Hunting monsters

1

A monster has killed seven men. He picked them up in Hollywood "gay" bars. They were looking for company, may be a free dinner and a few bucks. Instead they got their throats cut, their tongues removed... to be replaced with their own testicles for a good measure. Seven men murdered in seven weeks.

This is week number eight and he's got my attention!

Before becoming a detective I used to be a professional hunter. I understand how he thinks. I have tasted his hunger, his desire for blood, his hate.

We are bound to meet soon. He will seek me out and come to me. He has no choice, because tonight is the night. He must feed his hunger and I'm going to become his perfect victim.

I look at the photographs on a screen of my monitor. His seven victims look incredibly alike as if they were related. I add my own photo to the display, key in the program and eight pictures merge into one. I can still recognize myself in this youthful, profoundly "gay" boy - man. A strange mixture of decadence and innocence - long eyelashes, deep blue eyes with dark shadows, white porcelain skin with just a touch of rouge highlighting the chick-bones, small puffy mouth with a trace of lipstick... what a picture!

I sit down in front or my antique bronze mirror (a family inheritance), open a make-up box and begin turning into the man on my screen. Long before I became a hunter, I was a make-up artist, a very useful skill indeed.

2

It's Friday night and Santa Monica Boulevard is filled with festive crowds of "gay" men. They are standing in groups under neon signs of "gay" bars, sitting outside on restaurant patios, eating, drinking, trying to get laid ... not so different from the rest of humanity.

Tonight he is coming to take one of them. A "lucky guy" will get his throat cut, lose his tongue, have his balls chopped off...perhaps not in that particular order.

"Numbers" is a pick-up spot filled with young hustlers looking for rich alder guys. I'm sitting at the bar, just one of the "boys" waiting for my "prince" to arrive. Several men have approached me but none of them matched a profile of my monster. I gave them a "brash-off," they shrugged and found some body else. Two hours have gone by, but I'm waiting patiently. For tonight is the night.

He comes in on a stroke of midnight, without a moment of hesitation walks across the room and sits next to me. He is a tall man well in his forties, wearing an expensive English suit and a conservative tie. He offers me a drink and I except. We're exchanging a few meaningless sentences.

He tells me that his name is Nick and then asks about my price for a night.

Filled with desire and loathing I look directly in his face.

"It will cost you a thousand bucks."

"Are you worth it?" He replies, only his mouth is moving.

I lick my lips, exposing my tongue to Nick's view.

"Baby, I'm the best there is!"

The blood rushes to his face. Nick's eyes light up with all secret fires of hell.

Still, I have to be sure.

3

I'm sitting on a couth in a large living room of Nick's home in Hollywood Hills. Nick is busy preparing drinks at the bar. We've been together for almost an hour and he hasn't touched me, not once.