Murderer

   I stepped in the boat and sat inside. It was not a big space and it all smell like fish but, given the circumstances, I didn’t thought I should say or do anything about those two things. Little things, might I add, compared to the situation at hand. Onboard came the man that had been pointing at me with his gun all along but then the other one, the one that seemed less likely to shoot at any given opportunity, told him to step out of there and let him do it. There was no one else that could help me and it was too dark too distinguish anything more than the water, the boat and the armed man that had stepped out and disappeared.

 The man I was with had turned the engine and we were traveling fast. The sea was calm and there seemed to be no fishing boats or ferries that could see us. It was almost as if it was meant to be that way and, of course for me, that wasn’t so good.

 After what seemed liked an hour of journey into the open sea, the man stopped the engine and looked straight at my eyes. It was unsettling, as he was one of those people with very bright eyes that make you feel uncomfortable when you look directly at them. I had always wondered if they knew they made people feel that uneasy.

-       Did you really do it?

 There it was. It had been obvious; from the moment they had kidnapped me in my home that he wanted to ask that question so bad. Right then, he seemed eager to know the truth behind all of this, probably the truth about why he was with me right in the middle of the ocean, where no one will ever hear us talk or say the most amazing of truths. I could almost tell he was sweating, the stains beneath his armpits growing, his upper lip trembling at my sight.

-       What is that I apparently did?

 The man snored a bit, smile and kind of laughing. He was nervous. It was so obvious: his hand trembled when he wiped off his sweat and his smile wasn’t the one of a man that feels safe or sure about anything anymore. Maybe, after all, the wrong man had stepped in the boat with me.

-       We were hired.

-       I assumed as much

-       You killed a family.

-       Yes.

 The man seemed to tremble once more, due to my “confession”. To be honest, I’ve never really hidden anything about what I’ve done. I’ve made my peace with it all, specially then, when I seemed so close to death. Why lie to him when he was obviously so eager to know the truth, so eager to think he knew or that he understood what his task was all about.

-       And you say it like that? So… So cool and casual? Are you crazy?

-     I’m not mentally unstable, although the fact that I’ve killed makes me very likely to have one of those fancy disorders every murderer seems to have these days.

-       How many more?

 I couldn’t contain a smirk when he asked this. Not only because I knew it would make him tremble again, but also because people were always like that, wanting the morbid little details of how I had done something or the other. It was so typical of every single person in the world to apparently feel disgusted and scared but deep down, been utterly interested in what I had to say about all the corpses I’ve created. They sometimes seem even more interested that I was when I did what I did.

-       I don’t know. I’d rather not count.

-       The people that hired told me you raped their…

-       No. That’s not true.

 The man appeared to want to leap over me but he contained himself. Apparently he thought that I was denying the truth and that made him even more frustrated and confused but the truth was, and still is, that I never raped anyone. I’ve heard the stories, on the news and so on. They said I was ruthless but then they began to say I raped people and that’s just incorrect. If I had any more feelings I would be hurt.

-       They said…

-       You trust too much on your clients. Never thought for a second they could be lying?

-       I talked with them and…

-     Oh yes, because people are incapable of lying when they hire a hitman. Is that what you are because you seem pretty bad at this?

 There. Shaking like a leaf. I know he’s scared of me, thinking I’m some kind of animal, a beast that has to be put down. But the fun thing is that he knows or feels he cannot contain me for long and, most curiously, he seems to think I’m not guilty of this all. Because, why else would he be asking all these questions? Then again, it might be only that he’s fucking scared and he’s just stalling, avoiding the killing.

-       Are you going to kill me anytime soon?

-       Shut up.

-       It was you who began the interrogation.

 The man seemed to be thinking. I bet he was trying to decide what to do next. Maybe he thought that I might be more valuable dead than alive. The police were looking for me, that’s for sure, and I had a reward sign on my head. Apparently he wasn’t as stupid as he looked, thinking of the best way to profit properly from this assignment. He could even surrender me to the police and collect the money all by himself, leaving the other idiot to mend for himself, thinking I was dead.

-       You killed many people.

-       I know.

-       And you don’t regret it?

-       No. Why should I?

-       You’re not sorry? Not even for one of those murders?

 I looked at him carefully, trying to decide what to say. There was something more in all of this, something that had eluded me from the start. The moment they had taken me from my home it had been all about the other guy, the tall one. He had threatened me, put a bag on my head, and pointed the gun straight to my heart. This guy I was with had only driven us to the dock and then had decided to kill me, at the very last minute. And then, it became clear.

-       Don’t tell me that I killed your wife or brother?

 The man went crazy when I said those words. He threw himself at me and started punching me all over: on the face, the chest, the stomach and the head. My hands were still tight behind my back so there wasn’t much I could do except moving violently, in order not only to drive him away but also to make the boat turn sideways to escape swimming. He couldn’t chase me through the ocean.

 But nothing of the sort happened. He just stopped beating the fuck outta me and decided to breath heavily, as far as he could from me. It hurt; I’m not going to say it didn’t. But there was no damage that he could do that would really hurt me. I was beyond all of that at that point. He could have stabbed me and I wouldn’t have cared at all. My lips were cracked, bleeding and all my body was numb from his punches but I wasn’t bad enough to look at him from my corners and smile.

-       Predictable.

-       Shut up…

-    You know, even if you do kill me, nothing is going to bring anyone back? It won’t happen.

-       Shut up!

-       The dead are done. Believe me, I know.

 Then, the guy pulled out the gun and pointed at me. He no longer trembled but he was still sweaty and his eyes were wide open, as if he wanted to be sure of what he was doing. I cleaned my face a bit from my blood without breaking the link between our eyes. Maybe he was going to kill me, maybe this was it for me but it didn’t matter. He was one more of my victims and that was enough for me. So I laughed.

 The bullet pierced right through my brain, coming out the other end and falling in the water. The man pushed my body to the water and left. He knew my body was going to be found and that everyone would know a murderer was now dead. And no one would be interested in knowing who killed me because I deserved it. But, in the end, I knew that just before the end he had been mine and that was all worth it.

Unapologetic

  It wasn’t that he had an urge to be different or something like that. He just like the way the world felt when no clothes were worn. It made him feel alive, as if the pants and shirts he wore for work were just the symbols of a servitude he had never been happy with. He didn’t understood how some people love to wear such clothes but the important thing was that he hated them and, if he had the choice, he would have chosen never to wear them again.

Let’s go back a bit in this story to better understand Nicholas, or Nick, as only his closest friends called him. He didn’t allow anyone he didn’t know to call him Nick; he thought it was just wrong. Two loving parents, which had belonged to the hippie movement back in the sixties and early seventies, raised him like that. He hadn’t been around them at the time, but their choice of living certainly showed some of those things learned in life.

Nowadays they lived in a small farm, taking care of various animals and planting most of their food. They would avoid doctors if they could, and all electronic devices except a cellphone, which made the connection, once every two days, with their son. They would always give him advice on eating healthy and how to be a better human being and Nick took the advice. His friends appreciated his humanity and inherent openness.

Anyway, from his childhood nick had learned to respect all creatures and not to be ashamed of him, both physically and mentally. He was taught the human body is beautiful and that this beauty should always be appreciated and taken care of. And the reinforce this idea, his parents would often take him to the beach to look at people and make him sick that “ugly” rarely meant “hideous”. Most often, it meant, “I don’t like it”; a personal opinion. Respectable but not universal.

Of course, those beaches were nude ones. People would go around without any kind of underwear and, from an early age, he knew that was normal and just played as any other kid on the beach, building castles and bridges and making pits with the salt water. And he enjoyed it thoroughly. For him, his parents were just ideal because they let him do whatever he wanted but just remained him to be responsible. And Nick was smart so it made it a lot easier for them.

Of course, he received a fair share of bullying in school. Because he was so young, he just told everyone about his holidays, like any other little boy or girl did, but when he said he had being in a nudist camp or beach, the kids would laugh at him and the teacher would call his parents, who would explain their views to her, with no success. They would push him and call him names only because he wasn’t ashamed.

That’s when he learned what hypocrisy means. He was a bit older than ten years old when he learned that older men thought often about younger naked women and they were magazines and TV channels showing them, not necessarily being pornographic. And that was ok in general, although not unspoken. But when someone mentioned liking being naked after showering for some minutes, people thought of them was instantly a depraved person and someone to watch out as he or she might become dangerous.

But Nick, now aged thirty-one, knew there was nothing depraved in going to the beach and just not get any tan lines. He was amused that, when a sexual partner asked him how he did to be so evenly tanned and he answered with the truth, such person would get even more aroused. Still, after so many years, it was almost seen as a fetish. For Nick, that wasn’t the case. It was just him being who he was.

If he stayed at home a whole weekend, for example trying to finish up some work or because of the weather, he would always be naked. He showered and took care of himself, so there was nothing really bad about it. If someone visited they would ring before hand to be let into the building so that gave him a couple of minutes to grab some pajama pants and a t-shirt, or something of the sort. And he would be “presentable”.

He did that because he was aware most people were not comfortable with nudity. That’s why, and he said it loudly when drunk, he just loved sex. And it was because he felt free, not only because it felt good or was fun. He just felt more like himself during sex and also when he stayed naked at home alone. He wished it could be like that all the time but, of course, it wasn’t possible.

Nick had learned from his parents, though. When he had time to spare, and only after visiting his parent’s farm, he would go to a nude beach or to a nude camp to fish. He loved fishing too and his father had taught him everything he had learned from his father who was a fisherman, the kind that captures rare crabs or lobsters. The lake was not like the ocean but the teachings were just as effective.

The best about it all was that he had no secrets with his parents. He was absolutely honest with them and they would tell him every problem they would have. He would drive his father to his prostate exams and would laugh with his comments about it afterwards. Same with her mom and her gynecologist appointments, which he loved because of the faces of the other ladies there. Nick, in turn, would tell them about work, love interests and his love for the naked body.

It was obvious they deeply loved each other. Nick’s friends envied this relationship he had with his parents because, as they told him, it wasn’t strange that parents and children became apart with time, as their priorities change and even distances settled in. But most, he knew, had not really being that close with their families when young so, there wasn’t anything to wonder about.

One fun thing about being naked was that some people thought it was fascinating. Some of his best friends knew about it and didn’t mind (as long as he did only in his house) but people he had met randomly or through them would take an interest in it. Nick found that to be kind of awkward but always tried to answer every question as accurately as he could and sometimes even told them to ask a doctor because most questions related to some physical problem, as if you required a special set of physical and mental skills to be naked.

It was Jenna, an older woman who was a teacher of fine arts in a university, who asked him if he could model for her class. At first he said yes but then he recalled the days he had been bullied and pushed around. What if they laughed or stared in an annoying way? He loved being naked but he didn’t like to be the center of attention; one didn’t lead to the other. But he had already said yes so he went and, for once, he did love to be center of attention, even if it was to twenty students trying to draw his body.

Afterwards, he was able to see the pictures the students had painted and he was surprised to see many of them were very talented. He somehow thought students would just try to do something decent but quickly reminded him that artists become artists even before they are aware of it. When he was about the leave, he met another model and talk to him for a while. He was studying architecture and paid his lunches and other expenses with the money he made standing naked in front of the students. He quickly became one new friend.

Nick had known other people that liked nudity before but they would always like it in relation to sex, which he found to be a bit obvious, to easy if you will. Besides, they would vanish fast, after promising to call, to write or to meet again. But with Greg, he had stronger connection: Greg’s mother had been a hippie too and his dad was just the most loving guy one could meet. In his words, his dad loved everyone just because they existed.

So from then on, they would often meet and talk, not necessarily naked. Nick liked to be around someone that understood him and got what he thought of many things. In the holidays they shared a trip to the beach and had a great time. They would even go dancing at night and stay in one of their apartments each time, that was the degree of friendship and trust. Sex? No, it never happened. They were friends. And kept on being friends for a long time after they met, almost all of their lives.

Nick did love being naked but what he liked the most was people. And not any people but the people that made him who he was, who loved him for who he was and who didn’t judged just because for what he liked. Yes, he was a man that loved being naked; he was not ashamed of himself and was unapologetic. But he was also a great friend, a dedicated son, an open mind and one great fisherman.