He discovered the drawbacks of the surprise attack with his first client after the girl-next-door debacle. The first thing he saw when he walked into the club was a gaggle of beautiful girls. They were standing against a wall, wearing identical dresses, clutching identical drinks, and wearing identical expressions of boredom as they scanned the room. He walked by them, paying no heed to the six pairs of eyes that burned into the back of him. He knew he presented well – he had worked at it for over a year – but women like them didn’t interest him. There were hundreds of them to be found on any night of the year – bitches who hunted in packs, sniffing out the crowd for men with more money than sense, willing to fight their rivals to the death. They bored him because they presented no challenge; their falseness was obvious – schooling them in the finer points of honesty would prove nothing. When a quick appraising glance around the room revealed more of the same, he decided to have a quick drink and go home. What he wanted wasn’t available, and he wasn’t about to waste his talent doing a practice run. He went over to the bar and called out to a bartender who had her back to him. When she turned around, one look at the black crucifix tattoo on her right cheek told him she was perfect. Her smile said she thought the same of him.
‘What can I get you?’
‘Whatever you’re offering.’
She poured him a beer and put it down on a coaster in front of him, then handed him a napkin.
‘You might want to unfold this before you wipe your mouth on it, Hon.’
He did, and grinned as he read the message hastily scrawled in magic marker.
Meet me in the alley in two hours.
She was half an hour late, but as this was an alley seemingly shunned by junkies and thugs, he didn’t mind. At twelve thirty five, she appeared; a shadow cloaked vision of svelte bravado that moved toward him as though time held no currency. Suddenly, when there was less than a metre of space between them, she charged and pinned him against the brick wall. She forced herself on him, kissing him hard and mashing their bodies together. Her tongue prized his teeth apart and searched his mouth hungrily, and he reciprocated with equal vigor. He loved the fact that she was a strong woman – stripping her of her illusionary power would be an ideal entry to the business he was born to be a part of, and would more than make up for the false start that haunted him. He gasped when she abruptly broke away and started undoing his pants.
‘Wait.’
‘What for?’ She looked up and grinned at him. ‘Don’t you want me?’
‘Yeah, but not here, like this.’
She sighed impatiently. ‘Okay then; your place or mine?’
‘Do you have a roommate who’s likely to walk in on us?’
‘No.’
‘Your place.’
No sooner had they reached her apartment than she slammed him against the front door.
‘So that’s how it’s going to be, is it?’
She shrugged. ‘Doesn’t have to be.’
‘You won’t mind if I drive for a while?’
She grabbed his crotch and squeezed. ‘If you think you can go the distance.’
He smiled incredulously. ‘And you think I can’t?’
‘I don’t know…you look like a speeder to me.’
His smile was gone. ‘Give me the key.’
She handed it to him and he opened the door. He allowed her to go in first, then followed, slamming the door behind him. He lunged for her and pushed her forward so that she was leaning against the kitchen bench. She gasped when he yanked her head back, then beamed, pleased with herself for what she had turned him into. His hardness pressed into her, and she reached around and stroked it.
‘Careful baby; feels like you’re in first gear already.’
He pushed her forward and breathed into her ear. ‘Don’t worry, I’ll get you there.’
And get her there he did. Three laps later, she fell back against him and they crashed onto the kitchen floor.
‘Wow,’ she panted, ‘I’m going to have bruises on my bruises, but it’ll sure as hell be worth it. Where did you learn all that, anyway?’
He shrugged. ‘Defensive driver course.’
She leant forward as if to kiss him, and then bit his ear, sinking her teeth in. He yelped and yanked her back by the hair, so hard that a few strands fluttered down onto his lap. She grinned again.
‘You’re fun to play with; I like you.’
He released his grip and her head jutted forward. ‘I wouldn’t say no to a beer right now.’
She sunk her nails into his cheeks and kissed him.
‘At your service.’
He brushed his ear then meditated on his bloody finger. Sheer brutal force would do no good with this one; she thrived on it. The only way to properly drain her would be to do it slowly, which meant bloodletting. For that, he needed her still, and preferably upright. To get her into that sort of position should prove relatively simple, if he made it enticing enough for her. He pulled on his pants, got up off the floor and walked up behind her as she put two bottles of Corona on the counter. He manoeuvred her over to the refrigerator and used her hand to push the lever on the ice maker. He reached down, picked up an ice cube and ran it down from her neck to her breast. Once he could see that the anticipation was becoming too much, he held the cube against her nipple and pressed hard until it melted. She bit her lip. He picked up another cube and repeated the process with her other nipple. She squealed. She was loving it, just as he knew she would. He leaned in and whispered in her ear.
‘Got something I can tie you up with?’
She answered the question by going into her bedroom and coming out with five silk scarves.
‘Hermes. My mother’s bought me one for my birthday every year for the last five years. She thinks it’ll turn me into more of a girl. I use them for dust rags.’
She handed them to him. He laid them on the counter top, side by side, and admired them. They were the very picture of deceitful beauty. Their mesmerising designs and yielding softness belied the nature of their usefulness beyond the purpose for which they were originally intended. He picked one up and held it to his cheek. The seeds of a new plan germinated. It was a plan that went far beyond what he thought he was capable of, but the stunning pictures it caused his mind to conjure up made it irresistible. He had read and memorised a number of anatomy text books as part of his preparation, and one of the hundreds of things he learned as a result was the finer points of blood-letting. He knew, for instance that the length of time it took for a person to bleed out depended upon the size and location of the artery that was cut. The smaller the artery, and the further away it was from a person’s heart, the slower the bleed. If one was to sever a person’s aorta, for example, the victim would have approximately three seconds to say their prayers, whereas if the dorsal pedis artery were to be given a nick, it would take over an hour, and Hermes designed the loveliest tourniquets.
Another subject on which he had conducted extensive research was sexual behaviour. He knew that the world was a cesspool of perversion, and forced himself to become familiar with every disgusting practice should he ever be required to take part in it. He also knew why some women liked it rough. They liked the rush they got from power, and from the lack of it. Pain was an immediate pay off. It was also a temporary one, which made rough sex a game of endurance, and people who were into it were by nature phenomenally tolerant. But pain and weakness were two very different creatures. Far from arousing, weakness existed for two reasons: to alert people to the perils of neglecting their bodies, and to thin out the ranks of the sick. It was with this latter thought in mind that he ordered her to stand facing the kitchen wall with her eyes closed. He blindfolded her with one of the scarves and walked over to the couch, where his briefcase lay in wait for him. He opened it and pulled out a knife, four masonry nails, and a hammer. The purely coincidental symbolism of her tattoo tickled him. What a sight she would be.
He tucked the nails into one pants pocket, and carefully slid the knife into the other, its handle facing upwards. He walked back into the kitchen and lay the hammer down on the counter top as quietly as he could manage under the circumstances – inspiration had lit a fire in him. The hairs on his forearm bristled as the silk brushed against it, and his glans throbbed, urging him on. He crept up behind her and draped the scarf over her eyes. She giggled.
‘Ooh, you are hard core, aren’t you?’
He fastened her blindfold and said nothing.
‘Not talking?’
He turned her around.
‘I don’t mind. I like surprises.’
He spread open her arms and legs.
She licked her lips.
He pulled a nail out of his pocket.
‘The suspense is fantastic.’
He tickled her palm.
‘Didn’t realise you had such long fingernails…why didn’t you break those out before?’
He reached back and took up the hammer.
‘God, you’re good.’
He lined up the nail.
‘This is too much.’
He swung back.
‘I’ll burst if you don’t touch me soon.’
The hammer came down almost of its own accord, driving the nail through her hand and into the wall like a tack through tissue paper. She screamed. He hadn’t allowed for that. He realised in a moment of crystal clear hindsight that he should have gagged her, and left her for a split second to rectify this when she wrenched her hand free. He whirled around at the sound of metal ripping through plaster, and launched his weight against the front door just as she lunged at it. She fought him, fists and feet flying, and he thought her strength might win out over his until she clapped her hand over his eye. The hole in the dead centre of her palm perfectly framed his view of the hammer on the floor behind her. He shoved her sideways and scrambled for it. She pulled off the blindfold her mother unwittingly gave her and got to her feet. She managed to make a single step toward the door before he brought the hammer down again. She flopped forward like a rag doll discarded by an ungrateful child, her dented head hitting the back of her suede couch on the way down, leaving a lumpy abstract smear. The evening of bloodletting he had planned was not going to transpire.
This second disaster hit him harder than the first, and it was another two years before he killed again. He used the time off to hone his craft, and to acquire the necessary patience to be able to carry his job out effectively and without incident, and things went along marvelously well for seventeen years; until he met the old woman. She almost ruined things, but he recovered; not with study and meditation, but with a bitter dose of old-fashioned truth. The wrecking ball she took to his life made him realise that pride was a dangerous thing. Pride was what fueled women, and enabled them to keep living despite the ridiculous delusion their lives were. Pride had made him think like one of them, giving him the delusion of control when the truth was, he had none. He never had. It was women who controlled him. They roamed the planet, living out their pathetic, frivolous lives, luring men in with promises of love and nurturing. But their need came first; the need to be controlled.
They craved it, and when it went unfulfilled – as was frequently the case – chaos ensued. He was born to put an end to the chaos, to make women see the truth, by whatever means necessary. Women the world over would know about him. They would see his work on the news, hear about it from their friends, and be discouraged from walking the same path as the women he used as examples. It was not pride that fueled him now; it was purpose. He was not a hero. He was not an artist. He was the messenger and the muscle.
ns 15.158.61.6da2
