She smelled their breath, the odor of their bodies. She smelled the beer they had drunk that day, the tacos they had eaten somewhere in Spanish Harlem, the women they had slept with. She slapped her hands together, banging their skulls.
The force of the blow, the smashing of flesh and bone and brain, sounded hollow, like pumpkins squashed by a car. There were no other sounds, no cries of pain. Their bodies sagged in her arms. She flipped them away then, into the bushes beyond the footpath, where they fell together in a lump of legs and arms, all bent out of shape.
She went for the third one next, knowing, as no animal would, that she couldn’t let him escape to tell the police. The small man had recovered enough to stumble away from her and was spitting out blood and bits of teeth while he tried to run deeper into the park.
She loped down the hillside as he dashed frantically for the bushes that framed a children’s playground. She grabbed him in full gallop by the scuff of his neck and, without losing speed, threw him like a human javelin into the high iron-mesh fence that surrounded the children’s park.
The force of the impact bent the thick iron webbing. And when his body slipped down, the jagged points caught his clothes so he hung there on the wire like a wet, dirty rag blown up against the fence,
Jennifer stopped to pull her racing heart under control. She could smell herself, her own sweat, and the musky scent pleased her. When she looked up again at the dead man, at what she had done to him, she marveled once more at her speed and strength.
Jennifer took the subway home. She had only stopped at the park fountain to wash their blood off her hands and face. She knew her wild look would keep anyone from sitting beside her.
At home, she started a log fire and burned all her clothes, even her underwear. She got rid of her brown boots, stuffing them in a trash bag to go out with the garbage. Then she took a long hot shower and shampooed her hair, and finally she filled the tub with steaming hot water and scented bath bubbles, opened a bottle of white wine, and took glasses and an ice bucket back to the bathroom. Stretched out in the tub, she listened to WQXR playing Mozart and waited for Tom to arrive.
Tom had his own keys, and though she was drowsy from the hot water and the wine, she heard him closing the front door, dropping his attache case, and calling for her.
She listened to his voice grow louder and nearer. She smiled and moved her arm slowly in the hot water. The bath had made her weak, and she was tired, too, from what she had done. She thought back on the murders as if they were something she’d just seen in a movie or in a late-night news clip. None of it had any connection to her life, to who she really was.
“Jenny, there you are,” he said softly, appearing in the doorway. “Why didn’t you call out, tell me where you were?” He came into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet seat. He had already shed his suit coat and tie, and now he carefully rolled up the sleeves of his blue Oxford shirt.
His body always excited her, and she was absurdly pleased by her own arousal. It was such a simple emotion, and so gratifying. Slowly, gracefully, she stroked her breast with the sudsy water.
“David confessed,” he said. “I spoke to the detective uptown.” He sighed and slumped down on the seat. “Well, why are you smiling?”
She shrugged, and when she did, her pink, flushed nipples broke the surface of the hot water. She watched him focus on her breasts, watched him catch his breath.
“Do you want me?” she asked.
He nodded. His eyes were canvassing the length of her, and she obliged him, arching her back so that the wet web of her sex, foamy with bubbles, surfaced like a pale buoy. Then she settled back in the scented, soapy water.
As Tom shed his clothes, she moved in the tub to make room for him. The water whooshed, and large drops dripped from her arms and breasts as she sat up.
“How do you want me?” she whispered. She could feel her throat tighten, and her fingers, as they always did, trembled with excitement.
“Hurry,” she told him. Tom stepped gingerly into the tub, and she reached out for him, gently nipping his penis with her teeth.
“Easy, honey,” he said, “that hurts.” He couldn’t move. She had total control of his body, holding him by his genitals. “Don’t,” he demanded. He tried to ease himself down into the water, but she wouldn’t release her hold on him. “Jenny!” He was becoming angry.
She kept at him, ignoring his protests. Whenever they made love, he was the one who dictated the terms, and now she wouldn’t give up her advantage. A part of her wanted only to relax, to let him have his way, but right now she couldn’t stop herself from playing with him, from making him do what she wanted.
She grabbed his waist and tugged him down, her teeth still clenched around his penis. As his erection began to fade, Jennifer gently caressed the inside of his thigh with her warm hand and then abruptly shoved her index finger into his rectum.
He came in her mouth.
She gulped, trying to swallow the flood, then choked and pulled away as he showered her face and hair with jetting semen.
When she could breathe again, she laughed at her own foolishness.
“What are you trying to do, kill me?” Tom said, lifting her into his arms. “Trying to bite off my cock, are you?” He grinned. “Well, I know how to shoot back.”
“It feels like sticky molasses in my hair,” Jennifer complained, and immediately turned on the shower, drenching them both in hot water.
“More S and M,” Tom shouted over the water, but his voice was happy and excited. Both of his arms were wrapped about her body, with his fingers grabbing her taut bottom.
Jennifer spread her legs and, hooking her arms around his neck, she clung to him as he slipped inside her, and rode him a moment with her face turned into the hot spray. Then she concentrated on coming, moving against him as he drove up against her. She jabbed her nails into the flesh of his shoulders, wanting to draw blood, and her breath came in a quick series of gasps. They were splashing water all over, soaking the towels, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was to sustain the driving, escalating force which gained and gained, until she was breathless and in wonderful, excruciating pain. She was gasping, trying to consume his life, trying to suck the breath from Tom as she drove her tongue into his mouth, reaching for the very soul of him, and then the orgasm slammed through her, leaving her limp, out of breath, and clinging to him for safety. She ached with pleasure.
“Oh God,” she whispered, and licked the damp hairy mat of his chest.
Tom was not done with her. He seized her buttocks again in both his hands and hoisted her up. She still was impaled, and he turned her to the wall, centering them both under the driving shower. He had her pinned to the wall, and braced his feet against the corner of the tub as he drove into her.
He hit her bottom once, slapped it hard, and she gasped with delight. He slapped her again, and she grabbed his head, slipped her long fingers into his thick black hair, then stuck her tongue in his ear, licked him, and snapped at his right earlobe. He slapped her again, harder and harder.
He had spanked her before when they made love, and she had liked the tingling sensation as she came, the naughty notion of being beaten. He had never hurt her, and always he had been gentle with her later, kissing her flesh, soothing her bottom.
Now he did not stop and she did not want him to stop, and he slapped her harder and she fought back, growling at him, digging her fingers into his shoulders. He swore at her and pumped harder, kept her jammed back into the corner of the tub.
She lashed out at him, hitting him ineffectually on the neck and shoulders with her fists, but her fingers were slippery, wet with water and the blood that she now saw was discoloring the water. She did not want to hurt him, but she did want to resist; she wanted him to ravish her, and she did not know why.