Page 22 of Cruel Pleasures

“You have always been such a bright boy. I tell everyone all the time. Diane Sutter was wrong about you. I still can’t believe she kicked you out of boarding school?—”

“Goodbye, Mother,” I grit out, teeth tightly clenched. “And the next time you interrupt me in the middle of a project, you can expect that precious marble statue you love so much to be smashed to smithereens. Understand?”

“I love you, Archer. When will you come home? Dinner begins at seven.”

I hang up on her. I’ve wasted enough time entertaining her imagination.

Mother has been that way as far back as I can remember. One of my first childhood memories was being four or five years old and watching her attempt to stroll out of Clifford’s department store, clutching an armful of items she hadn’t paid for.

She was stopped once the alarms at the entrance went off. Haughty laughter and rambles of how it was such a misunderstanding later, she was allowed to leave—only once she had put down the family black card.

You’d ask why would the wife of a billionaire shoplift? I’d answer you, why not?

Helena Hurst has never been in touch with reality. She lies, steals, fabricates stories, then smiles to your face and calls you darling.

I stopped paying attention to Mother’s untreated mental derangement years ago. Some time around the age I realized the father of mine she was so in love with wouldn’t have anything to do with her.

Whomever he is.

He wouldn’t have anything to do with me either. I’ve never even met him.

My efforts return to the dead body splayed out on the table. A messier undertaking than I originally intended, but I hadn’t been able to help myself—tonight was going to be my last chance to fit in a kill before the tediously boring club event began. Two fucking weeks, trapped within the confines of my family’s large estate.

Two weeks trapped with the dolts of the Midnight Society club, as they sit on their flat asses, guzzle champagne, scarf down caviar, and indulge in the darker side of their fantasies.

Is there a worst torture? No corporal punishment can compare.

So I ventured onto the touristy streets of the isle. I lurked among the last-minute vacationers as they partied in the waning hours before their holidays ended. My next victim materialized before my eyes. I waited for the first opportunity to snatch him up and then I ended him.

Blood douses the plastic poncho I’m wearing as I dig fingers into his sandy tendrils and hold up his decapitated head. I peer into his empty eyes and let an amused grin spread onto my lips.

“That’ll teach you, won’t it?” I ask. “You’ll never fucking do that again, will you?”

I wait a second as if giving him a chance to respond, then I laugh. Maybe the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree after all. I am my mother’s son.

Cleanup is another endeavor altogether. Luckily, money is the world’s language, and I have an endless supply of it.

I slip the B&B owner several thousand to make up for the mysterious dark stains soaking into the carpet and the foul stench stinking up the room, and I’m whistling as I haul him out in hefty trash bags.

When you’re as rich and privileged as I am, normal societal rules don’t apply to you. A dark truth I’ve learned to exploit to my benefit throughout my life. Sometimes, I almost wish someone would hold me accountable. Someone, somewhere out there would have the balls to finally make me stop.

You’re cursed, you foolish waste of life. You’ll be unloved just like me.

I shake away the cold voice that serves as the reminder of my fucked up childhood and press on. I don’t need anybody to give a fuck about me, because I learned a long time ago not to give a fuck about anyone else either.

But that doesn’t make this world any less maddening. Any less boring.

All I want is something different.

For someone to make things interesting and shake things up.

Someone out there to care about anything, anyone other than themselves, at all…

The heavy trash bags get tossed onto the floor of my saltwater sailboat, from which I venture onto the stormy waters surrounding the Isle of Hurst. The dismembered man gets tossed overboard once I’m a few miles out from land.

Dusting off my hands, I finally notice the front of my shirt. Splotches of blood have stained the fine cotton fabric. I sigh at the inconvenience and turn the boat around, the aggressive waters churning against the sides of the boat I’ve affectionately dubbed the Dark Optimist.

A joke that often makes me chuckle as I ferry deceased people to their deep sea burial grounds.