‘Do you know what I’m going to do?’ said the man. ‘That’s a purely rhetorical question, as I know you can’t answer me. So let me fill you in. By the way, just so you’re up to date and running with what’s going on, I’ve injected you with a drug that renders you paralysed and unable to speak. That does not mean, however, you will not feel pain. I think you’ll find that your nervous system will register every little cut that I’m going to make into your skin. Let’s see, shall we?’

Raymond tried to struggle, but he remained as immobile and inert. Only his eyes seemed to register the terror.

The stranger began by cutting the clothes from Raymond’s body, occasionally letting the scalpel graze his skin. He worked quickly and efficiently and, in a matter of minutes, had stripped Raymond down to his underwear. Blood seeped out of the tiny cuts on his body, gradually turning his white boxer shorts a deep shade of red.

‘That’s better, we can see what we’re working with now, can’t we?’

The man looked Raymond up and down like a piece of meat, ready to be carved and butchered.

‘You’re most probably wondering what I’m doing and why I am doing it,’ he said, calmly. ‘By now you’ll have probably worked out that I am not one of your net buddies nor do I regularly visit web sites devoted to the abuse and exploitation of small children. In fact, you and your sort disgust me, do you know that?

‘And it’s about time somebody taught you a lesson. You should realise that you can’t go about satisfying your every whim, satiating your sick appetite for filth and obscenity with as little thought as a kid reaching for another cookie from the cookie jar. There have to be consequences, you see. You have to be punished. You do understand that, Raymond, don’t you?’

With one quick flick of his wrist the stranger cut Raymond’s boxer shorts from his tubby waist. He picked up the swathes of the blood-soaked material – they reminded him of something from his childhood, the jolly red ribbons at an Easter parade – and dumped them with the rest of the clothes in a large black refuse bag which he had placed next to Raymond in the bath.

‘You see, Raymond, I’ve been watching you,’ he said, staring down at his victim, his penis a shrivelled, bloodied snail almost curled in upon itself. ‘Listening into a few of your chat room exchanges. And what you’ve been doing just isn’t right. Looking at the pictures of those poor kids. Night after night masturbating over those images. Swapping sick photos with your pervert buddies. But why choose you, I hear you think. Good question, Raymond. You’ve never actually touched a child, never done anything with a kid. True. But I always think prevention is better than cure, don’t you? And it would be awful if you ever did anything to hurt little David and Jo-Ann. Yes, that’s right, I know the names of your kids. And your wife, Toni. So you see, what I’m doing now is actually for your benefit, Raymond. You see the logic, right?’

With his gloved hands the stranger manoeuvred Raymond on to his back. He took hold of his hairy legs and pushed them forwards, so that Raymond’s knees were almost touching his face. Drops of blood from his groin dropped on to his cheeks and a stream of dark red liquid ran into the corner of his mouth.

‘Can you taste that, Raymond? How d’you like the taste of it? Nice, eh?’ He smacked his lips in mock appreciation, as if he were pretending to eat a delicious strawberry sundae. ‘My guess is you are in quite a bit of discomfort at the moment. Your skin is stinging, your cuts smarting, and this position isn’t doing your back any favours. But did you ever imagine what it was like for one of those poor kids? Being bent over as if they were a rag doll? Prodded, poked, fucked and fingered just for your delight. Not much fun, I’m sure you’ll agree. So you see, Raymond, I just wanted you to appreciate that. Just so you know what I’m doing here isn’t completely without rhyme or reason. Okay?’

Raymond repeatedly tried to close his eyes. If only he could pretend he was some place else. He tried to think of that beach he’d been to with Toni and the kids a couple of years back. In the Bahamas. The breeze on his skin. The feel of sun on his skin. He tried to push back the pain that was gradually consuming his body. If only he could get through this, he promised, he would never look at those pictures again. Holy God, he wouldn’t. If only he could tell this deranged madman that. He’d erase those discs that he had hidden at the back of the cupboard in his bedroom. He’d even go to the police and give the cops the names of his internet buddies. Yeah, he was prepared to snitch on them, if only he would let him go.

Fuck. What the fuck was that? He felt something sting in his groin. He couldn’t move his head to look, but he felt the warm flow of blood on the inside of his left leg. He felt his heart race, couldn’t catch his breath quickly enough. What the fuck was going on?

‘Just brace yourself, Raymond. Be brave. And just think, I’m helping you become the best you can be.’

The stranger wiped the blood from the scalpel, pausing for a second as he examined Raymond’s midriff. He moved closer, taking up Raymond’s shrunken penis in his gloved hand. He pushed the scalpel into the skin at the base of the organ, circling it with a ruby red ring. As he began to cut through the membranes, hacking away at the stringy tissue, a spurt of blood streamed upwards into the air, a bloody ejaculation.

Raymond’s body started to shake as it went into involuntary shock. A couple of more strokes of the scalpel and all that was left of Raymond’s genitals was a pair of testicles and a bloody stump.

‘That’s my boy,’ he said. ‘You did good.’

He looked at the pathetic thing sitting in the palm of his hand. To think that this slug of an organ used to cause all those problems, he thought. Not any more. Raymond had been cured and cleansed of his sins.

He set the dismembered penis to one side as he started to clean up the bathroom, wiping down surfaces of blood and bleaching the bath so as to try and lessen the amount of clean-up that had to be done. His mother had always told him to be as neat and as tidy as possible and, even now, he didn’t want to let her down. By the time he had finished the only messy object was Raymond himself, a mass of fat and hair and blood. There was just one finishing touch. One thing lacking to make the scene complete.

He went over to Raymond. He was still breathing – just. Then he opened Raymond’s mouth, picked up the flaccid penis and stuffed it inside. He gathered together his things, checked he had not left anything behind, and let himself out. As he drove away into the night he felt a pleasing sense of a job well done.

Sin eats itself, he thought, and smiled.