Entry tags:
FIC: Carve (Dean Smith gen, NC-17)
Title: Carve
Pairing: Dean Smith gen with Smith/Wesson overtones
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~3000
Warnings: DARKFIC: Dean Smith is a serial killer. Rape, torture, mutilation, derogatory language, allusions to hell
Summary: "My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape." (American Psycho, 2000)
Written for
spn_cinema
Author's Notes: An AU of "It's a Terrible Life" based on the movie American Psycho. Written in first person POV to stay true to the source material. Special thanks to my friends for actually reading this as I wrote it, even when they found out that there was absolutely no J2 schmoop involved LOL
My dear friend
ldyghst made an entire amazing WEBSITE (plus a deliciously creepy soundtrack that you must download) to go with this and it is beyond anything I could have asked her to do. Check it out HERE and then go over to her journal to leave her love HERE.


My finger is drawing strange shapes on the bathroom mirror with the still-sticky blood lining the indentations on the pad. A circle. A curve that looks like a Y. Numbers and letters and indecipherable symbols that dip.
I laugh; hold my hand up to it, palm-out. My teeth are stained with red. My head is filled with fire.
“Stop.”
My palm presses fast against the center of the mirror and light flashes. It blinds me and yet lets me see. I pull my hand back and smile obscenely at my own reflection through the blood of people I can’t bring myself to remember.
I am perfect. I am nothing.
It’s midnight and the day is done.

My name is Dean Smith.
My alarm goes off every morning at exactly 7:00am. I never press the snooze button because that is giving my body permission to disobey me when I tell it to wake up. I sleep on 1500 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets—always white—so I can appreciate the contrast between them and the airbrush tan that I get at Portofino Tanning on the Upper East Side.
Three minutes later, I am in front of the mirror in my Ann Sacks-tiled bathroom and take a moment to appreciate the symmetry of my face. The mold of flesh over the structure of my bones is perfect and I don’t feel even a hint of arrogance when I think of how handsome I am. I use a stainless steel straight razor to remove the hint of stubble from the planes of my cheekbones. The razor glints in my hand and I admire the curve of my knuckles as I flex around it. After, I moisturize with a bit of Crème de la Mer before dabbing Bvlgari cologne behind each ear and in the dip between my nipples.
I make myself an espresso with my DeLonghi Primadonna coffee maker and eat a bowl of Kashi Vive Probiotic Digestive Wellness cereal at my counter. I dress in my third best Armani suit and my Breitling watch.
My tie is red. Like blood on a razor.
I leave my house at 8:30am.
I am a machine.

“Big things!”
I mean to ask my boss, Mr. Adler, what the fuck he’s talking about every time he says shit like that, but then the moment passes and I realize I don’t really care. I finger the Muela Cervus 26 L hunting knife in the right hand drawer of my desk and muse about how my technique is good enough now that I could skin the cap of his bald skull in less than a minute.
I work at a company called Sandover as the Director of Sales & Marketing. All this really means is that I first convince people that they need something and then make them buy it before they realize they actually don’t.
I have a window with a view. I watch the people like ants on the sidewalk below and press my fingers to the glass, seeing how many I can smash at one time. Sometimes I think about how much pressure I would need to inject into a human torso before the insides burst out through the abdominal cavity. I should Google it, probably.

We have an admin in my department named Sam Wesson. For some reason he gravitated towards me his first week here and I see him daily. I guess it’s because he’s probably a fag and I am likely the most attractive man he knows.
“Are you still having problems with your Outlook?” Wesson asks me, and I look up from my computer, where a woman is currently hog-tied naked and being whipped with a spiked belt. I can’t hear how delicious her cries sound because it’s on mute.
“You should wear better pants, Sam,” I tell him and the boy looks momentarily confused by my non-response to his question. His ass is high and tight and if I did want to fuck one, his would work.
“Excuse me?”
“Khakis aren’t a good look for anyone,” I smile, close-mouthed. My teeth took two years to be straightened by a comely orthodontist when I was in my late teens. My first week at college I found a woman who looked exactly like her and removed every single one of her teeth with a hand drill before jacking off onto her face and wrapping large-sized rubber bands around her like a headband until the vein in her forehead popped.
Wesson blushes, the blood so pretty right underneath his skin. I find myself wondering what it would taste like.
“Have dinner with me tonight,” I say.
The boy sputters but doesn’t refuse. I don’t know why I’m asking him anyway. The girl on my computer screen passes out from the pain, but the other person doesn’t stop whipping.
“Seven o’clock,” I state, dismissing him. “Wear better pants.”

I’m washing my hands in the restroom and absently wondering how I can convince Mr. Adler that an executive bathroom is a necessity, when the hairy little hobbit from IT wanders in. He’s pacing nervously next to the stalls and his distress is making me vaguely excited and nauseous at the same time.
“It was a mistake, I’m so sorry, Mr. Smith, I’ll do better, I promise.”
I hear water running and his voice is an annoying buzz in my ear. He looks at me, shoulders shaking, and the yellow of his polo shirt is sickening. He’s twirling a pencil in his hand, around and around, twisting in the webbing of his fingers.
“Stop that,” I say. My voice is a monotone.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he repeats. My skin is covered in goosebumps under my Brooks Brothers striped button-down. The air is frozen. I breathe deep.
The pencil slides into his jugular so easily. I fist it in my hand the same way I would fist my cock and plunge it in and out of the man’s neck. The blood gurgles around it and he convulses. He pisses all over himself and I make sure to lean back so it doesn’t get on my Italian leather Moreschi shoes.
I drag his corpse into one of the stalls and prop him up on the toilet seat. His limbs hang like a puppet with the strings cut. His tongue bulges out of his mouth like a slug and I push it back into his mouth with my index finger.
I shut the stall door and wash my hands again. I should probably get a manicure this afternoon, if I have time. My knuckles are a little dry underneath the pink flush of blood.
I slip on my Oliver Peoples aviators and head to Lure Fishbar to have lunch. The raw oysters taste like what I imagine the tongue would have.

After I leave the office for the day, I head to Bar d’Eau at the Trump Soho and drink Delamain Pale & Dry cognac, which is mildly disgusting, but looks good in the glass. I see a skinny blonde eyeing me from the other end of the bar, her barely concealed lust amusing. Her breasts sit high in her tight tank dress and she reminds me of my sister.
“Tonight your name is Jo,” I say to her as we ride the elevator up to my penthouse.
By 6:15 I have her naked on her back on my 1500 thread count sheets, legs spread-eagled as I pump my cock into her dripping cunt. She’s making odd cooing noises and it’s disturbing my rhythm so I lean down and put my right hand over her mouth. She starts wheezing when I put my thumb over the curve of her nostrils.
She tries to scream when I bend my head and rip one of her nipples off with my canines, but she has no oxygen left to do it with. I chew thoughtfully, savoring the taste and wishing I had some more of that cognac to wash it down. The acidity would go nicely with the iron in the blood.
When she passes out I tie her to the headboard with the polka dot suspenders I wore today, slim hands pressed together like she’s praying. I cut her tongue out with my straight edge, realizing absently that I’ll have to sharpen it if I want to get a good close shave in the morning. I can’t exactly go into the office looking like a homeless drifter now, can I?
The moment she comes back to wakefulness and grasps the full extent of the horror in front of her is the moment I’ll cherish best about her. I gouge out her eyes and wash up. Sam Wesson should be here soon.
The night before I left for Stanford, I set my sister's Malibu Barbie on fire and stuffed it into Jo’s pillowcase. Jo was sleeping at the time and the scent of her hair burning was so sweet in my nostrils I thought I would gag.
I think I did that, anyway. It sounds like something I would do.

Wesson is on time, which I like. He’s wearing tight stone washed Levis, which I like even better.
He’s sitting on my couch, sipping a Peroni and looking wide-eyed at the glass and chrome. The utter trepidation on his face is almost endearing. He swallows, and I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down with lowered eyelids.
Wesson bites his lip and I find myself wondering what it would taste like if I chewed on it. My teeth ache at the thought.
“I’ve been having these dreams,” the boy starts. My eyes stay half-lidded. I have dreams too. Fire and serrated edges and the pin-pricks of insect legs.
“That’s nice,” I respond, nonchalant.
“Dean…I think I was meant for something different.”
I stand up and walk slowly around the couch until I’m standing directly behind where he is sitting. I glance towards the hallway that leads to my bedroom, where a girl with no eyes or tongue or nipples hangs crucified on my headboard.
“I think you are too, Dean. You…you’re in these dreams.”
I wrap my left hand slightly around his throat and feel him swallow. He leans into my touch like touching him is my birthright and not a symptom of my disease. My other hand rests in his hair, which is soft as silk. I want to ask him what kind of conditioner he uses.
I could break his neck in seconds, feel the bone snap against the thin skin of my wrists. I could bend down and gnaw on the tendon between his shoulder and his neck, swallowing him down until he was inside me. I could lay him over the corpse of the girl on my bed and fuck his ass until his insides spill out over my neatly trimmed pubic hair. I could hold him in my arms and murmur “Sammy” against his forehead until all the horror in the world goes away and I feel him sleep pressed against my heartbeat.
“You should go,” I say instead of doing any of that. I drop my hands to my sides.
“Dean.” His voice breaks a bit.
“You don’t know me, Sam. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
I turn and head down the hallway to my bedroom, not looking back, listening for the front door to click shut. I stare down at the girl in my bed, blood dripping out of her eyes sockets like tears. I cut the weeping bitch’s head off with a machete and throw it across the room. Blood spatters against the eggshell white walls and I feel a little better.

I don’t even look at the name of the place as I head into the filthy bar. No one I know would associate themselves with this kind of place, so it’s not like I’m going to ever need to recommend it to anyone.
I see a man at the end of the bar and he meets my eyes. He’s tall enough, built, with long brown hair that could use a trip to Cutler SoHo. He smiles. He has dimples. He’ll do.
I’m smashing his face into the brick wall in the alley behind the bar as I fuck him from behind. His ass is tighter than any cunt I’ve fucked before and the friction is high as the only lubrication is a moderate amount of spit. The man had grunted in pain when I first shoved into him, but he’s taking it well enough.
I wrap my hands in his hair, which is not nearly soft enough. That fact angers me and I grip his head tightly before slamming it forcefully against the wall. He moans a bit and the walls of his ass constrict involuntarily.
He struggles so I keep bashing his head in as I fuck him. I pull out before I come and he slides down into a puddle on the ground. He’s holding his head and blood is coating his fingers. He keeps moaning so I backhand him to shut him up.
He’s lying prone and dazed on the ground and I pull a scalpel out of my pocket. I trace my finger along his cheek, finding the exact spot where the dimple indents before jabbing the scalpel into his face. His entire body convulses so I sit on his stomach to keep him still as I stab him.
“W-w-what,” the man gurgles around a throat full of blood.
I stab and stab, my free hand holding the not-soft-enough hair.
“You betrayed me, you fucking lying sonovabitch!”
Confused eyes look up at me so I stab them until the eyeballs collapse like quicksand. My face is wet and I press it to his neck, as I take my cleaner hand and jack myself to completion over his limp cock, which is resting on his abdomen.
“Sammy, Sammy,” I chant, my teeth chewing the stubble on his jawbone. I scoop my come up and rub it all over his ruined cheek before licking the entire mess off. It tastes like salt.

I shoot the night guard at the front entrance of the Sandover building with a pearl-handled revolver. He collapses onto his desk like a ragdoll.
Another polo-shirted loser is working late. He taps frantically on his keyboard until I grab him by the scruff of his neck and pull him into the break-room I’ve never been in. I stick his head in the microwave and wait for the smell and the pop.
I bash the cleaning lady in the head with a wrench after spraying her in the face with Windex. She crumbles to the ground and I grab her mop and eviscerate her with the end of it. I pour bathroom cleanser in the open cavity.
I let out a primal scream as I take a crowbar to the rows of faceless cubicles, destroying telephones and desk chairs and ancient PCs, wishing I was hitting flesh instead.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the glass of the window, a shard of something, an abstraction. The vines of mayhem spread out over my face and I am left with the splintered echo of what I have become. The mask slips.
I head down to the lobby again. The night guard stares at me and waves cheerfully.
“Night, Mr. Smith!” he calls out to me. He thinks he knows me. Thinks he sees me.
I look at him. At how very not dead he is.
I blink and Mr. Adler is standing in front of me. I don’t say a word as I get into a cab and go home.
Mr. Adler is waiting for me in my bathroom. He looks displeased but I have blood on my hands and symbols in my head straining to get out. My heart thumps wildly as I start to draw.

There is another man standing behind me in my bathroom. Mr. Adler had been there just a minute before, but the light that had blinded me and allowed me to see had sent him away. I'm not sure if this new man came to take his place, but it doesn’t really affect me either way. I touch my bloody fingers to my lips and suck them greedily.
“The angels think they know you, Dean. But they don’t. I always knew my boy would choose me in the end. It’s your destiny.”
The man’s voice breathes out on a hiss. He's like a snake and I can feel it in the marrow of my bones, which is strange because usually I don't feel anything at all.
“You are my perfect animal, Dean. Finally, you are everything I knew you could be.”
The pupils of the man's eyes disappear as I look at him in the mirror and suddenly there is only white. It bleaches out the red and the buzz in my head calms. I stop sucking my fingers.
“We are going to have forever together, Dean, right here. Imagine all the possibilities.”
It doesn’t matter. I will wake up tomorrow at 7:00am and look in this mirror and become what the world thinks I am supposed to be. Become what the man with the white eyes knows is a lie. I will put the mask back on.
I wash the blood off my hands and apply Crème de la Mer to the bridges of my cuticles so they don’t crack from overuse.
I set my alarm and sleep without dreams for the first time in the forty years I can’t bring myself to remember or forget.

Pairing: Dean Smith gen with Smith/Wesson overtones
Rating: NC-17
Word Count: ~3000
Warnings: DARKFIC: Dean Smith is a serial killer. Rape, torture, mutilation, derogatory language, allusions to hell
Summary: "My pain is constant and sharp, and I do not hope for a better world for anyone. In fact, I want my pain to be inflicted on others. I want no one to escape." (American Psycho, 2000)
Written for
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
Author's Notes: An AU of "It's a Terrible Life" based on the movie American Psycho. Written in first person POV to stay true to the source material. Special thanks to my friends for actually reading this as I wrote it, even when they found out that there was absolutely no J2 schmoop involved LOL
My dear friend
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
My finger is drawing strange shapes on the bathroom mirror with the still-sticky blood lining the indentations on the pad. A circle. A curve that looks like a Y. Numbers and letters and indecipherable symbols that dip.
I laugh; hold my hand up to it, palm-out. My teeth are stained with red. My head is filled with fire.
“Stop.”
My palm presses fast against the center of the mirror and light flashes. It blinds me and yet lets me see. I pull my hand back and smile obscenely at my own reflection through the blood of people I can’t bring myself to remember.
I am perfect. I am nothing.
It’s midnight and the day is done.
My name is Dean Smith.
My alarm goes off every morning at exactly 7:00am. I never press the snooze button because that is giving my body permission to disobey me when I tell it to wake up. I sleep on 1500 thread count Egyptian cotton sheets—always white—so I can appreciate the contrast between them and the airbrush tan that I get at Portofino Tanning on the Upper East Side.
Three minutes later, I am in front of the mirror in my Ann Sacks-tiled bathroom and take a moment to appreciate the symmetry of my face. The mold of flesh over the structure of my bones is perfect and I don’t feel even a hint of arrogance when I think of how handsome I am. I use a stainless steel straight razor to remove the hint of stubble from the planes of my cheekbones. The razor glints in my hand and I admire the curve of my knuckles as I flex around it. After, I moisturize with a bit of Crème de la Mer before dabbing Bvlgari cologne behind each ear and in the dip between my nipples.
I make myself an espresso with my DeLonghi Primadonna coffee maker and eat a bowl of Kashi Vive Probiotic Digestive Wellness cereal at my counter. I dress in my third best Armani suit and my Breitling watch.
My tie is red. Like blood on a razor.
I leave my house at 8:30am.
I am a machine.
“Big things!”
I mean to ask my boss, Mr. Adler, what the fuck he’s talking about every time he says shit like that, but then the moment passes and I realize I don’t really care. I finger the Muela Cervus 26 L hunting knife in the right hand drawer of my desk and muse about how my technique is good enough now that I could skin the cap of his bald skull in less than a minute.
I work at a company called Sandover as the Director of Sales & Marketing. All this really means is that I first convince people that they need something and then make them buy it before they realize they actually don’t.
I have a window with a view. I watch the people like ants on the sidewalk below and press my fingers to the glass, seeing how many I can smash at one time. Sometimes I think about how much pressure I would need to inject into a human torso before the insides burst out through the abdominal cavity. I should Google it, probably.
We have an admin in my department named Sam Wesson. For some reason he gravitated towards me his first week here and I see him daily. I guess it’s because he’s probably a fag and I am likely the most attractive man he knows.
“Are you still having problems with your Outlook?” Wesson asks me, and I look up from my computer, where a woman is currently hog-tied naked and being whipped with a spiked belt. I can’t hear how delicious her cries sound because it’s on mute.
“You should wear better pants, Sam,” I tell him and the boy looks momentarily confused by my non-response to his question. His ass is high and tight and if I did want to fuck one, his would work.
“Excuse me?”
“Khakis aren’t a good look for anyone,” I smile, close-mouthed. My teeth took two years to be straightened by a comely orthodontist when I was in my late teens. My first week at college I found a woman who looked exactly like her and removed every single one of her teeth with a hand drill before jacking off onto her face and wrapping large-sized rubber bands around her like a headband until the vein in her forehead popped.
Wesson blushes, the blood so pretty right underneath his skin. I find myself wondering what it would taste like.
“Have dinner with me tonight,” I say.
The boy sputters but doesn’t refuse. I don’t know why I’m asking him anyway. The girl on my computer screen passes out from the pain, but the other person doesn’t stop whipping.
“Seven o’clock,” I state, dismissing him. “Wear better pants.”
I’m washing my hands in the restroom and absently wondering how I can convince Mr. Adler that an executive bathroom is a necessity, when the hairy little hobbit from IT wanders in. He’s pacing nervously next to the stalls and his distress is making me vaguely excited and nauseous at the same time.
“It was a mistake, I’m so sorry, Mr. Smith, I’ll do better, I promise.”
I hear water running and his voice is an annoying buzz in my ear. He looks at me, shoulders shaking, and the yellow of his polo shirt is sickening. He’s twirling a pencil in his hand, around and around, twisting in the webbing of his fingers.
“Stop that,” I say. My voice is a monotone.
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry,” he repeats. My skin is covered in goosebumps under my Brooks Brothers striped button-down. The air is frozen. I breathe deep.
The pencil slides into his jugular so easily. I fist it in my hand the same way I would fist my cock and plunge it in and out of the man’s neck. The blood gurgles around it and he convulses. He pisses all over himself and I make sure to lean back so it doesn’t get on my Italian leather Moreschi shoes.
I drag his corpse into one of the stalls and prop him up on the toilet seat. His limbs hang like a puppet with the strings cut. His tongue bulges out of his mouth like a slug and I push it back into his mouth with my index finger.
I shut the stall door and wash my hands again. I should probably get a manicure this afternoon, if I have time. My knuckles are a little dry underneath the pink flush of blood.
I slip on my Oliver Peoples aviators and head to Lure Fishbar to have lunch. The raw oysters taste like what I imagine the tongue would have.
After I leave the office for the day, I head to Bar d’Eau at the Trump Soho and drink Delamain Pale & Dry cognac, which is mildly disgusting, but looks good in the glass. I see a skinny blonde eyeing me from the other end of the bar, her barely concealed lust amusing. Her breasts sit high in her tight tank dress and she reminds me of my sister.
“Tonight your name is Jo,” I say to her as we ride the elevator up to my penthouse.
By 6:15 I have her naked on her back on my 1500 thread count sheets, legs spread-eagled as I pump my cock into her dripping cunt. She’s making odd cooing noises and it’s disturbing my rhythm so I lean down and put my right hand over her mouth. She starts wheezing when I put my thumb over the curve of her nostrils.
She tries to scream when I bend my head and rip one of her nipples off with my canines, but she has no oxygen left to do it with. I chew thoughtfully, savoring the taste and wishing I had some more of that cognac to wash it down. The acidity would go nicely with the iron in the blood.
When she passes out I tie her to the headboard with the polka dot suspenders I wore today, slim hands pressed together like she’s praying. I cut her tongue out with my straight edge, realizing absently that I’ll have to sharpen it if I want to get a good close shave in the morning. I can’t exactly go into the office looking like a homeless drifter now, can I?
The moment she comes back to wakefulness and grasps the full extent of the horror in front of her is the moment I’ll cherish best about her. I gouge out her eyes and wash up. Sam Wesson should be here soon.
The night before I left for Stanford, I set my sister's Malibu Barbie on fire and stuffed it into Jo’s pillowcase. Jo was sleeping at the time and the scent of her hair burning was so sweet in my nostrils I thought I would gag.
I think I did that, anyway. It sounds like something I would do.
Wesson is on time, which I like. He’s wearing tight stone washed Levis, which I like even better.
He’s sitting on my couch, sipping a Peroni and looking wide-eyed at the glass and chrome. The utter trepidation on his face is almost endearing. He swallows, and I watch his Adam’s apple bob up and down with lowered eyelids.
Wesson bites his lip and I find myself wondering what it would taste like if I chewed on it. My teeth ache at the thought.
“I’ve been having these dreams,” the boy starts. My eyes stay half-lidded. I have dreams too. Fire and serrated edges and the pin-pricks of insect legs.
“That’s nice,” I respond, nonchalant.
“Dean…I think I was meant for something different.”
I stand up and walk slowly around the couch until I’m standing directly behind where he is sitting. I glance towards the hallway that leads to my bedroom, where a girl with no eyes or tongue or nipples hangs crucified on my headboard.
“I think you are too, Dean. You…you’re in these dreams.”
I wrap my left hand slightly around his throat and feel him swallow. He leans into my touch like touching him is my birthright and not a symptom of my disease. My other hand rests in his hair, which is soft as silk. I want to ask him what kind of conditioner he uses.
I could break his neck in seconds, feel the bone snap against the thin skin of my wrists. I could bend down and gnaw on the tendon between his shoulder and his neck, swallowing him down until he was inside me. I could lay him over the corpse of the girl on my bed and fuck his ass until his insides spill out over my neatly trimmed pubic hair. I could hold him in my arms and murmur “Sammy” against his forehead until all the horror in the world goes away and I feel him sleep pressed against my heartbeat.
“You should go,” I say instead of doing any of that. I drop my hands to my sides.
“Dean.” His voice breaks a bit.
“You don’t know me, Sam. You don’t know what I’m capable of.”
I turn and head down the hallway to my bedroom, not looking back, listening for the front door to click shut. I stare down at the girl in my bed, blood dripping out of her eyes sockets like tears. I cut the weeping bitch’s head off with a machete and throw it across the room. Blood spatters against the eggshell white walls and I feel a little better.
I don’t even look at the name of the place as I head into the filthy bar. No one I know would associate themselves with this kind of place, so it’s not like I’m going to ever need to recommend it to anyone.
I see a man at the end of the bar and he meets my eyes. He’s tall enough, built, with long brown hair that could use a trip to Cutler SoHo. He smiles. He has dimples. He’ll do.
I’m smashing his face into the brick wall in the alley behind the bar as I fuck him from behind. His ass is tighter than any cunt I’ve fucked before and the friction is high as the only lubrication is a moderate amount of spit. The man had grunted in pain when I first shoved into him, but he’s taking it well enough.
I wrap my hands in his hair, which is not nearly soft enough. That fact angers me and I grip his head tightly before slamming it forcefully against the wall. He moans a bit and the walls of his ass constrict involuntarily.
He struggles so I keep bashing his head in as I fuck him. I pull out before I come and he slides down into a puddle on the ground. He’s holding his head and blood is coating his fingers. He keeps moaning so I backhand him to shut him up.
He’s lying prone and dazed on the ground and I pull a scalpel out of my pocket. I trace my finger along his cheek, finding the exact spot where the dimple indents before jabbing the scalpel into his face. His entire body convulses so I sit on his stomach to keep him still as I stab him.
“W-w-what,” the man gurgles around a throat full of blood.
I stab and stab, my free hand holding the not-soft-enough hair.
“You betrayed me, you fucking lying sonovabitch!”
Confused eyes look up at me so I stab them until the eyeballs collapse like quicksand. My face is wet and I press it to his neck, as I take my cleaner hand and jack myself to completion over his limp cock, which is resting on his abdomen.
“Sammy, Sammy,” I chant, my teeth chewing the stubble on his jawbone. I scoop my come up and rub it all over his ruined cheek before licking the entire mess off. It tastes like salt.
I shoot the night guard at the front entrance of the Sandover building with a pearl-handled revolver. He collapses onto his desk like a ragdoll.
Another polo-shirted loser is working late. He taps frantically on his keyboard until I grab him by the scruff of his neck and pull him into the break-room I’ve never been in. I stick his head in the microwave and wait for the smell and the pop.
I bash the cleaning lady in the head with a wrench after spraying her in the face with Windex. She crumbles to the ground and I grab her mop and eviscerate her with the end of it. I pour bathroom cleanser in the open cavity.
I let out a primal scream as I take a crowbar to the rows of faceless cubicles, destroying telephones and desk chairs and ancient PCs, wishing I was hitting flesh instead.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the glass of the window, a shard of something, an abstraction. The vines of mayhem spread out over my face and I am left with the splintered echo of what I have become. The mask slips.
I head down to the lobby again. The night guard stares at me and waves cheerfully.
“Night, Mr. Smith!” he calls out to me. He thinks he knows me. Thinks he sees me.
I look at him. At how very not dead he is.
I blink and Mr. Adler is standing in front of me. I don’t say a word as I get into a cab and go home.
Mr. Adler is waiting for me in my bathroom. He looks displeased but I have blood on my hands and symbols in my head straining to get out. My heart thumps wildly as I start to draw.
There is another man standing behind me in my bathroom. Mr. Adler had been there just a minute before, but the light that had blinded me and allowed me to see had sent him away. I'm not sure if this new man came to take his place, but it doesn’t really affect me either way. I touch my bloody fingers to my lips and suck them greedily.
“The angels think they know you, Dean. But they don’t. I always knew my boy would choose me in the end. It’s your destiny.”
The man’s voice breathes out on a hiss. He's like a snake and I can feel it in the marrow of my bones, which is strange because usually I don't feel anything at all.
“You are my perfect animal, Dean. Finally, you are everything I knew you could be.”
The pupils of the man's eyes disappear as I look at him in the mirror and suddenly there is only white. It bleaches out the red and the buzz in my head calms. I stop sucking my fingers.
“We are going to have forever together, Dean, right here. Imagine all the possibilities.”
It doesn’t matter. I will wake up tomorrow at 7:00am and look in this mirror and become what the world thinks I am supposed to be. Become what the man with the white eyes knows is a lie. I will put the mask back on.
I wash the blood off my hands and apply Crème de la Mer to the bridges of my cuticles so they don’t crack from overuse.
I set my alarm and sleep without dreams for the first time in the forty years I can’t bring myself to remember or forget.