Murder, my dear, is but a crude instrument. True art lies in preservation. I didn't want them dead. I wanted them to remain. Always. So that their warmth, their flesh, their presence wouldn't slip away into the void, as everything else always did. Sadism is a prelude to particulars. is an embrace without betrayal. is the sincerest way to say, "You are now a part of me. No one can take you away." Loneliness isn't the absence of people.