Characters and Situations

A crisp walk through Lake Hollywood Park would have been refreshing—for anyone but Morty Gelber. Sunday night depression was rolling in. How he hated getting his sneakers wet in the grass. And how he loathed walking. 

But, he was meeting a woman. All the better to buoy his spirits before the Monday morning meetings with the studio chiefs. Judging from the pictures on Instagram, this mystery lady could be just the ticket. 

The name was Sarah. (With an H, the slut spelling.) Or, at least, that was the name she used on Instagram. 

There, Morty saw her sitting on a picnic table, with the glorious Hollywood sign hovering in the periphery. That must have been her, with the tight, long-sleeved, low-cut top. The soft hands turning in her lap. Nervous, cute. She could have been a Latina. But possibly a gypsy, with those Eastern European cheekbones and that bumped nose. Morty had visions of a Moldovan vampire right out of a sleazy seventies Lesbian Horror flick—or, a porno. 

Sunset cast the rising figure in a warm orange glow. The Rubenesque hips swiveled as she walked to meet him. Yes, she was just the ticket. 

Morty extended his hand and introduced himself. Though he knew, to these young women, he required no introduction. 

Sarah placed her small, dainty hand into Morty’s sweating paw. “Wow,” she said. “I’m so glad I could finally meet you.” 

“It’s always nice to meet a fan,” Morty said. “I get lots of mail and kind messages on Instagram. But there’s nothing like actually getting face to face with people.” 

Sarah’s was certainly a face Morty wanted to face. He so much enjoyed these encounters with fans and admirers. But he had to be careful these days. The Hollywood whisper wheel was always turning, and if it turned for you then Heaven help you—because no one else will. One bad meeting. One bad phone call. One inappropriate comment at a party. And it would all be over. 

But meeting women through the Internet was always risky. You never knew exactly who would appear on the other side. 

“Tell me about yourself,” Morty said, as they started walking through the gathering fog. 

“Well,” Sarah said. “What can I say? I’ve been a fan of your show since high school. I’d sneak down to the living room in my nightgown and make popcorn and scare myself to death. But it was so exciting. The violence and the sex. Hot explosive blood shooting on the camera lens. I read all the novels too.” 

“Really? That shows dedication.” 

Sarah bit her lip and giggled. “Well. The scene in book five, when the ripper uses the device on the nurse. The way you described it. That scene taught me how to…pleasure myself.” 

“You know, you’re not the first girl to tell me that. Yes. The novels are still dear to me. When the show got picked up, the studio changed everything around. Those suits like to poke their grubby fingers into everything.” 

Fingers. Morty visualized getting his fingers into other things as Sarah’s warm body butted up against his. “But I still have a great deal of…input.” 

How Morty despised the way the studio execs tried to excise him from the show. They even changed his credit from “Based on the novels by” to “Characters and situations by” Mortimer Gelber. Characters and situations. 

Morty had his pride. He also had his ego, but that was nothing unusual for Hollywood. He had used every trick in his Machiavellian playbook to secure the deals necessary to worm his way into the Hollywood elite. He became a player in spite of the best efforts of the studio hotshots to snub him. 

But “Characters and Situations” was an embarrassment, a total diminishing of his creative contribution. For was that not all of life? All the world was a stage to Morty Gelber, and all the men and women but characters and situations. 

The woman walking beside was a character in all caps and bold print. Morty looked over and saw himself in Sarah’s big adoring eyes. That was exactly where he wanted to be. 

“Even so,” said Sarah. “It’s a fascinating idea for a series. Is it your actual belief that Jack The Ripper was an extraterrestrial surgeon?” 

“Oh, yes, Sarah. It’s quite clear to see that, if you make a careful study of the evidence. In doing research for the novels, I took many trips to London to observe the very locations where the murders took place.” 

“That’s amazing,” Sarah said. 

“Yes. You take the first slaying, Mary Ann Nichols. Witnesses claim she was speaking to a man that evening. Likely a gentleman John, a suitor, a paying customer. She was a whore, you see. The man was wearing a deerstalker cap, like Sherlock Holmes. A sophisticated alien being would easily be able to disguise its true appearance with period-appropriate garb. We demonstrated this in the pilot episode. The test audiences ate it up.” 

Morty loved dazzling women with his perspicacity. His intellectual prowess was his chief asset, at least he thought so. 

“Tell me more,” Sarah said, her anxious breath pushing her chest out into the open night air. 

“Well, you take the so-called ‘botched’ slaying of Elizabeth Stride. It was a chilly September evening in London. A night just like this one.” 

Morty grabbed Sarah’s hand and tickled her wrist. She gasped and wrapped herself around his chubby arm. 

“Her throat was slashed,” Morty said. “The Metropolitan police bore down on the scene. The killer had to flee before he had a chance to operate. They found the woman’s body lying there. Still warm. They searched the ground. Not a track left behind. No trace of a killer. Now, you tell me, Sarah, how could the killer have so quickly withdrawn himself, unless he—or, it—was a creature with advanced alien technology?” 

“I don’t know,” Sarah said. “But it’s horrifying. If that were true, then it’s possible the Ripper is still out there somewhere.” 

Sarah’s slender arms fastened tightly to her evening interlocutor as he continued his titillating sermon. “You are correct, Sarah. Just think about it. How many bizarre slayings go unexplained to this day? Right here in L.A., even?” 

“Hundreds?” 

“Thousands.” 

Sarah listened in abject fascination as Morty recounted multiple Ripper-like slayings from Victorian times to today. This was the premise of his show. 

The original Ripper Case Files novels were more doorstopper than blockbuster. But the TV show made Morty famous. Now, he had fans all over the world. 

The Ripper show was an instant hit with the younger female demographic. You couldn’t go wrong, Morty knew, with sizzling subplots and serial slayings. 

Morty was also a student of hypnosis. And he knew just what to say when he got his female fans alone. They instantly fell under his spell. 

His life’s work did most of the job for him. For that was the nature of fandom. Those women wanted to live in the narrative universe that sprang like a Big Bang of Genius from Morty’s mind. 

In those golden days, Morty would prefer to have multiple partners at once. But he was getting older now, and one was quite enough. For he had known many a Mary, Sue, and Sarah. All different characters, in different situations. 

“Parts,” Morty said. 

“What do you mean?” 

Morty made a pontificating face. For he was wont to be philosophical in these matters. 

“The Victorian era in England was rife with controversy regarding vivisection. That was when surgeons would experiment on living animals. Cutting them open to see how the inner workings function.” 

Sarah made a disgusted, but simpering, face. 

“I think that was the Ripper’s motive,” Morty said. “No doubt about it. An intergalactic being would be just as curious about us as we would be of it. And what better way to learn than to experiment on living tissue. After all, kid: it’s what’s on the inside that counts.” 

Sarah jumped as Morty poked her ribs. 

She was like all the other fans who adored Morty from afar. She read his social media posts. She subscribed to his newsletter. 

Morty scanned through his social likes for women like Sarah. And when the time was right, he would send a masterfully orchestrated direct message. Conversation, and some mildly inappropriate innuendo, would ensue. Eventually, a date. 

“It’s beautiful out tonight,” Sarah said. 

They walked into a shady glen. Slivers of moonlight peeled through the trees, blanketed by fog. 

Sarah sat down on the root of a large oak tree. It was just big enough to form a seat for two. 

Morty could see a question forming on Sarah’s round, strawberry face. “Mortimer?” she said. 

“Call me Morty.” 

“Morty. What made you want to write about Jack The Ripper?” 

“I don’t know, Sarah. But I know I’m fascinated by characters. I wanted to know his mind. Or it. Whatever he was. But alas, I could only get so close. The door of history is shut to me.” 

“What was the most—I don’t know—gruesome part of the story? What really inspired you?” 

“The final ‘canonical’ victim. At 13 Millers Court. Mary Jane Kelly. She was the most mutilated of all the victims. Because she was in a locked room with the slayer all night. How did he, or it, get in there? Again, I suspect some sort of technological inducement. All we know is, he had plenty of time. There was no rush.” 

The air between their faces smelled of perfumed mist. Sarah drew closer. Morty could feel her breath tickle his nose. 

“What’s it like being famous?” Sarah asked. 

“I’m not famous,” Morty said, though he didn’t mean it. “I’m just like you or any other person walking down the street.” 

“No, you’re not. You’re special. You have ideas. You’re a writer. You just invent things out of your head. And they become the dreams of others. I don’t know. It’s something special.” 

“I admit. I have my moments.” 

Morty let a dramatic pause linger in the air between them. Sarah’s breasts pressed against his chest. 

“Do me now,” she whispered. 

Morty was taken aback at her insistence. This new generation was more forward than what he was used to. “Not here,” he said. 

“I want to. Right here. Please.” 

She lay him down between the roots of the tree, where the formation of years made a natural bed. Concealed on both sides, they could undress with abandon—and even some privacy. 

But Morty was not into rush jobs. He liked to take his time. 

“You’re so beautiful,” he said. “Slow down. I want to enjoy this fully.” 

“Aren’t you enjoying it?” 

Sarah pulled off her shirt, unclipped her bra. 

“Sarah,” he said. “It’s OK. You can stop this.” 

“Why? Don’t you want to?” 

“Of course. But not like this. Not soaking wet in this cold natural setting.” 

Silence fell. Sarah breathed slowly. Her chest shook with apparent anticipation. 

“I’m opening to you,” she said. 

“I can see that.” 

“You said you wanted to get closer to me. This is your chance.” 

Morty was confused. His eyes searched Sarah’s face for some clue toward what she was getting at. 

“I’m opening the door of history to you.” 

Before Morty could blink, Sarah slammed a long needle into his jugular. A sensation like dipping into a hot bath overcame Morty’s entire body. 

“You’re as close as you’re ever going to get,” Sarah said. 

Morty watched as a blue mist surrounded them. He couldn’t move. 

A glowing white fire outlined the Sarah frame and dissolved it. The girl was gone. What appeared now was a floating, pulsing, jelly creature. The bloated bulk had no face but a grinning maw full of needle-sharp teeth. From its oily appendages, alien surgical implements sprouted through sheaths of fleshy tissue. 

It went to work on him. There was no rush. They had plenty of time. 

Bark for Reinhardt

Her wedding dress spread over his body like a puffy white cloud fallen to the bed as his tongue slid into her cunt and his hands held her by the waist. The taste of her juices, the perfume of her body and the gentle rocking of her thighs around his head; all intensified the hardness and strength of his cock, and he wanted to turn her onto the bed, push deeply into her body and flood her womb with his superman seed. He wanted her to become pregnant with his power and brutal beauty. How easy it had been to reach this point. Hans struggled in the binding ropes on the chair, forced to watch his cousin fuck his willing wife, and craving to crawl on the bed and suck the cum out of her cunt, and to feel Reinhardt’s cock, to see it, to lick it, to smell it, to submit to its glorious power. 

                                                                                      *****

Yes, Reinhardt remembered, when he was an exchange student in London, fucking whom he pleased, he used to think of sex as mere fun and games, nothing important. After his return to Germany, sex became a business: impersonal, professional, profitable. And now, it had become essential, the thing itself most worth living for. As long as he kept his body prime and seductive, he’d have no end of customers, and no end of pleasure. In his mirror, he saw a magnificent Ubermensch whom inferiors would properly adore and serve and pay. 

Seduction of his cousin and his wife had been unsurprisingly easy for him to achieve his desires. The first three visits to his cousin’s house after their wedding had been pleasant, included a tour of the University of Leipzig, and general discussions at lunch with Jane about nothing in particular. They became increasingly comfortable and familiar in his presence. In the university laboratory where Hans spent half his day among beakers, Bunsen burners, Petrie dishes, retorts, and cupboards of chemicals, he had attempted to demonstrate his latest bit of research, to which Reinhardt paid respectful attention, standing close to Hans, even at one point placing a hand on his cousin’s shoulder. Wearing a muscle-hugging black T-shirt and jeans fashionably torn at the knees, Reinhardt casually flexed and rubbed his biceps, noting that Hans glanced at them when he did so. Hans did not shirk the hand off his shoulder. In fact, he seemed to enjoy the sensation of Reinhardt gently rubbing his neck, and even admitted, that feels so good.

“Maybe I should give you a massage. You’re so tense, Hans.”

And he rubbed the neck and shoulders more firmly, allowing Hans to step back against his body.

“That feels so good.”

“I will make you feel better than this. I know what you need.”

Before Reinhardt could feel if Hans had a boner, which he was sure he did, a lab assistant walked in, so the two left. Hans liked his company whenever they happened to be alone, and now he eagerly wanted Reinhardt’s approval on what he was doing, and embraced him longer than necessary upon arrival and departure. 

On the fourth visit within five weeks, during dinner when he listened to Han’s gabble on about research work, he had kept his eyes on his cousin, who had trouble returning the gaze. Eye contact was crucially important. Reinhardt liked to fix his subject or prey with his steady, penetrating glare, his eyes often sparkling like sun on water, forcing the weaker one to look away, but also to return, half-mesmerized, sometimes frightened, but connecting and not wanting to be let go. Sooner or later, the prey’s eyes sparkled with a “please fuck me” look. When that happened, Reinhardt knew that he had subtly established the proper relationship between the Master and inferiors, male or female or whatever gender anyone was pleased to call itself, all potential slaves. 

Usually, he was paid to play the role of master, but now he wanted to experience the thrill owning and enslaving someone like his cousin Hans, and maybe his wife also, not only because it would shock his mother, if she ever knew, but also because he simply wanted to. He would put into practice his belief that a superior alpha male had the inalienable right to control, dominate and fuck, regardless of social morality. No money would change hands in this transaction. Fidgety under Reinhardt’s confident and friendly demeanour and steady gaze, Hans drank too much wine. More abstemious than most, Reinhardt nursed his single glass of Riesling, to maintain complete clarity and command.  

Jane interrupted to praise her husband, and then to ask Reinhardt if he ever regretted not pursuing his scientific studies.

“Your mother says she’s sorry that you dropped out of university given how exceptional you were in physics.”

‘Well, she only knew what I told her,” he replied.

“You mean you weren’t gifted?”

“Perhaps I was, perhaps I am, but not in the way my mother means.”

Then Hans reached over the table and touched Reinhardt’s hand and said:

“Not everyone wants to be an academic, darling. Look at him, Reinhardt could be a movie star. Already he’s had a few parts in movies. 

Reinhardt wondered if Hans had actually seen the porn flics he fucked in, aside from the bit parts in had in mainstream films. 

‘Have you ever seen a professor with muscles like Reinhardt’s?”

“You’re being silly, Hans.”

“No, seriously, I mean it. Reinhardt is gifted in his own way.”

Reinhardt wore a black T-shirt under a sports jacket, which he had removed before sitting down.

“No, really, I mean, it takes dedication and talent to create a body like Reinhardt’s. It deserves recognition and admiration.’

“You’re drunk, Hans.”

Reinhardt noticed how Jane kept her eyes on his body as Hans praised his cousin. And then he locked onto her eyes and saw the depths of her own desire for him. Yes, the please fuck me look. He knew that she’d fall before him like her husband, and soon his alpha cock would be deep inside emptying his seed into her receptive womb. From the moment he saw her emerged from the limousine at the church, her wedding dress billowing around her slender body, he wanted to fuck her and make her his bitch. And, of course, he’d also degrade and enslave her husband. His cock surged under the table.

In the kitchen, Reinhardt stood by the sink as Hans stacked the dirty dishes in the dishwasher. Reinhardt stood close to him, and when Hans bent over his back side touched Reinhardt’s groin, which responded, and Hans didn’t move, so Reinhardt just pushed gently against his cousin’s buttocks. Hans stood up, turned around, his face beaming with a red flush, his mouth open as if to speak. Reinhardt knew there and then Hans had fallen for him, thunderstruck by envy mixed with lust. Hans ran his fingers along Reinhardt’s biceps.

He needed Reinhardt’s muscles and power; he needed to serve; he needed to absorb the strength and virility that he lacked; he needed to adore Reinhardt. But he had to show it first; it was imperative that Hans respond to the presence of his superior by explicitly acting upon his desire. Reinhardt simply raised an arm and flexed, and Hans instantly raised a hand to touch and let his fingers trace the shape and veins of his cousin’s ripped abdomen. Reinhardt gripped his cousin’s neck and pushed his face closer to the muscle. 

“Remember how you used to follow me around when we were kids? You always wanted to be with me. And do what I told you. Remember?”

“Yes, Reinhardt, I remember.”

“I think you still want it.”

“Want what, Reinhardt?”

“You want to do what I tell you, don’t you?’

Without waiting for an answer, Reinhardt pressed his cousin’s face against his pec and gripped his neck. Hans at first seemed to resist then relaxed against Reinhardt’s muscles and began moaning as if entering a private state of bliss. His wife was still in the dining room, waiting for them to return. So easy to lead his cousin into the bedroom and tie him to a chair and then fuck his wife in front of him. So easy once they gave into their deepest desires. And he, Reinhardt, was there to fulfill them.

Yes, Hans would worship him. He was an academic wimp secretly hankering after muscles and men of merciless power and would willingly lick the boots of his Master. Wasn’t there also a kind of primordial beauty in brutality, now rendered impotent and shameful by contemporary morality? That’s what Hans needed: to submit to power and violence. The bitch needed to renounce his pathetic humanity and crawl for his master. Reinhardt would reduce him to the level of dog and make the professor bark on command. The very thought of it made Reinhardt’s cock, still trapped in the jeans, harden to its fullest glory. His hands still gripping the professor’s neck, Reinhardt led Hans to the dining room where Jane slowly rose from her seat, her eyes shining with lust, as they approached, and accepted Reinhardt’s extended hand.

In a Garden – Bitter

The corpses were fresh, tide not receding from the barrows of Hell, little bodies of children and adults – some of my brethren mere babes when they had rebelled, following my pennant of red and pride to an early grave.

I wept. Alone. No others had fallen. It was only me.

Cast off. Broken, bruised.

“Proud, brother?” I begged Michael in my mind, his sword wound hot on my head. “Proud to be rid of you.”

I remembered how he damned me with 

A kiss.

It takes an eternity to build. Several more to heal. More centuries to farm, plow, govern, for Mammon to scope the metals to build some semblance of edifices, for Moloch to raise the graves of the fallen and arm us, for Mulciber to get the electricity up and running on ether.

Beelzebub warms my bed, clings to me.

I am alone, though, even when I plow deep into his soul, this husband infernal mine.

Why? Well, of course, I ache.

Everyone knows me. Proud Lucifer, wise ruler, Tempter of Eve, King of Hell. First for freedom. Liberty’s spark.

But my eyes? Always, skyward – though we gaze up at sulphur and caverns. Beelzebub finds me weeping as I have drawn a whole tapestry of stars in blood with my claws on my thighs. I dig them, pick, shred, deep, deeper.

Lilith’s pudenda cannot anchor me. She tires of me, weds Asmodeus. Eve wanders, cast off into Hell, gets a job under my husband. The Infernal Empire builds. The first souls after Eve come: Cain, Naamah, the Cainites. The Canaanites. It seems my godforsaken Father damns everyone.

“Lucifer, what do you think of, when you kiss me?” Beelzebub asks.

I cannot say it. He will choke it out of me. He just, instead, tends to my wings with his mouth. They are rotting – always rotting – and Beelzebub sucks the poison out with his tongue.

“Michael,” Beelzebub answers himself. “You think of Michael. Long for your brother.”

Beelzebub begins to weep. I stare at the ceiling, on my back, spent.

“I am never enough.”

I cannot tell which of us says it.

The Empire builds. Infernal Machine. I begin to think less of the stars.

But then, a crack… I have found a way, my old serpent form healed enough, finally, after millennia. I worm my way like the shamir to Gan Eden’s crust, to the tender apple tree I planted, when I dreamed of better days – of a humanity that would seed the cosmos with their beauty, topple my Father G-d.

Michael is there, tending my Tree. I hide in the bushes, demon formed, my rotten wings, horns, and scarred leathery skin, face of horror, sanguine hell body, smelling like burnt meat. Oh, I will never heal.

Michael is singing. The song we made up as boys.

I weep.

“Lucifer? Sam – Samael?” Michael chokes, his nostrils flaring. “The hell are you doing here?” he says, a tear in his eyes. “There is no way in, no way out. I am the only one with the keys. Enemy mine, o wretched brother –” he catches me as I faint.

All I see are his blue, blue eyes

Tears

Meeting

Mine.

When I wake, he is rubbing nard into my sick, twisted, maligned burden of a body. Flesh and blood and bone poke out, charred as much as the rest of me. Michael does not mind. He is singing Psalm 31. I wince.

“Brother, you should have killed me again,” I choke, my voice as always, wretched.

He smiles through tears, gold haired, beautiful, the most holy thing G-d ever made.

“I missed you. I forgive you, Lucifer.”

I hiss, turn into serpent. Bite his ankle. “YOU CANNOT FORGIVVVVVE ME.”

He looks down, sad, and lifts my snaking form to his lips, then kisses me. I cannot help it, turn back to winged burnt husk, moan, bite his lip, and he makes love to my hell, my burnt bruised body. I cry out, as his tongue licks my wounds, heals me with the touch of an angel. It cannot do much, but the bones seal, and the spear wound he gifted me: my greatest pain? It is

Gone.

“Brother, I love you,” I mourn. “I will destroy this false Kingdom G-d and you build. I will eat you, fuck you dead, destroy you-

“I love you too, Samael. You are hugging the life out of me.”

I tear at my hair, I would beat myself with goat leathers, if I had them. “YOU CANNOT FORGIVE ME.” I weep, finally, too tired. He rubs my hair.

“Perhaps not, Samael. Perhaps our wounds are too bitter to ever heal.”

I gaze up at the stars. My humanity. My children. They will reach the cosmos, span the multidimensions, spreading Eve and Adam’s beautiful, blessed progeny.

“I did it all for them.”

“I know, Samael.”

“I will never bow to you.”

“Then let me bow to you, Samael.” He does, bending, his mouth meeting my erect, scarred cock tenderly. 

“Fuck you!” I moan, threading my hands through his hair. He bobs his Golden Boy, overgrown seagull – as all angels are – stick-up-the-ass – FUCK! – head on my member. I can’t hold it in, my lust and bitter love and hatred burning, balls tightening, the great belly of my beast spilling out onto his tongue. My cock throbs and I shudder, pass out again.

Too much. Too much.

Bloody

Hell.

“Sleep, my twin. My only love,” Michael sings, then hums B’Shem HaShem to me.

Bitter, I fall asleep, spent.

We take to meeting in the Garden. I tell him of Hell. He tells me of his and Father’s plans on Earth. One day, Michael will incarnate, virgin-born.

“Nothing is born of a maiden unsowed,” I say, suspect.

“Wait.”

He is born, in a manger. I weep. I am his guardian

Angel. 

How? I was just in my office. Yet here, G-d – who should have no claim on me! I barren! Hellbound! Tyrant of Gehenna!

How could Father, still, all these years?

Pull me back

To Earth.

To watch Michael, with rosy lips

Take

His first

Breath.

Mary and Joseph fall asleep. The Three Kings leave.

I clutch the babe in my arms.

He sighs.

I sing Michael, his mind wiped, this Yeshua

B’shem

HaShem.

Oh, what wretched wonder. I must atone? I – I – no, I will ruin this Christ.

I tried.

I offer Yeshua, this Christ, life.

He takes the bitter cup. I teach him all his Gifts. All his Holiness.

That is something the Bible never tells you. He does not cast out demons by Beelzebub, but by

Samael.

He comes to Hell. I harrow him, in my bed. Beelzebub curses and never returns.

I grow bitter.

He leaves.

I grow old.

The End of Times comes.

He kisses me, then casts us both

Into fire.

“With you, or nothing,” Michael Christ says, gleaming like sun, merciful. Love, it shines, is holy writ

On his Tongue of Swords.

“Michael, please, my only love, be rid of me,” I beg at his feet, a Beast.

He smiles, casts us both

Into Fire.

Enflamed.

It is quiet, in Hell, now.

Empty save for Michael

And I.

And we

are happy

you know.

The Girl Next Door

Headline from the Polaris County weekly Reporter, July 19, 2023: 

WOMAN FOUND RAN OVER OUTSIDE HOME SUCCUMBS TO INJURIES

From the transcript of Detective Washburn’s first interview with Abel Kingsley (July 17, 2023):

Q. You and Ms. Sheriza Collins were an item, were you not?

A. We were, sir.  

Q. Aren’t you a little old for?  She was nineteen and you… says here you are twenty-five years old.  

A. Well, I, uh – 

Q. How did that come about?

A. I knew her because she dated my friend first.  We all hung out together, became good friends.  Sometimes I was the third wheel, sometimes our friend, Hoss, came with us.  When Tobey and Sherry didn’t work out, Sherry and me kept on being friends.  One thing led to another and suddenly we were dating.  It wasn’t anything crazy or weird or creepy, I swear.  She’s technically of age… sir. 

Q. Yes, she is of age, technically, and that isn’t why you’re here.   

A. Why am I here?

Q. Can you tell me where you were the night of Saturday, July 15^th?

A. Wait, you don’t think I did it?  You don’t think I ran her over, right?

Q. Well, can you tell me where you were the night your girlfriend was run down in your vehicle?

A. I was at her house, but just for a little bit.  We argued that night. It got kind of heated, I admit it, but I didn’t run her over.  I swear.  I just walked off.  I never put my hands on her.  We’d been arguing a lot lately and I realized that was the better option, walking away.

Q. The night your girlfriend was killed, what were you two arguing about?

A. Hoss.  We were arguing about Hoss Dawson.

From Tobey Jackson’s guest essay “Hindsight” on the true crime blog The Death Knell (March 2024):

…Hoss and I met in high school.  It was the summer before our freshman year, and Abel’s younger brother, Aldwin, invited us both, and bunch of others, to a spot he and some other hooligans found exploring the woods near the school.  We had to walk down an overgrown path until we reached train tracks.  Hoss, I remember, was afraid that a train might come rushing around the bend and take us out.  He stayed as far away from the tracks as he could without climbing up back into the brush or down into more vegetation.  We had to climb down a steep, narrow muddy hill, and I busted my ass trying to keep my feet under me, but it was worth it.

Aldwin and his gang of misfits had found a stream, which they dammed up and turned into a little pool.  There were two rocks which rose high on either side of the stream right at its mouth, which made for prime jumping.  Somehow, we all ended up skinny dipping.  It was weird, but it was fun.  Innocent.  I always used to bring that up to Hoss, you know?  Like, “Hey, the first time we met, we saw each other’s assholes.  We’re stuck together.”

All throughout high school, we were best friends.  He lived with his grandmother and she loved me.  In fact, she’d be the one to suggest I sleep over when I would stay late at their house.  Hoss introduced me to his friend, Amber, and we dated on and off for three years, and he seemed supportive throughout the relationship.  To date, my relationship with Amber is my longest relationship, and I have Hoss to thank for that.  She was a big bitch, but he was a great mediator.  

Maybe that was something I should have taken heed of.  Hoss was always single, but gave great relationship advice.

I started dating Sherry after he went off to college.  She and her best friend Amanda had dated on the periphery of our friend group; it was only matter of time before they made their way to us.  Hoss and I stayed close, but he didn’t really come around while Sherry and I dated.  He was bust with school and everything.  But while he was away, she and her family moved from Torrington to Polaris County, into the house right next to Hoss’s grandma’s.  A weird turn of events, if you ask me.  

Soon after that I broke up with Sherry.  She was your typical teenage crazy.  Checking my phone.  Going through social media.  Wanting my location.  Needing to know at all times who I was with, and if she didn’t believe me, she’d want to speak with them.  None of my friends were females.  I was scared she’d try to kill them.  Sherry and Amber even threw hands once in the Brass Mill Center parking lot out in Waterbury.  Amber had sent me a text that said “Happy birthday.”

Sherry took the breakup badly.  She hit me up constantly.  When I wouldn’t answer my phone, she would call or text through Facebook and Instagram.  I couldn’t handle the crazy, so I blocked her every time she reached out.  My sanity was numero uno in my book.  Eventually, she gave up.  I thought – hoped, really – that she got the picture, understood that I wanted nothing to do with her.  Abel told me the message was clear, and that Sherry was, and I quote, “a psycho bitch.”  

After not getting texts and calls from random and blocked numbers for a few weeks, I thought the coast was clear.  Hoss and Abel did, too.  Sure, she lived next door to Hoss, but that wouldn’t stop me from seeing my boy.  And that was the plan when Hoss invited us over for the standard young adult bro sleepover.  Videogames.  Junk food.  Horror movies.  I arrived first, as usual. 

When Abel showed up, however, Sherry was on his arm.  Hoss and I acted like it was cool, and for me, I think it was.  I wanted nothing to do with her anymore, but if Abel wanted her, even after knowing what I went through, then good for him.  He was desperate to get laid like that.  It was harder on Hoss, though, for sure.  Abel didn’t stay the night like he was supposed to.  He stayed at Sherry’s house, right next door. 

Statement from Amanda Matos to the Hartford Courant (published March 5, 2024):

“Was she in love with Abel?  Love?  I mean, I wouldn’t call it love.  But we were young, you know?  I think she liked being around Tobey, and that group of people.  She got accustomed to it.  There was nothing wrong with Abel, but love it was not.  And I think he knew that.  Maybe not on the surface, but deep down where he keeps all his secrets, he knew it.  The sex is what probably made it okay for him.  Sherry and Abel fucked like all the time.”

From The Complete Journals of Hoss Dawson (published February 2024, Scribner):

5/12/23

I’m finally home for the summer.  My freshman year was something, let me tell you.  I really enjoy my psychology classes, but English still has my heart.  I think I may double major.  If I focus, I can do it.  But for now, I am ready for a hot boy summer with the guys.

Abel is supposed to come by around four.  I haven’t seen him in months.  Every time I come home, he’s busy with Sherry.  Tobey thinks it’s weird, that she’s using Abel to get close him, but he won’t tell Abel.  He doesn’t want to burst Abel’s bubble.  I get that, really.  This is the first time a woman’s been this interested in him since God knows when.  Usually, they just want a ride or for him to fix their cars.  Good for him, though, I guess. 

This summer is going to be great.  I can feel it.  Starting with tonight, I’ll make sure it’s one I remember forever.

5/12/23 (later)

It’s six o’clock and still no sign of Abel.  No texts or calls.  Tobey and his brother Alwin haven’t heard from him either.  He’s probably with Sherry, but I hope he’s all right.  Maybe he just lost track of time.  He does that a lot, the fucking airhead.  He – 

Abel just called.  Said he lost track of time (what did I say? lol).  He and Sherry were just out joyriding, he said.  He’s bringing her tonight.  He didn’t really ask.  It was more like telling me.  It was supposed to be just the boys, though.  Whatever. 

From the transcript of Detective Washburn’s second interview with Abel Kingsley (July 20, 2023):

Q. I need to know when shit hit the fan with you and Sheriza.  Spare me no details, son, she’s dead now.  This was already a serious matter, and now it couldn’t get any more serious.  Tell me everything.

A. Hoss and Sherry, they didn’t get along.  At first they did.  But things started to go downhill.  He didn’t want Sherry around anymore, but that, for me, wasn’t acceptable.  She was my girlfriend, you know?  She had a right to go wherever I went.  Hoss thought she was using me to get to Tobey, so he confronted her about it.  It was easy to do, them living next door to each other, and all.

Q. Were you there for this confrontation?

A. No, but Sherry confirmed everything he told me.

Q. And when was this?

A. The end of June, sir.  I think the twenty-fifth or -sixth.

Q. What happened during this confrontation?

A. Hoss accused her of, well, fucking me to make me her slave.  She told him she was thinking of ending our relationship because she felt smothered.  Sherry said I always insisted on being around or texting, and it was unbearable.  But what can I say, man?  I loved her.  I still do. She… she… said I was obsessed with her and everybody saw it, except me.  I… I….

Q. Do you need a break?

A. Please.

[There is a cut in the audio.  When it resumes, Kingsley has regained his composure.]

Q. Why did Hoss Dawson care so much, Mr. Kingsley?  

A. I don’t know.  Maybe he felt like Sherry was stealing me away from him.  Me and Sherry hung out a lot.  Guess I was smothering her then, too.  Hoss was jealous.

Q. Now what would make you say that?

From The Complete Journals of Hoss Dawson (published February 2024, Scribner):

5/21/22

I really don’t know if I should be writing about this… but I need to tell someone about last night, and I have no one else.  No one I can trust, at least.  

The actual Homecoming dance was definitely not my style.  I had to rent a tux and it was itchy and didn’t fit right.  It was fun to hang out with my friends, though.  Seeing them all dressed in their suits and dresses and dancing made me happy.  If they’re happy, I’m happy. 

What I really want to talk about is the afterparty.  Misty had everyone over to her place, and of course, there were drinks and some pot.  Abel was there, even though he graduated years ago.  He might be older, but he’s one of us, through and through.  My grandma still thinks he’s too old for me to hang around, but what does she know?  Times are different.

Late into the night, I stumbled into a backroom and Abel was sitting alone at a piano bench, just tapping away on the keys.  He looked sad; his head hung low.  I slid over to him, and I don’t know why, but I sat on his lap and it all poured out of him, like a waterfall.

“Why didn’t she want me?”

I had no idea what to say.  I didn’t know who he was talking about.

“She left us all,” he went on.  “How can someone just up and leave their whole family, fly across the country, and start a new life with some dude they met on the internet?”

Then it clicked.  Abel and Aldwin’s mother had left them and their father months earlier.  The whole thing was quick, but messy.  This was the first time I saw him get emotional about it.  He started crying, sobbing and shaking while I sat on his lap.  There were no words for the kind of pain that species of abandonment brings, so I said nothing.  We held each other in silence as he let out all the hurt he’d be bottling up.  It was bound to burst, and now, as he buried his head into my chest, it did.

Many of us were too drunk to drive home, so a lot of people stayed over.  Me and Abel found ourselves in that piano room, lying on the floor under some found blanket, surrounded by a bunch of passed out high schoolers.  I cuddled up close to him.  He put an arm around me.  I placed my hand low on his stomach.

After a while like that he said, “Can I take my pants off?”

Confused that he asked me permission, I said, “Sure.”

Off came his pants and my hand crept lower, and groped the considerable tent he was pitching in his boxer briefs.  I’m still a virgin, but touching led to… Well, I think you get the picture.  

And yes, I am just as shocked as you are.

Facebook post from Misty McKenna (April 2024):

“Since everyone keeps asking me, we all knew Hoss preferred men.  He never came out & said it, but we knew.  It was like a unspoken open secret.  But Abel????? We had no idea he was [painted nails emoji], but honestly who the fuck cares??  Its the roarin 20s.  Hell, one time I kissed a girl and even liked it. Katy Perry said it best. If you really wanna question something, let’s talk about Hoss’s parents selling his diary to the book publisher.  Sick!!!!!!”

From Tobey Jackson’s guest essay “Hindsight” on the true crime blog The Death Knell (March 2024):

…Things were rough for a bit.  There was obvious tension whenever we were all together.  Sherry and I had our past, Hoss and Sherry had their own problems.  Abel and Sherry had some issues, too.

Sherry was super outgoing, and I guess that could come off as flirtatious to an outsider, or to a man who is madly in love with you.  Abel hated how much she interacted with other men on social media.  If she was on her phone too long while they were together, he’d snatch it from her.  He was controlling in that aspect.  Abel let his emotions get the best of him when it came to Sherry, which was weird because he was usually reserved.  His mother fucked off to Arizona and he didn’t shed a single tear.  But with Sherry, everything kind of set him off.  Once at a park, he pulled her away into a copse by the arm, and she resisted weakly but went along.  I could hear them shouting back and forth.  Sherry came out first.  After a few minutes and one final guttural grunt, Abel returned.  The knuckles on his right hand were bloody. 

When Hoss told Abel what Sherry had said about his attachment issues, and how she thought he was clingy, and wanted to break it off, he lost it.  He started throwing shit around the room; he broke the lamp his mother had bought for him when he was twelve.  It had heroes like Spiderman and Ironman on the glass lampshade.  He was fucking livid, but of course that was hurt and disappointment manifesting as the only acceptable emotion for men: anger.  Still, I thought he was stressed enough to murder someone.

Abel and Sherry didn’t speak for weeks, and during that time Hoss and Abel spent a lot of time together.  A lot of sleepovers.  I was there for a few of them.  Videogames, shit talking.  That kind of stuff.  There was one night – they thought I was sleeping – where I heard things happening.  I never said anything to them about it because why would I?  We never judged each other for shit like that.  They could have made sure I was actually sleeping, though.  

We three hung out the day before Sherry was found on her lawn.  Abel and I played Injustice 2 while Hoss sat on the computer watching music videos.  Abel’s phone went off.  The number wasn’t saved.  We all traded looks before Abel answered on speakerphone.  

“Abel,” Sherry began.  “I miss you.  I love you.  I’m so sorry for everything I said to Hoss.  I was just feeling so overwhelmed…”

He cut off the speaker and went upstairs for at least an hour.  Probably more.  Hoss slammed his fist down on the desk.  The crack of his fist against the wood startled a jump out of me.

When Abel returned he said, “Sorry, guys, where were we?”

“I think I was just leaving,” Hoss said, getting up from the desk.  

All he’d said to me while Abel was going was that Sherry is playing the fuck out of him.  I agreed, but I wasn’t so sure.  She had left me alone for quite some time at this point.

“But we were supposed to have a sleepover before the beach tomorrow,” Abel said.

“The feeling of my own bed, my own sheets is just more appealing to me than staying out tonight,” Hoss said.

Abel sighed.  “Well… if it’s okay with you, Sherry is going to come to the beach with us tomorrow.”

Hoss rolled his eyes slowly, dramatically.  “The more the merrier – isn’t that what they say?”  On that note, he grabbed his backpack and left.  If he went home that night is anyone’s guess.

Not wanting to be in the middle of this, as well as the cause, I left too, thinking, maybe, cooler heads would prevail in the morning.  It was longshot thinking, as my father called it, but it was all I clung to.  Things had to get better, and the beach trip could have been the start of healing.

But the trip, as we all know, never happened.

Notes from Detective Washburn’s interview with Lois Allen, July 20, 2023:

Spoke with neighbor, Lois Allen, 68.  Claims she heard argument suspected night of incident. Sun, 7/16/23.  Witness claims she heard two voices, male & female.  Looked outside living room window.  Noticed neighbor, “the Collins girl.”  Unable to identify by name male party, but said he looked familiar.  “Around a lot at the Dawsons, I think.”  Argument became heated.  Saw male grab female by the shoulders.  Claims male cried, “Why do you make me do this shit? Why?” Female was upset, crying.  Allen wanted to say something, but deciding against it, citing “back in my day, we minded our own when it came to spouses.” Shrugged and wished me a good day.

From The Complete Journals of Hoss Dawson (published February 2024, Scribner):

7/16/23 

I just got back from Abel’s house. I was supposed to sleep over, but I couldn’t bring myself to stay and trust myself not be a vicious bitch.

Abel and Sherry are back together.  Just like that.  A fucking phone call.  After all the shit she said about using him, and him being annoying.  It makes me so fucking mad.  He always wants to bring her around, and I can’t stand it.  Is he stupid or just that desperate to fill the hole his mom left in him?

Ugh.  I should be a more supportive friend, I know.  I want to be.  I will be.  Starting tomorrow at the beach, I’ll turn over a new leaf.  Sherry and I used to be friends, and I think we can be again.  Or at least be cordial.  I need to try.  For Abel.  For our friendship.  I owe him that.

I hope I can keep it together.  

From the Hartford Courant, July 21, 2023: 

SUSPECT ARRESTED IN POLARIS COUNTY LAWN MURDER CASE

…Speaking on the condition of anonymity, a source close to the case claims the victim’s boyfriend has been detained in connection with the murder.  Not only do police say it was his vehicle used in the slaying, but witnesses claim to have seen him arguing with the victim and getting physical with her the night of the savage motor vehicle attack.  

Sheriza Collins was found…

Various Facebook posts after the funeral of Sheriza Collins (July 28, 2023):

Parker Taylor: “I always knew he was little… off.”

Stephen Upton: “What the fuck?  I hope he gets what’s coming him.”

Damian Campanella: “That group of friends was weird.  A little too touchy-feely, if you know what I mean.  Not surprised that one lost his shit.  More surprised that the others haven’t lost theirs, too [crying laughing emoji x3]”

Isabel Davenport: “What a mess.  I’m praying for everyone involved.  My heart goes out to Sherry’s family for all the pain and suffering they’re going through right now.  I hope they can find peace with all these revelations.  And poor, poor Abel.  May there be swift and powerful justice served.”

Wilson King: “When’s the Netflix documentary coming?  Sounds like a love triangle for the ages? LOL”

From the Polaris County weekly Reporter, July 29, 2023:

LAWN MURDER KILLER CONFESSES!

The funeral of the slain Sheriza Collins, 19, of Polaris County was meant to be a solemn affair, a celebration of her life where loved ones could share memories of the deceased.  Collins’s parents and sister shared stories of beaches, Sheriza’s favorite things to do, and other colorful memories which painted the deceased in a flattering light.  However, the mood of the occasion changed when the last person to share spoke.  Seemingly waiting until no other person wanted to share, Hoss Dawson, 20, also of Polaris County took the podium.

Standing at the head of the church, he explained: “I heard them arguing that night.  I was tired of it, tired of her hurting him.  Tired of being overlooked and forgotten.  He was my best friend, and she was only using him as revenge.  It wasn’t even working.  

“It was easy.  After he walked off I slipped outside.  Sherry was upset, sobbing, and never saw me coming.  She had left her car running, and all I had to do was climb in and floor it.  I wore gloves, of course, but I always planned this confession, here at her funeral.  My life, too, I guess is over.”

Dawson started his speech with the words, “This is how I killed the girl next door.”

As he finished his monologue, he pulled a large pocketknife from his black dress pants pocket and went for his own throat, but an enraged Mr. Collins tackled Dawson before any damage could be done.

Speaking with the Reporter later, Mr. Collins said, “He thought he could murder my daughter and then take the easy way out?  No way in hell, which, by the way, is exactly where he’s headed.  After a lengthy stay Polaris County Correctional, that is.”

TV Eye

Squatting, she adjusted her black stockings and closed her sterile white lab coat over her jutting, dripping nudity. The pile of gutted TV’s rose on all sides of the capacious warehouse, as monitors fed back her image on video screens. 

“Silly wiring slobs,” she said. “Well, that’s what ya get for free.” 

The neurogreen circuitry frothed, hissed and emitted a belch. She took the scalpel to a mass of fused ganglia, hacked off a piece and dialog/dualoged with it. It spat out a fizzing phlegmy discharge on the floor, a spreading iridescent pool that began to nibble at her bare feet. 

“Alas poor Shmoreick, I knew him, Fellatio.” She glanced around to see if her partner, Dr. Herman Groinslab, was paying any attention whatsoever to her cutting wit. He wasn’t. She brandished the scalpel in his eye. “One of these days,” she muttered.

“You’re so sexy when you’re homicidal, Fontaine.”

Kandy Fontaine shook her short, sharp,shocking locks which looked like serpents of blue neon gas. She winked lewdly at her co-conspirator in Project TV Eye.

“When we’re through, no flesh will be spared remote interrogation by our box clones,” she said. “Everybody and their little dog will have the same bad dreams.”

“Do you actually speak that way, or are you just doing it for the meta-fictional fun of it all?”

“I suppose the latter would apply like a corporate decal sewn into your retina by nanospiders,” said Fontaine. She paused to take a heroic hit off her DMT vape. “And I know whereof I speak.

“Oh dear, mechanical fucking elves, and they’re getting down and dirty by the Luminous Shore,” she said after awhile.

“Never mind those weird fuckers, Fontaine. We have work to do!”

Without another word, Kandy Fontaine pulled the final hunk of slippery brain-plant muck out of the machineflesh cube and just slapped it into the cobalt TV Eye casing.

The fluorescent light battery sputtered, flashing a psychedelic Mario Bava display of alternating blue, red and yellow against the TV Eye array.

“They’re already starting to do Lucifer’s own work,” said Fontaine with just a hint of pride. “Baal be praised.” She did the sign of the Southern Cross.

Groinslab filtered some cannibalistic crumbs out of his bread, held the remote with a jittering hand, and stabbed at the “Go Go Doppelgangbangers” button.

The video screens filled with a lurid display of pornographic violence to make Caligula blush and cause Gilles De Rais just a smidgen of envy. Men and women were thrusting hacked off partially cybernetic limbs into the glistening orifices of a purple skinned whore. An assembly line of minotaur men squeezed off ghastly jets of glowing green jissom that splattered against the faces of priests and nuns who shamelessly masturbated themselves with bullwhips and whipped cream of corn. Cyclotron shit, kajillions of raw, peeled Dream Police, dripped down the walls. A man with lips for eyes shit in the gaping mouths of a highly mutated Mandelbrot sequence of Popes. Henry Kissinger’s skeleton was raped in perpetuity by a scythe machine for sore eyes. Und so weiter, und so fort.

Meanwhile, the general population was visited by nightmares so hot, torrid, morbid and carnivorous that it mutated consensual reality itself.

“Welp, I guess our work here is done,” said Fontaine, slipping off her nitrile gloves and rubbing her clitoris raw, killing her hunger with ecstasy. “And it’s only Monday. What will we do for an encore?”

Dr. Groinslab, deceased beneath mountains of black leather, beat his meat against the waves, eternally recurring like the Dutch sailors saddle-stitched together with the Sirens of the Thames estuary.