Robert Bain lay in his bed unwilling to start another day just yet. Another empty night had passed him by as he morosely tried to tease some life into his stubbornly flaccid cock - but even this small pleasure seemed beyond him. He hit the 'on' button on the remote, stabbing at it with undue force, a measure of his frustration. The small wall-mounted TV glowed sluggishly into life, the VCR within squeaking as the tape wound up to speed.
On the screen, the girl's head fell back, resting softly in gentle sensuous abandon upon the hard mirrored surface. The harsh glare of the cold fluorescent lighting was impotent to disguise or diminish her beauty. Luxuriously long hair had shielded her features, but now they fell away from her face, cascading in soft silken waves over her shoulders, down along the deliciously slender curve of her neck.
The slightly grainy image on the TV screen only seemed to enhance her attractiveness. The CCTV camera that Robert himself had operated when he had made this recording now zoomed into her face. He loved this moment, this precious moment when her face was uncovered, when her innermost feelings were open and clear, freely expressed, seemingly safe that no one could read them – no one could see. No one that is, except for Robert, who had secretly controlled the security camera that had recorded her. It gave him a view of her upturned face, innocent to the fact it was being watched and recorded.
She was young, not more than eighteen. He had tracked her on camera flirting provocatively with her boyfriend, her much older boyfriend, and it was this outrageous performance that had caught his attention. Good looking in that surfer-boy fashion, he was a dream for a teenage girl. He had that sun bleached blonde hair and an athlete's body. She dressed older than her years and certainly acted older.
The boy had led her to this washroom, jamming the door shut to allow them some privacy. But privacy is often an illusion, Robert reminded himself as he watched them from his control room. He had hit the record button on this camera as soon as they had come into the room - he knew what was about to happen. He had watched it happen here a few times and always recorded the resultant fun. But it was this particular tape of these two young people that was his favourite. This tape could usually get him off in no time at all. But this time it was not working for him. He concentrated on the screen once again.
Her face upturned, eyes closed, soft and full lips wet and glistening from her darting tongue. He watched intently as her prehensile like pink tongue coiled itself back inside her mouth after wetting her lips. He watched as she gasped in pleasure, her mouth forming a crimson circle as she moaned over and over again, her head rocking from side to side as her boyfriend worked her most tender place with his own tongue. The camera zoomed back just as the boy left off from his lapping and he stood up, his erection free of his pants, eager to dive into her willing heat.
Perched precariously upon her washbasin, her back against the wall, she now entwined her long legs around the boy's waist as he drove himself quickly inside her. Her mouth opened wide in another silent gasp as the sudden shock of his thickness invaded her.
It was a damned good tape, but still Robert's cock refused to become fully erect in his hand. Nothing was working. His mind wandered away from the image on the TV. Wandered back to that night in the pub last week with the delectable and impossibly young Shelly. He remembered that moment when she had placed her hand upon his knee underneath the table, resting it there for a long secret heartbeat.
That simple touch had sent shock waves through Robert's body, causing him an almost instantaneous erection, just as it did now at the mere memory. Robert fantasised about her hand millimetres away from his obvious desire, the tension within his body unbearable. Slowly, and in his fantasy, she placed her hand over his hardness, feeling him through the material of his straining pants. He imagined her squeezing; feeling for herself how hard his desire for her was, wrapping her cool fingers over the growing heat of his erection. His real erection! Robert gasped and shuddered at his sudden climax.
The pleasure vanished almost as soon as it had arrived, and the depression returned. He hit the 'off' button on the remote. The screen went dead as he lay recovering. The momentary satisfaction of his ejaculation replaced quickly by pathetic reality. If only. He looked around. The small bedroom looked even more grimy and desperate. A fitting reflection of his life to date, he pondered desolately.
Robert hauled himself up to the washbasin and stared at his reflection. His face grimaced as it stared back at him. Dishevelled, thinning dark hair framed a somehow characterless face; a few thin strands of hair fell down over the skin, blotchy and dry from yet another night of heavy drinking, and slightly flushed from his recent horizontal bed exercise.
Thick and blunt fingers brushed strands of hair away with a surprising deftness, patting them back over a balding pate. Underneath a slightly askew nose - the result of a well-aimed punch - dull and slightly stained teeth arranged themselves crookedly. Two were chipped and broken alongside one badly colour-matched crown, evidence of yet other fights.
The deep wrinkles in the skin around the mouth folded into a humourless joke of a smile. Only the deep blue eyes within this morass of human dereliction held any vibrancy, any sign of hope, and an almost imperceptible a twinkle. For the eyes held a secret. They promised an escape.
Robert turned away from the mirror, wondering for the thousandth time what had happened to the young man that had once so recently stared back at him, holding within that youth so much hope and promise. This was his last chance, he knew. And he was determined to take it; after all, what had he to lose, really?
He dressed with renewed enthusiasm, and when he looked once again into the mirror before leaving for work, the face that looked back at him seemed a good deal more positive. Less haggard and defeated. Almost handsome in its ruggedness. Robert looked around the small apartment, the crumpled porn magazines and stolen surveillance tapes that were his only company last night and most nights.
"You deserve better, mate," he told his reflection, "and you have to stop talking to yourself as well," he added ruefully. Robert grabbed his shabby coat and left his apartment as he headed for work.
Not far in mere physical terms from Robert, another man considered his existence within his own self-induced world. The darkness cloaked and protected him like a life long friend, protecting him within in the shadows, keeping secrets from the revealing light. The gloom echoed his dark, opaque thoughts, but Storrington preferred this place where only the brightest objects gleamed, visible only to those that could see, those that had the ability to see. He smiled. He alone could see. He knew that out of this half-light came understanding, even wisdom. The visions he saw, what they said to him, what they told him he must do, were for him alone. And he hugged these precious revelatory scraps of insight to him with an intimate passion, for this was his place. His world, inside himself, was the only world that really mattered.
A broken and grimy pane of glass glinted dully. Storrington stopped and stared at his refection. A completely bland and uninteresting face stared back. Nothing at all about the real him showed on the surface. Except for the eyes. He saw the face smile back at him. Yes, the eyes. Cold and grey, they alone hinted at what lay underneath the bland exterior. That suited him of course. If anyone bothered to look a little closer they might have noticed the scar that trailed down past one eye and along his cheek. The result of one of his chosen ones futile attempt at escape. He touched the slight deformity gently, remembering her screams, and smiled. Apart from that, nothing about his face suggested anything other than boring normality. Good.
Storrington went out of his way to compliment this look. Dressing smartly in suites and always wearing a tie, people just automatically deferred to him. No one suspected. He picked up his mask, rotating the leather garment in his hand. He could not resist the urge to put it on again. He loved the feel of the leather as it stretched tight over his head, enveloping the blandness, transforming him into something else. Now, when he looked at his reflection he saw what he really was. In the dim light of his room, Jeff Storrington's mask shone in its evil blackness. Through their holes his eyes glared his hunger. It was time for another chosen one to come to his special place.
********************
At work, Robert deftly toggled the small rubber control stick just a fraction to the left. He had lost the couple he was tracking just outside the electronics store. It was annoying, that bloody camera fault bugged him. He panned around but could not find them. Then he spotted them on another monitor. They had left the shopping Mall. Outside, the camera dutifully swung around in response to his precisely issued commands, his thick fingers delicate on the controls, then the camera stopped. Satisfied with its position, he then depressed the zoom button. Instantly the couple centred upon the monitor in front of him grew larger until both their faces filled the screen.
"Damn, I wish I had audio on this" Robert muttered under his breath as he studied the man and woman standing together.
They were embracing, and the mans hands were moving inside the woman's coat, fondling her breasts blatantly as she pressed against him. Or were they? He knew they were shoplifters they had been caught before. He had been watching out for them.
.
Almost as if they had overheard him, they turned towards the camera that was silently studying them. Although he was unable to pick up any sound, Robert could easily read the mouthed words of 'Bastard' spoken at the camera. The guy who mouthed the word, then added a few more choice and colourful epithets before he finally spat on the ground, took the woman by the arm, and turned away.
"Yeah, and the same to you, now run away, you runt, I'm watching you!" Robert called after him softly.
