“Yeah,” my friend grunted. “How’d ya’ know?”
“Like I said,” I replied, a sullen melancholy taking over my voice. “I’ve seen the signs.”
CHAPTER 9:
“Looks like Wentworth was definitely a sick puppy,” Ben announced as he emptied the envelope of autopsy photos he had brought from the coroner’s office. As they spilled onto the table, he began systematically shuffling through them. After extracting several he felt would support his conclusion, he offered them to us. “Have a look at these.”
The three of us were gathered around the breakfast nook in the kitchen. I had started a fresh pot of coffee several minutes ago, and the maker was presently sputtering and steaming as it neared the end of the brew cycle. The strong aroma was filling the room, and it reminded me that I could really use a jolt of caffeine right about now.
“Maybe not sick,” Felicity countered, taking the 8-by-10’s from his hand as she slipped her reading glasses onto her face. “Just different.”
“Yeah, well, you say different, I say sicko.”
I glanced over at my wife and watched her furrow her brow as she began carefully scanning the images. That countenance was a drastic contrast to the one that had been staring back at me earlier, but it was welcome nonetheless.
As it turned out, she had been on her way out of the bedroom at almost the same instant I had started down the hall to check on her. She was already dressed and to my great relief, very much herself once again, albeit wearing a somewhat chagrined frown. Of course, such an expression was something you didn’t see very often where she was concerned, and in keeping with par, this one didn’t hang around for very long either.
The fact that she had brought herself under control so quickly had quelled some of my unease over what had happened earlier. I knew all too well that emotions pretty much always cloud judgment, and in the heat of lovemaking, passionate feelings run very high. In the final analysis, it appeared that this was exactly the case with Felicity. She had allowed herself to open up to the ethereal energy simply because it had been heightening her physical pleasure. Unfortunately, as that pleasure increased, so did her lack of control over the stimulus. In essence, it had become like an addictive drug, and she rapidly gave herself over to it.
While opening herself to an unknown energy certainly hadn’t been a wise choice on her part, given the circumstances, it was completely understandable. Besides, I was the last person with any right to pass judgment in that department.
In any case, what was most important was that the actual circumstances turned out to be far less heinous than the alternative I had originally feared, which was that something had forced its way past her defenses and taken over.
“Are these the marks we saw at the scene,” I asked, looking at the photo I had just been handed.
“No,” Ben replied. “That picture is of his back. But there’s a picture of his chest in here too. I want ya’ ta’ look at that one for sure.”
A group of lacerations were the focus of the particular shot I was currently perusing. A plastic photoevidence scale similar to Felicity’s was pictured along the rightmost side, showing the marks to be anywhere from three to five inches in length. The incisions were straight and somewhat evenly spaced. While they were thin, they were also deep enough to have drawn what must have been more than just a trickle of blood.
“Doc says they were prob’ly made with a straight razor,” he replied, reaching over and pulling down the corner of the photo with his finger so he could see it. Then he indicated an area above the wounds. “Look here though.”
I followed his fingertip to the edge of the picture. I could just barely make out three thin lines intersecting the corner of the image.
“What’s that?”
“Scars,” he replied. “There’s actually a better picture here somewhere.”
“Here,” Felicity interjected, sliding one toward me without looking up, as she was already engrossed in a different image.
“Yeah,” Ben said with a nod. “That’s it.”
Even though they were still faint, the lighting on this particular photograph was more conducive to showing the marks. There were, in fact, far more than just three of the lines creasing Wentworth’s pallid skin. I stopped counting at seventeen. Some were starker in appearance than others, a telltale sign that they were more recent.
“Most of ‘em are on his back,” Ben explained. “But he’s got ‘em on his buttocks and thighs, and what ya’ saw on his chest too. Basically he’s been down this road before, which is why I’m sayin’ he was a sicko.”
“He got off on being cut,” I mused.
“Yeah, that’s how it looks. Doc Sanders called it zero-phobia, or somethin’ like that.” My friend pulled a small notebook from his hip pocket and began thumbing through the pages. “Got it here somewhere…”
“Xyrophilia,” Felicity said aloud, still studying the images.
“Yeah, that’s it,” he agreed.
“A love or obsession with razors and knives,” my wife continued. “Combined with some kind of self or reverse piquerism apparently.”
My friend looked over at me with a puzzled expression. “Peekawho? Sounds like that friggin’ cartoon character.”
I simply shrugged and nodded toward my wife as I tossed the photo onto the pile and pushed away from the table. “You’ll have to ask her. I’m going to get a cup of coffee, you want some?”
He nodded. “Yeah, why not.”
“Felicity?”
“With lots of sugar this time” was her response.
“Okay,” Ben started in on my wife as I retrieved a trio of mugs from the cabinet. “So what’s with the ‘ism’?”
After a short pause, Felicity set aside the photo she’d been inspecting then looked up at Ben. “Piquerism is a condition whereby you become aroused by stabbing or cutting another person. In his case, it appears that Judge Wentworth became aroused by being cut or stabbed. I don’t know if there is an actual word for that, other than masochist.”
“Ya’know, Firehair, it fuckin’ scares the shit outta me that you know that stuff.”
“Aye, I bet I know some other things that would scare you even more.”
“Yeah, well between the two of ya’ I’m not takin’ that bet. Let’s just not go there.”
“Well, if this was his kink,” I offered, sliding a steaming mug in front of Ben. “Then you’re right, Felicity. He was definitely a masochist.”
“Like I said. Sick fuckin’ puppy.” Ben gave a quick nod then nudged my arm with the back of his hand. “By the way, I meant ta’ ask ya’ earlier. What happened to your hands?”
I looked quickly at the welted scratches that raked across my flesh then started to offer an excuse. Felicity, however, was faster with the explanation, and what she gave him was the unadulterated truth.
“A sudden attack of piquerism on my part,” she interjected.
“Come again?”
“You don’t want to…” I started, but again I was too late, as my wife was already serving up the gory details.
“I sexually dominated and physically abused my husband for several hours this morning,” she announced with calm poise. Displaying her hands, she wriggled her fingers in an animated fashion while adding, “And I got just a bit overzealous with the fingernails.”
“Awwww, Jeez…” Ben mumbled in an embarrassed tone. “I knew I shouldn’t’ve fuckin’ asked. Just forget it.”
As if she hadn’t even heard him, my wife continued her unabashed disclosure of how we’d spent our morning. “Of course, since I was sitting on top of him, holding him down, and…”
“Jeez, Row, I said I didn’t wanna know this stuff,” Ben appealed to me, cutting her off.
“I tried to stop you,” I told him.