Ok, I'll give it a whack:
Synopsis: Recently, I stumbled across the story of Randy Kraft, a very prolific (67+ victims) serial killer who was operating in California in the 70's and 80's. He would gain his victims trust and ply them with alcohol and drugs until they were incapacited, then he would torture and kill them, then dump their bodies on the highway. In his other life, he was an educated, prosperous, and well-liked person, active in the Long Beach gay community. A significant proportion of his victims were Marines. He liked taking pictures of his victims.
Seeing his picture shocked me beyond belief and brought me back to a story from 33 years ago.
In 1980, I was 20 years old and in the final months of my tour in the USMC in a scout/sniper unit at Camp Pendleton, California. One afternoon, I met a fellow near the beach in San Clemente, we hit it off immediately and hang out for a few hours. As the afternoon waned, he suggested continuing the conversation over a few beers in his room up the hill. I really liked hanging out with this guy & I was a Marine, and a tough guy grunt/sniper at that, what could go wrong?
In his room, after a few beers, he propositioned me. I was surprised that, rather than beating him up, we began amicably discussing the issue, his strategies for picking up Marines, the gay/straight complication in our developing friendship, maybe I should give it a try and so forth. I was pretty amazed at how I was reacting to this, but I really liked the guy. This afternoon was so far away from the base drudgery of my Marine existence.
Eventually, I felt bad about sitting there being a tease, quite shocking as on the face of it he lured me to a room and propositioned me and I felt bad for him. He asked if he could at least take a picture of me to remember this wonderful afternoon. As I stood up to pose, he asked me to take off my shirt, which I did. We admired the picture and I sat down again, I hated to go, sipped some more beer, my shirt now off. After a while, he suggested another picture, maybe with my belt loosened a bit. At that point, I had a real internal struggle, I so wanted to stay and hang out with this guy, but I knew that the cost of it would be eventually doing something I'd prefer not to.
It took a tremendous amount of willpower, but I left the room in a daze and full of regret, him looking on with a very disappointed expression.
Back at base over the next weeks, I had a lot of conflict/turmoil over the incident. Was I gay/proto-gay and just not handy with the carnal end of the enterprise? Why did I like this guy so much? Eventually, I just glossed the whole thing over & remembered it in a generally positive light - he had been such a good guy and real gentlemanly about the sex stuff, just a shame we didn't end up as friends.
And I never told anyone.
33 years later, finding out he was a serial killer caused me enormous distress, more than even a possible near torture/death should seem to from that long ago. I was practically incapacitated and undertook to unravel that afternoon and why I was so upset.
Ultimately, I had to admit that for one afternoon, I was very much in love with this man, that I had never really left him behind. We were perfect for each other that day, the Marine and the serial killer. I fit his profile perfectly - age, height, weight, hair color, strongly hetero, and I found something in him that affected me like no one else ever has. And now, just as I once wondered what loving a gay man said about me, I wonder what loving a serial killer says.
Ends with speculation about what really happened that afternoon in that room and what I need to believe about it.
Link:
Center of the Universe Feature piece in October 2013 edition of Orange Coast Magazine.
Reviews: No formal ones yet, but a few typical reader's comments on the site, reddit, twitter:
"Awesome. Well written and chilling in a way that more overt violence is not. Like being utterly annihilated with a feather touch and a kiss."
"...is possibly one of the most profound things I've ever read on this site [reddit.com]. thank you so much for sharing. you ever consider writing professionally? your style is immense."
"This is absolutely magnificent. Kudos."
"This was an amazingly written story. You are a phenomenal writer. I'm glad you didn't end up amongst his victims. I'm sure it is a surreal feeling to know you were that close to winding up dumped on the roadside after god knows what sort of torture."
"This story.... this story is going to stick with me."
"this was one of the best feature pieces I have ever read in OrangeCoast by the way"
