Diary of an Oxygen Thief

♡ch.1♡

I liked hurting girls.

Mentally not physically, I never hit a girl in my life. Well once. But that
was a mistake. I'll tell you about it later. The thing is, I got off on it. I really enjoyed it.

It's like when you hear serial killers say they feel no regret, no remorse
for all the people they killed. I was like that. Loved it. I didn't care how long it took either because I was in no hurry. I'd wait until they were totally in love with me. Till the big saucer eyes were looking at me. I loved the shock on their faces. Then the glaze as they tried to hide how much I was hurting them. And it was legal. I think I killed a few of them. Their souls I mean. It was their souls I was after. I know I came close a couple of times. But don't worry, I got my comeuppance. That's why I'm telling you this. Justice was
done. Balance has been restored The same thing happened to me, only
worse. Worse because it happened to me. I feel purged now, you see.
Cleansed. I've been punished, so it's okay to talk about it all. At least, that's how it seems to me.

I carried the guilt of my crimes around with me for years after I stopped drinking. I couldn't even look at a girl, much less believe I deserved to converse with one. Or maybe I was just afraid that they'd see through me. Either way, after getting into Alcoholics Anonymous I didn't even kiss a girl for five years. Seriously. Not so much as holding hands.

I meant business.

I think I always knew deep down I had a drinking problem. I just never
got around to admitting it. I drank purely for effect. But then, as far as I was concerned, wasn’t everyone doing the same thing? I started to realize something was wrong when I began to get beaten up. My mouth always got me into trouble, of course. I'd go up to the biggest guy in the place and look up his nostrils and call him a faggot. And then when he'd head-butt me, I'd say, “Call that a head-butt?’ So the guy would do it again harder. The second time I'd have less to say. One of my ‘victims’ stuck my head on an electric cooker-ring. In Limerick. Stab City. I was lucky to get out of that house alive. He'd done it, though, because I'd been taking the pith out of hiths listhp. Maybe that's why I moved onto girls. More sophisticated, doncha know. And girls wouldn't beat me up. They'd just stare at me in disbelief and shock

Their eyes, you see.

All the pretense and rules dissolved away. There was just the two of us
and the pain. All those intimate moments, every little sigh, those gentle touches, the lovemaking, the confidences, the orgasms, the attempted orgasms, all mere fuel. The deeper in they were, the more beautiful they looked when the moment came.

And I lived for the moment.

I was working freelance in advertising all through this period in
London. As an art director. A contradiction in terms if ever there was one. It’s what I still do today. Strangely, I was always able to get money. Even in art school, I got a grant because my dad had just retired and I suddenly became eligible. And after that I got job after job without too much trouble.

I never looked like a drunk, I just was one, and anyway in those days
advertising was a far more boozy affair than it is today. Because I was
freelance I could be my own man, so to speak, and I would keep myself
busy by ensuring I had dates lined up. None of the girls were supposed to
know this. The idea was to have an impressive queue so that when one girl neared maturity, usually after about three or four dates with some phone calls in between, another would be introduced. Then as one went onto the scrap heap, a new one would take her place. Nothing unusual about my method, everyone did it. But I enjoyed it so much. Not the sex or even the conquest, but the causing of pain.

It was after my crazy night with Pen (more on that in a minute) that I
realized I had found my niche in life. Somehow I was able to lure these
creatures into my lair. Half the time I was trying to push them away, but it
only had the opposite effect. And the fact that they were attracted to a piece of shit like me made me hate them even more than if they’d laughed in my face and walked away. As for looks? I’m nothing special but I’m told I have beautiful eyes. Eyes from which nothing but truth could possibly seep. They say the sea is actually black and that it merely reflects the blue sky above. So it was with me. I allowed you to admire yourself in my eyes. I provided a service. I listened and listened and listened. You stored yourself
in me.

Nothing had ever felt so right to me. If I'm honest, even today I miss hurting. I’m not cured of it but I don’t set out to systematically dismantle like I used to. I don't miss the booze half as much. Oh to hurt again. Since those heady days I heard an adage, which seems to apply here, "Hurt people
hurt people."

I see now that I was in pain and wanted others to feel it, too. This was
my way of communicating. I'd meet the women the first night and get the
obligatory phone number and then after another couple of days, making
them sweat a little, I’d call and be all nervous. They loved that. I'd ask them out and pretend I hardly ever did "this kind of thing" and say that I hadn't been out a lot in London because I didn't really know the scene. This was true though, because all I used to do was get out of my head in local bars around Camberwell.