The Highwayman

Chapter 5: Unscathed

Chapter 5: Unscathed

June 7

I woke just before dawn. The kid was still asleep and I thought about cramming my c**k inside his ass. He looked so at peace while sleeping, and I didn’t turn into a monster. Instead, I got out of bed, stretched, discovered the kitchen, and decided to make a cup of instant coffee.

To my surprise, the kitchen was tidy. Everything had its own place. Dishes were clean. The sinks were spotless. The four-person table was decorated with a ring of acorns and accessorized with what smelled like a lemon candle. The floor was freshly waxed and its wood shone in the dawn’s early light.

I had the cup of coffee in my left hand and watched the kid sleep on his right side. His n*****s were strawberry-colored and his lips slightly moved every time he inhaled and exhaled. The eyeballs behind his lids twitched back and forth in random motion. The kid moved a hand up to his nose, brushed it without even knowing, and lay still again.

I wanted to touch him, but didn’t. His blowjob from the night before was enough for my satisfaction. When he begged me to f**k him, I declined.

Why did he remind me of myself? I wasn’t sure. I wasn’t abused as a boy. My parents were still alive. I had an education, unlike MJ. Nothing about our lives was similar. In fact, we couldn’t be any more different. Polar opposites.

“At peace,” I whispered. The coffee went down smooth, even though it was strong. But I liked it that way, didn’t I?

Once I was finished watching the kid sleeping, enjoying the view he offered, I decided to take a shower. For the next ten minutes I stood under the hot spray and soaked my skin. Ample soap was applied to flesh. Shampoo was lathered in my hair. I found a razor to shave with, but decided not to, enjoying the stubble on my cheeks and chin.

Following the shower, I used a fresh towel to dry off with, dressed, and brushed my teeth with the kid’s toothbrush. By then I thought he would be up, but he wasn’t. Some men never got up in the morning because I drugged them, but the kid was too nice for that, and far too young.

A picture in the living room sat on top of the television set. The couple in the photograph was overweight and middle-aged. The woman, MJ’s mother, stood to the left holding a spatula. His father, I surmised, was positioned on the right. Neither smiled and proved how hard of a life they had lived together, unable to survive with each other.

I kissed the kid goodbye on his forehead and brushed a hand through his reddish hair. I thought about strangling him with my bare hands, suffocating him with a pillow, or punching him to death. None of those violent actions occurred, though. Instead, I had decided that I had wanted MJ to live. I wasn’t going to hurt him. He was just a kid, I realized, and I wasn’t into murdering children—ever.

Thereafter, I left the cabin and headed through the woods, back to the highway, a blurred future, and recalled in my memory that MJ was only one of four men that I didn’t murder.