Page 12 of Dark Side of the Cloth

“You’re not a priest?” Tim stuttered and then began to roll back and forth violently, trying to pull free of the bindings. The plastic of the shower curtain he was still wrapped in made an irritating, crinkling noise as Dean watched the insect wiggle in his web. The bindings were designed to tighten during a struggle, leaving them impossible to escape, but it was always amusing to watch someone try. Dean knelt at the edge of the grave.

“Tell me something.” Tim’s fearful eyes swung up to him. “How does it feel to be the prey and not the predator?” Dean took a deep breath of the cold night air, releasing it into the darkness. “You see, for me, I feel rejuvenated, I feel alive, I feel like I’m exactly where I was always meant to be.”

Dark eyes just stared back at Dean. For a moment, he thought the man had stopped breathing. He was so utterly still.

“Come now. You might as well tell me what it’s like for you. I’m genuinely interested.” He pointedly looked around at the deep dirt prison. “It’s not like you’re going anywhere.”

“Please, please, I promise to change. I promise to get help. I swear to—”

“God? I already told you there is no God. Besides, I saw what you did to the cats in the scrapyard. If you want me to believe that you can change, then you’ll have to do better than that.”

“What do you want me to say? I’ll say anything. I’ll do anything.” Tim wiggled a little closer.

“Alright, let’s make a deal. You tell me what drove you to do the things you’ve done, and I will consider your plea. Remember, I get the final say on whether you live tonight.” He had no intentions of letting this man roam free ever again, but he also had no intentions of telling him that.

Tim licked his cracked lips, and Dean couldn’t help but wonder why anyone would ever trust this man. He’d saw him for the low-life predator that he was the moment he’d laid eyes on him.

Hmm…maybe it said more about himself than the man in the pit.

But he couldn’t just kill Tim when he showed up on his doorstep. He had a code to follow. The Righteous had strict rules, and rule number one was not to hurt innocents, so he had to do his homework first. He had to be certain. Dean had compiled a substantial file on this worm over their weeks of talking, but when the man accepted his help and offered for him to come over. How could he refuse?

Dean smirked as he thought about how he took Tim for coffee, letting him think that he was fully forgiven for the unfathomable things he’d done. And then, Dean planned his next move.

As the silence ticked on, Dean grew impatient. “Okay fine, I guess my decision has been made.”

Dean stood, and Tim yelled for him to stop. He paused and then knelt once more. “You meant what you said?”

His voice was full of hope. Pathetic. “I promise on my father’s grave.”

Tim took a deep breath, his body now shivering constantly with the biting cold. “Alright, fine, I will tell you.”

Dean could almost see the wheels turning in Tim’s head.

“I like their soft skin,” he finally said.

“Go on.”

That rat-like tongue ran over those lips again. Dean’s hand flexed as he pictured ripping it out of Tim’s mouth. The sound of Tim’s imagined gargled screams were like a church choir to his ears.

“Their innocence draws me, their big eyes looking to me for guidance, so trusting, so…you don’t understand, I needed to touch them. They were too beautiful to resist.” The man stopped talking, his eyes staring through Dean as he sunk into his depraved fantasies. “I loved their frilly little dresses paired with those white stockings. It made them look like the perfect dolls that they are, and the rich, young scent of their hair—” The man closed his eyes and breathed deeply. “Yes, the scent of their fresh, virgin pussies. They were perfect—unmarred, or unsullied by this world or another man.”

Tim opened his eyes, and they glittered with morbid darkness in the swinging lantern light. His arousal was so strong that Dean didn’t need him to say another word to know what he was daydreaming about—disgusting. For all Tim’s talk of wanting to get better, of wanting his help, Dean knew there was no help for someone like Tim.

Images of his own father came to mind. How many women and teenage girls had his father raped and then killed? Too many to count, too many for him to even remember them all. Dean gripped the shovel handle harder.

“I was always their first and their last,” Tim said. “It was beautiful, and they knew I loved them.” Tim stopped talking to take a deep breath as he looked up to the star-filled night sky. “Don’t you see, I did them a favor. I showed them what true love is, and they will never have to worry about what the cruelty of this world will do to them. They’ll never have their hearts broken or end up on the street, becoming nothing more than a cheap trick. I saved them from being disappointed, let down, or abused by some pervert.”

Um, hello, pot meet kettle. Dean raised an eyebrow. He wondered if this guy knew just how crazy he sounded. “So, you were their savior?”

“Yes! You understand it. I was their savior, their teacher, their lover. I did, no do, love them, and they will remain perfect forever. Their faces will never grow old and get wrinkled or suffer a fate like cancer.” Tim smiled wide. “Don’t you see, in my own way, I was doing God’s work?” Tim nodded his head vigorously up and down. “So, will you let me go now?”

“Didn’t I already tell you that there is no God?”

Tim leaned his body over, his face growing serious. “Yes, but I know you’re just testing me. This is a final test to see if I’m worthy of God’s forgiveness.”

Is this guy for real?

Dean had come across many forms of delusion in his travels and his journey as one of The Righteous, but the inner workings of this man’s mind…Dean rubbed his chin.