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Duan Confesses All - Day Eleven - Evening

Zhou forced himself to sit forward, closer to this lunatic.  

"You're right.  I, we, do want to know.  This isn't some web drama where the police catch the killer in ten episodes by identifying his MO and laying a trap.  I freely admit, I examined the pictures and files and can't see anything that ties these women together, except you.  Some multiple murderers randomly kill as the opportunity arises.  Others choose carefully.  So, what about them made them so special?"  Duan retreated in his chair, relaxed, dreamy looking.

"The ears," he sounded sleepy, detached.  "Those ugly ears, that stuck out like handles on her head."

"A person from your past?" Ye breathed.

"That bitch, that whore, my parents hired to take care of me while they worked.  Young, frumpy; she simpered coyly around my father, but he never noticed.  Around my mother, she was all obsequious anxiety.  Yes, madam, no, madam.  Enough to make you vomit.  But I was her reward and her reason to live.  She touched me."  He lifted his hands and delicately tapped the back of the left with the right forefinger, an ugly yearning on his face.  "She touched me.  From grade school through middle school, until my parents decided I was too old for a nanny.  She fondled, caressed, tortured me, penetrated me.  Our secret, our games.  I learned things no young boy should know.  I learned to e-n-j-o-y things."  He closed his eyes, sighing deeply.  "In high school I found my own sources of satisfaction.  And college brought me new playmates, new ideas, and my wife, my soul mate.  For a time, she proved entertaining and inventive enough."  He wet his lips. "But then I saw those ears and I returned to a time and place of fear, intimidation, powerlessness.   And pleasure.

I wanted to punish her.  To hurt her, but of course I don't know what happened to her.  I don't even remember her name, just nanny.  The maid, the first one, behaved just as she had to my father, that oily attention-seeking flirting that is so repulsive.  So, I accompanied her to her shitty apartment.  She wondered why I wanted the towels.  'To play,' I told her.  I took off my suit coat and set it aside while she partly undressed.  I had the knife in my pocket.  Something must have shown in my face; she started to get off the bed, to kick and hit at me.  I thumped her in the head with my fist and when she fell back on the pillow, I put my left fist on her chest and put all my weight on it.  The knife appeared in my hand, and I just shoved it in.  But I got the angle wrong, and I started over.  When it sliced into her stomach, I ripped down to her crotch with all my strength.  I acted on impulse.  It was so cathartic."  He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, reliving the moment.  He examined his hands.  "Then I crawled off the bed; she was already dead.  After I washed the blood off the knife, my sleeve, and my hands, I simply put my coat on and exited.  I never touched anything in the room without wiping it off."  He fell silent, his eyes closed.  The two men and his lawyer stared at him.  He yawned and glanced around, that devilish grin back in place.

"You guessed correctly.  In my hotel room, I paced and remembered.  I played it over and over, and I enjoyed it more than I can tell you.  In the four months until my next trip, I reminisced every day.  The next time I sought out a woman with jug ears to satisfy myself.  But no sex involved.  I didn't get to climax until safely in my hotel room and then I went all night."  Zhou blinked and wondered what the lawyer thought of all this.  Sick but not enough to use as a defense.  

"Why did you change?  You forced women to have sex with you, but you didn't threaten them with the knife.  What caused that?" Ye wondered.  Duan studied him.

"However exhilarating the killing might be, it engendered no deep satisfaction.  The primary cause of all this entailed physical pleasure and pain.  I experienced none of that in a way that met my expectations.  After a few years, I changed things up.  The women I chose performed for me, on me, in an attempt to satisfy me.  After we finished, they brushed their teeth, so no semen remained in their mouths.    Several times we showered together, and I ejaculated into the water stream.  Still leaving no evidence, I ripped them sternum to crotch."  He pursed his lips in memory.  "The fear, the humiliation, the pain and sometimes pleasure, gratified me more, so I decided to move on.  The anticipation heightened the sensations.  The partners here bored me after a few sessions in the hotel.  I felt pretty confident they wouldn't report what happened between us. Too shaming.  Plus, they have families to protect.  I had planned to hunt outside my territory next and avoid the company.  And find other venues."  He picked nonchalantly at a hang nail.