My partner frowned. "Then go spend some time with your gentleman friend. Bernice is constantly on me about working too much, and you're here twenty hours a week more than I am. I don't see how Don puts up with it."
I met Don in a YMCA kickboxing class about a year ago. The instructor paired us up for sparring. I knocked him down with a snap-punch, and he asked me out. After six months of dating, Don's apartment lease ran out, and I invited him to move in -- a bold move for a commitaphobe like me.
Don was the polar opposite of me in the looks department; blond, tan, with deep blue eyes and thick lips that I would kill for. I took after my mother. Not only were we both five feet six inches tall, with dark brown eyes, dark hair, and high cheekbones, but she was a retired Chicago cop.
When I was twelve, my mother taught me the two skills essential to my adult life: how to use a liner pencil to make my thin lips look fuller, and how to group my shots from forty feet away with a .38.
Unfortunately, Mom relayed very little information when it came to the care and feeding of a boyfriend.
"Don goes out a lot," I admitted. "I haven't seen him in a couple of days."
I closed my eyes, fatigue working slender fingers through my hair and down my back. Maybe going home would be a good idea. I could pick up some wine, take Don out to a nice lunch. We could try to openly communicate and work out the problems we'd been avoiding. Maybe I'd even score, as Mike Donovan had put it.
"Fine." My eyes snapped open, and I felt a surge of enthusiasm. "I'm going. You'll call if anything shakes loose?"
"Of course. When do the Feebies show?"
"Tomorrow, noonish. I'll be here."
We nodded our good-byes, and I stretched my cramped body out of my chair and went to go make a sincere effort with the man I was living with.
After all, the day could only get better.
Or so I thought.
Chapter 3
HE HAS THE WHOLE THING ON video.
It's playing right now on his forty-inch screen. The shades are drawn and the volume is maxed. He is alone in the house, sitting on the couch. Naked. The remote is clenched in a sweaty fist.
He leans forward and watches with wide eyes.
"I'm going to kill you," he says on tape.
The girl screams. She's on her back, tied to the floor, jiggling with fear. Completely his.
The light in the basement is clinically harsh; his very own operating theater. Not one freckle or mole on her nude body escapes his attention.
"Keep screaming. It turns me on."
She chews her lips, her body shaking in an effort to keep quiet. Mascara leaks down her face, leaving trails of black tears. The camera zooms in until her eyes are the size of bloodshot volleyballs.
Yummy.
The camera zooms back out, and he locks it into position on the tripod and walks over to her. He's naked and visibly aroused.
"You're all the same. You think you're hot shit. But where's all that confidence now?"
"I have money." Her voice cracks like puppy bones.
"I don't want your money. I want to see what you look like. On the inside."
She screams when he picks up the hunting knife, fighting against her bonds, her eyes bugging out like a cartoon. Nothing but an animal now, a frightened animal fearing for its life.
It's a look he's seen many times.
"Please-oh-God-no-oh-God-please..."
He kneels down next to her and wraps his free hand in her hair so she can't turn away. Then he tickles her throat with the edge of the blade.
"So pretty. I'm only giving you what you deserve. Don't you realize that? You're an example to the others. You thought you were famous before? Now you'll be even more famous. The first one."
She trembles before his power, fear radiating from her body like heat. He sets down the knife and fetches the extension cord.
This is the good part.
"Beg for your life."
More screaming and crying. Nothing coherent.
"You'll have to do better than that. Do you even remember me?"
She catches her breath and stares at him. The moment of recognition is like candy.
Sitting on his couch, he pauses the tape on the scene, eating up her terror. Fear is the ultimate turn-on, and this is the real thing. Not an actress in some fake S/M porno flick. This is the genuine article. A snuff film. His snuff film. He lets the tape play.
"You can't treat men like that. All of you think you can do that to me and get away with it."
He twists the cord around her neck, pulling it tight, getting his shoulders and back into it.
It isn't like in the movies. Strangulation isn't over in fifteen seconds.
She takes six minutes.
Her eyes bug out. Her face turns colors. She bucks and twists and makes sounds like a mewling kitten.
But slowly, sweetly, the fight goes out of her. Oxygen deprivation takes its toll, knocking her out, turning her into an unconscious blob.
He releases the cord and splashes some water on her face to wake her up.
She's even more terrified when she comes to. She fights so hard, he thinks she might break the twine. Her voice is raw and painful-sounding, but the screaming goes on and on.
Until he strangles her again.
And again.
He does it four times before something in her neck finally gives and she can't breathe even when he takes the cord off.
She writhes around on the floor, a private death dance just for him. Wiggle and twitch, gasp and moan. Her eyes roll up and her tongue sticks out and she turns colors.
He climbs on top and kisses her as she dies.
Though excited and aroused, there is still more work to do before he can fully enjoy her. He goes off screen and comes back with the plastic tarp.
This next part is messy.
He uses the hunting knife like an artist uses a paintbrush. Slowly. With care.
Then he adds his signature.
He's out of breath, slick with sweat and blood.
Satisfied.
For the moment.
"One down, three to go," he says to the television.
All in all, a successful production. Perhaps a little quick, considering the weeks of careful planning it has taken to get to this point. But that can be blamed on excitement.
With the next one he will pace himself better. Make it last. Do the cutting while she's still alive.
He'll grab the next girl tomorrow and try out some new things.
In the meantime he rewinds the videotape to watch it again.
Chapter 4
DON, I'M HOME."
I hid the wine bottle behind my back in case he was sitting in the kitchenette next to the front door.
He wasn't.
"Don?"
I did a quick tour of the place. It didn't take long, because my apartment was about the size of a Cracker Jack box. Except there was no prize inside.
But I wasn't discouraged. If he wasn't home, I could catch him at the health club. Don had vanity issues. True, he had a good body, but the amount of time he invested in it seemed disproportionate to the benefits.
I went to chill the wine, when I noticed the note on the fridge.
Jack,
I've left you for my personal trainer, Roxy. We just weren't right for each other, you were too into your stupid job, and the sex wasn't very good.
Plus your tossing and turning all night drove me crazy. Please pack up all my stuff. I'll pick it up Friday.
Thanks for fixing those parking tickets for me, and don't worry. Roxy's place is about ten times bigger than yours, so I'll have somewhere to stay.
Don
I read the note again, but it wasn't any nicer the second time. We'd dated for almost an entire year. He'd been living with me for six months. And now it was over, ended with a brief, indifferent letter. I didn't even warrant the standard "I hope we can still be friends" line.
I hit the freezer and took out an ice tray. Three cubes went into a rocks glass, along with a shot of whiskey and a splash of sour mix. I sat down and thought, and drank, and thought some more.
When the cocktail was finished I made another. I was wading deep in the self-pity pool, but there was little sense of loss. I hadn't loved Don. He was a warm body to hold at night and a partner for restaurants and movies and occasional sex.