My Villain

(contains sensitive language, allusion to violence/sexual violence)

Life had been kinder to Jason than he found pleasing. The years had floated by with an unhindered ease, and it irked him. No great tragedy had marred his adolescence, there had been no fire or famine to hamper his growth. He had been popular enough, smart enough, handsome enough. Naturally endowed with the appropriate appendage to most aptly navigate the world, and yet, he felt woefully deprived. Trapped amidst a late-thirties he found hopelessly wanting and wanting hopelessly to find somewhere to shift the blame. But life had been easy and now Jason was tired.   

If nothing else, Jason was just that, tired. He could mask it behind his reams of charm, make believe he had landed here on purpose, for a while, if he wished. But the truth ever remained, Jason was tired. 

He was tired while he worked his job at a local radio station. Tired as he lit the cigarette between Marlboro stained fingers. As he walked to the bar, as he ordered his first, second, and seventh drink. 

Yes, Jason was tired, until she walked in. Then Jason was on. Then, Jason was alive.

“Hello.” He crooned. 

“Hi!” She answered brightly. “I’m Mel.”

A caustic sneer danced beneath eyes perhaps too deep set and hound-like to reveal the full breadth of their malice. 

“I figured.”

“Can I sit?”

“You better.”

Jason appraised the twenty-something he’d recently snared from his dragnet of dating apps. Watched her as she nervously settled across the table from him. Observed the way her hands trembled as she accepted her vodka soda from the waitress. 

Jason liked that Mel was nervous. That she laughed easily when he spoke and craned for his attention. Liked her obvious diffidence, that she seemed pliable. That her young body miraculously resembled clay.

“So,” he began, softening his voice to smoke, “Tell me about Mel.”

She shifted uncomfortably, “What do you want to know?”

“Everything.” 

“Everything?”

“Indeed. Let's start with your last boyfriend.”

“Isn’t that a bit indecorous for a first date?”

He smirked. “Taboo topics are more interesting.”

“You sure?”

“Yes.”

“Ok. Well, we were together for almost eight years.”

“eight?”

“Yea, on and off, but yea.”

Jason feigned incredulity, “Did you start dating him at twelve?”

“Sixteen.”

“So, what happened?”

“He cheated on me.” She drew a heavy sip from her cocktail. “Repeatedly.”

Bingo.

“Go on.” 

Go on, Jason’s favorite line, picked up from conducting his numerous radio interviews. It hadn’t taken him long to discover that translating interview techniques to his personal life held some distinct and devious benefits. Subtle methods to make the subject feel special while simultaneously deferring the conversational burden. Say something interesting. Entertain me. Make this worth my while. Tools with which he sifted the rubble, looking for tidbits he could apply towards his greater ambitions. He was producing her. Pillaging her wounds for a storyline that worked to his advantage. 

“He cheated on me with a few different women,” Mel explained, her voice wavering slightly, “and then with the same one, over and over.”

“And why did you stay?” He drew out the words as both condescending prediction and command.

“Because… I don’t know, I loved him? Or thought I did? Or just got fixated on making the relationship work? I don’t even know anymore. If I ever knew. It was stupid. I was stupid.”

“Don’t do that.”

“What?”

“Be self-deprecating. It's so unattractive, especially when we both know it isn’t true.”

Jason delivered the correction and praise together, in one tidy package. Working to smoothly disassemble her without leaving fingerprints. To lead her towards the necessary conclusion, but let her find it on her own — that she had no business trusting herself. That he alone knew what was right and real. But he would be delighted to explain it to her, if she was good. 

He watched her cheeks flush crimson and it excited him. Saw her eyes travel shyly down to her glass and made him swell. 

“I’m sorry. You’re right.” She said softly. 

“Don’t apologize.” It was too easy. 

“Right, sorry…shit, sorry… I mean. Right.” 

Jason smiled then, for now, Jason was certain. Certain he could take from Mel that which revived him, that which lit him from his malcontented stupor. Certain that Mel was sufficiently bent, that she would break, completely, and with little resistance. That she would generously yield to him control. 

And, if nothing else, Jason liked control. Liked to tie his marionettes to his sadistic whims. To make their limbs flop and flail and tangle beneath his unsteady influence. To fling them from ever higher vantages, and watch as they crawled back to him on cracked knees and bloodied palms. 

“Your ex is an idiot.” Jason’s words were silver and saccharine, “You have to know it's his loss right? His problem? You’re too smart to think it had anything to do with you.”

“You don’t know that I’m smart.” Mel teased softly.  

“You just casually dropped the word indecorous, so I have an idea.”

She laughed, “I mean, I can tell myself it wasn’t my fault. That it was about him, not me, but it's harder to actually feel it, you know?”

“Then just keep saying it until you do.” Jason leaned across the table, waiting for her to mirror the action before he continued. “Can I tell you something though?”

“Of course.”

“I’m glad your ex is such an idiot.”

“Why?”

“Because now I get a turn.” He paused, pursing his lips in disgust. “Ugh, did I just say that? That was so gross.”

She giggled. “No! No it wasn’t! I liked it, it was sweet!”

“Liar.”

“I’m not! I swear.”

Jason smiled and moved over to Mel’s side of the booth.

“Hi,” he said, sliding in close.

“Hi.”

Jason danced for her then. Spun her around with renewed vigor and vim, dizzied her world until it swam in sickening gales. Until he had her so well bewildered, so twisted up in his vicious wiles, that her own voice began to muddle, became too distorted to find its own sense. Until nothing made sense. Nothing, except for him. 

“I want to take you home but I don’t want you to think I’m that guy.”

The night had passed easily through three more rounds of drinks, and Mel was warm and slurring.

“I won’t think that. Take me home.”

She swayed mildly in her seat, letting her head fall into his shoulder and bounce back again. 

Jason smiled widely, “You are so drunk.”

“No. That's wrong and so are you.” Mel flashed a defiant grin, and grabbed at drink number five. “Hey!” She exclaimed, as Jason caught her hand and pried the glass from its clutches.

“Relax.”

“I hate that.” She replied, giggling, “don’t tell me to relax.”

“Mel. Relax.”

Jason set down the drink and took her face between his palms, bringing the bloom of her cheek to rise beneath the soft caress of his thumb. He felt the breath leave her in a subtle moan, noted the slight shiver that ran through as it broke across his lips. Jason wanted to devour her then, to swallow her whole and pick his teeth clean with her bones. But for now, just a taste. Just a kiss.

Mel let out another delicious moan as they parted, the brilliant green of her eyes mooning at him from beneath weighted lids. She melted, well seasoned and primed beneath the will of his wicked work. 

“You ok there?” Jason flashed a wolfish grin. 

“Mmhmm.”

“Are you sure? You look a little out of it.”

She nodded. “Can I come home with you now?”

“Are you sure that’s a good idea? I wouldn’t want to take advantage of you.”

Asking was not enough, she would have to beg.

“I’m sure. I want to.”

“I don’t know…”

“Please.”

“Well ok then, as long as you’re sure.”

Jason played with her gently for a while. Eased her in. A true villain, would never reveal themselves at the start. The best ones, the most fearsome lot, bide their time from the shadows. They offer the apple, the house of gingered bricks. They whisper sweet nothings of distraction, so you don't notice when they begin to set the town ablaze.

So Jason fattened her up for the slaughter on the bales of his sugared affection. Allowed her bask in his attention, to bathe in the pools of his charisma. Let her body simmer, at least for a while. 

And then Jason sunk in the knife.

For what was control to Jason, without that final kill. What was the point if she wouldn’t willingly sacrifice herself to the foot of his shrine. If he couldn’t strangle her down to the last breath and know that she wouldn’t use it to complain. That she might writhe limply in his hands. That her body would squirm for him in the way that he liked. That he might feel her tendons quiver and pull, but she wouldn’t run. Too broken now to fight, to care. Simply a deadened nerve struck by an extrinsic impulse. Nothing more than a reflex, subsisting on his borrowed energy.  

So when he was good and ready, Jason blunted the blade on her innards and watched it twist. Then let her bleed out across his checkerboard, bathroom floor…

Jason left her there, liked her there. An empty shell, a vacant stare, a carcass which he had methodically hollowed to his pleasure. Whose flesh, now cooled and turgid, could be easily manipulated in service of his lechery. Glassy eyes that wouldn’t judge him as he committed every last of his fantasies against her. And so he did. Never so stiff as when he plunged into her exanimate form. Never so satisfied as when he desecrated her.

“Why are you acting like this?” Mel once cried, as he held her down beneath a fit of darkening skies. “Do you even want me here? Do you even like me?”

He sighed, rolling his gin-soaked eyes away from her. Inconceivable, he thought, that a corpse could still irritate him so. There was nothing to be lost with the truth now, so he spoke it plainly. 

“I like that you’re young.” He began. “and I like that you’re beautiful. I like that such a young, beautiful girl will crawl into my bed whenever I call. I like that you do what I ask. I like what you do for my confidence…” 

…I like that I can stand on your head to make myself taller. I like that I can use your nubile cunt in any way I so choose. That I can discard you and pick you up again whenever it suits. I like that I own you. That destroying you, makes me feel alive. 

And Jason laughed with maniacal aplomb. And he twirled the handles of his mustache between fingers of Marlboro gold. For Jason was, at long last, very pleased with himself.