Dark Passions

by Jeff Gelb

  Ron was surprised by my unleashed passion, and it brought us both off like we’d never experienced with any of our previous lovers.

  After our bout of animal sex, lying in bed exhausted, I massaged my welts. My only hope was that they wouldn’t show or become black and blue. I got an antiseptic from the medicine cabinet for the scratches I’d dug with my nails into Ron’s back. Many of those cuts were still bleeding, and, as I wiped up the blood, I noticed the small drippings and spatters that ran down his back, onto my pillows and sheets. He was pretty badly torn up, and I gasped, then smiled, hardly believing I had done that to him.

  Ron didn’t mind though. He never complained about anything I did to him; he said he liked it all. He said he enjoyed the pain. He liked to get it, and he liked to give it. Ron told me he wanted us to go further in our sexual adventures, and I was intrigued. I didn’t know what that meant, but he left it purposefully vague, a delicious and erotic surprise that I could fantasize about when I was alone and missing him.

  When I awoke later, I discovered that Ron was gone from my bed and noticed that the light in the living room was on. I figured he was watching TV, but I heard no sound. Instead, I walked in on him sitting on the sofa looking over the Esposito and Kelly crime-scene photos.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, more than a bit perturbed that he was looking over my private notes and personal papers on a case.

  “Couldn’t sleep; found these and figured they’d be more interesting than TV, so I took a look. Hope you don’t mind.”

  “Well, no, of course not, but ...”

  “Interesting case,” Ron commented quickly. “So you interpret the blood spatter at crime scenes. What does it tell you, Julie?”

  “A lot of things, sometimes,” I said.

  “These crime-scene photos, they’re”—he looked up at me, smiled wickedly—“very graphic. Very bloody. Are they always like this? The woman naked, so vulnerable, so much blood all over ...”

  “Look, Ron.” I knew he wasn’t used to such things in his day-to-day Wall Street world, and his prurient mind could turn anything onto a sexual angle. But this? “These women were murdered, bludgeoned to death. I don’t think you should be looking at the photos in that way. It’s not pornography, Ron.”

  Ron smiled. “Of course, Julie, I didn’t mean anything by it.” He put the crime-scene photos down, looked up at me, and said, “Come over here, you.”

  Then he took me again on the couch, then on the floor. It was harder than previously, more brutal. It hurt me a little, but I actually enjoyed it. When it was over, Ron left and I went to sleep, exhausted.

  The third murdered woman showed up next morning. Clarissa Roberts. She’d been murdered the same way as the other two.

  I was busy for the next few days and didn’t see or hear from Ron until the murder was written up in the papers in a new article that used leaked information to connect the Roberts murder with the previous two. A task force was now formed, and it took most of my time. I ended up having to do more extra work when I discovered I’d somehow lost or misplaced some of the photos of the two previous murders. That really annoyed me.

  I was dog-tired and ready for bed when Ron called that evening and said he had to come over. As tired as I was, I became wet with lust for him, anticipating our games. I told him to come up, but just for a little while, as I had an early day at work the next morning.

  Ron and I went right to it as soon as he entered my apartment. This time he brought handcuffs, and he was wearing a mask. I didn’t like it at first, but I was too excited to worry about it, and right away we were onto—and into—each other with a frenzy I’d never known before.

  The problem was, I could see where, sometimes, Ron seemed to get carried away with things. The cuffs were too tight on me, but his wearing of the mask seemed to bring out a hidden part of him I’d never seen before. Some of it I liked; it was beyond kinky. But some of it was weird ... scary. But I guess I liked that part too. And Ron wasn’t the only one, because I got carried away with these new games. I wondered if either if us knew how far to take things before we stopped, how much pain was acceptable or not, and if we could stop.

  Ron’s newest kink was posing me. He’d force me down into various positions, bind me, then, when I was helpless and scared, he’d penetrate me in all three orifices. It was rough, even brutal, but I liked it most of the time. The last time, when I’d yelled at him to stop, I had to tell him to leave.

  “What?” he shouted, annoyed I was breaking the fantasy. “The magic,” as he called it. “Come on, you like this just as much as I do!”

  “No! Stop! No more!” I shouted, angry now.

  I was nervous, fearful of the look I’d seen in his eyes just then, a lust I saw that was not sexual any longer; it was only violent. You see, I had the strange feeling that Ron was posing me in scenes from the Kelly and Esposito murders. Some of the positions were eerily familiar from my crime-scene photos. That was just too much for me.

  “I don’t think I like this,” I said, but when he asked me and I told him what I thought he was doing, he just laughed.

  “Julie, what’s the problem? It gets me off, I find those photos ... interesting.”

  “I think they arouse you!”

  “All right, so what if they do? It’s nothing any different from some of the S&M porno we watch, stuff we both enjoy sometimes doing.”

  “Those are movies, fantasies. You’re posing me like the killer posed Jennifer Kelly’s body at my crime scene. She was a real person, a murdered woman. How could you? That’s ... disgusting!”

  “Oh, come on now! You do the same thing. You tell me to do you this way, that way, stand or sit in a certain position ... like you don’t pose me! You don’t hear me complaining, Julie. It’s no big deal.”

  “Well, I don’t think I like it,” I said softly, thinking that maybe I’d been too severe with him. After all, Ron wasn’t in law enforcement, or a victim, so he couldn’t really understand.

  Ron huffed about it. He looked angry, even hurt, but I think he was secretly pleased. I asked him to leave again, but mostly because I had a big day tomorrow. I had to give my presentation to the new serial-killer task force. I had more evidence connecting the third murder victim to the previous two. Ron left, and I prepared for bed.

  Lying in bed alone that night, I thought about Ron and our relationship. It wasn’t exactly right, I knew that, but I liked a lot of it. I don’t know why I bothered with Ron sometimes. I’m sure really, down deep, he didn’t like women—maybe not even me. But in spite of myself, I couldn’t resist our games. I liked them too much. In a way, I may have been too much like Ron for my own good. Anyway, it was just too deep and complicated to try to figure out that night, so I just decided to go to sleep and allow myself to enjoy it as long as it lasted. After all, it was just sex and games, and that was just too much incredible fun for me to pass up.

  The next morning I looked over my notes before my presentation like I always did. I noticed that some of the crime-scene photos for the third victim, Clarissa Roberts, seemed to be missing. I thought I’d had twelve 10 x 12 glossies in the file, but there were now only ten. I looked through all my files and papers, and the more I looked the more frantic I became. These were two of the most graphic photos of the lot. I never found them, and a cold chill struck me, so I called Ron. There was no answer at his office. I left a message and then left for work and gave my presentation to the police with the information I had on hand.

  “The blood spatter on the first victim, Esposito,” I told the detectives, “was projected—it was gushing blood, mostly in arterial spurts from a blow or blunt-force trauma. The blood spatter in victim number two, Kelly, created high-velocity bloodstains. The pointed end of the bloodstain, the tail, indicates the directionality of the force. This victim was attacked from behind.”

  There were questions from the detectives, and I answered them as best I could.

  “And that brings us to victim number three, the
latest one, Clarissa Roberts. Again, we have projected blood. Most of it is as I have already described in the previous victims, but I also found something else. Something totally different. With this victim we have projected blood spatter, but of a unique pattern in one area of the murder scene: the wall behind the corpse. This blood was projected through a syringe.”

  That created an uproar, and the cops wanted to know what the hell that meant. So did I.

  “I’m waiting for the DNA report on this blood sample, but I am sure it will indicate this particular syringe blood is not—can not be—from victim number three. I assume it will be found to be blood from victim number one or number two. If that proves to be the case, then we are not only faced with a very devious and brutal serial killer, but one who is apparently taunting us with his crimes.”

  The DNA report confirmed my findings. The detectives were not pleased. The press had to be notified, and more manpower was authorized for the task force.

  I went home exhausted. When I got to my apartment, Ron was there waiting for me. Inside.

  “Hope you don’t mind. I let myself in,” he said matterof-factly, the usual charming Ron.

  “I wasn’t aware you still had a key,” I replied testily but too dog-tired to argue. He’d obviously made a copy of the key I’d asked for him to give back to me. “What do you want?”

  “Just to be with you, Julie. This case, your work, is building a wall between us. I don’t want that. You may not believe this, but you’re very special to me. And I know I’m special to you too.”

  He came over to me and caressed me with a softness I’d never seen from him before. Then he smiled his winning smile and added, “And besides, the sex is great.”

  “Yeah,” I muttered quietly.

  “Oh, come on. You like our little games as much as I do. I don’t hear you complaining. Sometimes you even egg me on with your own ideas. Maybe I went a little overboard the other night. Can’t we put that behind us? I have some new ideas, something I think you’ll really like.”

  I looked up at him. He looked so sincere, so little and lost, and in spite of myself I couldn’t help thinking about what was now on his mind. What new games had he planned? My juices began to flow with anticipation. I could feel the area at my crotch getting wet and saw Ron had noticed the tiny stain that had appeared between my legs now. He was smiling. In spite of myself I ran into his arms, and in a moment we were naked and rolling around on the carpet.

  Ron’s new kick was ritual bleeding. He wanted us to bleed each other, then mix small amounts of our blood together, rubbing it all over our bodies as we had sex. Ron knew me, see. He knew I was up for almost any freaky thing, especially if we’d never done it before. Well, we’d never done this before. Soon we both lost ourselves in the frenzy of it all. The cutting. The bleeding. Not deep cuts, but a lot of blood. We did some drugs, and that made it all easier, painless, all so dreamlike. I don’t know what the pills were that he gave me. I never asked. Ecstasy, probably. I felt like I was somewhere above us, watching from overhead, like in a film. It was ethereal, unreal. I never felt any pain. I don’t remember too much of what happened. In the end I must have passed out.

  When I woke up the next morning, Ron was gone. I was alone. That was so much like Ron, like most men I guess, to leave after he’d taken what he wanted.

  I got up and showered. I was covered in dried and caked blood. I looked like one of my own murder scenes, for chrissake. I was also weak, exhausted. I cleaned my wounds—most were nothing but mere superficial cuts, but a couple needed Band-Aids. My arm was also sore. I thought it was from a muscle pull—we’d been pretty crazy last night—but then I noticed a small black-and-blue bump that looked like an injection site on the inside of my right arm, by the vein.

  Had Ron injected me with something? Some kind of drug? Meth? Heroin? I panicked for a moment, but I was a scientist after all, and I knew the signs of those drugs. It wasn’t meth or heroin. Probably some kind of muscle relaxant or barbiturate cocktail to put me in that dreamy state I remembered. Something Ron gave me to feel no pain, only pleasure.

  I was called to the task force early that morning for an emergency meeting. There had been another murdered woman discovered the night before. The woman, Shelia Smith, had been killed like the others. However, “Number Four” had been written in blood on the wall behind her corpse. I studied the blood spatter with dread, because it was projected blood and it appeared to have been done through a syringe!

  I knew we had a serious problem with this killer. He was vicious, intelligent, and now taunting the police to catch him. The DNA report on this projected blood from the syringe, however, had me stumped. This time it was not blood from any of the four victims we knew about. So who was the blood from? The killer? It seemed improbable. We could never be that lucky. Or was it blood from a fifth and presently unknown victim? That possibility sent a chill through me—the realization that we could have another, unknown victim. I informed the police of my findings.

  That night Ron was not in my apartment when I came home. He wasn’t waiting for me inside or outside. I was almost thankful he was not there, except I was so full of pent-up emotions at what I had discovered at the fourth crime scene that a good, hard dose of wild sex with Ron would have been the perfect drug to set me right. Something to get me to sleeping like a baby that night.

  Then Ron called. He was nervous, edgy. “I need to see you, Julie,” he said forcefully.

  “Ron, can’t it wait? I’ve had a hectic day, and I’m totally out of it right now.”

  “I’m coming over,” was all he said.

  “Ron ... !” I replied curtly, but he wasn’t on the line any longer. I sighed, put down my phone, resigning myself to the fact that he was coming over.

  It was late, and I was tired, but the more I thought about him and what he might have in mind for us, my anger lessened and my libido grew. And that sexual appetite became a massive hunger, fueled by my fantasies of all the delightfully wicked things we had done in the past—and what we might be doing soon.

  By the time my doorbell rang I’d showered and was dressed in sexy silk pj’s, ready for my man to take me any way he liked. I know it was wrong, sexist, slutty, maybe even dangerous, but that’s what excited me about it. I felt the wetness between my legs growing, my anticipation building, as the bell rang. I knew it was Ron at the door. As I got off the couch to answer the door, I shivered from the tickle of one warm, solitary droplet of moisture that ran down my inner thighs. I knew I was ready for Ron. I just hoped he was ready for me.

  He was.

  No sooner had I opened the door than I felt the force of a large body pushing me backward, hard. Powerful hands held me down and covered me with something—a dark blanket—or large plastic garbage bag.

  My head hurt. I struggled, terrified, but Ron didn’t pay any attention to my pleas. Or was it Ron? I could not see his face. Maybe it was someone else? The killer? I began to grow fearful now. I tried to cry out, but my face and mouth were covered so tightly I couldn’t make a sound. Whoever it was, he was so much bigger and stronger than I.

  Now it was getting hard to breathe!

  Then I felt my pajamas ripped away with rude force, followed by the hard joy of penetration. Now I knew it was Ron. He was mounting me from behind. I screamed in agony—joy—fear—lust—I couldn’t even tell you what I felt just then. I lay back helpless as my body spasmed with multiple searing orgasms. Then I heard Ron scream wildly as he climaxed into me with a force I’d never felt before.

  Finally we both fell to the floor, the bag removed from my head, the gag taken from my mouth. I gasped in exhaustion.

  “Surprise!” was all Ron said, looking languidly into my eyes from beside me.

  I punched his chest twice with my small, balled-up fists. “You bastard! You scared the hell out of me!”

  He laughed. “But you liked it. I know you liked it.”

  I never answered him, but the truth was I did like it. It had been great
, incredible—and just a little sick. I began to fear that I had become a slave to my desires, and Ron was my addiction.

  I watched him as he got dressed to leave. After all, he’d gotten what he wanted. He gathered his things, looking so confident, so superior. I watched as he collected his rope, duct tape, plastic garbage bags, a hammer and screwdriver.

  Then a dreadful chill took me. I knew what I saw. It was quite plain. Ron had his own rape kit! The realization had my mind whirling.

  And this kit of his hadn’t been the result of our spur-of-the-moment sexual games either, quickly throwing together a few things, but a well thought-out plan. Or even scarier, the result of long practice and experience!

  “Ron?” I asked quietly.

  He looked over at me as he continued to collect his things. He put them all in a large black gym bag near me on the floor.

  “I think we should stop this. It’s not right, not ... healthy. I’m afraid we’re going to go too far some day, and one of us will lose control.”

  “Isn’t this what you want, Julie? What you crave? I know it is. I know you only too well,” he said, coming toward me now with that confident winning smile of his. “You live a well-ordered, logical life in a well-ordered world ruled by science and reason. So do I. We need to escape, and our games give us that escape.”

  “I don’t think I want to do this anymore,” I said slowly.

  Ron just looked at me and laughed.

  That got me angry. I shouted, “I’m serious, dammit!”

  “Sure you are. You don’t know what you want, and now you’re acting like every other damn bitch with a bug up her ass about sex.”