hollywood Strangler went around my head. My palms were sweaty. I began to feel spaced out, surreal and very, very anxious.
Suddenly the varnished wooden door in the corner opened. I held my breath. Was Bianchi going to enter the room? Things I had said in my letters went round and round my head. My demands to see the invisible Steve seemed ridiculous now. About five prisoners along with another ten guards filed into the room, the men were wearing matching beige suits. I breathed out.

A good-looking prisoner with dark hair walked up in front of me like a film star strutting onto a yacht in sparkling white gym shoes. He stood in front of me, nodding his head and smiling, and I remember thinking that he looked and exuded like De Niro in King of Comedy. I had watched him on You Tube. His appearance hadn’t changed one bit. It was uncanny. I also felt very uncomfortable. He looked too much like he did when he was younger and an active serial killer.
It bought all his crimes to the centre of my mind along with the question What are you doing here with the Hollywood Strangler? I answered myself in my head, You’re a journalist.
As I looked at the tall, looming figure that was Bianchi, he continued to stand in front of me as if waiting for me to get over the shock of seeing him in the flesh for the first time. He was handsome and had a chiseled face, dark eyes over a mouth hidden by a thick, dark 70’s style porn star moustache. I noted that he was going to be the confident one. He was tall and looked as if he had been working out; his chest was strong looking and his arms looked hefty. His hands protruded out of the prison garb – a beige shirt and pants that made him look like he was on safari.
I stood up. I had no idea what to do, so I let him lead.
He reached for me with his tanned hands and pulled me close to him in a warm bodily hug. It was a strong hug and I felt his chest press up against me tightly. He smelt of pine and wood chippings and a deeper sniff brought the scent of olive oil soap from his neck that was beside my nose. He spoke into my ear quietly.
‘Hey, how are you? Was your flight OK, Chris?’
‘Yes, thanks!’
I felt very embarrassed by his closeness and the feel of his hot breath in my ear. He was incredibly male and it oozed out of him. ‘I’m really glad you’re finally here!’
‘Great, thank you.’ I pulled away and we sat down. I still felt embarrassed.
He had pulled me so tightly to his chest I could still feel the massive heat of his body clinging onto mine. But I was glad he was going to be informal with me.
He spoke in a lazy New York drawl. ‘Did you recognize me at all,
Chris?’
I was going to ask, What from, the court room dramas I’d been watching on YouTube? He seemed to have forgotten what he was doing in prison or that he was in prison at all, and instead he seemed to be assuming the role of a film celeb I was interviewing in a top Los Angeles night spot.
‘You haven’t changed since your arrest.’
He spoke softly and leaned forward. ‘Don’t you ever be embarrassed by anything you’ve ever written to me in your letters.
Don’t you go feeling you’ve made an idiot of yourself.’ He smiled coolly.
It was too much. He was really trying to make me squirm. I wanted to say, Oh my flirting you mean? Don’t worry, it wasn’t real.
‘Oh, I’m not one bit embarrassed by my words!’ I said.
‘Great.’
I noticed that his smile looked a little frozen.
‘Did you recognize me from the photograph I sent you last year?’ I asked.
‘Yeah, of course I did. But you had long blonde hair in that picture, now it’s shorter.’ I was again reminded of De Niro when he plays a nut in King of Comedy. I had expected him to be shy but he smiled at me disarmingly and seemed over-confident, like a talk-show host. His short hair was grey, his skin olive-toned and smooth. His shirt had his number on the back of it - sewed onto a white patch.
‘I’m sorry, I should have said I’d cut my hair.’
‘No, no, that’s OK. It looks great.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Look at you sitting so close to me, Chris.’
‘Pardon?’
He indicated that we were inches apart with our knees knocking under the table.
‘Oh! Yes!’ I felt tired. What did he mean?
‘All this shit that I hate women, Chris, when I love women. You’re so close to me and am I a woman hating monster?’
I tried to keep my composure but now he had mentioned his feelings about women, I was all of a sudden thinking about the
Nazis. I began to think about the heinous physical experiments the Nazis had done on the Jews and how Ken who had carried out similar forms of torture on women, gassing them with pipes from an oven – injecting them with bleach - looked like one of the actors in the film The Boys from Brazil.
‘No, you’re not a monster,’ I heard myself say, but it felt like my lips had gone numb, I was so anxious. He had one eye different from the other. One blue eye, if I looked deep into it had a weak person looking back at me someone I’d have avoided because they would have nothing to say – Mr Everyday. The other, darker eye had the personality of a very dominant male and was looking at me as if he wanted to kill me. Here was a personality that was a Doktor Mengele – a torturer in a white coat with a syringe and a gas pipe – madly killing and experimenting on girls as if he was programmed to do it then leaving them by the side of the road to terrorize the community. Oddly enough Ian Brady had had the same alter – a Nazi – who like to experiment on his victims – a Mengele. I was beginning to feel as if I had stumbled on a ‘big secret’ with the added horrible feeling of knowing I would have to expose it and then the horror of consequences of whistle blowing – which seemed to always be prison or death.
Serial killers were domestic terrorists to keep the people in check – I wondered what had been going on politically around the time of the murders. I was definitely with the killer alter – so it wasn’t Steve after all the boy who had confessed in that squeaky voice. I suddenly know that was true. He had confessed and boasted. ‘I did that one he did that one’ …now can I have my sweets back.
It was a smokescreen to protect the Doktor – the hidden fourth personality that matched Brady's.

I had to wonder did these Nazis who invented Monarch Mind Control from The Egyptian Book of the Dead and other Hebrew texts include work in their own hideous personalities into the programs to try to become omnipotent. Ken incased Mengele and so had Brady it was either a massive coincidence or it was a ‘program’ – the ‘Shooter/Serial Killer Program’ I had stumbled upon.
‘Do you feel uncomfortable at all sitting so close to me, Chris?’
I hadn’t but now he had said it I was. I could sense something but
I didn’t know what it was and it made me feel afraid. Was he letting out his monster bit by bit for me to feel?
‘People call you a monster.’
‘All lies, Chris. You don’t believe the lies now, do you? I invited you here because you believed me.’
‘I know.’
I met Bianchi’s eyes; they looked clear and impassive. Yet almost as if I was above a clear, calm sea I could also sense the large, sharp blade of a shark looming underneath the surface that wanted to eat me.
‘Would you like to get yourself a drink? Over there we have the machines.’
Something told me that he had decided that I was an idiot. He gestured to a long row of huge vending machines along the far side of the room with his powerful arms. I noticed that his pale hands didn’t seem like hands that had been used to torture and kill; they oozed humility as if he had been praying non-stop in his cell.
‘No thanks, but would you like a drink?’ I asked, picking up the white card in my hot fingers.
‘No, I’m fine, thanks.’ Ken smiled a big, wide grin and his teeth looked incredibly white and even. He cocked his head to one side and I noticed that his neck had scarring on it. A witness who had seen him grabbing a beautiful girl called ……and dragging her off to murder her - claimed that one of the killers was dressed in a long leather coat and had acne scars on his neck.
‘You know, Chris, I’d like to be friends first before anything else happens between us.’ Ken grinned at me.
‘Oh.’
I could barely think of a rejoinder. What could happen? Shagging on the floor in the middle of the room?
‘Me too.’
‘If you can’t be friends first in any relationship, then when it goes further it crumbles to shit. That’s what I’ve found anyway.’
I felt like laughing. Ken truly didn’t seem to register that he was in prison. I looked around the room and saw the woman I’d spoken to in the waiting room sitting nearby clutching the hand of her murderous husband, Bob.
‘What’s that man with the woman here for?’ ‘Only robbery,’ he said with a guarded smile, his brown eyes watching me, enjoying something about me.
‘Oh, is that all?’ I replied.
‘Yes, it’s hardly crime of the century, is it, Chris? Hey, Chris, just think of this, I’ve one robber on one side and I’ve one on the other, hey, who does that make me?’ He laughed.
I became very uncomfortable. I had a cold sensation of paranoia filling me up like water filling a jug. I felt that I wanted to leave immediately and I struggled to suppress it. All of a sudden I was transported to the shacks which held the experiments on children by the Nazis in WW2.
I looked at Ken and thought this would make me feel worse but suddenly he seemed to be someone else entirely. His eyes became soft and baby blue. I relaxed and wondered what had been wrong with me. I blinked. I could have sworn his eyes were brown or dark. It must have been the light, however, as now they were both blue and looking at me with deep concern.
‘You OK?’
‘Yes, I’m fine.’
‘Are you sure you’re OK, Chris? You don’t seem as if you’re enjoying yourself with me?’
‘I’m just jet lagged is all; it was a long old flight.’
Ken smiled. ‘It would be different now if we had a coupla drinks in front of us, wouldn’t it, Chris? We could completely relax with each other, instead of both of us feeling stressed like this. Y’ know, y’ know what it would be like? We’d relax, laugh, maybe if we were in a bar, shoot some pool and then what?’ Ken smiled at me, his tanned hands relaxed on the table in front of him.
In control.
I bit my lip as my anxiety levels shot up again. I didn’t know how safe I would feel with him in a bar, though right at this moment I would have loved to have a drink.
‘You know, Chris, that fucking creep who you spoke with, who wrote that fucking bullshit book about me, Chris? I want to take him down, know what I mean, Chris? Down, down. Know what I mean? Down, right down.’ He leaned forward and was looking at me very, very angrily. He was watching me closely to see if I registered fear or rushed to the defense of Berry Dee.
Not being the loyal type, I couldn’t have cared less what he was saying about Berry Dee.
‘I barely know him!’ I said.
He was watching me like a hawk his Doktor persona gone and so I wasn’t scared of the oik in front of me. I was suddenly angry. He had gone on about Berry Dee in his letters and he knew I didn’t know him very well, but now he was making it clear that he thought I was lying. Not only that, he was talking street talk nodding his head and being the tough guy, and presumably I was supposed to be afraid. I felt annoyed and angry myself.
‘Did you threaten him when he was with you? Did he shit himself?’ I asked sarcastically.
‘Yes, Chris, I threatened him.’ He put his head on one side again and looked me in the eye. I noticed his eyes seemed darker again.
‘And, yes, he did shit himself.’
I looked down at the desk and let my sweaty fingers play with each other. He was really scaring me again.
‘What did you say to make him afraid? ’
We held each other’s gaze for a whole minute without speaking.
‘I told the fucking creep that I’d smash his skull in.’ He leaned back in his chair and looked at me hard.
‘That’s what he said you’d said.’
It was no good. I was afraid. My breath felt shallow. I wished I wasn’t sitting in an American prison with a nut bag who housed a demon; I wished I was at home in England watching a DVD. Bianchi was speaking in a quiet but menacing voice as if I was guilty of something.
‘I don’t like people who write lies about me, Chris. Berry Dee wrote that I confessed to murder to him. I have stated my innocence since my arrest. You understand me? Apart from when they hypnotized me after showing me the files day after day until I thought I had done it. They told me I was a multiple, but I am not,
Chris. It was a set-up to get someone for the Hollywood atrocities.’
‘I thought you said you weren’t violent?’
‘To a man that acts like Berry – hell, yes I can be.’ He sat with his hands folded in front of him on the table and leant forward. His eyes seemed to get lighter then and my fear of his anger diminished a little.. His eyes seemed to go from dark to light; they were like a Catherine Wheel, silver and spinning, throwing off tiny, hot sparks of fire.
‘So! Now! How are you?’ He leaned forward on his elbows and was smiling again. I wanted to go, he was too much for me. Who wouldn’t he be too much for? Lord Longford maybe.
‘Good.’ But I was lying.
‘You look damn good.’
‘I’m tired – I don’t look great. I . . . often . . . look good, just not today.’
‘What?’
‘I often look good, but not today!’ I was babbling due to the strain of the conversation.
He laughed. ‘You do now, Chris, just relax.’
Silence fell. I looked at the table and noticed my expensive gold bracelet was lying there, as they had made me take it off as I went through the metal detector.
‘Will you help me put my gold bracelet back on?’ I realised that he would have to touch me as he did it. I knew he wouldn’t have touched a woman in years, decades maybe. Our bare skin would touch bare skin and then maybe he would like me and open up.
He picked up the heavy gold chain. I had bought it for two thousand pounds in an exclusive jewelers back when I had money and refused to sell but knew one day I would have to. I knew he would feel the value of the gold and treat me accordingly.
He tried to put it around my wrist and fumbled with my arm for a while. It was odd to feel his touch after corresponding for so long in letters. I could read his every secret just by touch. His perfectly shaped fingers with their clean pink nails shook as he fastened the clasp securely. He leaned back and I noted that he was now on the back foot. He didn’t look up, which gave it away.
Bracelet fastened, I pulled my arm away. He looked at me as if we had just done something really intimate. His eyes were thick with need and they were back to baby blue. Out of the blue he grinned confidently. He had just taken power back and I was a geeky girl and he the older boy. He was a very charismatic and good-looking man despite being a man who housed evil and he both knew it and wielded it. I was immune.
I had flown thousands of miles to see the hive of evil and I knew it wouldn’t be easy; it was like being on a safari and waiting to see the dangerous lion or the rampaging elephant, keeping quiet in the jeep and hiding my binoculars. Ken had played host to them as they fed and he had carried out their feeding frenzy - I just wanted the jerk to show me the way there to their nest to blow it up and free my parts.
The friendly woman, Phyllis, whom I had spoken to in the waiting room before I came in, smiled at me. She was still holding hands with her husband and had been gazing into his eyes. They looked like they were in love. Bianchi and I watched them both carefully for a while and neither of us spoke. He was still hardened to me, I could tell.
I looked into his blue eyes. The room was crowded. The guards paced around and at one point one of them aggressively told me to put my shoes ‘Back on your feet, please.’
I felt angry with the cheeky guards – what the fuck was their problem? I went barefoot to get us cold water from the drinking fountain in two white plastic cups, then remembered as I returned and quickly stuffed my hot feet back into my shoes.
I heard his stomach rumbling.
‘What’s the food like in here?’
It’s OK. I follow a Kosher diet. It’s healthier.’ He rubbed at his arms that were pale and hairless.
‘I don’t like sausages myself much either,’ I lied.
‘Well, that’s a very good thing, Chris. You don’t smoke either, do you?’
‘Never have,’ I lied again. ‘Do you work out?’
‘Not now, I used to. Too many gang-bangers in the gym now. They holler to each other and it gets on my nerves – hey you yo, hey buddy yo – it’s just so annoying! The level of intelligence of the men isn’t that high in prison and I don’t want it rubbed in by hearing that gang bullshit. All you can do in there is run around in a circle anyway; they took the weight machines. I do about a hundred sit-ups and press-ups in my cell each day after breakfast. I don’t get out to the exercise yard, haven’t been out there for over
15 years.’
‘Why not?’
‘The gangs out there, Chris, all doing the same thing – playing ball and shouting. I can’t stand it, the noise is deafening. I stay in my cell for about 22 hours a day most days. Not that sitting in my cell isn’t like sitting in Grand Central Station with the men banging on the doors, the shouting, and the needy men screaming in their cells. I lie on my bed with the pillow over my ears and pray for some peace. It goes on day after day, year after year, but I just take it – nothing else I can do. The cement walls talk to me some days but I count my blessings, Chris. I could be on the street, at least I’m warm. I could be dead, at least I’m alive.’
‘I’d rather be dead than suffer that.’ I put my elbow on the table and leant my chin on my hand. ‘Aren’t you bored stuck in a tiny cell all day on your own?’
‘Of course I get bored, Chris. I read when it goes quiet. I’m reading The Road, which is good. I read a lot of Clive Cussler – do you read him?’
‘I’ve never heard of Cussler.’
‘What do you read, Chris?’
‘D.H. Lawrence, Graham Greene, Ian McEwan. I love the
Brontes.’
‘Is Greene good?’
‘Yes, he’s good,’ I laughed. ‘I can’t believe you’ve never even heard of Green, especially as you’re a Catholic.’
‘Sorry, Chris. I stick to Boy’s Own stuff. Cussler is a boys’ thing, right! I think that’s it. I read a lot of his books then I do my legal stuff, then I sleep. I feel real weird about life at the moment. It sure as hell sucks.’
‘Well, it would do, being in prison. You can’t expect it to feel good.’
‘I get lonely and I feel the alienation, but I count my blessings, Chris. If I look hard enough in each day I can see at least one blessing. I have joy. I share that with you in my letters.’
‘I know. Thank you.’ I felt embarrassed, No, he didn’t – what joy? What fucking joy can you feel in a concrete box like a bloody hamster for thirty odd years?
He spoke. ‘I sent some more of my new memoir to you two weeks ago. Did you get it?’
‘I got the first few chapters before I left.’
‘I’ve sent up to chapter five – get that?’
‘No.’
‘But you read the first four chapters? Was I – am I a good writer?’ He was nervous and not looking at me but addressing the table.
Bianchi’s writing had been sensual and lush. He had written with a shocking intensity and power.
‘I – well – after I read it I thought it was really good.’
‘What?’
‘You – you’re good.’ I felt stupid for saying it but his writing had affected me in a weird way, it was almost as if the words had come off of the page and wound their way inside my mind like smoke and then clambered all over me like velvet.
He looked at the air in front of him and looked puzzled. I didn’t know what to say but I knew I hadn’t said it right.
‘Eh.’
‘What?’
‘You’re a good writer.’
He quickly looked away and changed the subject.
‘Do you want me to get you a drink or maybe food from the machines? Do you want a burger? Jeff said he bought you a burger when he last came to see you and you said it was the first burger you’d had in decades. He said you wolfed it down.’
Ken looked at me blankly. He was so private. I could feel the high brick walls he had erected against other humans.
The prisoners weren’t allowed to move out of their seats once they were sitting, unless it was to approach the guards’ table. There were pale red lines painted all over the floor that the convicts weren’t allowed outside of.
‘I don’t want food, thanks, Chris. You can get me a cold drink. Just make it whatever,’ he said. ‘I’m not allowed to cross the red line in front of the machines.’
There was a thick red line painted on the floor in front of the machines to stop the convicts getting close to the ten heavy, clanking machines that lined up along one wall of the hall. ‘Oh, sorry, of course. I’ll get us drinks. Do you want tea or coffee?
I’ll go to the hot machine.’ I pointed to the large machine at the end of the hall.
‘Chris, just please get me the water. I hate the machines, I know the machines, I clean them every day – it is my job for ten cents an hour. They let me out of my cell for half an hour each day to clean those Goddamn machines. I’m in my cell for 22 hours a day, I get breakfast for 20 minutes and dinner for 20 and then 20 for tea and an hour to clean the machines.’
‘OK.’ The machines. They were his whole life and yet he hated them, I could feel it.
I browsed the drinks in the drinks machine, squatting down and looking through the clear glass. As I did so, I noticed that there was root beer in brown bottles. I stood up and looked back at
Bianchi as he sat facing the guard’s desk. I remembered that he had raped the professional ballet dancer Lissa Kastin with a Root beer bottle before strangling her. I wanted to see what his reaction would be to seeing a matching bottle in the fingers of a blonde who could have been her. Maybe that would shock him enough to let me catch a glimpse of the hive – a stroll down memory lane.
I came back to the table and casually put the root beer bottle down in front of him. I moved it an inch or two to see how he would react. How much can it hurt a woman to be raped with a bottle? She must have passed out with the pain – I hope – I can only pray that Lissa Kastin went into shock.
But what of Ken, or was it Steve? What of Jack? How much do you have to hate women to do that, to shove that bottle so hard up a vagina that you know you are killing the soft tissue, ripping, scaring her womanhood – venting and slicing.
Then your cousin sat on her as she sat in a chair – the floor a pool of blood and Angelo or Ken wound a plastic bag around her head and cried out, ‘Die cunt, die cunt, die cunt.’
Then Lissa hung her head and Lissa the ballerina died.
His watchful blue eyes followed the root beer bottle that he had acted so disgracefully with, and then looked at me impassively.
Yet I saw it. For one moment it was as if he thought I was having a joke with him and he wasn’t going to laugh because I was being bad and he appreciated it, but he was too big a man to laugh – but he found it funny and had he of been with his cousin he would have belly laughed and jerked the beer bottle upwards and said, ‘Remember that c...t? Remember that c...t who bled all over the floor?’
He was a psycho but it had taken the Doktor to lure him into killing and torture – it had taken them to infest him to make him ruin his life and 13 girls by serial murder.
‘I don’t much like root beer, but I’ll drink it.’ He stood up. ‘I’ll go and check at the guard’s desk, Chris, and see what I can find for us to play with.’ Bianchi shot me a hard look then stood up and swaggered over to the guard table as if he was aware of his body, like a body builder. His neck was thick and his body chunky like a WWE wrestler. I picked up his horn rimmed polished glasses, which he had left on the table and not worn the whole time we were together. They were walnut rimmed. I ran my fingers over their edges; they were hard and cold – I got nothing from them. He had learned to cloak himself.
Ken came back with a chess set; I quickly put the glasses down and noticed a flicker of a smile cross his face. He had noticed me fondling his glasses. I was trying to pick up his energy but I had picked up nothing. Mr Brick Wall knew it.
‘You play chess, Minerva?’ He was using the nickname he had made up for me in his letters
‘I used to play with my brother as a kid. I’m OK, I’m clued-up.’
I suddenly realized that I was in an Ingmar Bergman situation, playing chess with Death. I thought as I picked up one of the pieces. He smiled again as he filled the board with cheap chess pieces.
I leaned over, picked up his root beer bottle and took a swig out of it. I banged it down on the table and looked at him hard.
‘Yuk, that tastes like bleach.’
Ken had once injected one of his victims with household bleach.
The word hung in the air between us. He leaned over to take the bottle and covered my hand with his. Not a flicker of a reaction. I let him have the drink and moved my hand from under his. Bleach. He knew. In quiet moments he remembered and he felt powerful.
‘Have it all, root beer tastes like bleach.’
‘You’ve never tasted root beer before?’
‘No, it’s an American thing, isn’t it?’
His knee cap moved away from mine underneath the table.
‘Don’t tell me that you’re a root beer virgin, Minerva?’ He swigged from the bottle like he was in a bar room and it was real ale.
‘I’ve never had root beer before and I won’t ever again.’ ‘But now you’re no longer a virgin,’ he grinned.
‘I’ve had loves, never been in love.’
‘I’ve only truly loved women I knew back east – East Coast women. Have you heard of a girl called Donna?’
‘No.’
‘I loved Donna and a girl called Janice and my wife Brenda. Here, I lived with a girl, Kelli, I stayed with her for my baby. I fooled around on the side hoping to meet “the one”. Kelli Boyd wanted me to move out, so she got her way when I got arrested. She then went and slept with cops who were working on my case, Chris, and my social worker, which I think prejudiced my case. Not to mention she came in my cell and permed my hair – you know, with that bullshit perm you can see in shots of me? And she did that, Chris, as the cops told her that they wanted to see me with curls, as the witnesses had seen a man with curly hair trying to abduct a girl around the time of the Hollywood Strangler. I never wore my hair in curls! Now what would you call that, Chris?’
He had no evidence for what he was saying but I decided to go along with it. ‘Sneaky?’
‘Yes, she was really sneaky. Yes, that’s right. And I never got to see my son ever again. That cold bitch, slut with ice flowing through her veins to a cold stone heart robbed me of my own fucking son.’
‘I read she was upset about Veronica, the woman who did that fake murder.’
‘Oh no, Chris, she walked away from me a long time before that fruit and nut Vera came on the scene. Let me tell you about her, OK, Chris? Vera was a hooker, coke-head and housewife and she met me once and it was through a glass screen. All that bullshit, Chris, about how I gave her my semen – sorry to sound crude – gave her my semen – how could I when there was a guard there and a glass screen? Yet year after year whenever my parole comes up she is bought up and it screws up my chances and keeps me in the joint. I fucking hate that bitch, I can tell you.’
‘She was a real looker, though.’
‘Beauty is only skin deep, Chris. I’ve turned down some real beauties in my time, as I think they can be trouble. I had a model in tears once in the reception of the visitors’ room. She was just amazing looking, tall as hell, long blonde hair, great long legs, she visited me and then they said, no you can’t see him again, and she was on her knees in the foyer, screaming and crying.’
‘Weird.’
‘Yeah.’
‘What I don’t understand is that when the cops in Bellingham came to arrest you, you denied you knew Karen, yet she worked in the store. She was a real looker and how come you didn’t notice
Karen?’
‘There were loads of women in the store that looked hot, Chris.
Ones that came into the store and ones that worked there. I knew
Karen to say good morning to, that was it.’
‘You don’t remember asking her to house sit?’
‘No, I did not ask her to house sit.’
He looked upset that I had interviewed him, so I changed the subject.
‘What happened to the woman you married?’
‘The Louisiana girl, Shirley? That was a bit of pretence, Chris, it was to help her with money. She was a pen pal and poor. Many reporters found out she was writing to me. She asked me to marry her so that she could sell her story to them. I said, OK, then you can give them an interview and feed yourself. I haven’t spoken to her since her mother died about 20 years ago. I don’t bother with people on the outside – pen pals or otherwise. When I get a letter from a person who tells me they’re a psychology student or interested in my case, or that they like me or some shit, I go to my toilet and I shit on it.’
‘You replied to me.’
‘I know – I don’t know why. I broke all my own rules.’
‘Why?’
‘Who knows! Hey, Minerva, don’t make me wish I hadn’t yeah.’
I was coming to realise that Ken only made me uncomfortable when his eyes went dark. Watching them change was like watching ink being dripped into blue water. I was more dominant than the blue-eyed boy. But the dark-eyed one had me on the back foot.
A friendly-looking guard asked loudly if anyone wanted to leave. I had another glance at Ken. I could still feel the dark-eyed one watching me. I couldn’t work out who he actually was; he was like a human maze.
I felt like a top psychiatrist who had just come across the patient of their dreams. I wanted to pin him down like one of Hugh’s butterflies and put him in a glass case to keep him and observe him now and again, whenever I felt like it. I wanted to own him, like a collector.
‘You want to go now, Minerva?’ he sounded sarcastic. ‘Had enough of me yet?’
‘No – no, not at all. I’ll stay.’
I watched his hands as he played chess. It was hard to believe he had killed.
When I looked up again he was looking at me. ‘What’s wrong, Minerva?’ he asked.
‘Nothing. I was thinking about how lovely the poetry is that you send to me.’
‘It comes through me, I don’t write it. Sorry,’ he smiled.
‘Who’s your very favourite writer?’
‘Well,’ he said after some thought. ‘I do like my Cussler and I like
Edgar Allen Poe.’
I felt uncomfortable. Ted Bundy had liked Poe.
‘You look uncomfortable, Chris.’
‘No, I’m not. I’m fine.’
‘Chris, you’re constantly trying to pin me down.’ He laughed.
‘I think that you’re very into dark things, is all I was thinking.’ ‘Oh, Chris, no I’m not. It makes me sad that you hunt that down in me constantly. You track down cops that don’t even know me, like that senile cop who arrested me, Salerno. Chris, you won’t ever find evil in me; it just isn’t there.’ His baby blues looked at me with sincerity. I was beginning to hate the blue-eyed version of him; it was like wading through a sugary marshmallow.
‘Remember I asked you if you were ever into Satanism?’
‘And I answered that honestly, Chris. It’s my opinion that that
Satan worshipping is sick.’
‘I read in a book that you have a tattoo.’
He slowly rolled up his sleeve and revealed his pale left arm. He looked at me while he did so, as if he was hoping I would be aroused by the sight of his bare flesh and he was doing a slow strip tease.
‘Want to feel it?’
‘OK.’
I ran my fore-finger over his tattoo that said MC and felt his smooth, baby-like skin. MC?
I looked up and he was grinning at me.
‘That tickles me, Minerva.’
The faded tattoo said ‘Satan’s own MC’. He rolled his sleeve back down. After I was to wonder did it mean ‘Satan’s Own Mind
Controlled.’
‘Is Satan real, do you think?’
‘The Devil is very real Chris. I find him in Revelations. I’ll send you some references.’
‘Why mark yourself with a tattoo that says you’re owned by
Satan?’
‘Chris, come on, I was in a motorcycle club.’
‘I know, I read that when you were in this group of Hell’s Angels they were all afraid of you and they called you Flash. You liked to fight and drive your bike too fast.’
‘No, I was a pussy.’ He looked like he was trying not to laugh.
I had seen pencil sketches Ken had drawn of sigils and some were copies of the Doré illustrations of the Devil sitting in Hell, fallen from Heaven. A drawing of the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse had been for sale on a website with his name on it.
‘Ralph Allison, the psychiatrist I spoke to who’d interviewed you, said that Steve is in fact your imaginary Childhood friend. And the High Church says that invisible friends are demons.’
He got out his handkerchief and wiped his brow. ‘That quack’s a fucking idiot.’ He looked at me irritated. ‘You and he really think I house a demon?’
‘I don’t know.’ I moved my rook to meet his white queen.
‘You and that quack are crazy, Minerva.’
‘Sorry.’
He looked down at the chess board.
‘You had an imaginary friend as a boy. It’s written in your medical notes that at age seven you had an invisible friend.’ He moved his white queen sideways.
‘Chris, all little kids have little invisible friends.’ His cheek began to twitch. I moved my dark knight forward.
‘Little kids get bigger and their little imaginary friends grow too into Archons who hate humanity.’
He pursed his lips, took a sip of root beer from the condensation covered bottle and took my knight with his other white bishop, letting out a hoot of derision as he banged the bottle down.
‘The hypnosis made me say all the stuff about Steve, Chris.’ He glanced at me and I saw a fire flare in his eyes – a hot silver flame that landed on my cheek and burnt me.
‘Steve wasn’t a demon, Chris. He wasn’t real. It was an aberration.’
‘How would you know?’
‘Why would Steve be a demon?’
I killed the blonde c...t and the brunette c...t and that one f..ks really badly.
I could feel him thinking.
‘Those women who died had nothing to do with me.’
He looked at me steadily and a tiny vein pulsed in his cheek.
‘I listened to those tapes of me confessing, Chris, and I couldn’t believe it. The hypnosis produced a chicken clucking on a stage. I was confessing to terrible crimes.
The cops said, ‘what colour is the inside of the murder victim’s car – Cindy Hudspeth it was,’ and push me over a photo of this broad’s car and I could see it was brown. I’d say, “Brown” and they’d say, “Yes, it was brown you must have raped her, strangled her and then pushed her over the cliff in her car while she was in the back.’ I did not kill that broad, Chris.’
‘You and Angelo were found guilty of gassing a girl.’
‘I did not gas a girl. I told the cops what they forced me to confess to from the files they made me read day in, day out. No one saw me with Angelo at the time of the Hollywood murders.’
‘Did you and he ever speak after you were both sent to prison?’
I sent Ange a card just before he died in prison, Chris. It was a normal Hallmark greetings card. I wrote on it, “Hey there, Ange,
I’m really sorry for everything!” Just that, you know and I signed it, “No hard feelings – your cousin”. I got him put into prison for life by what I said, so I owed him that. He didn’t reply. I guess Hallmark didn’t have the right card for sorry I got you put into the joint for the rest of your life.’ He laughed aloud happily. I stood up. He was tired. So was I. I used the card that I had bought at reception to buy myself another drink. I was confused about how I was feeling about Ken. I wanted to understand him. I wanted to help him. He was so mad and so lost. As lost as the day his Mother gave him up. I returned to the table with a paper cup of steaming hot chocolate and some water for him.
‘Hungry now? I’ll get us something to eat. Want some popcorn?’
‘Nothing really, thank you. I don’t like eating in front of a woman.
My manners from living in here are that of a pig.’
‘Who cares?’
‘I’m not in the mood for shit junk food.’
‘OK.’
I stood up and let my fingers tail along his back as I went past him. He looked around as I touched him and met my eyes, and I could see loneliness lodged in them. Don’t stroke the wild animals unless they let you, I thought to myself amused.
I got some salted butter popcorn from the machines, heated it up in their microwave and put it in three white plastic bowls. I also got a tuna sandwich and a carton of juice. I bought two bowls of popcorn over to the table and put one down in front of him and the other for me. I forgot my shoes and sauntered over to the toilet. I went to the toilet at the left side of the large hall. Someone was in there, so I stood and looked over at Bianchi as I waited. He leaned over the table and was stuffing popcorn into his mouth from his half-clenched fists and then the bowl got picked up and licked. It was shocking, he looked like a lion feeding, licking the bowl.
The toilet was large and clean. I looked at myself in the small mirror. My face looked flushed and hot. I have a strong reaction to him and I’m not sure why, I thought to myself with my knickers around my ankles. He’s not showing me Steve. STEVE. I sat and read aloud a metal plaque on the door that said ‘Please – after using the bathroom – call a guard.’
I came out and spotted a prison officer lounging nearby and called him over to check I was OK.
‘Permission to search,’ asked the tall, dark-haired guard. He made me open my mouth and searched me all down my body.
‘Don’t touch the prisoner,’ he said gruffly.
‘What do you mean?’
‘You touched his back as you went to the machines.’
‘Did I?’
‘Yes, you did. You ran your hand along his back.’
‘I don’t remember touching him.’
‘Do it again, ma’am, and we’ll immediately terminate the visit. No touching the prisoner, whatsoever, except for hand holding.’
I felt irritated. They acted like they owned him. I had flown thousands of miles for this. I owned this chameleon for the hours I was here. I had paid the entrance fee to gain access to the reptilian hive and I was going to find it before I damn well left.
I made my way back through the many tables where families were playing cards, eating and drinking and chatting to join Bianchi who was still studying the chess board.
He began to speak as soon as I sat down. ‘I had an attic in my old home, I mean my mother’s home, Chris, and it’s full of novels I’ve written. I’m thinking of giving the lot to you so you can find a publisher for me.’
‘What kind of novels are they?’
‘My novels are called “Miss Cabala”, “The Naked Dawn”, “In
Such a Twilight Hour of Breath”, “Daunted” and “The Devil’s
Nose”.’
He had told me he wasn’t interested in the occult yet they sounded like a reading list for Edgar Allen Poe.
‘In one of them, I wrote about a nun who had a very full, sensual sex life even though she lived in a cell.’
I held my breath. He leaned forward and spoke quietly.
‘She had the power to come out of her body, Chris. She could just fly out into the night. Imagine that!’ He raised his hand like a bird flying, and I saw beads of sweat glistening on his neck. ‘She could visit anyone she wanted, in the dark of the night, Chris, even though she was locked in a cell. Do you believe that that’s possible? Astral Projection, I mean?’
My face coloured up. His eyes locked onto mine, dark as tea.
‘No cell could ever hold her. Imagine having that kind of power.’ He seemed to be smirking.
I had felt him in my house, watching me bathe, watching me cook, watching me in my private space. I didn’t want this confirmed or I would freak out, so I decided to bring up Berry Dee whom he hated.
‘Berry Dee said that you could come out of your cell. He said you’ve got paranormal powers to project yourself out of your cell and into the home or mind of anyone you wanted, you know like a remote viewer. I can do it sometimes myself.’
He paused to laugh hard. Then he went serious. ‘Dee’s a fucking whore. You listen to him too?’
‘No.’
‘You fucking do listen to shit – you’ve just now said what he said as if he’s sitting here with me.’
‘Sorry.’
‘You listen to him, Chris, and forget me if you do – OK?’
‘OK.’
‘I’m angry you’ve said that. ’
‘I barely know him.’
‘What?’
‘I barely know the guy, don’t get jealous! I rang him because of you – you.’
Our eyes held each other’s. In his, I could see that he was hurt. He was also odd, somehow awake on another level of consciousness. I thought of the movie Scanners. It was like he was able to read minds, like one of the Scanners, or gifted in some other way like that. His mind was better than others somehow, but in a really spooky way. What kind of shit had I waded knee-deep into, in my search for supernatural evil? Had I really wanted to find it? Was it a lark? Something to do in life, a raison d’être, a demon to kill my mother, who no longer bothered me as I had grown older? Now here I was sitting with this man who was somehow like the prisoner in The Exorcist III, panting as he lay in the corner of his cell. Would he at any moment be crawling upside down on the ceiling? This was all way, way over my head. He was ;like a supersoldier, but I didn’t know it yet I had not met James Casbolt or Max Spiers or any of them. I accidentally knocked over a cup of cold water that was on the table.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll get a cloth to clean it up.’ He grabbed a tissue on the table and began to mop up the mess. He was used to cleaning and seemed to accept it humbly as he mopped. The chameleon again, turning humble pie blue.
He sat down again after piling the wet tissues into a papier mâché mountain in front of us.
‘I don’t need to force myself on a woman who doesn’t want me,
Chris. Know what I’m saying?’
‘Of course.’
‘If I didn’t want a real relationship with you then you’d not be here.’
‘Oh, thanks.’ I felt like laughing.
He went on. ‘But I don’t want shit on paper, Chris. That’s not romantic at all. The guards read stuff and it’s like I’m in bed with a broad and I’m just about to make my best move, then all of a sudden someone else’s head pops up from underneath the duvet an says, Oh that’s a hot move, Ken. Go on, buddy. I don’t like that,
Chris. It puts me off my stride. Thing is, Chris, I’m not Mr Phone
Sex Chat guy either. I’ve done a lot of that and now I don’t. I feel used, Chris, talking away while the girl does her stuff, you know.’ He looked at me curiously.
What did do her stuff mean? I wondered. I blushed deep red.
‘Yuk.’
‘Chris, I know that you believe what I say when I tell you that I’m innocent. Some of the things you say, Chris, your insistence on bringing up Steve makes me pause though. That’s the reason we don’t get on and things aren’t going as fast as they might but maybe that’s all you want off me - Steve.’
He was promising me a carrot, yet I couldn’t work out what the carrot actually was.
‘I’m very wary of you, Chris, you know. I sometimes ask myself,
What does Chris want from me? Does Chris just want material for a book? Then I tell myself, Hey, Ken, don’t be a dope. Chris needs you. Chris is very, very lonely. Who would Chris have to talk to if it weren’t for you, Ken? Stuck in that cold, snotty little village of hers in ol’ Blighty?’
I swallowed hard and felt afraid.
‘So if she ever did write about me – when it’s all written and done and dusted – she’d turn around and reach out for me, but I’d not be there and she would fall and fall and fall down a hole. I would never speak to Minerva ever, ever again – that’s for damn hell sure.’
I felt my whole body shrink like Alice.
He watched me for a while, studying me. I saw him drinking me in, each twitch, each fragment of each painful feeling as it passed through me he was picking up on.
‘So, if you did write about me, you’d send it to me first and I’d check that it was accurate and go over it myself, OK?’
‘OK.’
He smiled at me as if he’d achieved something and leaned back in his seat. ‘You know, I really like to paint, Chris.’ He pushed at the pile of wet tissues. ‘In fact, I’m going to send you one of my paintings as a gift to show you how much I think of you. I’ll paint you a wolf. You said you love wolves, Minerva? ’
‘I love wolves.’ I looked up at him.
‘Me too, Chris! They’re my favourite too; wolves are so bright and clever.’
‘What do you use to draw?’
‘Sometimes watercolour paints but that’s a bit messy. Crayon sometimes; I like crayon.’ Crayon!
He had sat back down and suddenly sounded like a boy. His legs were swinging under the table and it seemed to me that he had morphed into a ten-year-old kid and was looking to me for approval. I still felt as if I was nine years old, so I openly smiled at the boy and he smiled back. I finally felt him right then in the back of my throat. I felt breathless. It was Steve.
A boy. He was a weird boy. Here he was… an orphan with no
parents, a Lord of the Flies wild boy. My inner little girl wanted to laugh with him. Hate. Hate. Hate. Suddenly I knew what I truly needed from him……friendship for the child side of me; the girl with black eyes. They lock us down by being bad to us they make us hate people because we think it was humans that hurt us - then they lock us into cages with carved up puppies and then they program us with the Nazi Monarch Programs.
The guard called time. I stood up in shock. He came forward and gathered me into his arms without thought of my reaction. He clamped me tightly to his chest again, his rough-to-the touch beige shirt smelt of male sweat mixed with musk. I was so overwhelmed that my brain ceased to think.
‘You OK, Chris?’
‘Yes.’ I felt breathless being so tightly held.
‘You coming back tomorrow? you said that you would?’
‘Sure.’
He pressed the whole length of his hard body up against mine. I could feel his body and every bit of him. Later that night he would write me a ten-page erotic scene from his memoir, where he and an unnamed girl had sex in the back of his Cadillac. He wrote about how they lay naked ‘pressed tightly naked flesh to naked flesh, heat to heat, sweating, jockeying for position, steaming up the
Caddy’s windows, rocking the Cadillac violently until.’
I suddenly realized that I was reading about one of his rape
murders and he had sent out to me to drag me into his dirt.
he included a poem

Dance about the sycamore
and pick not the roses of summer, and melt the ice and feel the
breeze caress your face and ...let me hold you tight.