After The Flesh

by Colin Gallant

  Freddy never meant for her to die. Not really. He cried a little afterward but it was done. They made love. Every motion, every touch and every detail was given absolute attention. But each was meaningless. It was the whole of it that mattered. It wasn’t merely about pleasure given and received or about pain endured in the giving and the doing. It was about knowledge. It was about strength. It was also about weakness.

  Claire gave herself to him. He had had her many times over the years but never like this. It wasn't having as much as it was simply being. Their love-making was without joy or sadness. Such emotions were inconsequential in the face of such a thing. It was not penetration or insertion. It was not melding together. In the moment such simple concepts ceased to exist. Conscious thought no longer mattered.

  When it was over, when the moment had ended his orgasm was overwhelming. It stripped him down to a quivering, senseless mass. Freddy opened his eyes and let go of her throat. She was dead. She died soundlessly while his loins pumped their last into her.

  Freddy drew back on his knees. His flaccid penis was a small thing glistening wetly in the light of a table lamp. His body steamed and sweat cooled on his back. His heart slowed, his breathing steadied and he cried. Outside a pick-up truck shook and rattled over the Chinook softened ruts in the snow-covered street. He could hear country music coming from the cab. He could hear water running in the eaves and wind rustling through the evergreens.

  She was dead. She made no sound. Her eyes were two pale blue marbles. They were dry but the lamplight made them glitter as though tears brimmed behind her lashes. Already the healthy flush of life in her skin was fading, becoming ashen as the blood settled out of it.

  Freddy’s own tears were falling then. They shocked him in a way nothing else ever had. She had given herself to him absolutely. She must have known there was no turning back. She must have known everything. Each moment was important because they would never come again. He took her life and she died without a sound.

  How long Freddy knelt there he did not know. The sun set while he was kneeling over her. The streetlights came on and the steady, low drone of distant traffic diminished as rush hour tapered off. Individual cars could be heard and the silences in between grew louder.

  Freddy sighed and rose. His cheeks were dry now and felt crusted. His thighs burned and cramped but he walked away the discomfort. His bladder was heavy and he urinated for a long time. He washed his hands and padded naked to the kitchen, only side-tracking to lock the front door.

  He ate strawberry ice cream from the container while she lay there in the lamplight, her glazed eyes staring without seeing. When he finished, he showered and let the hot water turn his skin lobster red. Freddy shaved. He dressed and went out to the garage. He returned with a roll of red Tuck tape and a sheet of heavy plastic.

  She was still there but Freddy was finished with her. His sense of completion, the lingering trace of euphoria remained. It was the love-making. The love-making perfected it. He did not need to come five times and flog himself until exhaustion threatened to lay him low. When it was making love, it was always like the first time.

  Freddy cleaned her body. He douched her and left fresh bleach inside her to work on any trace he might have missed. He cleaned under her nails – fingers and toes. Her clothes went into a separate bag. He would burn them later. He didn’t wash them. He didn’t want her lint in his ducts.

  Freddy left her to soak in his bath tub and went out for a cup of coffee. He sat alone and did not talk to anyone. He was still too stunned at the power of Claire’s death. It was the love-making that completed it. Claire had been willing. Others would resist. It wouldn’t be the same. He thought maybe the love-making alone would be enough. He would have to think about it more.

  Freddy took her body out of town and dumped it up in the foothills. There were few trails in and all needed four-wheel-drive. There were only a handful of tracks in the crusted powder and very few more would be made this year. Hunting season was well over and fresh snow was in the forecast.

  Claire would not be found until the spring.

  -

  Freddy was questioned by the police on Monday. The Saturday party was a bust. Only about ten people came. Claire was obviously not one of them. People wondered where she was and several attempts to phone her were made.

  On Sunday Freddy called her cell phone three times and her home number twice. He left messages alluding to a fight they had on Thursday. The messages and the fight story were his cover. It was a good cover.

  Her car was found on Sunday afternoon in the vast rear parking area of a southeast Calgary truck stop. There were no cameras in the rear lot. Freddy parked the car in well-packed snow to avoid footprints and ratcheted her seat forward before locking the car and tossing the keys away. His hair and clothing fibers in her car were fine – he had been in her car on several legitimate occasions. He wore gloves while he drove and he didn’t wipe anything down. He chose to hide in plain sight.

  The cops talked to him. Two constables came this time but they talked to him for barely ten minutes and left with grim expressions on their faces.

  “Do you think that guy, you know?” Freddy clenched his jaw and looked worried.

  The older of the two constables – Glynn, his name was – tapped his pen against his notepad. He was thinking. Finally, he shook his head. “No, not really. This doesn’t really fit his methods. This sort of thing happens all the time. I’m sure she’ll show up. I’m sure she’s fine.”

  Freddy nodded. He tried to meet the Constable’s eyes but what he had to say would not allow for eye contact. “I’m trying to believe that, sir,” he told Glynn. “I don’t want to think about the other possibility.”

  “We’ll keep in touch, Dr. Cartwright,” Glynn told him. “We got our best people on it.”

  Freddy showed them to the door. He thanked them and said good-bye. From the spare room windows, he watched them leave. He watched them confer over the roofline of their cruiser with their expressions muted by the distance. They might suspect but he didn’t think so. Freddy had been the one to do most of the talking when he, Alex and Janet went into the police station to file a missing persons report. He had voiced the greatest concern.

  But Freddy was painfully aware of one vital thing – vital and dangerous. Claire was the second woman to die whom everyone knew he was intimately acquainted with. He knew he would need to tread lightly for a while.

  Ch13. Reawakening

  Reawakening

  He approached Stacy after class. It was Tuesday. He was able to pick her out by the bright red report cover her paper was in. He wanted to see what she looked like but even if she was not physically attractive, he wanted to know her. It was her mind he was drawn to.

  Stacy was eighteen. Just. Her hair was dark, nearly black and cut short in a sort of bob. She was thin and willowy, graceful in the way of a runway model but her fashion was limited by the budget of an honors student. She had a look that Freddy could only describe as quiet. She had the confidence he discovered in her writing but it was reserved and held in check by an equal measure of uncertainty.

  Freddy walked up to her as she was leaving the auditorium. He blocked her progress and smiled down at her when she stopped. She was also quite petite. Her look of surprise was one with slightly parted lips and wide eyes. There was excitement in those eyes. Anticipation. She had known. “Hello, Stacy,” he greeted her.

  “Hi,” she said. She wasn’t curious how he knew her name and she didn’t even pretend to be. I doubt she could have pretended even if she wanted to. Hers was a look void of guile.

  “That was absolutely brilliant, Stacy,” he told her and tapped the red-bound term paper in her arms. “Sorry. Ms. Emerson I should say.”

  “Stacy is fine.” She smiled at him.

  “Okay. I’m Freddy-”

  “Cartwright. I know.” Her expression was hopeful and nervous and absolutely innocent. “I read your dissertation on the evil mind.”

>   “Really?” His doctoral piece was available in the library and on-line. They all were. But he didn’t think anyone outside a small circle of academics ever looked at them.

  Stacy demurred. A slight bloom of color had crept into her milky skin. “Yes, Professor.”

  “If you’re Stacy then I’m Freddy.”

  “Okay.” The look on her face told him exactly what she was. They were as rare as unicorns it seemed.

  “Do you have another class?”

  She shook her head. “Not until two.” Her blush deepened.

  “Could I buy you lunch?” He could see this was what she wanted. It confirmed the report cover had been a lure, just as the paper it contained had been.

  “Are you allowed?” She asked. “I mean, I’m a student and you’re a professor.”

  “Assistant professor actually,” he amended. “It’s fine. This isn’t high school. You’re a grown woman now. You’re free to make our own decisions.”

  She released a titter of laughter and covered her mouth. “You make it sound so different than when my father says it.”

  “Says which?”

  “Actually, the whole thing – you’re a grown woman, free to make decisions. He usually says that every time I ask him for advice.”

  Freddy winked. “That’s because you’re smarter than him.”

  Stacy fidgeted. She rolled her eyes and flicked a lock of hair out of her face. “Am not.”

  “You are and he knows it.” Freddy studied her a moment. His eyes were dark and serious with just a hint of humor shining through. The room was nearly empty now. They were becoming conspicuous. “So how about it?”

  Stacy had met his gaze warmly and had become distracted. She blinked. “Hmm?”

  “Lunch?”

  “Sorry. Yes – if you think it’s okay. I don’t want to get you in trouble.”

  Freddy smiled again, striking her with the full force of it. He stooped and took her book bag. “Don’t worry,” he told her. “I’m sure I’ve done worse.”

  -

  It was his charm, his eyes that shifted from distant and mysterious to warm and familiar so quickly that attracted her to him. Freddy had practiced that look and the shift in the bathroom mirror for years. He was fully aware of its impact but it seemed to happen on its own when he talked to her.

  Tina had been drawn by that look as much as by his appearance but she had never really cared about his mind. Stacy had seen the look and she wanted to know why. She wanted to understand what haunted him. She was drawn to his writing and her curiosity only deepened.

  “I don’t mean to offend you, prof – um, Freddy,” she said. The waitress had just left with their drink orders. He had chosen a fairly upscale restaurant for their first meal. He hadn’t done so to impress her but rather so they might be able to converse at a normal, human volume.

  “Bad way to start,” Freddy cut in.

  She looked hurt by his abrupt response.

  “What I mean is whether you mean to or not you will or you won’t. If you do, apologize afterward.”

  Stacy sighed a relieved little breath. “I’m sorry – it’s just that I’ve grown up on the defensive. Most times I open my mouth at home someone seems to get upset.”

  “Sucks to be them. Ask your question if it pleases you.”

  She smirked at his nearly archaic colloquialism. She sipped her water, fidgeted once and was still. “I’ve noticed a trend to your work. You’ve seemed to focus almost exclusively on social deviance, the evil mind as you call it.” Stacy sipped her water again and looked up at him. “Some people might think you’re obsessed.”

  “I suppose your question is, am I?”

  “Obsessed?”

  “Yeah.” Freddy sighed. His Pepsi came and he took a sip. Stacy was sticking to her water. She ordered vegetarian lasagna and he had the steak sandwich. When the waitress was gone, he nodded. “Would it scare you if I said yes?”

  “That depends.”

  “My life has been … touched … by evil,” he told her, “on more than one occasion. I guess I just want to understand.”

  Her eyes had widened with the innocent air of her youth. The little world she dwelled in was breaching new frontiers. With a little fear, a little concern and a lot of courage she pressed on. “Do you want to talk about it?”

  “It isn’t really something for dinner conversation.”

  “This is lunch.”

  He smiled at her. Her impertinence was endearing. It was part of what drew him to her. Freddy wanted to talk about it partly because the opportunity was there. But also, because he just wanted to. He told her about the killer taking Angie Cross and about the alcoholic cop beating him in his own living room. Nonchalantly after that he told her about John.

  “And when I was fifteen, I killed my father,” he said. He timed it so she would have a mouthful of food.

  Stacy choked and reached for her water glass. “Excuse me?”

  “I’m sorry. I told you it wasn’t appropriate dinner conversation.”

  She coughed and sipped her water with both hands, a little girl gesture he liked. “This is lunch,” Stacy repeated.

  “Close enough I guess.” He smiled a distant smile.

  “You’re serious?” Stacy asked. She glanced around the restaurant. It was nearly one o’clock and the lunch crown was thinning. “You killed your father?” She whispered.

  Freddy let his eyes flick around the room. His chin was on tented fingers. “He really didn’t leave me much of a choice.”

  She was looking at him, her eyes trying to read his. Few people could when he didn’t want them to. He let her. “It’s okay,” she said. “I’m not scared yet.”

  “Yet. Why?” He asked her. “Why not?”

  “I can see you’re not evil,” she decided. “You’re different – that sounds bad, I know.”

  “How am I different?”

  “You’ve seen things people aren’t supposed to see. I can tell by your eyes. I can tell you know it and you don’t like letting people see. You don’t want them to judge you. I’m not judging.”

  So very true – on at least two counts. Freddy’s hand had found hers. It was a tiny thing he engulfed. “It might be safer if you did.”

  Her smile was exquisite, reaching to her eyes, fresh and open. Nothing hid there. Her lips were a cherry bow against porcelain skin. It was the tomato sauce staining them. She wore no make-up. She didn’t need it. “Safe sucks,” Stacy decided and didn’t take her hand away. “Tell me.” She never made it back to class.

  -

  Freddy stood naked, As pale and smooth as David. The light outside was just beginning to fade into another December sunset of bruised crimson and ochre. The curtains cast an orange light across the room but the hallway was dark. They had not turned on any lights. Somehow lights would have ruined it. Being with her had been a beautiful thing.

  There was something so delicate about just watching her, something frail. It was as brittle as crystal, as fragile as a child’s quivering soap balloon in the moment just before release. Once it was gone it would be lost forever. Freddy didn’t want it to be gone. He wanted to stand there forever, just watching. He watched her as long as he could because he knew even his memory would not be able to hold onto it.

  The textures. He could still feel them. He clenched his fists, recalling the feel of his winter dry palms on the woodwork and on the fabric. He could feel her skin in his closed fists like silk of an infinitely fine weave, the lingering pressure of her lips on him, her hands and her legs around him – he could feel them as if waking from a fading dream he did not want to leave.

  She was so small, so diminutive in the big bed. She was barely more than a child’s size. Freddy never achieved his father’s slab-like girth but he did surpass John’s six feet by nearly two inches. He weighed close to two-twenty. She might have been ninety pounds at most.

  She was childlike in size but he only had to draw the blanket off her still form to see she was not a
child. From the first he knew he could crush her. He could destroy her with hardly any effort. With a single hand he could snap her neck like matchwood. She was so fragile, so beautiful.

  She was so perfect.

  The blankets shifted. Stacy mumbled something in her sleep and was still again. Freddy held his breath. He did not want to wake her up. He only wanted to look at her, a line in the growing darkness.

  He had been her first. Freddy knew this was the case before they made love. She told him afterward. She apologized for not being any good. She apologized for the blood spot on his sheets.

  Freddy told her she had been perfect. A strange feeling surfaced in him that he could not understand. It was a sour taste in his mouth, a hot thing in his gut. He felt it while she slept. He dissected it, trying to understand it. As she stirred it seemed to fade only to return once she had stilled again.

  It was guilt. Freddy felt guilt and did not like it. It was her. Stacy made him feel guilty but he knew this was something he could blame on no one but himself. Stacy was innocent. Stacy was pure. She had given him her purity as though it was a meaningless trinket.

  Freddy knew it was an important thing to her and she did not surrender it lightly. But still he felt this thing for taking it. I would later tell him his guilt was not irrational. It was a perfectly rational thing many of us would feel in a similar circumstance. But it scared him. It also pleased him.

  Maybe at long last he was evolving. What takes others two or three years from infancy to learn was taking him half a lifetime. I don’t know. By then I had stopped hoping. But I could think and I could pray. Freddy seemed to have found purity and perfection in living form. It was something the decadence of his life had blocked from him. This was the third dimension of the world outside and he found it. Many had died in his search for it.

  When he approached Stacy, he didn’t know if she was going to be his next sacrifice. He thought she would be but he didn’t know. He could smell the innocence about her like the scent of Dove soap on her skin and he wanted it. But he also recognized her mind was something far greater than the promise of base pleasure.