Elvenoir

This started of as a short story, but is now becoming more than that. I am adding descriptions, some furniture, amongst others. Feel free to add anything you wish, including walls, furniture and stuff. Everybody loves stuff!

I have developed this chapter and edited it many times, which means this one is rather different from what it has become. I shall leave this one here while I work on the novel.

For instance, that opening is just too cheesy.


“I am Beauty, I am Despair, I am Torment.” He said in a deep theatrical voice. “I am also possibly psychologically damaged, which is why I need your help Dr Monroe.”

Elvenoir took a seat in a chair across Dr Ella Monroe’s mahogany desk and stared into her honey coloured eyes as if he could see what lay in the depths of her soul.  He closed his gooseberry green eyes and took in a deep breath of the spiced scented air and the hint of lilies in the background. He made her uncomfortable, but she did not show it. She had been a psychiatrist for almost 25 years and had come across many a deranged patients, but none as attractive or as dangerous looking as Elvenoir.

“Yes, I see. Mr… “ he had not filled in his surname.

“Mr Chata.” He had a velvety voice when he was not trying to be melodramatic.

“Yes. It also says here that you are a lawyer and part time actor.” She lowered her reading glasses and looked at him from over the top of them. “Mr Chata, you also wrote that you enjoy tormenting women.”

“In a sense, yes. I like meeting women no matter where I am, or the time of the day. Having been blessed by my good looks, they are generally attracted to me. After a delightful night of lovemaking, or even just a cup of steamy hot coffee, they phone me countless times wanting to meet again. What they do not seem to understand is that it was just an encounter never to be repeated again. I am not interested in a relationship. Thus, I feel that I am tormenting them.”

Dr Monroe was not one to judge a patient at a first glance and she did not do it now either. She could have called him several things, but had learnt many years ago that it would cloud her judgement and she would not be able to treat him appropriately. She distanced herself as usual and looked at the form he had filled in. Most of her patients suffered from severe depression, bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, and on numerous cases, had been referred by colleagues in the area of psychology who did not have the medical background to treat them further. She also worked once a week with patients from a nearby mental hospital.

In this case, Mr Chata did not appear to suffer of anything other than delusions of grandeur. The first few minutes with him were unusual. She did not know what to make of him. As the minutes ticked by, she made various annotations in his file, but nothing certain.

“Mr Chata, do you feel guilty about tormenting these women?”

“Yes.” He reclined and did not add to his affirmation.

“Have you tried not approaching women and inviting them for coffee or a more intimate encounter?”

“No. I take immense pleasure in talking to women and breathing in their perfume. Just being around them makes me feel alive. It is the next day, once they are gone, when the phone calls start, that I start feeling guilty.”

“Is there any particular type of woman you like to be around?”

“Yes. Beautiful, vulnerable, tormented women. I see in their eyes that they are lonely and feel unwanted. They need me. They don’t hesitate to look me in the eyes and I see they want me. Some women don’t even know they want me, but I know and I tell them so.” There was a glint of obsession in Elvenoir’s eyes that scared Dr Monroe. Something told her that he was not here for a cure, but she could not guess what he wanted. He certainly did not want to invite her for coffee.

“Tell me more about the guilt you feel.” She had to be sure that his guilt was not something he actually enjoyed.

“When I am with a woman, I want her to feel loved, cherished, whole. Unfortunately, that feeling does not last. Once I am gone, I leave behind a broken woman, someone who needs me even more because of how I make her feel. It is as if I were a drug she cannot live without. When a woman phones me telling me how she needs me and cannot live without me, I know that the minute I inform her that what we had was good, but not made to last; she will most likely start a self-destructive period in her life. It is inevitable. Women cannot live without me. “

“I am sorry Mr Chata, but I have to ask you this. Why have you come to seek my help? It does not sound as if you felt guilty. It is almost as if you have come here to tell me a story.”

“Dr Monroe. Ella. May I call you Ella.” She nods and he continues. “I do feel guilty. I feel guilty at the fact that I have to murder these women.”

As soon as he completed the sentence, the timer went off. A reminder that the session was over, but none of them moved. Elvenoir crossed his legs and reclined, his gaze, unflinching. Ella swallowed and returned his gaze. She could not believe what she had just heard. Did she in fact have a serial killer sitting across the desk from her? She had always imagined that amongst all her patients, one of them could be a psychotic murderer. What she did not expect was to be actually sitting face to face with a murderer. She certainly did not expect to feel as calm as she did.

“Mr Chata…”

“Please call me Elvenoir.”

“Elvenoir, are you confessing to murder?”

“Yes Ella, yes I am. I feel guilty for driving these women to suicide. I feel as guilty as if I had committed murder myself.”

Ella emitted an inaudible sigh. “You believe that if any of these women were to have committed suicide, it would have been because of you?”

“Most certainly; why wouldn’t it be? I broke their fragile hearts; ruined their hopes and dreams of finding a perfect man, a future partner.”

“How many of these women have actually committed suicide?”

“To date, out of 1852 women I went out with, 1834 committed suicide. The other 18 women were lucky enough to have found a merciful angel to rescue them.”

Ella could not help but raise an eyebrow. That was the amount of incredulity she allowed herself to show.

“How did you come up with that number?”

“I keep a notebook.”

“Do you have that notebook on you now?”

“Yes I do.”

“Would you allow me to have a look at it?”

Elvenoir reached out for his leather briefcase which had been out of her sight up to that moment. It looked expensive. He undid the clasps and lifted a tattered dark brown book. He handed it over to Ella who gently took the book and turned it in her hands. It was not bigger than her Filofax organiser and the leather felt very smooth in her hands. She placed it on her desk and opened it. There was a list of names in the first page and beside each name, there were two dates. The first date referred to when Elvenoir met each girl and the second appeared to be when they died. Ella also came across newspaper clippings from the obituaries and strangely enough, medical records with detailed descriptions of the deaths, of which most, if not all, were suicides. As she went through the list, four names stood out and she recalled their faces. They had been patients of hers and when they came to her, they had been suffering from low self esteem, clinical depression and had attempted to commit suicide a few times, but had failed. She did not think about it at the time as she met them a few years apart, but they had one thing in common. They had met the man of their dreams and he had broken their heart. She looked at the names again. They had no date of death much to her relief. Sometimes she wondered if patients she had helped had ever had a relapse. As she skipped a few pages, she noticed that the encounter dates had not yet occurred. Could he foresee –

“Dr Monroe, I know that notebook looks interesting, but aren’t you going to pick up the phone?”

As if awoken from a dream, she is startled by the sound of his voice. She picked up the phone “Hello. Oh, sorry Dora, he is the last patient today and you are free to go home. Yes. I’ll see you tomorrow morning. No, don’t worry, I’ll lock up. Yes, thank you. Have a lovely evening.”

“So you like my notebook?”

“It is quite intriguing that you would keep something like this.” She knew it was vanity that made him keep a list of all the girls he had let down.  It was almost as if he were bragging about it all. She hesitated before returning his book as she was curious about the names listed with future encounter dates.

Elvenoir distractedly took the notebook back and without a second glance locked it up in his briefcase. “Well, I guess our time is up Dr Monroe. I shall see you next week at the same time.”

“Yes Mr Chata. It was a very… interesting.” She stood up and walked around the desk to see him to the door. She stood almost a head shorter than him despite her being considered tall for a woman.

“It was my pleasure.” He took her slim elegant hand into his cold thin white hand.

Ella sat in her chair going over her notes. She stood up and looked out the window. The sun had already set, but the night air was still warm.

After all these years of preparing, she had finally come across one of them. Better, one so vain he liked to boast his little trophy. She walked back to her wooden desk and picked up the Abomination’s leather bound notebook which did not look dissimilar to her Filofax. He had not even noticed the deceit. She walked over to the photocopier in the adjacent room and started flipping pages and pushing the start copy button. Page after page came out of the machine. Ella smiled to herself and felt she has won another battle. A warm light emanated from within her as she thought about all the souls she would be helping save.

Her Superiors would be very pleased.