I Have Caged You, You're Mine

After a night of passionate lovemaking, Ashton looked up to Henry, his brows knitted.

"Henry, I need to tell you something. "

"What is it?" Henry pulled him closer to his bare torso.

"I've been keeping this for a long time..... I don't think I could keep it anymore." Ashton looked discomforted, his eyes flitting rapidly. "Especially with the latest developments....."

"Just tell me, Ashton." Henry knitted his eyebrows, worried. Without his glasses, his vision is blurry, and he cannot fully appreciate his lover's face. "Whatever it is, you don't have to be afraid."

Ashton took a deep breath.....

"Do you remember the time when you told me that blond boys were being raped and assaulted in the news?"

This made the painter blink twice. "That was so many years ago. What about it?"

"Well..... I want you to promise me something first." Ashton looked at him with tearful eyes. "Promise me, Henry. That after this..... you would tell me what is needed to be said. You wouldn't hold back any of your thoughts just because you care for me."

Henry was stunned by this request. But since it is Ashton, any request, no matter how strange..... He will wholeheartedly accept it.

"I promise. I will be honest to you." He kissed his closely clenched fist. "Now, tell me about it. The case from years ago..... what does that have to do with you?"

Ashton began to recount the tale. "This was a year after Sidney's death. I was so lost at that time, my career is getting me busier and busier and I'm gaining more fans, even when I haven't gotten over my grief. At night, I would pursue any distraction that I can think of. I went to wild raves just so I could drown in the loud sounds of music and people. That is where it all started."

"I met friends from these clubs and bars, some I'm already familiar with from the industry. Celebrities, producers.... and politicians too. But there are other folks in the mix, they intermingle freely here in Hollywood at night, with no one noticing the difference among them. These were the ones that truly fascinated me. Not the diamonds of the TV screen that brings a facade of the American beauty, but the dark coals of our society."

"You mean criminals." Henry concluded.

"Not all of them. But yes, they were one way or another on the opposite side of the law." Ashton replied. "They sold me the things that got me through my grief. Hard liquor, herbs, prostitutes... I took them all. I injected all kinds of things into my body. I gambled inside casinos, and get into street fights once I'm outside."

" I truly, truly experience everything at the same time, living a double life of the glamourous luxury of my fame, and the disgusting hideousness of my vile instincts."

"It was like deep inside, I had truly look for such things. People argue about nature versus nurture a lot. I was once on the side of nurture, of course. I believe that you are molded by what you experienced. " Ashton frowned. "But my metamorphosis, my changing into a black swan.... It felt so natural to me like it was the only way to live."

"You are not evil, Ashton." Henry comforted him. "You are just influenced---"

"Is it truly influence if I was the one who pursued it? If I was the one who tempted danger?" Ashton asked, but did not really want an answer. In his heart, he can no longer be convinced out of what he believes. "This is related to what I will tell you today. You know what truly illustrates humanity's desire for wronging each other?"

"What?"

"Pranks."

Henry blinked again. "Pranks?"

"Tricks, doing something where you already know the outcome, anticipating that someone else's downfall would bring joy to you." Ashton spoke like a true jaded man.

"What is so good with pranks that videos of it get popular? What is so good with manipulating a situation to make someone fall into your own hands just so you could triumphantly laugh at it?"

"It was exactly because of that feeling of control, of being able to foresee the future that you have made yourself, that makes them so 'fun'. And my friends and I, those truly darkest friends of mine, wanted a bit of that 'fun'."

He sighed heartily. "They knew about the case too, one of them is the son of a lieutenant, yet he was the one who actually passes on the white stuff in birthday parties. He suggested the idea of 'What if they caught these unknown criminals on camera?'. Said 'It would absolutely be a hit around the world!'."

"We told him that there's no way we can catch a person or a group with no known identifiers other than this serial assaults, and if the police can't catch them, how in the hell can we?"

"He then said, 'It doesn't have to be real'."

Henry looked visibly unnerved, like he can already sense where this is going.

"We were all out of our minds to agree. I was out of my mind." Ashton chuckled bitterly. "I was the only blond guy in the group... Looking as young as a teen with no knowledge of the real world...."

"So they dressed me up in country bumpkin clothes, put some make-up and prosthetics, and set up this whole story of Max Greene. Max wanted to make it big, went to California with a big backpack and a straw hat, blue overalls. He was never aware of the danger of being an adorable blond boy in the streets of Tinseltown."

" Max Greene, using his new phone to contact his family back in the West, was using a video call showing the beautiful streets and buildings as he passed by. Then suddenly---"

"A group of men will jump on him, drag him to a van. It will be caught on video, and his phone will 'luckily' be able to capture the whole affair."

Ashton shook a little, as the climax of his anecdote is approaching. "Everything was set. I was Max Greene, telling my 'family' about how happy I was, about how the ladies at the cafe told me I was good-looking and said good luck for my future prospects. Then, like planned, I was suddenly at an empty intersection without any possible onlookers, and was gagged and dragged by men with masks."

"It was done. I'm in the van, prepared to laugh it off with my friends....." Ashton choked on his own spit, coughing. "But..... They never took off the gag and blindfold. The phone fell down to the ground with a thump, and they just kept on driving laughing to themselves. I was so annoyed, I kicked and struggled but there are too many of these bastards holding me down...."

"Too many." Ashton repeated. "There were only five of us involved in the prank. The people in the van with me was seven."

"No....." Henry's eyes widened, gripping Ashton tighter.

"When they finally stopped and let me go, it was at an open field. They took off their masks, except for the driver. They weren't my friends, I don't know them, and I don't know how they learned about the prank. They started..... touching me.... and ripping my clothes.... threatening me with a knife....."

"Did they....." Henry gulped. "Ashton, I'm so sorry---"

"No. That's not it." Ashton wiped his tears, smiling at him. "I managed to escape the binds, Henry. I was overcome with so much anger, and thanks to my experience brawling with thugs, I got a bit stronger than the weak farm boy I once was that cannot even carry a bundle of hay. There's a much bigger problem...."

"My eyes went dim, it was like.... like I was possessed. Like there's a beast inside me, and it finally escaped because of that moment. I managed to take the knife and stab it to one of the guy's eyes, only to quickly stab it to the other one's neck." Ashton retold, unable to believe himself either. He felt so dissociated from this story, like he was telling the experience of just another one of his roles. "Me against six. All of them, laying on the ground in the field. The driver escaped."

"I was alone, soaked in blood. I found a water pump nearby to wash. It reminded me of Kansas. For some reason, I really missed Kansas." Ashton said.

"There was no one for miles and miles in whatever Californian countryside this is. Only me, and endless fields, like the ones we used to play in. And the bodies, which I didn't bother disposing of, only the knife that I pocketed, and use until now to chop up potatoes at home."

"After walking and walking, I finally hitched a ride with a truck driver and his wife. Said they'd be selling pork in the city. I asked what city and they said Pasadena. That's nearby, so I rode with them. Then, took another ride all the way back to my penthouse."

"I thought that was the end of it. I never talked with those involved with the prank again, blocked them, told my agents and bodyguards to never let me see their faces or so God help me what I might do to them."

Ashton chuckled. "I even took meditation classes afterward, all sorts of stuff the relieve anger issues and stuff like that. Get in touch with my spirit so much along with the weed, never remembered it for the next few years. But then.... You heard about the skeletons suddenly found when a school trip bus had to change tires in the middle of nowhere?"

Henry nodded solemnly, unable to say anything from all this. He just embraced Ashton tight.

"That was them. Henry, I'm really scared." Ashton said. "I don't want to be here anymore. Not in Hollywood, or California, or even America. Henry, I want to disappear from the face of the Earth itself. I had achieved my dreams, but I lost my own soul to the devil for it. You are my only redemption."

"What should I do? The only way to get my soul back.... is to turn myself in. To pay off all the sins that the painting had shown me." He rubbed his aching forehead. "But I'm so scared..... I'm too scared to face it. So I need you to tell me what to do. Henry, please tell me the RIGHT answer, not the one that you think I wanted."

Henry frowned. "I... I think....."

---------------------------------

"All the six bodies are now identified and a primary suspect has been arrested." The newscaster reported. "In a letter, famous actor Ashton Florice admitted to the crime of killing all seven men after their attempt to sexually assault him in XXXton Fields. He brought up his suspicion of these men being guilty of the serial rape cases of blond male individuals since 2019, and this is yet to be investigated and confirmed by authorities."

"All we know is that this actor who had turned into a wannabe vigilante, had ended his life by setting his house on fire. This house was shared with his deceased lover, Sidney Lane, who also died of suicide many years prior. His body is now being autopsied, and the police are further investigating this unexpected series of events---"

The channels changed. This time, a group of crying girls with posters are being interviewed.

"Ashton is a hero!" One of them proclaimed. "After all this time, he had to hide how he experienced such a thing, and it caused him to suffer painful memories of trauma!"

"REST IN PEACE TO THE GREATEST ACTOR AND HERO OF OUR GENERATION!"

"Stop calling him a murderer! He brought justice to those who died before him, and saved us from future injustices!"

The TV was turned off. The radio instead, was turned on.

"I don't trust this Ashton fellow at all!" An old man said. "I knew the boys, they were lumberjacks, helping out in the community! How'd they get from Oregon to California anyway, and going several trips just to fuck boys there and toss them around like garbage!?"

"I agree, sir, but please mind your language as this is a sensitive topic for many. " A woman, possibly the host, said. "But it is true that the details of the serial assault case of 2019 and Mr. Florice's claimed experience don't add up. The perpetrators of 2019 didn't toss their victims on fields, nor cut them with knives, merely beating them up with brute force---"

"Henry, dinner's ready!" Ashton yelled, with his hometown accent resurfacing a little bit. "Come quick while it's hot! I asked Nana Filemu how to cook this... uh.... I forgot the name, but it has coconuts!"

"Coming!" Henry yelled back, standing up from their single run-of-the-mill sofa and turning off the radio.

As he stood up, right beside the radio..... in a compartment right above the drawers... lies a mask, shrouded in darkness with only the pinpricks of light reaching where its eyes should be. Where it once hid the hypnotic eyes of its user.

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