Chapter 2
Calloway
The trick to arranging severed genitals in someone’s mouth is all in the wrist rotation.
The pièce de résistance sits in my hand. Gerald’s cock. Fourteen children silenced by this pink little tyrant, that I know of.
“Open wide.” I pry his jaw until it cracks. The meat squelches as I wedge it in place. Step back. Assess the symmetry.
Every detail matters. This isn’t just a kill; it’s art.
“Not quite.” I nudge it deeper, making sure it stays visible between his lips. “Perfect. Suffocating on your own dick. The metaphor is...Chef’s Kiss.”
The gallery’s back office hums with Toxic. The bass line vibrates through my chest as I bob my head to the rhythm.
“Hold still,” I instruct Gerald’s corpse. “This is the money shot, darling.”
Gerald Hoffman, celebrated gallery owner and secret collector of “special commissions” featuring children, looks almost peaceful now. Well, except for his eyes—wide with the particular terror that comes from watching someone slice your dick off while explaining why you deserve it.
“You know what your problem was?” I position his head at forty-five degrees, admiring how the blood congeals around his neck. “You confused art with entitlement.”
The shadows need to fall just so across his torso, echoing the heavy contrast in Bacon’s Figure with Meat1. I whistle the chorus of the song along with Britney while making final adjustments, arranging Gerald’s intestines in dramatic loops around his body.
The human body contains about twenty feet of intestines. A fact I find endlessly fascinating. So much potential for composition.
“Let’s see... We need the sides of beef.” I drape the longer sections of intestine over his shoulders, creating the vertical meat elements from Bacon’s famous work. “This piece screams surrealist horror, Gerald. You’d sell the shit out of this if you weren’t, you know, the subject.”
I step back, framing the scene with my fingers like a director. Something’s missing. I add a final splash of arterial blood across his chest.
“What is wrong with me?” I laugh, catching myself mid-Britney hip sway, hands still slick with blood. “Focus. This is serious art. You need to live up to your name.”
I set my camera up on the tripod, adjusting aperture and shutter speed.
“Xander would have a field day with this composition.” I huff. “But will he loan me those sweet hidden cameras for a complete 360-degree documentation? Nooo.”
I adjust the aperture, making sure the depth of field captures Gerald's face while keeping the intestinal arrangement in focus.
“One time—one time—I forgot to return his precious little spy cam after a job.” I mimic Xander's voice, which sounds nothing like him but makes me feel better. “‘This is specialized equipment, Calloway. Do you have any idea how much these cost?’”
The memory still irritates me.
“So tight with his toys.” I rotate around the body, capturing different angles. “Would it kill him to share? We're literally in a murder club together.”
I pause, considering the irony of my word choice, then laugh.
I need to work fast. This light won’t last forever. Gerald’s skin is already losing its rosy flush, turning that distinctive waxy shade of recent death.
“Work it, baby,” I murmur, clicking the remote shutter. “That’s it. Give me dead but meaningful. Channel your inner Francis Bacon nightmare.”
The camera captures image after image as I adjust last-minute details. Sometimes I wish I could sign my work, display these death portraits in my gallery.
“Frost captures the essence of justice with visceral honesty.”
But that would be suicide, professionally and literally.
Instead, I hide my vision inside homages to other artists. It’s so frustrating, borrowing aesthetics to express my justice.
“Last few shots,” I tell Gerald, moving the light to create a different shadow pattern across his mutilated torso. “The composition of your intestines is...iconic, honestly.”
I pack my equipment. Each piece has its place in my custom case.
Camera, lights, specialized tools. No evidence left for the cleaning service to find in the morning.
Gerald’s grotesque tableau will remain undisturbed, his blood cooling to a rusty brown by dawn.
His janitorial team won’t arrive until 6:00 AM, giving me plenty of time to disappear.
“Because...we are living in a material world...” I snap my gloved fingers, wiping down the metallic desk drawer Gerald’s trembling hands had clutched at earlier. “And Gerallllddd here was definitely a material boy!” I twirl, spinning the spray bottle of bleach solution like a dance partner.
The chorus hits again, and I can’t help but shimmy while saturating the carpet beneath his workstation. Industrial-strength enzyme cleaner works wonders on blood, breaking it down at the molecular level. I learned that from a forensics podcast. Research is essential for any serious artist.
“Your financial portfolio was giving very ‘how to hide money from the IRS’ vibes, Gerald,” I address the cooling corpse as I work. “But that offshore account in the Cayman Islands? Honey, that’s where you got sloppy.”
His passcode had been his dog's birthday. Six digits that unlocked everything I needed to know about him, a revered fashion photographer and child rapist. His laptop sits open on the desk, screen still glowing with a folder I’ve left accessible.
“The police are going to find those images, you know. Consider it your contribution to law enforcement training,” I say, patting his cheek. The skin feels rubbery beneath my latex glove.
I stand to survey the scene. The bloodstained keyboard, the fallen champagne glass, the spilled cocaine.
I tuck a small USB drive into the potted plant by his desk.
Not too obvious, but findable with a thorough search.
On it, encrypted conversations with other photographers and agents, discussing the “special shoots” they arranged with underage models.
Names, dates, locations. Enough to start an investigation.
“Everyone loves a good mystery,” I tell Gerald, bleaching my footprints as I back toward the door. “Either way, they’ll start looking in all the right places.”
I hum Madonna’s bridge as I make a final sweep of the space, erasing my presence with meticulous care. The smell of bleach mingles with the metallic tang of blood and his cologne—a bespoke scent he claimed contained pheromones.
“The Gallery Killer,” I whisper to myself, smiling at the moniker the press has given me.
Xander is so jealous. Every serial killer dreams of getting a nickname that sticks, preferably something with flair.
But most end up with pedestrian labels like “The Route 29 Killer” or “The Freeway Murderer.” No imagination in law enforcement these days.
I snap my case shut, Gerald’s death captured forever on my memory card. The images will join my private collection tonight.
Xander’s voice echoes in my head from our last meeting. “Your pattern will be your downfall, Frost. You’re too extravagant.”
All that talk about consistency and signatures being dangerous. But what does he know? His kills are so...utilitarian. No artistry. Just quick, efficient death. Like swatting flies. Where’s the meaning in that?
Xander, my best friend, found himself a girlfriend. A woman who knows his worst secrets and loves him anyway. The easy affection between them makes my fingertips go numb whenever I watch them together. The casual touches, the inside jokes, the silent conversations they have across crowded rooms.
I’m happy for him. I truly am. Love like that doesn’t come easy. Some nights, I let myself imagine what it might be like to be wanted. Loved.
Love? I filed that away years ago. Even if I weren’t a killer, I’m…defective. Nobody wants damaged goods. And even if they did, there’s the other thing. The thing I never talk about.
A face flashes in my mind. High cheekbones, hazel eyes that shift from gold to green depending on the light, and that full mouth always on the edge of a smirk.
Jiya. The bartender. She invited me to dinner, and I said no.
If I were anyone else, I’d have said yes.
I’d have let her take me to some dimly lit restaurant, let her ask me questions, let her see me.
But I don’t do dinner. I don’t do relationships.
I do nothing that requires trust, or vulnerability, or the kind of honesty that leaves you exposed and bleeding.
All I could ever offer her is sex—quick, rough, transactional. The only kind I know how to give.
She deserves more than that. She deserves someone who can sit across from her at a table and not flinch when she looks too closely. Someone who isn’t broken in all the ways that matter.
I wonder what she’d think if she knew who I am. What I’ve done.
“But then she’d have to die,” I whisper to the empty gallery, my voice echoing off the pristine white walls. “And that would be a waste of something beautiful.”
I drive with the windows down, letting Boston’s cool night air blow away the chemical smell of bleach and blood clinging to my clothes. Ninety-five percent of a successful murder is proper cleanup. The other five percent is pure dumb luck.
But tonight feels different. Charmed. Like the city itself conspires to shield me.
Twenty minutes later, I’m parking outside Penumbra, the upscale cocktail bar where Jiya works.
“What the fuck are you doing here, Frost?” I ask my reflection in the rearview.
I should go home. I should shower, burn my clothes, upload tonight’s masterpiece to my encrypted drive, and pretend I’m not a monster. Instead, I’m here, debating whether to walk inside and ask the most beautiful woman in Boston to take me home and ruin me.
Just sex, I tell myself. That’s all I can offer. No dinners, no dates, no morning-after coffee. Just bodies and sweat and the illusion of connection. Should I?
My reflection offers no answers. I grab the camera case, slinging it over my shoulder.
The bouncer nods as I approach. I’ve been here often enough to be recognized.