But the girls were the worst by far. There they were, in their mini skirts hiked up to their crotches and those skin tight sweaters with their tits screaming to get out and not a fucking one of the halfway decent ones would even give him the time of day. They all looked down their noses at him as if he were a fucking leper or something! How many times did he get shot down, all tolled, anyway? A hundred? A fucking thousand? And how many girls had ever gone out with him in all the time he’d been in high school? One. One fucking girl, and he was using the word loosely. Loretta Hodges: the ugliest fucking hag in the entire school.
And what had happened on his one and only date with the ugliest girl in school? He’d taken her to a movie and had dared to put a hand on her breast. And what had she done? She had fucking decked him, that’s what she’d done. And if that weren’t enough, she’d started screaming bloody murder in the theatre as she stormed out, accusing him of being a pervert!
That had been the last straw. He had figured from there on out that if he was to ever score with a chick, it was going to be a fucking beauty next time-none of this lowering himself to the likes of Loretta Hodges’ abysmal level.
He had decided to focus on one babe in particular instead of spreading himself thin. She was to become his main focus of attention-the one who was finally going to give him what he wanted. And in the meantime, whenever he was alone in his bedroom, he would think of her while he was jerking off instead of pulling out one of those dog-eared Playboys from under the mattress yet again. No more bullshit-she was going to be the one he ate, drank and slept with in his dreams. He would follow her home after school, find out all of her likes and dislikes, and basically view her from afar until he finally felt it was time to make his move. Then one day, when the time was just right, he would approach this beauty and tell her how many things he knew about her and she would be so impressed that he knew all of those intimate details that she wouldn’t be able to resist letting him take her out on a date. She would be the one to suddenly realize that Stanley Jenkins wasn’t the nerd everyone thought him to be but instead a pretty damn suave and cool guy, after all-sort of like a young James Bond.
But he had never followed through with his plan. He’d chosen the beautiful chick, all right, but when he had finally approached her, he hadn’t had the nerve to tell her that he’d been following her all over creation for the past several months or that he knew, for example, that she liked to take long hot baths and never failed to soak in the tub for a good twenty minutes before she ever got around to actually washing herself.
Nope, he had choked instead, in fact. And had made a complete fool of himself. All because he’d made the mistake of not being patient instead of letting someone con him into thinking that he was ready to make the big score. That fucking bitch had ruined nearly a whole year of intense sleuthing!
She was going to pay for it, though-they both were. Just as Cindy Fuller was going to pay for being such a total disappointment and getting him shut up in the nut house.
And once he had Cindy all squared away he was going to track down the other ones and make them regret that they had ever made Stanley Jenkins the laughing stock at school. Then he was at last going to get his second chance in life. He would finally be free to play it by the book and find out what he’d been missing out on all his fucking life.
He suddenly saw a car’s headlights out of the corner of his eye. He turned and peered at Cindy Fuller’s red Mercedes as it approached the house and pulled into the driveway. It was too dark to see inside the car but he could visualize her groping for the garage door opener lying on the console and pressing the button. Stanley saw the door open as Cindy slowed down her speed somewhat until she was in the garage. A moment later, he heard the slam of a car door and in another, the electric clatter of the garage door closing.
He saw the kitchen light come on and waited another five minutes before making his way down the hill to the fringe of the side yard. As expected, Cindy hadn’t turned on the outdoor flood lights which would have lit up the grounds surrounding her house like a Christmas tree-he had since learned that she only turned them on whenever she planned on being out of town for more than a day at a time. Stanley began slinking diagonally across the lawn in the direction of the back door situated at the far corner of the house near the spacious patio, just beyond the swimming pool. As he passed furtively by the kitchen window, Stanley peered inside just long enough to spot the freshly opened bottle of Johnny Walker Red sitting on the counter near the sink, then resumed moving nimbly around the pool, onto the patio and up the steps leading to the back door.
Stanley reached inside his coat pocket and took out a key, then silently stuck it into the keyhole and turned. The dead bolt slid free with a crisp click that he knew would be inaudible in the den. He took out a pair of latex examination gloves from his pocket and pulled them on before turning the brass doorknob, silently pushing the door open with his other hand. Once inside, he inched the door closed, locked it, and waited for his eyes to adjust to the weak light in the room before advancing any further.
Jenkins strode across the room to the hallway and turned right, passing the study and a spare bedroom along the way. When he reached the dining room, he crept slowly through it and around the corner to the doorway leading into the den. He froze for a moment just outside the den and could hear the television set-it sounded like Cindy was watching a rerun of Roseanne. In another moment he could hear the clinking of ice cubes in a glass as Cindy Fuller took a long sip from her drink. Little did she know, he thought, that it was to be her last.
He entered the den and stood for a moment, staring at her. She was sitting on the sofa directly across the room from him. She was still wearing the same outfit he had seen her put on that morning-a matching navy blue skirt and jacket and white blouse: standard fare for the professional woman of the nineties. Cindy’s eyes were glued to the T.V. screen and she held her drink lovingly in both hands with her feet propped up on the coffee table. She suddenly started laughing at one of Darlene Connor’s one-liners and in the process happened to see Stanley standing there. At first she merely froze and her jaw dropped, unable to utter a word. Then he saw all the color drain out of her face as he started walking slowly and methodically toward her.
“Hello, Cindy-long time no see,” he said cheerfully as he strode across the room.
Cindy instinctively bolted up from the sofa, spilling her drink. “Who are you? And what are you doing in my house?” she sputtered, terrified.
Stanley continued pacing steadily toward her. He was only a dozen feet away from her now. “Why Cindy, I’m disappointed in you. Don’t you recognize me?”
“No, I don’t!” she uttered. Stanley watched the drink that was swashing back and forth in her violently trembling hand with delight as she spoke.
He continued his steady gait across the room until he was directly across the coffee table from her.
“Let me give you a few clues,” he said, the crooked smile never leaving his face. “The last time you saw me was about twenty years ago at Fountainhead Tech. I was the guy you absolutely refused to go out with because you thought you were too good for me. I got angry with you since you rebuffed me, so I set fire to your dorm room, hoping to put an end to your unyielding existence. But unfortunately for me, you weren’t in your room at the time like you were supposed to be and I ended up bungling the whole mission. But, my dear, sweet Cindy, it was in a way unfortunate for you as well. Because I think you would have much rather exited this world that way than the way I have planned for you now.”