SadBoy

The year is 2017—we are within the grasp of the digital era.

“Millennials are so stuck in their electronics that they don’t know how to communicate in real life anymore!”

It’s complete and utter bullshit. But, it is difficult to find an adequate mate these days… as it always has been I’m sure. The reality is that America is full of existential youth and nihilistic adults. Within this world lives me, Silvia; I’m a 22-year-old female, and I’m lonely as fuck. I see these Sadboys on my Tumblr dashboard, on my Instagram feed and I want them all—I lust for them all. But they don’t seem to want me…

I mean, maybe they do; I don’t really try to talk to them, nor do I often post any selfies, so, I guess I wouldn’t really know. If you’re wondering what a “Sadboy” is, it’s a male who is essentially sent from heaven. They’re sweet, understanding, and immensely interesting. They usually have good taste in music and aren’t afraid to take fashion risks. In addition, they are beautiful works of art. Like, seriously, they look like God artfully carved them from various shades of stone. Am I obsessed with them? Possibly. Do I care? Not really.

I feel as if they would be the perfect guy for me, since they’ll most likely know and understand that masculinity is a fake gender role imposed on men by society—and likewise, race is stupid and fake (ethnicity is real, race is just a societal construct). I know based off my internal monologue, you’re probably thinking that I’m a pretty cool gal and should just go for it and try to talk to the guy of my dreams because we’ll probably get along great and be happy together. But see, I’m much too analytical and introspective to do any of that…or so I thought.

One day, February 14, 2017—to be exact, it happened, it finally happened; a Sadboy talked to me. I was sitting in the front of my Sociology class a couple of minutes before class started, as usual—just chilling, listening to music. When the guy who sits behind me says:

“Am I the only one who thinks Valentine’s Day should be abolished?”

I slowly turned around to look at him… he was beautiful; I’ve never noticed him before because I never look behind myself.

“Abolished? Why?” I ask; I was barely able to get those few words out my mouth.

“Because it’s not even a real holiday; it was just created by greeting card companies and other corporations in order to get even more money from consumers than they already get.”

I grin unintentionally, “I see why you’re taking sociology.”

He laughs, “Yeah—maybe I could also just be salty about being single.”

“Maybe just a bit,” I laugh, “Nah, I’m joking, I actually agree with you, it’s not a real holiday.”

“Hmmm really? So, what’s your opinion on Thanksgiving?”

“Oh-no, no, don’t even get me started on Thanksgiving…”

So, I found out his name is Avan; he was born in Iran but was raised here. And, he’s basically the ideal Sadboy (typically, when you think of Sadboys they’re of European decent, but just like anything else, they can be applied to any ethnicity); aka the ideal guy for me. He has beautiful light brown skin, soft curls that cascade in front of his face, and he dresses in monochrome clothing and pastels, he’s near perfect. We had a long extensive conversation about society until class started; the conversation continued a couple of minutes afterwards too, but he had to get to his next class so it didn’t last that long. We did exchange numbers though. I never thought something like this would happen to me—I’ve been such a pessimist the past few years. But just because we hit it off doesn’t mean that we’re going to end up together, for you never know how the tides will turn.

…

It’s been a week since I’ve met him and we’ve talked almost every day. My friends think he likes me but, I think we’re just friends. It’s not that he’s done anything or said anything—like calling me “buddy”—that explicitly lets me know that I’m in the “friendzone,” it’s just that I don’t seem to be able to form an emotional connection with him. Although, to be fair, it has just been a week. Anyways, we planned on hanging out this weekend—just me and him; my friends say it’s probably a date but, I wouldn’t know.

Today is the day, February 24, 2017, he picks me up from my apartment at 6:00 pm; I still don’t know if it’s a date or not, but I dressed kinda nice just in case. We roll up to the movie theatre and buy tickets to watch the film As You Are since we heard great reviews about it. Once the film is finished we sit there for a moment in awe.

We discussed how the film accurately depicted being an adopted POC and the struggles that homosexual youths still go through.

“So… do you want to sneak and watch another film?” he asks.

“Sure, let’s watch Get Out! Cause there’s no way I’m paying to watch that movie.”

He laughs, “Is that the one horror film where the black guy who’s dating this white chick meets her family and they’re like, low-key racist or something?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay, let’s do it, cause I’m not paying for that shit either.”

Once the film finished, we were pleasantly surprised; the trailers didn't do it justice, for it was truly an amazing work of art.

He looks at me and smiles, “I can’t believe this was his directing debut!”

“Seriously though!”

Fast-forward, it’s August 14, 2017; it has been officially five months that we’ve been dating. We were just friends for the whole month of February but, in March, we decided to make it official. It started off great—we would discuss society, film, and music all the time. We went to concerts together and even did partner yoga. But, throughout all of it, I still felt as if something were missing. I felt like I knew him; but I’ve recently realized that I still don’t really know anything about him…

For example, last night he was over at my place and he just seemed…distant.

“What’s wrong?” I asked him.

He didn’t reply and I saw him getting visibly annoyed.

“Why do you always ask me that?”

“Because I care for you? And have something you apparently lack?”

“What?”

“Empathy, Avan, I have empathy.”

He laughed and shook his head. So, I stared at him in disbelief.

“Look, I’m fine… okay? I have to go do something, so I’ll see you tomorrow, all right?”

He kissed me on the forehead, then left. The more I think about it, the more confused and annoyed I get. Why didn’t he show any sort of real emotion? I wanted him to deny what I said and instead insist that he does, in fact, possess the basic human quality of empathy. It just has me thinking…. so, I’m going to stop by his place today—he lives in some random suburbs that are 20 minutes from the closest highway. He gave me the address months ago, but I’ve never been; we just usually meet at my place since it’s closer to the city and because during the semester he lives in a dorm with three other people. But the fall semester hasn’t started back up yet, so I must go to his actual house if I want some answers.

I get to his place, and it’s honestly pretty anticlimactic because it looks like every other house in this neighborhood. I ring the doorbell and—

“Oh, hey… I wasn’t expecting you…”

“Yeah, I know, sorry, I just popped up like this. Uh, can I come in?”

He looks around, as if he thinks someone may be watching.

“Uh, this isn’t really the best time.”

Suddenly I hear a muffled scream.

“Avan, what was that?”

He looks down and starts shaking his head while softly hitting it at the same time. Then he starts whispering, “You were supposed to tell me before you came over, you were supposed to…”

“Avan?”

“Either get in or leave.”

I walk into the house and hear Mozart’s Requiem, Lacrimosa, echoing throughout along with the continuous muffled screaming; then I notice that there’s plastic all over the floor. Any logical person would probably leave at this point, but, he’s my boyfriend, and I think I know him well enough to assume that this isn’t what it seems.

“So… this looks like I just walked into the film set for like Dexter, or like American Psycho or something—that’s not what’s going on here…right?”

He gives me a blank stare, “Come on Silvia, do you actually expect me to answer that question? I know you’re smarter than that.”

I begin to nervously look around; I mean, it does look really *sus in here; but, I still have hope that he’s not a murderer, even though he basically just told me he was.

“Show me.”

Oh my gosh, why did I just ask him to show me? He looks confused at first but then shrugs and leads me down a hallway.

“So, as you know, I’m a psychology major; the serial killer section in my intro to psych class was my favorite. When we talked about Ted Bundy and Hannibal, it really resonated with me because they interest me the most.”

We approach a door and he slowly starts to unlock it while saying, “Now, it’s interesting that you brought up Dexter because—you remember the ice truck killer?”

“Yeah, didn’t he freeze the victims and drain the blood so that the cuts would be nice and smooth?”

“Yeah! So, that’s what I do too—I basically model my killings after him. Because my cuts used to be really messy but, after applying that method, they’re a lot cleaner now.”

He opens the door and walks inside—I walk in behind him.

“Oh wow… that’s… cool…”

When we walk inside—it’s extremely cold in the room.

“It’s cold in here to preserve the body parts,” he says.

There are limbs everywhere, lining the walls, on top of shelves; everywhere; and he just walked around showing them to me as if they were trophies. I’m horrified at the site; it’s worse to see it in real life compared to seeing it in movies. He then takes me out of this room and into the kitchen, where the muffled screaming was coming from. There was an older, white male tied up in a chair with tape over his mouth. I gasp.

“It’s okay babe, I’m just getting rid of the misogynistic patriarchy one dick at a time,” he says, with a slight grin on his face, “Isn’t this what we talked about? Making the world a better place by getting rid of the racists? Islamophobes? Homophobes? Etc.? Well, this is how I’m doing it.”

I’m stunned into silence—he walks over to the guy and whips out a set of surgical instruments; just then I regain my bearings.

“Dude… this is… not okay…”

He turns around slowly and looks at me, “…excuse me?”

I look around frantically, “It’s…it’s not okay, this is not what I had in mind when…when…”

“Wait, are you saying that you’re not okay with this?”

“Yes! That’s exactly what I’m saying!”

“…I really wish you hadn’t said that.” Then he starts… sobbing? While he’s crying, I try to back out of the room but he sees me and grabs me forcefully but reluctantly. I try to get out of his grip, but am unsuccessful. He drags me over to a cabinet to get out some rope; then he grabs a chair, gently sets me in it, and ties me up in the chair.

This is the day I died…right beside the un-named man.

“Breaking news! Today, October 14, 2017, the missing college student Sylvia Brown was found dead, alongside 13 other bodies in the suburban home of Avan Rakhsha, her ex-boyfriend. Police say that he admitted to killing her and consuming some of her dismembered body parts—much like Hannibal did with his victims, but claims that quote, "she is the only victim he consumed due to his love for her.'”