Summary:
Now that you know the truth about Jeff, where do you go from here? Is it possible to love such a monster? Do you hate him? Do you hate yourself?
Notes:
I decided to update this now because of turmoil in my own personal relationship... it's ended up being okay and bringing us closer, and it was such a parallel to this chapter that I had to post it.
And like some type of sentimental dork, I keep hearing songs that remind me of my story, so when you read this chapter, listen to this song:
🎵 Follow the official 7clouds playlist on Spotify : https://lnkfi.re/7cloudsSpotify🎧 Leona Lewis - Bleeding Love (Lyrics)⏬ Download / Stream: https://spot...
youtu.be
Chapter Text
It was February 1991. You hadn’t heard from Jeff since October.
Despite it all, you missed him. You were deeply lonely. You felt trapped between a wall and a hard place, and they were close to crushing you between them.
If you went to the police, his victim—
victims—would receive justice. You combed the newspapers about a missing man named Steven, but turned up nothing. You also heard of other missing men. Just how many men were there? And then there was the matter of what he might be doing with them.
You thought back to the apartment, to the bedroom. What was the barrel? What was the liquid? And there had also been a freezer in the living room against the wall. But then, you realized, you already had your answer—he was “keeping” them. Like Ed Gein, who you had read about in class. He had had a complex forced upon him by his mother, who had forbidden him from contact with women, due to her internalized misogyny. All women were whores, and no whore would have her son. Upon her death, Ed—as the inspiration behind the titular character of Alfred Hitchcock’s
Psycho—had perfectly preserved her corpse and bedroom, leaving the rest of the house in squalor. Ed’s father and brother had died before her, and now living all alone, the small farmhouse in Point Pleasant, Wisconsin, stood as a mausoleum. Soon, he would host other corpses, either those he had exhumed, or those he had killed. There was some speculation that Ed had been transgender, but you personally didn’t buy it. Christine Jorgensen had transitioned in that era no problem; Ed hadn’t needed to go such lengths as to make a “woman suit.” Upon his arrest, he had simply asked for apple pie with cheddar. He had died a few years back within a psychiatric hospital.
Jeff also reminded you of another, much more recent killer, John Wayne Gacy, by means of modus operandi. He was obviously prowling the bars for men he could convince to come home with him. It dawned on you that he might very well have been doing this for a long while. Much like his 213 Oxford apartment bedroom, he had also gotten both angry and panicked when you had asked about the cellar at Gramma’s. “Nobody goes down there,” he had muttered, indicating that the subject was closed. Lionel had once asked you if you knew about Jeff’s “experiments,” because Catherine had mentioned a putrid smell. The cellar, the freezer, the blue barrel—these were all Jeff’s graveyards.
He’s been killing the whole time he’s known you, you had come to believe, and it both saddened and sickened you. You sometimes wondered, should you tell anyone, you might be charged as an accomplice. But why? How? He had told you of one kill, an accidental one. Now, it would seem, that had been another one of Jeff’s half-truths.
One professor, a woman who was like a mother to you, had pulled you aside at the end of class once. She had taught various classes of yours from your sophomore year, and had gotten fond of you. She had noticed this semester, however, how withdrawn and sullen you had looked. To not worry her, you had simply said it was seasonal affective disorder, which she had accepted, although not believed, you knew.
Spring break that year, you opted to stay on campus, as to not risk crossing paths with Jeff. As he had feared, his compulsion had consumed him. The ticking time-bomb of his paraphilias had detonated and destroyed the both of you. The victims were its collateral. You wondered, if you graduated at all, if you could even stomach working in your chosen field.
That was when you noticed a message flashing on your answering machine, a winking eye of mischief in a dark room.
Please tell me it’s not Jeff, you had lamented, switching on a lamp and pressing play. It wasn’t. It was someone you never expected might contact you.
“Hello,” came the voice of an unfamiliar woman, “Jeff gave me this number and told me to speak to you. This is his mother. I only just learned of you. We hadn’t spoken in quite some time, but we did, and he told me who you were, and where to find you. I need you to tell me anything he hasn’t said, if you feel comfortable doing so. He doesn’t sound well. Anyhow—” And she closed off with her number for returning the call.
You felt a mixture of awe, warmth, and dread consume you. After calculating the time difference in your head—it was six thirty here, so it would be four thirty there—you picked up the phone and dialed. You had no idea what you might say, or rather how much you might tell, but this was an opportunity you couldn’t forgo.
The phone rang for ages, and you worried that she might have been out, until someone finally picked up.
“Hello, there,” she had said apologetically, sounding out of breath, “how are you?”
“I’m… fine,” you lied to her. “I can’t believe I’m talking to you. I’ve always kinda wanted to.”
And so it went, for a good hour, and you learned more about Jeff’s mother than Jeff had ever alluded to. She had a master’s degree, also in psychology, and had legally changed her name to Rocky Flint. The had been the first conversation that she had Jeff had shared in many years. In fact, she hadn’t known where he was living, least of all that he had been dating you. He had described it as an “on-again-off-again relationship,” and you two were currently “on the rocks,” and had said so with a note of sorrow. He said that you had been so dedicated to him that you had thrown your hat into learning psychology, to try and understand him, but “I wasn’t good to him at all.” Nevertheless, she had commended him for trying, knowing how much the trials and tribulations between her and his father had warped his views on adult relationships.
“Jeff is… well, sometimes difficult,” she admitted. “He’s too much like his father.”
That you agreed, but if she only knew. Swallowing the lump in your throat, you had thanked her for calling, and given her your number in Milwaukee, as well. Hanging up the phone, you had felt light-headed, and forced yourself to sit down and collect yourself.
She knows Jeff is gay. She knows about our relationship. But shit, she doesn’t know the whole truth. It would kill her.
In the sleepless nights, your brain would swirl, and your body would convulse. You saw a million different people’s faces after admitting what you knew. You saw Lionel, his blank face obscuring the horror he felt. You saw your own parents and their deep, deep disapproval—first a
transsexual, now in love with a
murderer? You saw Anthony from the club, and wondered if he were one of the closet skulls, or if he were in the barrel. You felt your stomach tie in knots and do somersaults. Then, despite the guilt that made bile acidify your throat, you saw Jeff on top of you, you heard his romantic coos— “you gorgeous thing, you”—and you awoke in a pool of sweat.
Not long after Easter, Catherine called you.
“Dear, have you seen Jeff?”
“No,” you had said simply, feeling numb, “no, I haven’t.”
“I just was curious. He doesn’t seem well.”
Pressing her, she explained that when Jeff had paid her a visit, he had looked skinny and pale. She wondered what was happening with him, and asked you earnestly if you knew. You explained in turn that you two had broken up last fall, and you hadn’t seen him since. Your throat hurt from the reflux you had grown accustomed to.
Someone has to stop him, you thought, feeling a mixture of guilt and pity for your former love.
He’s hurting himself as much as the others. He probably does nothing but drink, jerk off, and kill.
You squeaked by your finals, barely passing one, and officially received your Bachelor’s in Science in Psychology. You returned home to your lonely apartment, and finally felt that maybe you might be able to put Jeffrey Dahmer behind you.
Only you knew you couldn’t. He was still at large.
On a telephone pole just across from your complex’s front stoop, you noticed a flyer one day.
Missing: Tony Hughes. A handsome young black man with an infectious smile stared back at you. It explained that Tony was a deaf-mute, and hadn’t been seen since May 24th, a week ago. You had placed one hand against the pole and teetered on the edge of blackout. You knew where Tony was. You knew what had likely happened. Tony had gone home with Jeff, and that was where his life had likely ended. He was a skull in the closet, or dissected in the barrel.
There’s worse, though, you thought.
Remember when he said “inside of me”?
That recollection tipped you over the edge, and you had vomited onto the sidewalk.
And yet you missed him. Perhaps the only way to finally get rid of Jeff was to move out of town.
That idea came to a screeching halt one night in June.
Right after the solstice, you were nodding off in front of the TV one night when the phone had roused you. Snatching it off the end-table, you had uttered your greeting, when a familiar voice had chilled you.
“Aww, were you sleeping?” slurred Jeff.
“Jeff,” you croaked, “why are you calling me right now?”
Laughing, he had breathed, “Guess what I’m doing?”
Oh, Christ, you thought, and facepalmed.
Please don’t do this to me.
“Jeff, I really would appreciate it if you lost my number.”
“You’re no fun!” he chuckled. “C’mon, guess!”
He’s fucking plastered.
“Baby, don’t you miss it? Don’t you want it?”
You recognized a flesh-against-flesh noise.
“Jeff,” you answered sternly, “I’m not going back to your goddamned apartment. I don’t want to talk to you. Turn yourself in and take your punishment like a man.”
And you had hung up the phone.
You had hoped that would be the last conversation you two would share, but he would speak to you one last time, just be an asshole. This was on the fourth of July, of all days. Worse, this time, he wasn’t even drunk.
“Why the fuck do you keep calling, Jeff?”
Smugly, he had responded, “I’ve got a
new boyfriend.”
Jeff explained that he had gone up to Chicago for pride and met a “cute piece of ass” there. Jeremiah had come home with him, and, with a titter, he had cooed, “And I bottomed for
him.”
“Good for you, Jeff. Try not to kill this one.”
Without another word, you pressed the hang-up and left the phone off the cradle. You wished you’d never met this bastard.
You enacted revenge on him by sleeping with other men. If he was going to have his “fun,” so wouldn’t you. But so few men in Milwaukee were interested in a non-op transsexual. Even when you offered to buy a strap and peg them, they turned their noses up at you.
Son of a bitch, the only man who wants me in this town is the fucking cannibal.
At the club, you tried to unwind, but often found yourself crying into your alcohol. You were so conflicted inside. You still loved and wanted the vile, conniving asshole.
You paid your tab and left the bar, and almost as if drawn there, found you standing in front of the bookstore at which you used to work.
Your parents were right on one thing: God didn’t exist. He
couldn’t exist. Or if he did, he was a cruel monster.
In the glass that looked obsidian in the night, memories rippled, as if the window were a scrying mirror. He had seemed so sweet and innocent, but then you also were. Damn you for getting in so deep with the first man who had ever shown you interest. Damn you for stripping him of his virginity and allowing him to imprint upon you all his hopes and dreams for a loving relationship. Damn you for not coming forward, for being a coward, for not condemning him for his sick urges. You also saw in the mirror the smiling face of Tony Hughes, and Anthony before him. Somewhere was also Jeremiah, who you knew was probably already dead. You stared deep into the glass, into the past, into your own reflection, and hated yourself. You stared into your own heart and hated Jeff.
If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em, you thought with a cynical, hopeless laugh, and proceeded to the nearest liquor store. You spent the rest of the night getting absolutely hammered.
The sun burst through a crack in your curtains the following morning, feeling like a drill going through the top of your skull. You had fallen asleep on the couch with the TV on. It was nearing ten in the morning. Laboring to sit upright, you had belched back the disgusting taste of last night’s Kahlua. Through your hangover, it took a moment or two for the images on the screen to come into focus. But when they did, your fear cured you of any lingering effects.
Is that what I think it is?
On the screen, two men in yellow hazmat suits were wheeling down a flight of steps a large blue barrel. You fumbled for the remote and raised the volume.
A reporter stood in front of the Oxford apartments in downtown Milwaukee. She was describing a “house of horrors,” “boxes of bones,” and a thirty-one-year-old suspect.
The next thing you knew, you were clutching the rim of your toilet, and the booze was leaving your system.
Next came the sound of your phone ringing. Robotically, you staggered back to the living room to fetch it. Your voice, thick from throwing up and fitful slumber, sounded foreign to you, but the voice on the line was very familiar.
“Have you heard from Jeff?”
Sighing, you responded in the negative. Lionel was in for a very rude awakening.
You spent the next two hours glued to the television. A black man appeared to tell the media how he had led police to Jeff. Once the officer’s had prompted him to extricate the man, named Tracy, from a pair of handcuffs, they had noticed a drawer of Poloroid photos. Even more demented, apparently there had been a head in the refrigerator. Jeff had fought tooth and nail to avoid capture, but it had proven fruitless. He had surrendered, bloody and bruised, and, after so many years, had confessed.
The only time you left the house between now and his first court appearance was to obtain another bottle of liquor.
Bright and early, two days later, you and potentially every other Milwaukee citizen tuned in for the revelation of the monster.
There’s your man, you had thought bitterly, but damn if he didn’t look good. With his blonde hair parted to the right and in a pair of black jeans and a striped t-shirt, everyone witnessed your ex-boyfriend in all his grandeur. He was, indeed, much thinner, his cheeks sunken in, although no less handsome, sans glasses. He walked the same way, chewed his bottom lip, and didn’t utter a single word.
For the first time, you discovered, Jeff had truly been a serial killer, to a nauseating magnitude. For the next month, you watched the coverage with an increasing blend of amazement and revulsion. Starting with Steven Tuomi, the only one you had known of, there had been another sixteen murders. He was never charged with this, however, given that, as per his confession, it had truly been an accident. That, however, had served as the catalyst; he truly had accepted his fate by then. You sat in and wallowed in self-hatred, eating nothing but takeout washed down with liquor.
A few weeks later, Jeff’s father and stepmother made their first appearance on television. You had seen Jeff, his lawyer, families of the victims, but this was to be Lionel’s first public reaction. He sat stiffly, sans glasses, and pondered whether or not he could forgive his son.
The question was, could you?
The media had used the same language as was typical for such cases. Jeff was Milwaukee’s boogeyman. Jeff was evil. Jeff didn’t have a soul. Jeff was a psychopath.
It was all bullshit.
Even as you felt sick and tortured by the details, and lamented your involvement, in the nights when you didn’t turn to the bottle and instead sat up, staring through your window or at the ceiling, you reminisced. You heard his voice like a ghost, and felt his touches and kisses like spiderwebs. Other than the occasion where he had disassociated, you had never felt in any danger from Jeff. He had seemed like a shy, sweet man. And anyone could suffer from a mental illness. You were a transsexual, after all—that was a diagnosis in the DSM. Some people thought you were a demented woman. Some people would consider you a brainwashed lesbian. The old pity returned to replace the hatred. You observed that at his every court appearance, Jeff made sure to never wear his glasses. On one occasion, you had even watched as he had stood in the hallway, been uncuffed, and stuffed them into the pocket of his jumpsuit. (He had also smoothed back his hair; Jeff couldn’t be caught looking anything but hot for the cameras.) You knew without them, his vision was shit. It was deliberate: he didn’t want to be able to see anyone or anything in front of him. Like a turtle, when faced with conflict, Jeff receded. His silence and stillness were his shell. He wasn’t galumphing about proclaiming his innocence and mouthing off, he wasn’t Ted Bundy. He was still your gentle giant.
You were surprised one evening to receive a phone call from your old college roommate. He was half checking in, and half gloating about pinging the darkness he had felt in Jeff.
“Listen,” he had said, “We’re up here in Green Bay. I’ve gotten married, we have a nice place, and room for you to stay over.”
Sighing, you had declined. “I can’t do that. You’re going to think I’m out of my goddamn mind, but I was thinking about going to see him.”
The silence on the line had stretched out for well over a minute. Then, he had sighed himself. “Don’t go in alone, man. I know you thought you knew him, but he’s fucking dangerous.”
Nodding, you had assured him you wouldn’t; in reality, you had done the opposite.
Jeff had always been ga-ga for Christmas, and you could think of nothing more miserable than being in a cell and being fed bologna sandwiches. So, on December 23rd, you had made three stops on the public bus line. The first was to the Grand Avenue mall. You had made awkward small talk with the clerk of a department store, saying you were surprising your boyfriend with something for Christmas, but had forgotten until the last minute. From there, you had hopped back on the line and hit a McDonald’s. Finally, you headed to the county jail.
A clerk that looked younger than you was at the front desk. You gave him the rundown that you were coming to see an inmate, and he said I would have to follow standard procedure, passing through a metal detector, possibly remove my shoes. He laughed when he saw the Micky D bag and made a joke about prison food.
“Who ya here for?”
Taking a deep breath in and out, you had simply uttered, “Jeff.”
The clerk’s mood did a 180, from jubilant to stone cold serious. “Dahmer?” he asked.
“Yep.”
“Alone?”
“I mean, if that’s allowed, yeah.”
Shaking his head, he had picked up the phone and called for an officer. Given the date, the ranks were pretty bare, but he had finally been able to find one.
“Okay, I got you a guard. I mean, there’s usually one sitting outside his cell, but I just wanted to be extra sure. Of all people, why that nutcase?”
Chuckling, you figured you would never see this twerp again, so you leaned towards the glass and remarked, “He let me live.”
With eyes as big as dinner plates, the clerk had buzzed you through. A few more hoops, including getting wanded, and you were good to go. You told the cop that met you that you didn’t think he would be necessary, as long as there was someone covering the cell, to which he had thumped you on the back and given you the directions. A few hallway turns, and then your breath hitched.
In a dimly lit cell at the end of a long corridor, there he sat. You hadn’t seen each other in over a year, and yet when he turned his head, he didn’t rush the bars, he barely reacted. He just stared.
You stepped closer, temporarily handing the guard your acquisitions. It was only when you came up to the bars that he finally stood and got closer.
In a small voice, he asked, “What are you doing here?”
You felt a tightening in your chest and a trembling in your lips. His brow furrowed.
“Are you scared of me now?”
Sucking in a wet breath, you looked deep into his eyes, unchanged in all the years you’d known him. “No,” you confessed. “In fact, I don’t think I feel any different.”
“You should hate me.”
“I don’t.” You gestured to the guard, then. “Here.”
With awe, he took the two bags, one in each hand, and stared at them. Then, he sat the gift bag down and opened the paper sack with the familiar insignia.
“Oh,
wow,” he remarked, drawing out the word. He parked himself back on the bench and, with a great crinkling and sounds of relish, bit into his Christmas dinner. All these years, and you still remembered his favorite order was a McRib. You watched him devour it, seemingly finishing it within three bites, then grab a handful of fries. “No ketchup?” he joked, and you found it easy to laugh with him. The guard just side-eyed you and grunted. Then, he snatched at the other bag, and pulled out a box. His eyes widened, then he broke into a giggling fit.
“They’re your size!” you exclaimed, and he opened the box and marveled at them. Those ugly-ass hush puppies.
Then his smile dropped, and he again stared. “Why did you bring me this?”
With a shy smile, you returned, “For Christmas.”
“Yeah, but… you shouldn’t be here.”
Rolling your eyes dramatically at his catchphrase, you beckoned him over. He leaned down, expecting you to whisper, but instead, you brushed your lips against his cheek. He recoiled as if burned, and the guard told you to watch your ass.
“I don’t give a shit!” you announced to both of them. Then you turned to Jeff, who seemed at the edge of tears. “You’re a fucking serial killer. Milwaukee cannibal, and all that. But you know what you are to me?”
He peered down at you, chewing on his bottom lip, a bit of a tear falling past the edge of his glasses.
Without him saying anything, you finished: “You’re the love of my life, Jeff.”