He felt a tremendous surge of pride as he reflected on how well he had done, how he had accomplished so much. So many women! They were his, they were all his for the having! Had any man a richer, fuller life?
They loved him, they all loved him! He could make any woman love him and spread her legs for him and call out his name begging for him when he was with her, and weep with longing when he was not. Any woman, anyone he wanted. He knew their secrets, he knew how to manipulate them, he knew what they wanted and what they needed and he gave them both in the best way they had ever had or ever would have in their lives. If he had any regrets, it was that he could not have each of them over again because he was better now, he knew more now, understood more, than he did a few years ago, and would be better still in years to come. When the best continues to improve, no one else can come close.
Had any other man ever affected so many women's lives so profoundly?
They didn't just fuck him, they loved him. They could not believe their good fortune in meeting him, he was perfect, he was their dream come true, or better, an improvement on the dream which had been limited by their association with other men. He was an experience they would never forget-Luv reshaped lives for the better.
He felt so proud, so good about himself that joy swelled to fill his chest and broke forth in laughter. In the privacy of his study he laughed and laughed, bursting with triumph. He had overcome so much, his looks, his body, the contempt of other men, and he had overcome, overwhelmed, the resistance of so many women. It was always a contest with them and he considered each seduction a victory, no matter how fervently the women wanted to lose. But he was a magnanimous winner and he treated them all so well that none regretted him. They loved him still, he knew that.
He felt as confident, cocky, and proud as a rooster and he crowed and crowed, laughing at himself, mingling the laughter with a hoot that turned finally to a cough. He fell to his knees, coughing, laughing, hooting, and his eyes ran with tears. No one could stop him!
Was he going to let some idiot cops ruin everything for him? For the women? They needed him, he brightened their lives, and if he had been selfish a few times, if he had thought only of his own pleasure and not theirs, was he not human? Wasn't he entitled to be selfish a few times?
He had never killed them with malice, they had not suffered, they had not been afraid. They had given their lives in love for him, trying to the utmost to give him what he needed, and he was profoundly grateful to them all. It was not an exchange the police would understand, of course, but Luv felt certain that the women who died for him did understand. He was certain that they forgave him his selfishness-if any forgiveness was needed at all. He had given them so much too, don't forget. No other man had ever treated any of them with the love and tenderness and expertise that Cap'n Luv could bestow. He gave them the love of their lives-and they gave Luv their lives… And so few of them, really. Only 9 out of 128 women that he had loved since becoming Cap'n Luv. He did not even count the few fumbling fucks he had had before he learned what it was all about. He had been crude, incompetent, just like other men, too preoccupied with his education, then his profession, to give the proper attention to his true calling.
It required a way of life, not just a few minutes' frenzied passion, to be a lover, a proper lover, a man women loved. It was not until he devoted his energies and his imagination to it that he had become Captain Luv. And he was not able to make that dedication until he was professionally secure and domestically stable. A single man could not do what Luv had done, just as a ship could not sail without a rudder, and so he owed his wife a debt that he could never repaynor even acknowledge, of course. It was the need for deception that added much of the zest to the game, and it was the wife that produced the need as much as the victims. She needed to be deceived, just as Luv needed to deceive her, and they moved around each other in a gravitational system, like a planet and its moon-but only the planet was conscious of the movement. Because he had acquired his professional skills and a spouse before discovering his true calling, Luv had begun late, essentially losing his youth to labors. If he had not, the total would be much higher, of course, but he did not regret his tardy entry. It was not numbers alone that counted, but quality, and without the money and flexibility afforded him by his work, he could never have accomplished what he had. Or what he would accomplish in the future. He was not finished, no matter how many cops they put on his tail. Luv had surpassed mere mortal struggles, he had become a force of nature and would persist.
All that he required was a plan, and it did not take long to come up with one. He would do what he did best, he would play to his strength and strike with such cunning and bravado that the cops would have to clear him of all suspicion.
He emerged at last from his study and found his wife in the bedroom, removing the polish from her fingers and toes, the white cat beside her, its fur fading into the matching coverlet so that its green eyes seemed to balance in space. Her face was already scrubbed clean of paint and pencil and her hair fell loosely around her beautiful features. She had been his first great conquest, a woman so lovely, so prized that she had initially looked upon him with illdisguised scorn. Luv had worked on her tirelessly, learning much of his craft with her-the way a woman's mind worked, the way to play upon her emotions, her sensitivities. He learned from her what women really responded to as opposed to what they thought they needed from a man. In the end he had won her and had kept her ever since, pampered and given pride of place like the great trophy that she was.
"Sorry to take so long," he said. "I had some things to attend to."
She smirked at him, a trait that had become stronger over the years, as if she thought everything he said was a lie. "You usually do," she said.
Luv looked at her for a moment, seeing the long legs, scrupulously waxed as always, as if for the first time. Her robe was partially open and he could see the swelling of her breast. She was still magnificent, he thought, and he was going nowhere else tonight, not with his tail out there waiting for him. When he sat beside her and slid his hand up her leg, she gasped with surprise. Luv realized how long it had been. After a few moments she dropped the cat to the floor.
He took his time, trying to treat her as if she were a new conquest, using some of the things he had learned with all the others, and as he made love to her the others cascaded through his mind so that it was someone else's breast he pressed his lips to, someone else's legs he caressed, another woman whose ears and eyes he kissed, and still another victim who cried out when he entered her.
Afterwards, in the dark, she asked in wonder, "Stanley? Was that you?"
He smiled to himself. It was Cap'n Luv, not Stanley the shmuck ' "That was incredible," she said. His smile broadened. He knew.
After she had taken her sleeping pills and he heard her breathing change, after he felt the weight of the cat as it reclaimed its place on the bed, Luv slipped out the back door, across the yard, and into the woods. If he was working under new restrictions, he had to know what they were.
Becker called his house, waited for the answering machine, then left a message that he was working late and not to wait up for him. It was an excuse Karen would not question. By agreement, they never asked each other about their work except in an official capacity. The burdens of the job were grim enough without adding to them. If either wanted to talk and initiated the conversation, that was acceptable. But to inquire without solicitation was not. He hoped that she would take his advice and not wait up. He wanted her to be asleep when he came home-he could not speak to her, could not look at her without feeling the sickening anger rising. And mingled with the anger was the nugget of doubt and hope, the only thing that kept him from total despair. It was the hope which drove him now; it was the chance, however small, that he would be proven wrong about her that propelled him into the woods to take up his lonely vigil for the third night in a row.