Hybristophilia is a sexual interest in and attraction to those who commit crimes, a paraphilia in which sexual arousal, facilitation, and attainment of orgasm are responsive to and contingent upon being with a partner known to have committed a crime.
In case you weren’t aware of it, I’m currently writing about serial killers and sitting in a constant state of flux between horror, revulsion and fascination. In amongst the serial killers, I’ve also got a subplot involving a stage psychic who is not as honest as one would hope in such an individual. This is how we meet the psychic in Chapter Two.
“I’m getting a message,” Derek declared. “It’s from someone with the initial J. Does that mean anything to anyone?”
He stood alone on an otherwise empty stage: a dishevelled man wearing a rumpled grey suit and a slouching posture. Yesterday’s five o’clock shadow made his jawline fuzzy. A blinding spotlight bathed him in whiteness, as though he had just been helped down to the stage by the hand of God or the transporter beam from an alien spacecraft. Derek drew a deep breath and refused to let his nervousness show.
Because of Clive’s unexpected absence, he intended spending his first half hour on stage at the Playhouse doing cold readings. Clive’s voice was in his ear, whispering occasional words of encouragement, whilst Derek cajoled the audience with cold readings to get them to accept his abilities as a medium before he started using any of the hot-reading information supplied by his brother.
“The initial J,” Derek repeated. “Does that mean anything to anyone here tonight?”
There was a moment’s hesitation. There always was. No one ever wanted to be the first to say they believed: that was just a sign of foolish gullibility. But someone would bite soon enough because the majority of them were in the room wanting to make contact with someone who had died and it was an unwritten law of every Conversations with Dead Friends show that, if the punters didn’t bite early, they’d never get another chance.
“The initial J,” he prompted. He glanced toward the left of the auditorium and said, “I’m sensing it might be someone on this side of the room. Does the initial J mean anything to anyone here? I think it’s someone who passed after a long illness.”
A hesitant hand went up. “My mum died from a long illness,” a weak voice told him. “But the letter J doesn’t mean anything to-”
“I’ve got the letter J and a long illness,” a voice to his right declared triumphantly.
Derek turned to them, thinking that this sounded like the winning call from someone playing a game of ‘Dead Relative Bingo’.
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