by Jeff Strand
"What if he wants proof? What if he demands to see your gnarly fingers for himself?"
"I'll hide a nail file under the bandages and stab him in the face."
"I can't argue with that answer."
"So is that our plan?" Kirk asked.
Skip nodded. "That's our plan."
21
Ralph called Skip yet again. Still no answer. This was the fourteenth or fifteenth time he'd tried to call in the past hour, which would look suspicious if his phone records were subpoenaed, but he was freaking out!
What had he done? What kind of monster had he become that he'd try to have a man killed? What would his grandmother think, gazing down at him from heaven? This wasn't who she'd raised.
Yes, Kirk had fucked Julie. He deserved to be punished for that. But he didn't deserve to be murdered. Nobody had appointed Ralph the moral arbiter of who should live and who should die. He'd overstepped his bounds. He'd let his jealousy and rage over the mental image of Kirk sliding his penis deep into Julie's vagina and giving her multiple thrashing screaming orgasms get the best of him. He needed to call this off...but Skip wouldn't answer his goddamn phone!
He could leave work and rush over to Kirk's apartment, but he didn't want to be seen there in case it was too late. There might be blood everywhere. If the landlord entered the apartment to investigate the unpleasant smell and found the gruesome remains of Kirk scattered all over his living room, they'd definitely review the surveillance camera video.
His stomach clenched up and he hurried out of his office. He speed-walked down the hallway and into the restroom, where he just barely made it to the nearest stall before stress-vomiting into the toilet. He unspooled some toilet paper, wiped off his mouth, and flushed. God, he felt sick. How had he gotten himself into this mess?
Ralph noticed that even though he'd just regurgitated, the restroom smelled much better than usual.
"Are you okay in there?" a female voice asked from the next stall.
Ralph froze. Raw terror filled his body like ice crystalizing in his arteries. His heart, already taxed to its limit, skipped a beat. Cold sweat ran down his forehead and his back. He opened his mouth to gasp, but no gasp was forthcoming.
"Hello?" the woman repeated.
Ralph had a low, masculine voice, one that could not credibly go up an octave and mimic the voice of a female. There was no possible way he could say, "Everything's fine, thanks!" and have her not realize there was a dude two feet away from her while she sat on the toilet. Even if he just tried to make a noise, a muffled "Uh-huh," she would know his true gender.
He had to flee.
He fumbled with the lock for a moment because his hands were shaking so badly. He got it open, rushed out of the stall, and out of the restroom. Mr. Summerfeld, who was not Ralph's boss, but rather his boss' boss, was right there, headed for the men's room.
"Oh, hello, Ralph," said Mr. Summerfeld, raising an eyebrow in confusion.
"Hello, sir."
"You do realize that you were in the ladies' room, right?"
"Yes. Yes, I do, sir." Ralph cleared his throat. "Diane forgot her cell phone in there and wanted me to get it before somebody stole it. She couldn't get it herself because she was on a call. I mean a call with her work phone, obviously."
"She asked you to get it?"
"Yes, sir."
"Why wouldn't she ask a lady?"
"I was the only one there. She was very worried about it, and I figured it couldn't hurt anything for me to duck in quickly and grab it."
"You don't have a phone in your hand."
"You're right," said Ralph. "You're right, sir, I don't. It wasn't there. I was too late. Hopefully somebody turned in it."
"Is anybody in the restroom?"
"No, sir. I called out to make sure nobody was in there."
The ladies' restroom door swung open and a woman walked out.
"I'm not sure why she didn't answer me," said Ralph. "She must have been very focused on what she was doing."
"Why are you sweating so much?"
"Touch of food poisoning, I think. They tell you not to eat gas station hot dogs, and now I know why."
Mr. Summerfeld sighed. "Ralph, when I was your age, I also used to sneak into women's restrooms sometimes."
"I'm forty."
"I'd sneak in there, giggling like a schoolgirl. But do you know what I discovered?"
"That it was wrong?"
"Before that."
"No, sir."
"I discovered that the stalls all had doors on them. And at forty years of age, I certainly wasn't going to be pulling myself up to peek over them or crawling around on the floor to look under them. So I couldn't see anything anyway. All I could do is hear. What's the point of that?"
Ralph said nothing.
"If you're a pervert, that's fine, no shame in it, but you can't be a pervert on company time. If this is your thing, why not go home and watch relevant videos on the Internet? They're widely available and you can watch clips for free to make sure it's what you really want. It's safe and legal, and I won't have to terminate you or have you arrested. Do you understand?"
"I needed to puke and it was an emergency and I accidentally ran into the wrong restroom and I lied because I was flustered and I'm sorry."
"I see. Well, I immediately knew you were lying, and, similarly, I was lying about sneaking into the women's restroom when I was your age. I find the idea of women going to the bathroom disgusting. I'm not saying they shouldn't do it, obviously, but I don't like to think about it. The next time you have a desperate need to vomit, please take an extra half-second to verify that you're running into the proper restroom."
"I will, sir."
"I'm not going to fire you, but there must be consequences. Your name is Ralph. 'Ralph' is a synonym for 'vomit.' Every time I call you by your name, I'll be thinking about this encounter, and so will you. Enjoy the rest of your day." Mr. Summerfeld gave him a polite nod and walked into the men's room.
Ralph returned to his office, not feeling much better.
Was Kirk still alive?
Ralph called Skip again. No answer.
What if he was too busy sawing off Kirk's head to answer his phone?
Ralph wanted to let out a primal wail, but obviously he couldn't do that here. He choked back some bile, squeezed the crap out of his stress toy for a couple of minutes, and then called Skip again.
"Yo," said Skip.
"Skip! Thank God! We need to talk!"
"That's what I figured when I saw sixteen missed calls from you. I had my phone off. Do you want an update?"
"No. Not over the phone." Ralph wasn't worried that the call was being recorded, but he didn't want to hear news that would make him throw up again. "Let's get a burrito."
22
"Just a taco?" Ralph asked.
"Yeah, I don't have much of an appetite right now," said Skip. "Nothing for you?"
"I don't have much of an appetite either." Ralph glanced around the restaurant to make sure nobody was listening to them. "Did you kill him?"
Skip let out a long sigh, like a man who'd stared into the abyss and knew he would never completely recover his sanity. Ralph closed his eyes. Damn. Damn it all to hell.
"No," Skip finally said.
Ralph opened his eyes. "Really?"
"I'm sorry."
"No, that's great! That's really great! Actually, I think I am going to get something to eat. Don't go anywhere."
A few minutes later, Ralph sat back down at the table with a beef burrito with extra onions and jalapenos. "So what happened? He wasn't home?"
"Oh, he was home."
"And...?"
"And I knocked on the door."
"All right."
"And he answered."
"All right."
"And he said, 'I didn't order a pizza.'"
"All right."
"And I said, 'I've got an order slip that says you did.' And he said, 'You must have the wrong apartment,
' and I said, 'No, as a professional pizza delivery man, I double-checked the apartment number before I knocked.' And he said, 'Well, I don't know what to tell you; I didn't order a pizza.' This went on for a while."
"It's okay to summarize," said Ralph.
"Finally, I told him he could keep the pizza, and he said he didn't want it, and I said 'Who the hell turns down free pizza?' and he told me that he loved pizza in general but wasn't going to eat this particular pizza because it belonged to somebody else. I said that it was just going to get thrown away, and he said that it wasn't his problem. He was honestly kind of belligerent about the whole thing, which made me want to kill him even more."
"Seriously, it's fine if you leave out some details. I'll ask questions if I think you missed something important."
"Finally I grabbed him by the throat and shoved my way into his apartment. I slammed him against the wall—not hard enough to disturb the neighbors; it was kind of a gentle slam—and told him that I was here to kill him."
"Did you tell him I sent you?"
"Was I supposed to?" Skip asked.
"I don't remember what we decided. He would've figured out that it was me, and he was going to be dead anyway, so it doesn't matter. I was just curious."
"I can leave out fewer details if you want."
"No, no, tell the story."
"I was ready to break his neck," said Skip. "It wouldn't have taken much. One really good twist and that would've been the end of him. But for some reason I looked down. I don't know why. Maybe it was the Supreme Being guiding my head. Regardless of why I did it, I did, and I saw that he had a tent in his pants."
"A tent?"
"You know, when your dick gets hard and it pushes—"
"I knew what you meant. I'm not sure why I said anything."
"Anyway, yes, our buddy Kirk had a great big ol' boner going on while I was trying to break his neck."
"So you're saying that he was into it?"
"No, I was thinking 'fear boner.'"
"Those exist?"
"Apparently."
"Then what happened?"
"An idea occurred to me. What's the worst possible thing that could happen to somebody?"
"Death."
"No," said Skip. "Now, I just finished telling you that Kirk's dick was hard. From there, my mind went to the worst possible thing that could happen to somebody. Follow the logic."
Ralph's jaw dropped. He leaned forward and spoke across the table in a whisper. "Are you...are you...are you saying that you tore his dick off?"
"What? No! That would be horrific!"
"So what did you do?"
"I broke it. Snapped it like a cucumber." Skip mimed the action with both hands. "I mean, it didn't break in half like a cucumber. The skin stayed together."
"He didn't resist?"
"Hell yeah, he resisted. He resisted like crazy."
"How do you get both of your hands on a man's dick if he's resisting like crazy?"
"You punch him in the throat first. When somebody is lying on the floor clutching their neck with both hands and making gargling noises, that's the one time they aren't defending their crotch. I yanked his pants off and gave him a fate worse than death. He won't be entering your wife anytime soon, that I can promise you."
"Wow." Ralph fell back in his chair. "Wow, that's...I don't even know what to say about that." He picked up his burrito and took a big bite. "If I'd thought of it, that's what I'd have had you do in the first place. It seems like a fair punishment."
"Oh, I didn't stop there. Then I broke all ten of his fingers. Snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap, snap. That was ten, right?"
Ralph set down his burrito. He stared silently at the table for a while.
"Something wrong?" Skip asked.
"After you broke his dick, you broke all ten of his fingers?"
"Yep. I almost left him with working thumbs, then I thought, nah, screw that guy."
"That's nightmarish."
"I wasn't there to be snuggly."
"Excuse me for a moment." Ralph left the table. He hurried to the proper restroom, vomited abundantly, then returned to the table. "Sorry about that."
"No problem."
"Thank you."
"What are you thanking me for?" asked Skip.
"For there not being a problem. Sorry, I'm not thinking straight right now."
"Are you okay? You seem troubled."
Ralph wiped the perspiration from his forehead with his napkin. "I'm fine."
"You've got guacamole on your forehead."
Ralph took a fresh napkin and wiped his forehead again. "Did I get it?"
"Nah, but it doesn't matter. Why are you so twitchy?"
"I wanted the man dead. Then I had second thoughts and sat at work having panic attack after panic attack. When you said you didn't kill him, I was so relieved I almost wept."
"I'm glad you didn't weep," said Skip.
"When you said you broke his dick, I cringed but I felt like justice had been served. I was happy. But breaking all of his fingers on top of that is just...it's just ghastly."
"Life is ghastly, Ralph."
"How did you do this without anybody calling the police? Didn't he shriek?"
"Oh, yeah, he shrieked like a mofo. But I had a pillow over his face. Almost smothered him to death, actually, which would've been ironic, huh?"
"Yeah."
"So to summarize, Kirk won't be banging any ladies for a very long time, and he can't even jerk off. I think this counts as a happy ending for everybody except him."
"He deserved it, right? You don't make another man's wife come and not be prepared to suffer the consequences, right?"
"That's right."
Ralph nodded. "So that ends it. As far as I'm concerned, he and I are even. Everything has been resolved to my satisfaction, and I never need to discuss it again. Julie and I will go on with our lives as if nothing ever happened." He nodded again. "I feel better now. I feel good, in fact. Thank you, Skip. You've more than earned this."
Ralph took out an envelope and slid it across the table. Skip picked it up and set it on his lap. "Kirk can't even slide an envelope across a table with his broken fingers. Sucks to be him, huh?"
"It sure does. It sure does."
"Did you want to see the proof?"
"Huh?"
"Proof. Did you want to see it?"
"I didn't even think about that. Nah, I'm good. I don't want to see any of that."
Skip took out his phone. "They're not gory pictures. See?" He held up his phone, which had a picture of Kirk looking miserable, holding up his hands with thick gauze around each finger. Skip swiped to the next picture, which was Kirk with gauze around his crotch, looking even more miserable.
"Ow," said Ralph.
Skip put his phone away. "Just figured you should see these, since I went to the trouble of taking them."
"I appreciate it. But I believed you."
"Cool. So are we done here?"
"I'm going to finish my burrito, but yes."
"I might go ahead and finish my taco, too, if that's all right."
"Of course."
They munched away at their meals for a bit.
"Did you help him with the gauze?" Ralph asked.
"Yeah. No way could he have done it himself with all of those snapped fingers."
"So you set the broken bones?"
"No, we just covered them up. I assume he got somebody to drive him to the hospital to have it taken care of by a doctor. I certainly wasn't going to drive him anywhere, the wife-banging piece of crap."
"How come you took the pictures after you bandaged him up?"
"What?"
"It just seems odd that you'd take the evidence pictures after that instead of before."
"Well, it was really nasty looking, and you just said yourself you didn't want to see that kind of thing. I didn't want you to have to look at his fingers all twisted and swollen and backwards and stuff. Also, I didn't
think about it until after I'd bandaged him up, and I didn't want to go through the trouble of removing the bandages and then putting them back on again."
"But which was it?" Ralph asked.
"What?"
"Were you sparing me the sight of a gruesome picture, or did you not think to take it until after his hands and dick were covered? It's one or the other."
"I don't believe that's necessarily true," said Skip.
"It's two different thought processes."
"I didn't think to take it until after he was wrapped up, and then I thought, good, Ralph wouldn't want to see that carnage anyway."
"You said you didn't want to go through the trouble of removing the bandages and then putting them back on again."
"I didn't say that."
"Yes, you did. That's exactly what you said."
"Let's not fight. How's your burrito?"
"Are those fake pictures, Skip?"
"No. You can take them right to the FBI if you want. There's no digital manipulation of any kind. I wouldn't even know how to do that. When people post Photoshopped stuff online, to me it's like magic. These pictures are one hundred percent real."
"But are his fingers and dick actually broken under the wrapping?"
"Am I being detained?"
"Answer the question."
"Yes. They are. They're wrapped."
"I didn't ask if they were wrapped. I asked if they were broken."
"Yes."
"If I went over there right now, and I held Kirk at gunpoint and forced him to show me his dick, what would I see?"
"I'd ask to look at his fingers first, but that's just me."
"Are you lying to me?" Ralph demanded.
"No."
"Don't look down at the table when you say it. Are you lying to me?"
"No."
"Don't look over my shoulder. Look me in the eye. Are you lying to me?"
"Yes, sir."
Ralph slammed his fist against the table. "Goddamn it!"
"I meant to kill him! I really did! I went over there and was strangling him, but then your wife showed up. And she basically forced us both to have sex with her at the same time. We fucked her hard but we were respectful. It was totally consensual. We went at it for however long it took you to call me sixteen times, and I wrapped up his fingers and dick so you'd think I'd broken them, and I took pictures. That's all that happened, I swear."