How they could attribute his work to a woman, particularly one built like her, was beyond him. Then he remembered her referring to him as a consolation prize. How many of those did she appease herself with before she found him? The police must have thought she was working with a partner, but were apparently unable to prove it. With or without proof, they would surely be tailing her, so why was he laying crippled in a bathtub like an informant busted by the mob?
She spoke into the mirror on the cabinet door.
‘You lost control with Moira, and you knew it. You waited ages before you went hunting again, and I know why. Your motivation changed. You were worried it was getting too personal, so you started thinking of it as a job. I mean, you always had a reason for doing it – something trite like getting revenge on some bitch who used you or lied to you, or just hating women in general. What’s the old phrase? Damned whores and God’s police?’
She picked up his sharpest knife and stared at her reflection in the blade, which was only a fraction longer than her palm.
‘I cried when I saw the photos. The Chief Dick thought it was because I felt badly for Moira, but he was wrong.’
She turned to him.
‘The discolouration of her skin, the way flaps of it folded back like pages in an old book, it all wreaked of desperation. I knew you’d never be the same after that.’
She bent down and looked him in the eye, the knife still in her hand.
‘It’s because I love you that I’m doing this.’
He was suddenly painfully aware of what she wanted.
‘I’ve always found it perplexing that people are only too willing to put animals out of their misery when they’re suffering, but get all namby-pamby when it’s obvious that their fellow man’s in the same boat.’
She left the room, for reasons he didn’t care to ruminate on, and he used what little time it bought him to move his left hand back and forth, so that the cuff attached to it beat against the tap. He couldn’t remember how he came to learn Morse code, but it came to him as clearly now as if the lesson had been beamed directly into his brain. Even if her neighbours were too stupid to know what three quick taps, followed by three slow taps, followed by three quick taps meant, the sound might make them think there were rats in the pipes, and that was bound to at least get them curious. He was able to tap out the classic call for help seventeen times before she came back carrying a bucket of soapy water and an open packet of steel wool pot scourers. She turned the box upside down, letting all the scourers fall into the water, and knelt down.
‘I have to clean you first. Moira’s all over you. I can still smell her. I’ve already tried to wash that woman right out of your hair, to bastardize a classic, but that won’t do. I need to remove even the slightest trace of her if I’m to give you any peace.’
She took one of the tiny scrubbers out of the bucket and wrung it out.
‘You’ll be sparkling by the time I’m done.’
She scrubbed him from head to foot, working feverishly, removing skin as well as dirt. He fought back the torrent of tears that threatened to burst forth, consoling himself with thoughts of what would happen to her once the police kicked her door down following complaints from the one resident in the entire building who was familiar with Morse code. He closed his eyes, shutting out the pain of the steel wool scratching his nipples by picturing the fountain of blood that would spurt from her head when a bewildered constable’s service revolver sent half of her brain flying across the room. He surrendered control of his mind, clearing it of almost all coherent thought and allowing the scene of her demise to play on a constant loop. It played in slow motion while she washed his lower extremities. The blood fluttering out from the side of her head like a red satin ribbon was the perfect antidote to the prickling agony being inflicted upon the soles of his feet.
The film was rewound to allow him to enjoy the sight of her crashing to the floor, repeatedly hitting what was left of her head on the toilet seat on the way down, while he remained only dimly aware of his burning, swollen scrotum. Come rinsing time, he wasn’t being hosed down with cold water from a detachable shower head; he was being showered with her exquisitely warm blood. He sighed as the never-ending spray filled the tub. Unlike women, blood was comforting in its consistency. He hummed as he became submerged, happy to die if he took the smell of her blood with him.
Three thumps echoed in his flooded ears. Someone was knocking on the tub. He opened his eyes and saw her face hovering above him. Her voice was muffled, but the words that eked out from between her lips were unmistakable.
‘It’s not time yet, my love.’
Her hand reached down and shook him. The movie was over.
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