Belgrade Butcher

PART I – ON THE ROAD

The first thing my wife says to them is: “No one is coming to help you. No one will ever come. Get that out of your head. The only person who can help you is yourself.” Her name is Marija, she is an M.D. psychiatrist and has been working for seven years as a licensed therapist for accident victims and a supporter to survivors after serious physical and mental trauma. Some of her patients comment: \"But here you are. You came.\"

Marija replied: \"Yes, only to tell you that no one will come.\" Some of them find it funny, but for most, such an attitude comes as a shock. But that\'s exactly the point. That is the intention of therapy. After the shock comes the sobering up.

That\'s what it should be, at least.

Even my wife, however, will not so easily admit that a good number of people under this type of treatment never get over the initial denial. They never take that first step, one towards healing. They remain forever trapped in a bubble of self-delusion and self-pity. For those people, the game is over before it even began. Life ended for them the moment the great terrible thing happened (different for each person), an event that turned their psychological lineup upside down, never to return to its place.

Being quite remarkable at her job it came as no surprise when the Prosecutor\'s office offered her to work on recovery cases with the victims of the Belgrade butcher (as he was usually called in the media given that other names, such as Gut Wrencher, Vulva Slasher and Cunt Ripper, were as insulting and degrading for victims, as much as inaccurate) two weeks ago. Notwithstanding, I advised her to refuse. In fact, I begged her not to accept it.

The grumpy voice of my colleague interrupts me from such thoughts. \"What the hell are you thinking so hard about? You\'ve been quiet for ten minutes, and you pant like a puppy\" he asks me. \"Hell, I could take my dog Rudy out, instead of you. Ha! He\'d be a more interesting company.\" His name is Krsman K., he is some fifteen years older than me, and he assumes, because of his age and allegedly rich experience in the police force, that he has the right of priority in operating the service vehicle, always and forever. We are in traffic, and we are moving from Despot.

Stefan towards Cvijićeva and Kralja Aleksandra boulevard. Krsman likes to start his tour via the city\'s main arteries. To break the clot of crime. His own words.
\"I am thinking how much the victims suffered. As well as how much the car stinks from your rolled cigars. And for most part, I ask myself whether we\'ll ever catch him,\" I grab the opportunity to use the same teasing technique he finds amusing.
\"This is premium imported tobacco from Turkey, you ignoramus,\" he replies, pointing proudly to the sleazy filter tip holding a small pile of brownish nastiness. \"After all, whoever drives a car has the right to light up one from time to time. What can I do? It’s not my problem, you don’t smoke.\"
\"You could be so polite to smoke those stinky cancer sticks on your break. Or open the fucking window wide to let the smoke out, at least!\" I hate repeating myself. He heard those cries a thousand times before. So far, nothing has helped, none of the polite ways.

I need to change my approach, apparently.

\"Let me answer your first question. A freaking lot. I mean, like an awful lot. Do you know how many nerve endings are there, on that woman thingy?\"

\"And you do?\"

\"Everything can be found on the Internet, my dear colleague, even such a fun fact. With all the illustrations needed,\" he says as his full lips smirk under the mustache in the style of an old medieval Serbian hero. Krsman lives in his own world that stopped developing and changing in the early nineties. I\'ll give you an example. He thinks that Tito\'s police is a model by which all state services should be organized and run today, just like the entire country. \"Order, work and discipline\" is his motto, especially if the rules of that maxim do not apply to him personally, but to all those he considers different, degenerates – (first and foremost drug addicts, queers, other nationalities, then women, though he would never admit so, and pre-teen children).

\"So? How many? I ask. My guess is: He’s bluffing, as he doesn’t have a clue.

\"Huh? Ah, yes. A woman\'s fun button. Believe it or not, that number is an amazing 10,281, according to new research. By comparison, the palm of your hand contains as much as 17,000 nerve endings, but over a much larger area! Just imagine that! How much sensation it can produce. How much enjoyment! No wonder women moan so much during the oh là là action,\" he laughs uncouthly. \"On the other hand, imagine how much pain it can cause…\" His face darkens. I know what he’s thinking about. Details from the cases.

However, his brief lesson on the sensitivity of the woman button got me thinking. That part of the female anatomy was not a random target of a serial mutilator who was operating in the wider area of Belgrade, spreading terror and fear among the citizens (far greater fear among the female part, as expected); moreover, in addition to the obvious sexual-sadistic meaning, it also had a deeper, symbolic one. I was firmly convinced of that.

The butcher wants to tell us something with his handiwork.

The unfortunate circumstances of the cases themselves include the fact that three victims (out of a total of seventeen! This figure was certainly a disgrace for the entire Belgrade police force, which showed despicable lack of capability to prevent the crimes) succumbed to the wounds and the psychophysical torture that the malefactor put them through, as well as the fact that there were no concrete traces, witness statements or material remains at the crime scenes (the locations of kidnapping and torture were, in fact, completely different and distant one from another) that could help us indicate the identity of the wrongdoer. Even though members of the ’Murder and Sex Crimes’ Department -  our colleagues and other inspectors - are diligently combing through all sex offenders within a fifty-kilometer radius, we still don\'t have a single suspect. That is extremely frustrating.

We turn into Gospodara Vučića street at the location of ’Adiko’ Bank. The two of us, Krsman and I, would sometimes dine at the local ’Tabor’ restaurant or the ’Lulu’ bakery, so we know these streets very well. I am silent again (and I may also be panting, again), so my partner pinches my forearm, which makes my flesh turn red, like an inflamed ulcer.

\"Aaaah! Stop acting like a jerk! I screamed at him, knowing very well that\'s exactly what he wanted - to trigger a reaction.

\"Come on, don\'t sulk like some little girl. I just wanted to demonstrate to you how sensitive human skin is, even in such a relatively uninteresting place as a man\'s forearm. So, one can only imagine how much the injury hurts, down there...\"

\"Stop it. I don\'t want to hear anything of the sort! I protest. Fortunately for me, Krsman can sometimes recognize when he has gone too far and restrain himself. Sometimes... but not always.

\"Why are you wearing long sleeves anyway? At this heat?“ he asks.

\"Mind your own business.\" I find the short-sleeved shirts that codger wears over his bearish torso to be an expression of extreme distaste.

In my head, I\'m thinking about the case. The butcher left the same message in several places where he abducted his victims. It said: \"I took away a gift they didn’t appreciate\", pasted on white A4 type printing paper. The letters are cut from newspapers. To Krsman, the message sounds self-explanatory. The psychopath simply tells us how much he hates women, is his interpretation.

This one confuses me. Why would he leave the message in the first place? When you think about it, it didn\'t make much sense. Maybe, but just maybe, the effort involved in putting it together was a message itself, a more meaningful one. The message is a palimpsest. If there is a meaning, any meaning, it is at a lower, deeper level. What do I believe it means? I think that messages left at the crime scenes are some kind of subterfuge, a form of distraction or a sick game. Besides, it indicates to me that the guy has a God complex. He took away their gift. In other words: God gives, God takes away. Perhaps the butcher saw himself as a righteous man, one on a mission?

No, it just leads us astray...

\"Okay, then let me answer the question of whether we will catch him,\" I hear a voice that takes me back to my own body and the police vehicle. \"I believe we will. No, I\'m as sure of it as I\'m sure my name is Krsman.\"

\"You seem to think about it a lot. About him,\" I state.

\"You have to get into the mind of the killer to understand him, boy. You need to predict his steps if you want to catch him,\" he says, keeping his tone serious.

\"You watch too many American crime series. Besides, if you apply the same logic, he can enter the mind of an average policeman, inspector, yours or mine, in order to predict the steps of the police and thereby prevent his arrest.\"

\"Pff, it doesn\'t work like that. I\'m telling you, he\'s ours! We will catch him!“ he shouts. \"It\'s just a matter of time.\"Hmm. And what do you base such an optimism on?“ I can\'t help myself. I know very well this question only gives him a new opportunity to express ridiculously outdated, infantile or just plain chauvinistic thoughts about life and the world around us. He is full of them, much like the ass of our superintendent is full of hemorrhoids. \"I will remind you that we still have no leads and…\"

He interrupts me with an impatient wave of his hand.

\"I know, I know, but that bastard is bound to make a mistake sometime. Come to think of it, it\'s a matter of probability. He\'s had a lot of luck so far. And when I say a lot, I mean way, way more than an asshole like him deserves. One of the deceased girls saw him, she saw his face! Unfortunately, her death prevented us from getting a better description. He\'s getting more and more sloppy with each new attack he makes. You saw the scene in Rakovica Forest… Man, what a mess! I bet he was in a big hurry.”

I grind my teeth in anger. Every word that comes out of his mouth infuriates me. He doesn\'t notice my rising discomfort and continues: \"All we have to do is wait for him to make a mistake. Then he\'s ours, the son of a bitch! He\'ll pay for everything he did to those… those women.\"

He can\'t even bring himself to call them by what they really are. Prostitutes. Whores. I took a better look at him. I bet he is using the services regularly, the revelation comes to me. At that age, with a shaky marriage pressing him down, no children, with a successful and self-actualized wife in the house, the kind that doesn’t smell of cooking, I’m putting my bet there is no sex for him, or oh là là action, don’t mind me saying. Yes, his wife kicked him out of bed a long time ago. Now, he only has them. Street girls.

I remind myself of the Butcher\'s victim\'s profile. At least half of them - that is eight out of seventeen - have practiced for years, the oldest profession there is. Over time, we found out that they were selling their services through websites and business escort services.

The internet, man. World Wide Web. Perfect environment for dealing with all kinds of crime.

For the remaining six victims who did not have such a clear and easily detectable connection to prostitution, but we have discovered a well-founded suspicion that they solicited their bodies in exchange for money or some other material gain, during their studies. The pattern was almost identical. Those girls came to the big city from some hellholes in central, western or southeastern Serbia (considerably fewer from Vojvodina). They escaped from poor or broken families lacking in support or love.

Finally, all the girls have one more thing in common. They are beautiful. But not in usual terms of it, no. They are truly magnificent creatures. I saw the pictures, I studied their social media profiles. Finally, I met some of them in the flesh. Believe me, every one of them would make a man blush and turn around to feast his eyes. Or at least that\'s what would have been the case had it not been for the tragic events. Before attacks and injuries. Before trauma. Before those seductive fairies retreated into their own shells of isolation and self-pity.

We are reaching Autokomanda and entering Vojvode Stepe street now.

PART II – THE CALL

\"What do you think, is it something, like, religious?\" I hear the voice that I hate, loud and clear.

\"What do you mean?\"

\"What he does to them. That sicko. You know, I read that among certain primitive tribes there\'s a practice of female genital mutilation, female circumcision, if you will. Little girls who don\'t even realize what\'s going to happen to them, are hurt by their parents, close relatives, or religious leaders. And do you know why they do this to them? Apparently, the body equals sex and sex equals sin, according to their religion, which is usually some extreme variant of Mujahideen faith, mixed with local voodoo-juju bullshit. Can you believe it? Girls are marked for life and disabled from enjoying sex. Can you imagine how this affects their psyche? In fact, according to the United Nations data, over 200 million girls and women suffer the consequences of this type of mutilation. It\'s chilling. Man, where is this world going? And the Islamists, what fanatics they are! What’s your take?“

\"Well, aren’t you\'re full of information today? Like some gabby thesaurus on two legs, with galloping verbal diarrhea.\"

I don\'t want to admit to him that his incoherent ramblings, as they are, are hitting the target. Removing the clitoris, that center of female sexuality, an important element of their identity, can indeed have certain elements of spirituality or superstition. Some higher symbolism that we are missing.

\"Anyway...,\" I continue, \"you remember what the doctors told us. The clitoris of the victims was cut off with surgical precision, followed by all measures of sterility of the equipment and attendance of the wounds, quite like a proper procedure carried out in hospitals. There is a word for it: clitoridectomy, the complete or partial removal of the sensitive female organ and the surrounding skin. Therefore, we can\'t deny the fact the perpetrator, evidently, has considerable medical knowledge. Hell, for all we know, he might be a doctor or some specialized medical professional. However, that does not fit well with the religious side of his character.\"

\"Hmm, you just might be right.\" Krsman brushes his two-day beard.

Did I just waver his thinking? I congratulate myself on this small success. It’s evident that inspector Konstantinović and I do not care about each other very much. I don’t know how he would describe it, our relationship, but I simply cannot stand him. For the past couple of weeks I’ve been trying to ditch him, and get a new partner. I’m sure he would understand it. In addition to his irritating character, I’ve heard rumors Krsman was a dirty cop, partaking in bribery in exchange for favor for a certain group of criminals from Voždovac. All right, it might have been me who started these rumors in the station canteen, but that doesn’t change anything. I don’t want that cocky/arrogant/obnoxious asshole as a partner. Not now, not ever again. Unfortunately, I have to remain patient for a while longer.

\"What does he do with them, I wonder? With the parts, he takes?\" he mutters.

\"My hunch tells me he collects them. He keeps them. Otherwise, he wouldn\'t have made such an effort to get them.\"

\"Just as kids collect those marbles from ’Lidl’? You think he has a box and a special place for each of those cut off pieces of meat?\" He looks at me in disgust.
The picture it revokes is bad enough, so I don\'t answer. Still, I can\'t help but chuckle to myself.

\"So... we should expand the investigation to all the doctors and medical personnel in Belgrade and its surroundings,\" he says, as if he made that conclusion himself.

I’m rolling my eyes in exasperation.

\"This kind of depravity can\'t just happen out of the blue. Maybe he\'s had trouble with the authorities before? Maybe he\'s been sued by some of his patients for malpractice? Maybe he\'s one of the surgeons who lost a license? I’m betting that comparing the data from medical claims and sex offender files will help us find him!\" It is only at this moment that he realizes how those ’new ides’ came to his mind. He looks at me. \"Good thinking, for the doctors. Kudos“. His appearance resembles an embarrassed bear. I believe this is the first and only compliment I received from him in the three years we’ve been working together.

Three years, for fuck’s sake!, I feel contempt and resignation. I need to turn my thoughts to the case. I’ve done a lot of research myself. Here\'s a fun fact for you, mate. Unlike the corresponding male organ - the penis, the clitoris does not have an extended part of the urinary canal and its only role is to stimulate sexual pleasure. The only known exception in the animal world to this rule is the spotted hyena, whereby the urogenital system has been modified so that the female urinates, reproduces and gives birth through an enlarged, erect clitoris. In other words, a female spotted hyena is quite capable of having and orgasm while urinating and giving birth to cubs.

\"It\'s definitely a male,\" Krsman says out of the blue. \"We don\'t have to check the female doctors and nurses. It will reduce our workload.\"

\"Why male?\" I ask. In my mind, it is an androgynous figure shrouded in a black cloak of fog that slowly evaporates to reveal his/her body in all his/her glory. I never thought that gender could matter. \"Perhaps it’s some jealous female rival. Or some other sort of delusional woman,\" I speculate, without thinking it through. The thing is, if Krsman says no, I say yes. If he says white, I say black. Maybe that’s why we make such a successful pair of investigators?

\"Ah, no. Women can\'t be that sadistic. Only men.\"

Well, that’s another easy shot from the free throw line, made by Krsman Konstandinović. Hey, I’ve never said that Krsman was a bad inspector, just an annoying character.
We are now passing by the Faculty of Traffic and Transport Engineering in Vojvode Stepe street. At this moment, we get a call over the radio. As his hands are on the steering wheel, I reach for the transmitter and take it before he does it. He frowns at me.

\"….kshhhh…calling all vehicles. Residents of Vaska Pope street reported screams from the house with a tall, white fence, at number 23. In addition, they saw a naked, bloodied girl, tall one, long haired, stumbling out of the yard…kshhhh ....Possible domestic violence or sexual assault. We need patrol at the scene now... over... kshhhh,\" announces the dispatcher.

I squeeze the transmitter so firmly the plastic crackles.

We\'re looking at each other. We think the same. The dispatcher is wrong. There is no domestic violence involved.

\"Eighteenth victim,\" he says. \"He\'s ours now!\"

Teodora Aleksov, a twenty-two-year-old pharmacy student from Negotin, was reported missing 48 hours ago. Her boyfriend reported it. He said they were supposed to meet at a party organized by their mutual friends. Teodora didn\'t show up. Since then, she\'s not answered any calls on her cell. The boyfriend was suspicious because she had never acted like that before (not a particularly convincing explanation, but luckily, it was good enough to make the cops perk up their ears and stay on high alert).

Why did we even pay attention to her case? Because she fits the profile - she\'s young, new to the big city, and most importantly, she\'s gorgeous. Teodora is one of the chosen faces of Elite Modeling for 2023. You must\'ve seen her in one of the commercials for cosmetic products. Teodora has honey-colored hair, emerald green eyes, a barely noticeable scar on her left eyebrow, and a dreamy expression on her face, as if she is only partially and intermittently in this world. A devilishly seductive combination, in my opinion. Her tendencies towards debauchery and prostitution are being checked. We still haven\'t had any confirmation on that, but lack of evidence doesn\'t provide the evidence of their lackness, right? I have always wondered what drives them to make such life decisions? Is it pure necessity stemming from hard life, the whim of the moment, or is there something else, more obscure in it, a more honest drive in its core?

\"Hold your horses“.

\"What the heck does that mean?\" he grumbles.

\"I mean, don\'t get your hopes up too high, not just yet.\"

\"Give it to me!\" He snatches the radio out of my hand and shoves it into the squirming nest of his mustache: \"kshhhh... This is vehicle no. 13. Detectives Konstantinović and Šarić. We’ll check it out. Over... shhhh\".
He brakes in an abrupt manner, switches to the other lane in a very dangerous move that can easily break our necks, a combination of several traffic violations. Belgrade drivers, as edgy as always, blow their horns.

\"I\'m sure there are patrols closer to the scene than us,\" I tell him. \"Maybe you should calm down.\"

\"We will arrive first. And don\'t tell me to calm down!\". He gives me that look.
„No problem, mate. No fucking problem.“

We fly into Sava Mišković via Crnotravska street. I see Dedinje behind the ulcerated outgrowth on the city fabric that goes by the initials VMA.

PART III – THE HOUSE

We are, indeed, first at the scene. Krsman does not jubilate over that fact, as I expected of him; he is too focused on work. He desperately wants this chase to be the last. For this day, be that day. The day the Butcher is caught.

\"Do you really think it\'s Teodora?\"

\"You heard the description.\"

\"Okay. But that still doesn\'t mean that the missing girl became the latest victim of the man we\'re looking for.\"

\"Man? You called him a man? He\' nothing like a man. He\'s a monster.”

\"So?\"

\"Instinct tells me we\'re close.\"

Instinct?! Shit, that\'s what only pissed off cops in American movies say. Who do you think you are?

\"As far as we know, this could be her boyfriend\'s house. The kid has that suspiciously repentant face.” I say out loud.

\"This is not the address which her boyfriend is registered at. Damn it, man, did you even read the report?”

Fuck! He\'s right again. I keep my silence.

\"I think Teodora looked the beast in the eye and managed to escape. Good for her. We\'ll talk to her later when we find her, but now we are going to raid this place. Get ready, and watch my back!\" Krsman hisses with excitement. He pulls out his weapon, checking if it\'s loaded.
\"Is it really necessary?\" I\'m alluding to his cocky grasping of the gun, as well as the decision not to wait for backup.

\"He\'s mine, do you understand?\" he approaches me and grabs my shoulder with a steel grip. \"If you are scared and shat your pants, stay here and wait for reinforcements, \"I don\'t care,\" he proceeds towards the shadow formed by a wall. The wall is tall and gleaming white, just like the scarce description we got from dispetcher. Krsman\'s histrionic outburst catches me off guard.
\"Bloody hell!\" I pull out the gun myself. Unlike Krsman’s long nine, mine is a Browning M1910, a newer model, with recoil stabilization. The nickname \"Belgian\" still prevails for this kind of piece in police force.

At such an ill-timed moment, my private phone rings. Inspector Konstantinović, who is already creeping around the next corner, gives me a last warning look (followed by a swear word or two).

The identification shows ’’Marija“. A single word, a name. No customary tags such as ’’beloved“, ’’better half”, or “my sunshine”. At the spur of the moment, I am all thumbs and can’t seem to answer. I\'ve never been comfortable using these older types of clamshell phones.
\"Hey.“ I sound like my colleague Krsman, whose vocal cords were dented by tobacco. \"It\'s not the right time, can we do it later...\"

\"Wait! Thank God, I got you! What do you mean, ’it\'s not the right time?’ For Christ’s sake!\"

I muffle and filter the sound of my own voice with the sleeve of a shirt. \"I\'m doing fieldwork. With a partner. This greenhorn...\"

\"What\'s wrong with your voice?\" She sounds suspicious, almost scared.

\"I\'ve caught a cold. Listen Marija, it\'s really, really, not the right time. Ahm. Hmm.“

\"Look, I don\'t care about your excuses. I haven\'t heard from you in two days straight. Normally, I wouldn\'t care… but your sergeant called. He says you haven\'t shown up at work for the last couple of days. If you don\'t report to the station, like today, now, they\'re going to start a disciplinary procedure. I don\'t know what you\'re doing, but sort it out. You know I don\'t like being disturbed on my home number.\"

\"Uh, sorry. I\'ll take care of it. Do you need anything else?\"

\"Actually, I do. About the case. That bastard you\'re chasing… he\'s dangerous. I mean, besides the obvious, he\'s carrying a firearm. You told me you were never sure. Well, Nataša, the tenth victim, remembered yesterday the perpetrator had a weapon, and it was some chrome automatic. Maybe that will help you.“ I’m not speaking up, so she continues. „Yeah, one more important thing. He drugs them.\"

\"Drugs them?\" It keeps getting better and better. Such important piece of information did not appear in the reports.

\"He uses a syringe to inject benzodiazepine under their armpit. The location is difficult to detect, and the drug disappears from the bloodstream after a few days. It\'s effective as long as it keeps them captive. You know, until he does his thing…” She falls silent.
Drugs. Benzodiazepine. Flunitrazerpam or rohypnol. That could explain a few things, like gaps in memory and inconsistencies in victims\' statements. I can tell right away this is important info, one that can mark a possible breakthrough in the case.

\"Thank you Marija. See you soon.\"

\"Whatever\". She hangs up.

I admire her. I should visit her soon. To smooth things over.

The MO of the famous Butcher is becoming clearer to me. He uses a gun (a chrome automatic, which, by some strange coincidences, is the description of my own weapon?!) to force them into his vehicle during the evening or night hours. This is usually hapenning in some dark alley or passage, at locations free of witnesses. He injects them a psychotic or a hallucinogen to make their memories incomplete and deceptive, and their bodies weak. He doesn\'t need duct tape, rope, blindfold, none of that shit. He takes them to his lair - some isolated, sheltered residence, where he feels safe. Superior. Maybe in some gloomy palace at Dedinje, like the one that we are standing in front of right now?

Shivers run through my body. I get a strange flashback, or an inexplicable part of memory? Looking for my partner. He is far ahead of me, sneaking around the house. Finally, I find him outside the back entrance. The entrance is congested with gnarled, grayish vegetation. Above it, there’s a glowing eye of a surveillance camera. The back of the house creates a far more sinister impression than the front facing the street.

\"Ready?\" Krsman says. I see the crazy glint in his eyes. I have a bad feeling. He bursts in before I can do anything to stop him.
Sole crushing darkness greets us. For a few seconds, I’m blind. That\'s bad when you\'re holding a weapon with the safety off.

\"Police!\" my partner shouts. \"Everyone on the floor, with your hands above your head!\"

Truth be told, hardly any criminal obeys these instructions, at least not at first, not before seeing the determination on the faces of the officers and the gaping opening of the gun barrel. A kick in the kidney area can also provide help in this matter. However, there is no criminal here, no Butcher or otherwise, not yet.

We soon realize that the house interior is, actually, made of one big room. All the walls are white (although dirty, from bloody paws touching them), upon which a couple of copies of H.R. Giger\'s works from the series \"Biomechanical landscape\" hang, in unsteady frames. No other embellishments. In the very middle of that unusually wide and impersonal space, there is a chapel. I don\'t know how else to call that thing. The chapel is also white, made of noble marble. The cross, the devil\'s doorbell at the gates of the dying Christian civilization, was removed from its top. A scar made by a sharp object can still be seen. Two bronze spotted hyena statues guard its entrance. From the chapel\'s pane, that sacred cave, comes a flickering shimmer. Most eerie of all, however, is the absence of any sounds. It is as if the house is a soundproof chamber and the holy cubby-hole is its central absorber. The entire interior is a wabi-sabi nightmare that pulsates in peripheral vision and forgotten corners of memory.

\"What the hell is this?\" Krsman shouts. His voice is strangely silenced. He is puttering around the house, touring behind the chapel. \"There’s fucking nobody,\" he says. And then I hear him \"Ugh-ing\", followed by distinct sounds of vomiting.

\"Are you okay?\"

\"There is… this surgical table. It\'s the place where he did it to them,\" the voice sounds as if coming from a great distance.

\"I’m coming over. I\'d like to see that.\"

\"Actually, I don\'t think you would.\" Inspector Konstantinović is in a bad place in his mind now. Like in a football game where the situation goes from bad to worse, he is willing to take a draw than can slip into defeat at any moment.

\"There is no one in the house. Unless there\'s someone inside of this devilish thing....” I point my head towards the chapel. I\'m smiling. It will all be over soon.

\"Fuck, it stinks like hell in here.\" Krsman covers his mouth and nostrils.

My whole life, including the search for the Belgrade Butcher, has been hurling towards this moment, as inevitably as a mountain stream flows downwards, growing into an unstoppable torrent.

I take off my clothes. Strangely enough, that doesn\'t bother Krsman, or rather, he pretends not to notice it.

\"Your wife called. Marija.\" I address him. He makes a stupid face expression. All of the strength already left his body. But that’s not all. Physical substance leaks from the membrane represented by his skin tucked into that outdated brown suit of his. He is looming over the floor. Now it is just a bad mimicry of a man, a pale copy of the previous arrogance, a thallus that is rapidly losing its shape.

I enter the chapel. The whole of its interior is in mirrors, which creates schizophrenic reflections, broken fragments of reality. What do I see in its center?
A naked androgynous figure stands, crucified, like a proud Vitruvian man. There are numerous red dots on the body. Accessories. Wounds. Improvements. Wires and electronic devices are attached to its skin at the same places. I\'m getting closer. The smell of fried meat. A trail of smoke comes out of his mouth.

\"We finally know what he did with the clits. He sewed them on his skin!\" Krsman coughs those words out. He squints his eyes like a Rottweiler puppy in front of the headlights of an accelerating car. How much pleasure and pain can one such lump of receptors produce? How much indeed? What about eighteen of them?

\"Another victim of the monster?\" I ask. I want to hear his opinion.

“Hmm. You may be right, but only partially. This is both the victim and the perpetrator. He used other people\'s sensory tissues to achieve higher levels of pleasure. Or suffering?\" He is confused by the idea that someone can inflict pain on himself, on that scale. \"Looks like he went too far, though\" he is talking like some deranged clown. As I open my hand, he opens his mouth, in perfect coordination.

I approach the body, place myself in the appropriate position, an ideal reflection of it, and enter it. We become one. I open my eyes.

\"I didn’t, you know? Go too far. One can never get enough pleasure.\"

Krsman opens his mouth and makes the letter: \"O\". That gaping hole is starting to swallow him, from the inside, resembling an ontological implosion in vivo. The shag-green skin of his substance turns into the essence of consternation. He disappears. My self-induced sensory delusion ends at that moment.

Rakovica Forest was a mess, certainly. That\'s a mistake I won\'t make again. Elena Lubrin, a 20-year-old dental technician and an exotic-looking brunette (who presented herself on the website \"Take me!\" under the nickname ’Seductive Selena’), my twelfth victim in a row, was addicted to valium and thus had an increased resistance to benzodiazepam. That was unfortunate for us both because I had to be rougher on her than usual.

I stroll behind the chapel. A plump man with a thick mustache is lying on the table. Pale red blood mixed with cerebrospinal fluid and pieces of gray matter still oozes from the entrance wound, on the back of the head. Beneath the table there lies the curled up figure of a dog.

And the God without a clit said: \"Love your Rottweiler more than your wife.\" Gospel according to Butcher. Honestly, I was rooting for the nickname \"Vulva-cutter\". That one has an une touche poétique attached to it.

Phone\'s ringing. It’s her. She hears my voice. I\'m smiling, laughing.

I say to her: \"I\'m coming\".

Sources

[1] VMA, vojno medicinska akademija – Military medical Institute, the biggest and most important medical institution in Belgrade, dedicated to providing medical services to employees in the public sector.

About the Author

Nenad Mitrović was born, and currently lives, in Serbia. Mitrović graduated at Belgrade University, and has written and published five books, four novels and one short stories collection.