Some people felt called to a profession; to a hobby; to a type of instrument. I felt drawn to drawing sweeping lines in human blood; slicing and sliding a slick blade along fragile skin and leaving behind a trail of undeniable proof that I was making my way in this world. Some people wonder if WWII would have happened if Hitler had made it as a painter. If they knew those women were dead because of me, they'd probably wonder how things would have played if I'd made it as a boxer.

I repair punching bags. I buy the sturdy cloth, the anger-absorbing cotton filler, the thick thread and I mend the rips in fighters' bags. Over the years my customers have cultivated some loyalty towards me. There are other places to have bags repaired, but no one knows their history like I do.

In fighting, ninety percent of the thinking is done before and after. Only the bare essentials of thought persist when fists are coming at your head. I should know.

The first woman I tore up came at me swinging. I barely knifed her, but she went down. I've thought about it so many times since. I warned her that I was armed. Drunk bitch didn't listen to me; kept hollering about how I never called and how I should have called and how no ugly, bastard son-of-a-bitch's uncle was going to have done her like that.

"Michael, you dumb fuck, why didn't you call me? Huh, weren't I good enough for you?" She came at me, her arms pushing against my breast pockets, and I warned her.

"Hell, I don't know. I just didn't get around to calling you yet. I been fighting lately; been getting some good shots in and—"

"Fighting? You've been fighting?" I could smell her breath. "I don't know what the fuck kind of person you think you are, Michael, but you are not going to be some damn boxer." Now this made me angry. I'd been seriously working at being a prize fighter for about three years at that point and I'd never been badly injured or anything yet. I was doing good as a middleweight, but not good enough for people to take me seriously. The resulting stall in my career had bruised my ego.

I pulled my knife, but was still cool-headed enough to keep my distance. "Now, just back off and go bother somebody else, okay? I'm just on walking to my car and you're going to go away." I didn't want to deal with no drunk lady. I didn't care much for the company of women. Some people, early on in the news coverage, thought maybe I was gay and angry at myself for not being attracted to women. I didn't understand that, but I didn't care much about it.

That night, I kept walking to my car, back of the lot at some bar where I collected my fighting fee every few weeks. I don't remember her name now, because it's been over twenty years, but she kept coming. I turned my knife so it glinted yellow-white under the parking lamps, but she paid the metal no mind until it was in her ribs and twisting. My right jab was sharp; my knife was sharper. She was coming at me and I reacted.

I felt something that night, after, when I was home watching Homicide: Life on the Street. I don't feel a lot. I went numb for a bit; I guess I went into shock from having killed someone, but after the numbness, I felt something smooth and warm, like I'd just won a one round knock-out. I got into my car with my knife in my right hand still and drove home with my left hand only. Most of the blood stayed on my hand and my shirt sleeve. The copper smell reminded me of fighting and I liked it. Anything that reminded me of boxing l liked. Still do.

I thought about it almost constantly. I read about it in the paper and watched the news anchors as they told each other how terrible it was that a woman was so brutally abandoned in death. The bar was under suspicion for a few days, but nothing came of it. No one saw anything. She was always shouting at somebody, it turned out, and I didn't ever stand out much. Didn't even get called in for questioning.

I've heard of people getting addicted to sex. On Law and Order sometimes, especially the one with the lady cop, the rapists use that in their defense. It never works, I don't think. It's never worked in the episodes I've seen. I think maybe I got addicted to the movements of death: the killer moves like a fighter playing God and the dying bitch screams or cries or something. I don't know if I could ever kill a man; I don't know if I would like it. In my experience, from boxing, men take hits and if you're lucky, they frown. Women react. It doesn't turn me on or nothing; feels good in a deeper way than just raising my dick.

So, if I'm addicted to murder, does that mean I can be cured? I wonder that sometimes. I don't laugh much, but thinking about an MA program, Murderers Anonymous, makes me smile. I pass the time in between customers sometimes by imagining legendary killers being there with me. I get bored though, because they're all men and, like I said, men don't act the same. Fighting a man is proper; it's a match. Fighting a woman is like fighting nature and the world and religion and taxes. It's inevitable that you'll hate it and break it and want to piss on it, but you'll learn to live around it. Maybe that's strange, that I live around a possible addiction to knifing women, but I don't care much how it seems.

The next woman I killed was younger than me. I was twenty-seven at the time. I think she was nineteen or so. She didn't say and I didn't ask. She was a pro. I was an amateur, but I got the job done. I had this theory in my head, from watching TV, that maybe if I did it again it would be out of my system and I could be normal again. At that point part of me kind of wanted to be normal; kind of cared.

"How'd you want it, boss? You got an hour." I was just sitting on the bed, watching her move around the room. "What's up, don't you want to get started?" I shrugged.

"I don't know how I want to do it. It's only the second time." I didn't care that she thought I meant sex. I wasn't planning on her being around to have an opinion much longer. I had her kneel like she was going to blow me and close her eyes. "Yeah, baby, just like that." I remember that she shivered. I think she could tell that I was faking. It's not hard with men. I held the knife with my left hand, gingerly above her open mouth and shoved it down like I was breaking teeth with the heel of my hand.

The noise she made, an exaggerated guttural, sputtering ugly noise, stayed with me for weeks. I didn't do anything else for almost four months. Then I woke up one day and I wanted to smell blood. By then I'd gained the fifteen or so pounds of gut that could be shrugged off to aging past thirty, I knew that my fighting career wasn't getting any more off the ground than it ever had. I was working at a place mending bags, like I do now. It was steady work if you knew the right people, and back then I still did.

I didn't get to fight much and I couldn't afford my own bag, so it was kill some woman or punch a wall until I broke my knuckles. My own blood didn't smell the same. I tried it. Maybe that was some little conscience of mine trying to stop be from being a serial, because what nut actually punches a wall to get high off the smell of his own blood, for God's sake? Maybe it was to justify things to myself. I don't really know. I don't care about it much. I don't care about much of anything, but the smell of blood is still pretty to me.

So I wanted to kill again. By this time I had moved a few counties west of the first woman. Dame Three was from the South. She was damn pretty but she stuck her nose where it didn't belong. She tried to be my friend, I guess. I didn't want a friend and I didn't want attention. One of the smartest things I ever did was because of her. She cornered me outside my work and tried to talk to me.

"Michael, please, just let me buy you a winter coat, It's getting freaking cold out here at night and, you don't need to care about me, but I see you around all the time and I can't help but feel some empathy for you." I'd heard that word a lot in a short span of time. Women were all about empathy rather than pity. I didn't care to understand the difference.

"I don't need one, but thanks. Really," I sounded more like a real man to myself than I ever had. I'd been practicing sounding suave and shit. Normally I just heard the wheeze of an aging fighter, but that night I heard my voice play with lies and win.

"At least let me give you a ride home. It's dangerous out here these days."

I smiled at that. The cops had finally declared my last kill a cold case. I'd celebrated by watching the premier of Criminal Intent with pizza. I slid my knife into view. "Not all that dangerous for me. For you, though, maybe." I had my eyes trained on her face, watching how the color drained. I knew that in a minute I would smell the copper of success. I lost my first knife that day because she screamed. Once l'd done her, I smeared my hands in the wounds. There were five stab holes. I got her blood on me and I smeared the knife. I accidentally threw myself backwards when I heard voices and my head met brick. Soon, I was conscious again and people who thought they knew me from the bag repair joint were asking what I'd seen.

"What?" I wasn't very intelligible or smart just then.

"You witnessed a murder. It seemed you tried to help the victim and were injured in the process." There was a cop, I remember being amazed that no one thought I did it.

But I blended in well and we were friends, according to my co-workers, so there was no reason for me to kill her. Also, my prints weren't on the knife cleanly thanks to all the blood. I know that if I'd started now, with DNA evidence and everybody's sister having a CSI degree, I'd have been fucked hard. Back then I got away with it, and since, I've learned a few things about staying afloat in the mundane security of that night.