I flop onto my bed, and sigh, hugging myself. All I can hold in my mind is the sensation of his voice reverberating in my ears. I contort with a pleased stretch, and sit up, savoring the warmth in my soul.
On the ceiling over my bed, a smattering of Polaroid pictures are taped to the ceiling, each a moment of his captured in time. My room is not solely devoted to him, but multiple sections are. The ceiling, the top of the dresser, the third drawer in the desk, and under the bed. Most of my collection is pictures, but a small coffee cup has joined the clutter of mementos on the dresser as of this morning.
I rub my face and groan. It’s fine, I’ve been prepared for this. A helping of paranoia on top of whatever other complexes drive me to act the way I do helps keep me in line. The coffee shop is a little out of the way for work, but it still lies on the way home from the night shift. From there, I return home as I have now, and check my inbox. I stand, and slip over to the desk, sliding into my chair. I tap a key, and the monitor lights up. In the corner, a small rectangle of grey footage lingers, a feed of the camera at the bank that has the best view of his section of the counter. He is already set up for the day, running through his documents before the doors open. I shake my head and change focus to my inbox. One new message sits at the top of the list.
A new request. I open it, and view the contents with a thin frown. The customer believes his wife is cheating on him with his best friend, and wants me to find proof. Reviewing the details he has provided, I open a note and begin to enter what will be relevant. My stomach growls.
I stand and stretch, licking my lips. The door creaks softly as I push through. The walls of the hallway are bare, having no pictures or paintings, or shelves. The kitchen is the same, devoid of all but what the apartment had when I moved in. I fill a pot with water, and ransack the pantry for a box of penne noodles and a jar of meat sauce.
The windows that stretch from floor to ceiling at the far end of the room are obscured, first by the light-diffusing shades that come standard, then by the thick blackout shades I installed by hand. The room is so dark that the light of the induction element in the stove casts a red glow that in turn produces a long shadow behind me. I tie back my hair and sigh.
My lack of decorations is not simply a function of an asymmetrical mind. I do hope to address the bleak state of my living situation, but my fascination and my work eat at my budget with a ferocity that cannot be overstated. Camera paraphernalia is expensive, and surveillance equipment is more so. Staying under the radar only adds to my deficit, and so justifies the questionable employment I pursue. The water boils. I add salt and the noodles.
I have a contract on my business page that all clients must fill out before requesting my services. It’s primarily legal groundwork to make certain I am free of criminal or civil legal difficulties, but it also has key additions that help me evaluate whether the client is a danger to my status quo. I never meet directly, and I never provide my own personal information. I am a void, a simple bridge to results.
I keep a taser and a baton on myself whenever I leave. My excuse is that it is for self defense, which is half true. I’ve run afoul of the targets before. Seven stitches form a lesson I won’t soon forget.
As I heat the sauce in a pan, my mind wanders. I’m not an angry person. I’m jealous, and obsessive, and probably sociopathic. Morals are a thing I had to learn, though I am capable of sympathy, empathy, and love. Perhaps my brand of love differs from the mold, but it is earnest. It’s hypocritical of me, but I do respect him. I cannot resist my obsession, but I practice a sort of abstinence. Thus far, I have successfully held back from wicked behaviors that, to my dismay, are very, very enticing. Lust is a bodily phenomenon, a natural one at that. So it is to be expected that I feel such a thing towards the object of my obsession. But I restrain myself from acting on such urges. I cannot bring myself to defile the thought of him in such a way. I am sure I would be consumed in self-loathing, were I to engage in such a filthy act as to feed into fantasies of ecstasy and pleasure. No, I feel certain, were I to violate my rules, I might sink into a wretched spiral of violence and abuse, some shocking blockbuster of blood.
Controlling my obsession is my pride. I am a gentle, passionate observer. I do not breach the halls of intimacy, uninvited.
But… Again I shudder, recollecting the events of the morning. My mind, the warped thing that lives in my skull, tugs at me, begs me to consider its cravings. Suppose, idly, that we may grow close? Perhaps he may call me a friend? My heart aches, throbs. The wicked yearning whispers again. What if, by chance, by magnificent luck, he invites me to that eden, his home? My lips curl into an unconscious, hideous, open mouthed smile. My eyes tilt to the heavens, as a still greater desire flares up from the very root of me.
“Could it be… I mean, he might… But… To Be loved?”
My greed spoken aloud, I stagger, and shiver, leaning on the counter. I glimpse my face in the glass of the stove top.
My eyes are pools of dark need, my mouth is a wide, bowing line. My brow seems to peak in the middle, a sort of supplication to my helpless, hopeless, heathenous fantasy. I start, and move the pot away from the heat, having watched long enough for the noodles to soften a little too much. I eat in silence. I berate myself for my indulgence. I ask too much of the world if I deign to suggest that I might be more than a fortunate witness. Already I am a trespasser on private moments, my only redeeming quality is that I respect the boundaries of shower and window curtains. I am a crooked thing in love with the moon, howling with my impotence. Much as I may wake from dreams of his hands upon me, I cannot force such a vision upon reality.
It’s not as though I haven’t contemplated the twisted path that begins with kidnapping. Rationality is my saving grace, my guardian angel. I know well that such a course would either limit the span of my happiness, or taint the purity I covet. A thing ceases to be itself when acted upon.
I know little history, and barely more physics. But I know a man never steps in the same river twice, and a photon cannot be observed without altering its path. I cannot bear the stress that might overcome me, should I attempt to brave the tightrope of confrontation. Already, simply being approached by him nearly ruined me, threatened my heart and mind. I may dream of something so salacious as intimacy, but I know well that a mere embrace would threaten my sanity, my very state of consciousness.
I place my dishes in the sink, and begin to clean them one by one, placing each on a rack over a towel. No, no. I will let whatever happens be by his design. I cannot impose the wishes of my possessing demon upon his light. This is the thought I cling to as I cast off my energy, and prepare to sleep.
My dreams are cruel, teasing, echoes of the denied daydreams that drew such sinister expressions from my face. Shadows of familiar shapes, half recalled after-images of fond sensations, and an overwhelming tide of insatiable aching.
I awake in a bed like a warzone, with pillows in random disarray, and the sheets contorted into a mountain range of strife. My hair has come undone from the half hearted braid I bound it with. Drool on my face and a pillow in my arms tells me all I need to know about the fading dreams that haunt me. I rise, and depart from my resting place, into the night.
With my phone in hand as I lurch down the street, I review the details I noted in the morning. I wear a black hoodie and black jeans, and dark red wraparound sunglasses.
The client’s wife has spent multiple nights away from home as of late, and returns late in the day, usually with new clothes. The best friend is suspected because the client attempted to meet up with the friend while his wife was away on two occasions, but was blown off, callously. I cannot help but scoff.
I am not a model for good relationships. I am distracted, oblivious, and outright rude to anyone I don’t know well. I’m not necessarily malicious, but I have no patience for a stranger’s whims. Goals matter more to me. All this said, I understand the importance of cultivating healthy friendships. Once a week, I make time to catch up with my two closest friends from college. They don’t know about my obsession, but they do know about my work. Sharing, even if only a little, is important. I must be ungrateful to my clients and my targets. If everyone understood the importance of strong communication, I would have very little work.
I adjust the bag on my shoulder, and slip my headphones over my ears. The sounds of the night- the distant growl of motors, the rowdy laughter of nocturnals, the chirping of stranded crickets- it is all swallowed up in a vacuum of sound. I hear the jostling of the cord, transmitted crisply. I fumble in my hoodie pocket, then withdraw a folded device, which I plug the headphones into, just before ducking into an alleyway.
I stow the device momentarily to climb a dumpster and jump to a fire escape, before retrieving it again. I unfold the parabolic microphone and ascend two stories, before squatting down between two windows and pointing it out across the street. I set it on the railing and fumble with my bag, eventually withdrawing a tripod, which I attach it to before flicking the power switch.
“… Just wish you’d stay longer.”
“You know I can’t.”
I pull my camera and lens bag from the pack, and assemble them quietly, listening to the captured audio. I turn on the tape recorder built into the microphone.
“Baby, I trust you, you know that. But I wish you’d just-”
“Up yours, James. I don’t have to tell you everything I do.”
I swear silently under my breath and stop assembling the camera, reversing all the way. I leave the microphone as is, and hop down the fire escape as quietly as possible, before jogging out of the alley and across the street. I snatch a GPS transmitter from my pocket and slink up to a red car parked on the side of the road. Once I’ve confirmed the license plate, I slip the transmitter up into the wheel well.
I jostle it roughly to make sure it’s secured, before jogging back across the street. Up the fire escape, and plugged back into the microphone, I sigh in relief.
“… If you think I’m cheating, just say it, asshole!”
A door slams. I lean back against the wall and close my eyes. I hear a door open, muffled by the range of the microphone. I turn to look, and watch as the car turns on, idles, then peels away from the curb.
“I don’t want to think that, but what else can I think?”
I look up to the target window, and watch the client sit down on the couch, head in their hands. My hand hesitates over the microphone switch. I press my headphones tighter. I begin to hear quiet sobbing.
Perhaps, I am too quick to judge others. It’s easy for me to call my clients paranoid, distrustful. I am the same. But it’s not as if normal, sane relationships are simple. I’ve been contracted at times when the target was in fact planning a romantic surprise in secret. Just the same, I’ve been contacted by cheating partners hoping to discover whether their spouse suspects them. Trust should be the foundation of a relationship, but, in truth, it becomes one of the strained ties all to often. Some people are so desperate to stop being alone, that they leap headfirst without considering the future. Some people are adaptable. Others simply aren’t compatable with change.
Seeds of Fear 