Page 50 of Psychopath

Virgil bowed his head. “Thank you, Doctor Quinn.”

He got to his feet.

“Turn around,” Simon ordered. “Hands against the walls.”

Virgil sighed but did as he was told.

He was Quinn’s only participant who got patted down in case he’d taken something during the session. Quinn’s sheets and pencil were both accounted for, but the governor insisted on Virgil being searched every time.

Once satisfied, Simon took Virgil by the elbow and led him out.

Quinn waited until their footsteps had faded down the corridor before crouching and checking the screws on the table. They were all firmly in the metal frame.

He tried to wriggle one just to be sure.

It didn’t budge.

“What are you doing?”

He startled, banging his head on the table. Groaning, Quinn looked at Cleo in the doorway. She laughed beneath her hand.

“Nothing,” he said.

“Doesn’t look like nothing.”

She waved him towards her. “Come on, let’s get you a coffee.”

“Sounds good,” Quinn said, rubbing his head as he got to his feet.

He gathered his folder and tape recorder, checked his pencil was still in his top pocket, then followed Cleo down the corridor.

Unlike most of the other participants, Quinn didn’t need gently led question after question to get to the heart of what he wanted to know with Zane.

He could be direct.

“Have you ever had violent sexual fantasies?”

“Did you fantasise about hurting others?

“Do you hear voices?”

“Have you ever wet the bed?”

“Do your problems matter more than other people’s?”

Zane answered.

Then the remaining time was spent talking, and laughing more than not. Quinn knew he should’ve sent Zane back to his cell, but he couldn’t.

They talked about books, movies, and food, and when Quinn got an allotment, he told Zane about it, expecting to be ridiculed, but Zane was interested and asked him what he was going to grow and whether he could cook.

Zane pulled him in. He was warm, funny, and flirtatious but always knew where to draw the line. Quinn looked forward to Fridays. His stomach fluttered, and his heart raced, and he always smiled back at Zane in the doorway.

It should’ve been obvious to Quinn, but it wasn’t until he woke up from an intense dream about Zane that he realised there was a problem.

In the dream, instead of being scared at Zane knocking on his door in the middle of the night, he’d almost been bowled over with relief. He’d pulled him inside, up to the bedroom and had sex with him. And he felt like he had when he was seventeen, when he pulled the front page out from beneath his pillow and gave in to temptation. When he found out from kiss-and-tells that Zane preferred topping men, Quinn’s lust grew into full fantasies.

He’d not fantasised about Zane Black since he’d started university at eighteen, but a couple of weeks in his presence and reawakened lust had taken over his subconscious.

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