by Joy Fielding
“That’s okay,” she tells him, small, dark eyes lingering on his. You can step on my toes anytime, those eyes say.
It would be so easy to get her to abandon her companion—another stupid girl whose smile indicates she likes what she sees.
Too easy, he thinks, glancing back toward Paige and her mother.
He’s set his sights on bigger game.
“I guess I’ll live,” the girl says.
I guess you will, he thinks, continuing to the table at the back.
He orders a double espresso and relaxes in his chair, his cock tingling with the lingering feel of the girl’s bare toes crushed beneath his heavy shoe. Psychiatrists would no doubt label him a sexual sadist, the most dangerous of psychopaths, and they’d be right. Sex and pain have always gone hand in hand for him. Although the sex act itself is incidental, merely one of the weapons in his arsenal. It’s the pain he inflicts that he gets off on more than anything else. Add a dollop of fear and you have the recipe for pure bliss.
He doesn’t know where this came from—what made him the way he is—and in truth, he doesn’t care. Was he, as Lady Gaga so eloquently put it, born this way? Or did his childhood somehow shape him into the man—some might say monster—he has become? Nature or nurture, the eternal question. Perhaps a combination of the two. But what difference does it make, really? Especially to his victims. He doubts this will be the question on Paige’s lips when he silences them forever.
He can recall lying in bed as a child, listening to the strange and muffled noises emanating from his parents’ bedroom. He remembers tiptoeing down the hall and peering into the darkness of that small room, seeing his father on top of his mother, his mother struggling beneath him, pleading with him to stop, his father ignoring her cries as he pounded relentlessly into her. And he remembers that he enjoyed watching his mother suffer, this weak, stupid woman who thought begging would save her. He remembers being excited by her pain, eager to see and hear more.
That was the moment he knew for sure that he wasn’t normal.
He’d suspected it for some time, having always felt a curious detachment from the world around him. While the other kids at school could often be found laughing uproariously at some dumb joke, or crying because a beloved pet had died, he’d felt nothing except maybe contempt for their weakness. He took to mimicking the looks he saw on their faces and echoing the joy or sadness he heard in their voices, so as not to appear different or strange. He gave them what he understood instinctively they needed. His burgeoning good looks made fooling them easy, especially the girls. Girls believed what they wanted to believe, despite all evidence to the contrary.
And the more indifferent he appeared, the more sought-after he became. The worse he behaved toward them, the more they gravitated to him. Treat ’em mean to keep ’em keen. Now that was a saying he could believe in.
It seemed that girls, like the women they would grow into, liked to suffer for love. And he was more than happy to give them what they wanted. Which is why he has yet to respond to Paige’s text.
But he will. When the time is right.
Let her twist in the wind for a while.
He leans back in his chair, remembering the first time he touched a girl’s breast, and can actually feel that small lump of flesh in his hand even now. The girl’s name was Sara—he can’t be bothered trying to remember her last name—and she was fifteen, the same age as he was. Outgoing. Pretty. Not too smart. They went to a party and before long, they were in someone’s bedroom, making out. He reached for her breast and waited for the thrill he’d heard the other boys boast of. But he felt nothing. Until he squeezed, hard, and Sara let out a startled cry, and suddenly every inch of his body was on fire.
He quickly developed a reputation for liking things rough, and as he got older, his tastes grew ever more extreme. When the local girls no longer wanted to play along, he sought out professionals, women who’d do almost anything if the price was right. They’d let him tie them up and whip them till they cried for mercy; they’d let him choke them almost to the point of unconsciousness; they’d let him bite them, violating them with whatever objects he had at hand. His fantasies grew more perverse, more violent. It soon wasn’t enough to pay women to pretend. He wanted the thrill of the real thing.
His fantasies consumed him. His favorite one involved meeting a girl and dazzling her with his wit and charm, hanging on her every word, making her feel as if she was the only woman in the world, and then, when she’d been sufficiently dazzled, when she was lost in a fantasy of her own, one that involved a diamond ring and a long, white gown, he’d awaken her from that ridiculous dream with the cold shower of reality, and the feel of cold steel around her wrists.
He orders another espresso from the waitress, a girl with rainbow stripes in her naturally brown hair, who bends over to allow him a peek down her ruffled white blouse as she places the tiny cup in front of him, probably thinking this little display will get her a bigger tip. Women are so obvious, he thinks, trying to pinpoint the exact moment murder became an integral part of his fantasies.
Probably around the time his mother died, he decides, seeing his mother’s gaunt face in the dark brown surface of his coffee. She’d gotten sick. Some form of cancer. His father had promptly deserted her—“Pretty Boy here can take care of you” being his parting words.
He was twenty-one and still living at home, having decided to forgo college to apprentice as a mechanic at a local gas station. He knew the job was beneath him, but he liked it because it allowed him plenty of time to cultivate his fantasies. He also enjoyed working alongside the handful of newly released convicts from one of the five prisons in the area, soaking up their expertise in criminal activities like online hacking, and reveling in the stories involving rape and violence. For most of these men, their only regret was having been caught.
He would have no such regrets, he’d decided, because he would never be stupid enough to get caught.
He pictures himself at his mother’s bedside, watching her suffer with a pain so intense that even a veritable pharmacy of drugs couldn’t reach it. How easy it would have been to simply reach out and cover her nose and mouth with the palm of his hand, to end that suffering once and for all.
Except the truth was that he enjoyed watching her suffer. He loved monitoring her fight for each labored breath, the unwillingness of her body to let go even as her eyes begged for release. He studied her as dispassionately as he’d once studied frogs in biology class, and when she died, he felt…nothing. Maybe a touch of regret that the show was over.
Her death left him surprisingly well-off, the result of an insurance policy naming him her sole beneficiary. He sold the house, quit his job at the gas station, and took off across the country, working when the mood struck him—a good mechanic was always appreciated—honing his fantasies, indulging them whenever he could, never staying anywhere for very long.
Three years ago, he made his ultimate fantasy a reality. Penny Grover of Bowling Green, Kentucky—his first kill, messier than he would have liked, but then, it was early days. He was still perfecting his craft. How many have there been since? he wonders, although he knows the answer full well: sixteen women so far.
The explosion of dating sites online has played right into his murderous hands, becoming his unwitting accomplices. He pulls out his phone, checking his latest list of volunteers. So many women, he muses. So little time.
The air stirs beside him and he looks up to see the smiling face of the young woman whose toes he mangled earlier. She is chewing on her lower lip as she drops a neatly folded napkin onto the table in front of him, then hurries away. He reaches over and unfolds the napkin, knowing what he’ll see even before he spots her name—“Carrie” with a heart instead of a dot over the i—along with her phone number. He pockets it with a laugh, realizing only after doing so that the table where Paige and her mother were s
itting is now empty.
“Shit,” he mutters, furious at his momentary lapse of attention. Then he remembers Nadia, sprawled across the hardwood floor of his living room, patiently awaiting his return.
And as his mother used to say, you should never keep a lady waiting.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
Joan Hamilton tapped her foot impatiently as she waited to capture someone’s attention. She’d been standing in the middle of half a dozen converging cosmetics counters on the main floor of Nordstrom’s for the better part of five minutes and so far, not one salesperson had offered to help her. Admittedly, the staff all seemed to be busy, but where had all these customers come from? Had every woman in Boston suddenly run out of moisturizer? “Excuse me,” she said to a young woman dressed head to toe in black (including leggings, despite the outside heat), but the girl chose to ignore her as she hurried past to service someone else.
Or maybe she just didn’t notice me, Joan thought, recognizing that women became increasingly invisible to much of the outside world as they aged, even to other women. The older you got, the more you tended to blend into your surroundings, to become part of the wallpaper, your voice swallowed up by the noise around you, no longer heard or appreciated. Such a shame, really, because experience had given older women if not wisdom, then at least many more interesting things to say.
She did a slow spin around, trying to ignore the overpowering smell of conflicting perfumes, and catching sight of her reflection in a nearby mirror. The woman looking back at her was only vaguely familiar, being at least two decades older, ten pounds heavier, and an inch shorter than Joan remembered. “Who are you?” she asked. “And what have you done with Joan Hamilton?”
“I’m sorry,” a voice chirped from somewhere beside her. “Did you say something?”
Joan spun toward the sound. A skinny young woman with braided black hair wrapped around her head like a towel was smiling in her direction, her eyes seemingly focused on something just beyond Joan’s left ear. The name tag on her black sweater identified her as Gray. “Your name is Gray?” Joan asked.
“Like the color,” the girl said.
“How unusual.”
“Not really. There was another girl named Gray in my class all through high school, and a boy named Grayson. And a friend of mine is dating a guy named Grayden. Not to mention, I know two Haydens, a Kayden, and a Tayden.”
“Tayden?”
“I know, right?” She shrugged. “Can I help you with something?”
Joan was still trying to come to terms with all the Haydens, Kaydens, and Taydens. There were such interesting names now. Not like when she was a kid, when all the girls were named Sue or Carole or Mary. Or Joan, she realized, her lips curling into a frown.
“Something wrong?” Gray asked.
“Just trying to remember what I came in for.”
“You’re so cute,” Gray said with a giggle.
I’m cute? Joan wondered. When did I get cute? She’d never been cute in her life. She decided it must be code for “old.” “I need some moisturizer. And maybe some new lipstick. Usually I just go to the drugstore and buy whatever’s on sale, but I don’t know. I feel like treating myself. My skin’s been feeling a little dry lately, and I have this big party to go to next week…” She broke off mid-sentence, realizing she was nattering on about something this young woman obviously couldn’t give two figs about. And what century had that expression come from?
“Yeah? What kind of party?” Gray surprised her by asking. She pulled a nearby high-top chair toward them and motioned for Joan to sit down.
“My brother-in-law’s eightieth birthday,” Joan said, stepping up into the seat.
“Yeah? Wow. Eighty. Good for him. Do you mind my asking how old you are?”
“Seventy,” Joan said, the word emerging as a sigh. Just the sound of it hit Joan right between the eyes.
“Well, you look fantastic. I never would have guessed. You have great skin for someone your age.”
“Thank you.” I think. “I still feel thirty.” Maybe forty.
“Well, you look great. My grandmother is seventy and she looks way older than you do.” Gray reached under the counter and pulled out a jar of something creamy and white. Then she gently pushed Joan’s wispy blond hair away from her face and dabbed some of the thick cream onto her cheeks, massaging it in with delicate, but firm, fingers. “How do you like it?”
“Feels wonderful.”
“It’s the best. Use this every morning and night and you’ll see a difference in no time. Let me show you the proper way to apply it.” She held a small mirror to Joan’s face so she could watch her demonstrate the proper circular motion.
Joan cringed at the close-up view of the enlarged pores and lines that had laid siege to her face sometime during the last decade. The one good thing about the decline in your eyesight as you aged, she decided, was that you didn’t notice the ravages of time unless you were wearing your glasses. Or someone was shoving a mirror up under your nose. “Do you have any eye creams?”
“We certainly do.” A small, green bottle materialized between Gray’s fingers, as if by magic. “This serum is a real miracle worker, and the good news is that you only need to use a tiny bit.” She deposited a few drops under Joan’s eyes, patting them gently with her fingertips until the thick liquid was completely absorbed. “And I’d really recommend this cream as well. It firms and lifts. Do you use masks?”
“Sorry. What?”
Another round, white jar miraculously appeared in the palm of the girl’s hand. “Brush this on every other night, let it sit ten minutes, then apply the two eye treatments—first the serum, then the cream—and finish up with the moisturizer. I swear, you’ll be glowing. Plus, I think I have just the perfect lipstick for your coloring. Here,” she said, rubbing something peachy-pink on the back of her hand and holding it out for Joan to examine. “Strong but subtle. What do you think?”
“I think you have a deal.” Joan slid off the chair and reached into her purse for her credit card. “How much do I owe you?”
“Let’s see,” Gray said, toting up the charges. “That’ll be fourteen hundred and twenty-three dollars and ninety-five cents. Plus tax.”
Joan paused to let the figure sink in. Surely she’d heard the girl incorrectly. “Excuse me?”
“I know. Expensive, right? But you did say you wanted to treat yourself. And these products are top-of-the-line. Trust me. Come your husband’s birthday party next week—”
“My brother-in-law,” Joan corrected, sharper and louder than she’d intended.
“What?”
“It’s my brother-in-law’s birthday,” Joan said, lowering her voice to a more appropriate level. “My husband is dead.”
“Oh,” Gray said, her smile disappearing. “I’m so sorry.” She looked around the large, brightly lit space, as if searching for someone to come to her rescue. “So, are we doing this?” she asked when it became obvious that no one would.
That’ll teach me to be nice to old ladies, Joan could almost hear her thinking. “Sure,” she said. “Why not?” She handed Gray her credit card. What the hell? she thought. She could be dead by next week.
* * *
—
“When did I get cute?” she asked, throwing open the door to her condo and dropping her shopping bags at her feet.
“Mom?” Paige asked, walking down the hall toward her. “You were gone so long, I was starting to get worried. Are you okay?”
“The salesgirl said I was cute,” Joan told her daughter. “When did I get cute?”
“I think it was around four o’clock yesterday afternoon.” Paige glanced toward the bags on the floor. “I thought you were just going out for some moisturizer. What’d you do? Buy a lifetime supply?”
“I bought a few dresses.”
“A few?”
“All right. Five.”
“You bought five dresses?”
“I wanted something for your uncle’s party and I couldn’t make up my mind. You’ll help me decide, then I’ll take the others back.”
A look of concern flooded Paige’s face. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Yes, darling. I’m fine,” Joan assured her daughter. “Just feeling a little…I don’t know…old.”
“You aren’t old.”
“I’m not young. And don’t you dare tell me you’re as young as you feel, because right now I feel about a hundred.” She retrieved her shopping bags from the floor.
“Here. Let me help you with those.”
“Don’t you dare,” Joan warned, walking toward the living room and plopping down on the sofa, letting her purchases spread out at her feet.
Paige sank down beside her. “What’s wrong, Mom?”
“Do you know anyone named Gray?”
“I don’t think so. Why?”
“Apparently it’s a very popular name these days, that and Grayden and Hayden and Tayden. Tayden, for God’s sake. Who names a child Tayden?”
“I’m going to assume that’s a rhetorical question.”
“I guess every age has its more popular names,” Joan mused. “When you were born, every other little girl was named Chloe or Heather.”
“Good thing you named me Paige. Not too many of those.”
Joan nodded. Paige had been her second choice for a name. Heather had been her first. But her sister-in-law had given birth first and beaten her to it, a fact Joan had never shared with her daughter.
It seemed that Heather had started stealing from Paige even before she was born.
“What’s wrong, Mom?” Paige asked again.
“Have you ever looked at yourself in a three-way mirror?” Joan asked, changing the subject.