Chapter 1
The family next door is at it again. The hollering and battering seem to increase in frequency these days. Perhaps the wife didn’t add enough salt to the food, or maybe she smiled for too long at the shopkeeper. It could be that the husband came an hour later than he should have, or maybe he had the stench of some cheap whore; her words, not mine. The reasons for their fights are becoming more and more idiotic as time passes; however, their fights grow more violent. Yesterday, a knife flew out the window and almost nicked my face, good times. They are the reason I open my windows at night; such entertainment is scarce, and missing it would be a bummer.
They are a young couple, just got married. I wonder how long they will last. Maybe they will kill each other before one of them gets to leave. I hope I see it, blood everywhere. The wife or husband is trying their best to explain that they had temporarily blacked out from anger or alcohol. That was the last thing they remembered was arguing, and the next thing they heard was the police sirens. My money is on the wife. I see the way she looks at me when I pass close to her husband; she has murder in her mind. I want to be her friend.
My wall shook from the impact from the other side. The lack of screams means the wife was the one who threw something that probably missed the husband and landed on the wall. From the vibrations on my end, it must have been something heavy, you go, girl! The noise woke up my boyfriend, who had been out cold. God damn it! I had to stuff his mouth before he fully came around. I grabbed the expensive scarf that he had given me as a present and shoved it down his throat just as he was about to scream. The scarf muffled his screams, reducing them to barely audible whispers of terror.
His eyes darted left and right, trying and failing to fully gauge the situation, and finally settling for looking at me with pleading eyes. Of course, he could not remember how he had ended up tied to my bed, unable to move a muscle. A surprisingly helpful YouTube tutorial on how to make chloroform at home helped with that. A kiss with a twist is what I will always fondly call it. It started with a kiss and ended with him unconscious. Both his legs and hand were bound together with a rope that went around his torso, restricting all and every movement. The rope had been expensive, and another tutorial later, I was an expert on tying immovable knots. The things one could learn from the internet these days are immeasurable.
He began struggling against the ropes, twisting his body violently as he attempted to set himself free. He looked like a tapeworm trying to crawl out of somebody’s ass. Thrashing left and right, wriggling back and forth, truly entertaining stuff. I watched, fascinated by just how much pain his body could take before he gave up on attempting to escape. There was no way the rope would give way; I made sure of that. He struggled for five more minutes, which allowed me to make an egg sandwich. I had skipped lunch in favor of seducing him to come to my apartment. I hated skipping meals; healthy eating habits were important.
He was a skilled master of playing hard to get, and that was the entirety of his charm, most of which had been reduced to shit. I liked him because I could never really have him. He was always closed off, giving off this air of alluring mystery. Like a cave filled with tantalizing and morbid secrets. Turns out he was a basic dog whose idea of fun was cheating on his wife, and like the majority of useless men out here, having sex with a younger female seemed to be some sort of accomplishment.
When I found out he was married after a deep dive on the web, he went from a world-weary lawyer who had seen the vilest parts of humanity and yet somehow managed to smile and love to a middle-aged man undergoing a midlife crisis and whose brilliant solution was to fuck a younger girl and mess up his otherwise perfect life. In other words, he went from a desirable mature man to an old and miserable fuck up. A fuck up that needed to be taught a lesson.
I should have known he was garbage. Every man I attract turns out to be absolute utter garbage. Poor excuses of human beings. Maybe they recognize the darkness in me, after all, birds of the same feather and all that. At first, I thought of outing him to his wife, but the emotional torrents that would have followed seemed like too much of a hustle, so, in the end, I decided to kill him. At first, I was going to just imagine it. Play it all out in my head, leaving no detail out, just like my therapist taught me. Thinking about it would be enough. In my head, it could be as bloody as possible, filled with as much pain as I could imagine, and the best thing about it is that there would be no consequences because it was all in my head.
However, the more I thought about it, the greater the urge to act it out became. I wanted to inflict pain, and who better to inflict it on than human scum? So I lured him to my apartment with the promise of a steamy and unforgettable evening, and like the well-trained dog that he is, he consented. Consent is everything. I promised him that he would never forget today, that steamy barely began to cover what he would experience today. It was his fault for not asking for elaboration. I promised steamy and steamy he would get. Have you ever been burned by steam? Hurts like a mother fucker. Even hours after the initial burn, you can still feel the intense pain of the unforgiving heat, if not more. His pitiable attempt at escaping left his legs dangling over, perfect. My kettle was just about ready, and I knew exactly where to place it. I needed tea to go with my egg sandwich, so it was killing two birds with one stone. I picked up the kettle just as the whistle came on and placed it right under his feet, bringing on another bout of violent shakes and terrorized whispers as he tried to escape from the scalding vapor. It was a harmonious song and dance that I could not get enough of.
The steam came into contact with his skin for thirty seconds or less, but his moist eyes spoke of a job well done. I sipped my lemon tea in silence, watching as he renewed his efforts against the non-budging ropes that held him in place. His feet were starting to blister, but he had yet to notice as he kept brushing them on the duvet without acknowledging the pain. He must have been experiencing an adrenaline rush. Maybe the reality that he might not make it out the door was solidifying around him.
Tears were now flowing freely down his cheeks. His muffled screams gained an octave as he thrashed desperately on my bed. I watched the entire outburst, my disgust an ever-increasing flood laced with fury. He liked to be in control when we fucked, that was a major turn-off for me, but my curiosity about him, about what made him tick, overpowered my desire to shove him off my bed every time he towered over me. I let my imagination run wild, convincing myself that the reason he wanted to control was that he had very little of it in the world beyond this room.
In my head, I imagined a righteous man out to right the wrongs of the world, one dirty, dangerous criminal at a time. I know righteousness or any sort of belief or emotion cannot be sexually transmitted. I reasoned that being closely associated with a good man would somehow make me seem good. Appearances were an important commodity, one that my parents valued.
It wasn’t just in my head, though; that was the picture that he had helped me paint. Dropping hints along the way. Battered wives getting justice here, crippled man gaining employment there. He never went into details; he gave just enough to keep me hooked. The pathetic coward hid behind half-truths and outright lies. I had asked him if he was married. Of course, I did! It is the first question anybody sane asks on the first date. He had said no, as they all did. I believed him not because he had outright denied it, but because of the little smile he had given me.
This tender smile filled with unspoken hope as he softly held onto my hand. He had then kissed my hand. This soft, dry kiss as he looked into my eyes as if urging me to look inside and see his truth. He was a smooth little bastard. I had believed him because he looked like he was telling the truth. The thrashing had stopped, but the tears continued to flow in a steady stream down his cheeks, wetting the scarf in his mouth. I remember when he bought me that scarf. I wonder if he remembers it. It had been last month, during a trip to the coast. He had shown up at my door, flowers in hand, and told me he wanted to have a getaway with me. It was a surprise, he had said, flashing me one of his rare smiles.
I had come to despise those smiles. They were rarely seen and usually came after requests. That was when I knew something was off. No one is sincere when asking for something; everybody puts their best face forward. The fact that he only seemed sincere when asking for favors and was disinterested the rest of the time is what drew a red flag for me. I hate being played for a fool, and I hate surprises even more. I had gone on the trip because I needed access to his phone. Two hours after we arrived, I knew all his dirty secrets, and at that moment, he was dead to me. It took me a while to come up with the perfect plan to kill him and dispose of his body. A perfect crime requires a lot of planning, and I was not one to rush into things.
