How to Kill Your Boyfriend (in 10 Easy Steps)

by D. V. Bernard

  Vera felt slightly dizzy as she entered the stage and hugged Zane. Then, she and Zane were talking. To Vera’s amazement, people laughed at the things she said. She said things that were obviously nonsense, and yet people nodded as if she had said something profound—

  “Yes, Zane, women do devalue the power of their pussies, it’s time to take a stand and claim back the power of pussy.”

  Oh my God! she thought as she said it. It suddenly occurred to her that she was ripping off Stacy’s Pussyman story, but the audience was giving her a standing ovation now. Women in the audience were jumping up in the aisles, giving one another high-fives, like men whose favorite football team had just scored. It went on and on like that. She surrendered to it, like a three dollar whore. …And then it was over, and Zane was hugging her and kissing her on the cheek as the audience gave her a rousing send-off.

  As soon as she was offstage, she allowed herself to shudder, but there was no time to think. The limousine was waiting to take her somewhere else. When she was headed to another studio, her agent called again. The agent proposed an impromptu book signing for later that day. Vera said okay, if only so that she could hang up the phone. She groaned and sat back in the seat.

  She was taken to a radio station for her next interview. She said many of the things she had said on Zane’s show. The hosts were men, but they seemed to get off on a woman using “pussy” in a sentence. They giggled like little girls when she did. When that ordeal was over, she was rushed to a huge bookstore in midtown, where literally hundreds of women were waiting for her. She had no idea how the word had gotten out so quickly. Her hand cramped up after signing about twenty books, but she kept at it dutifully. They ran out of books before the line was exhausted. The women at the end of the line seemed disgruntled, but Vera talked to them and kept them from rioting, by promising to send them signed books through the store.

  By now, it was 3 p.m. She left the bookstore and told the driver to take her home. She was exhausted, and yet amazed by the way everything had gone. Today should have been a dream day for her, and yet she felt unsettled—as if she were waiting for something horrible to happen. She remembered Stacy. She called her, but there was no answer. She cursed under her breath. Either Stacy had not turned on the telephone ringer, or something had happened. There was only one way to find out, and she nodded her head gravely before telling the driver to take her directly to Stacy’s place. She sat back in the seat and closed her eyes.

  It was only a thirty-minute drive to Stacy’s place, but Vera fell asleep. Her dream opened up like an abyss, and she found herself in yet another montage of death and depravity. She saw Stacy lying dead and butchered; she saw the boyfriend’s body lying off to the side like the scraps of a slaughterhouse. However, the most disturbing thing in all these scenes was Vera, herself. She saw herself gloating over it all—laughing out triumphantly as she held the bloody butcher knife. She awoke from this nightmare when the limousine driver called to her. She jumped in her seat and let out a yelp—like a dog whose tail had just been stepped on. The driver told her that they had arrived. She looked out of the car confusedly. Her headache had grown worse; when she got out of the car, she had a sudden urge to vomit. She leaned against the limousine for a moment, until the urge passed. She swayed slightly as she walked. She got out Stacy’s keys and headed upstairs. At the apartment door, she stopped to listen. She made out laughter inside. Several people were laughing—a cascading chorus of laughter. Her spirits brightened. She decided to knock on the door, instead of opening it herself. She made out Stacy’s laughing voice as it came up to the door. And then, the door was open. Stacy was standing there, laughing like someone who could not stop laughing. The other voices in the living room rose up like the laugh track of a bad television sitcom. Vera tried to smile—to surrender to the laughter, so that she could be one of them—but that was when she noticed the knife in Stacy’s hand. There was blood on it. Vera froze as she stared at it; her mind went numb; her stomach tightened, and she just stood there, staring. That was when Stacy gestured with her hand for Vera to step into the apartment. Somehow, Vera found herself following Stacy’s command. In all that time, the laughter had not stopped. Stacy held Vera by the upper arm and led her into the living room. The same four geriatric porn stars were there again, nude; and on the ground, the boyfriend lay naked and dead, his chest still bloody. When the others saw Vera’s horrified face, they laughed harder. Several of them doubled over and collapsed onto the smelly couch. Vera looked back at Stacy, who had just slapped her back, like a drunk who had made an off-color joke. Vera stared at Stacy, noting the horrible highlights of her face. Stacy’s once-sparkling teeth now seemed yellowish in the strange light of the porn set. Stacy was laughing so hard that there were creases at the corner of her eyes. Her skin seemed leathery and unreal. Vera’s eyes widened with the creepy awareness that the woman standing before her was like a whole other entity from the one Vera had known. The woman before her now was out of control—a cackling beast. Vera looked down, to where the boyfriend’s corpse lay on the ground; bewildered, her eyes traveled to the giggling porn stars, a couple of whom were rolling on the ground and pointing jokingly at her horrified face, as if it were some kind of clown mask. At last, Vera looked back at Stacy, her eyes pleading. What had Stacy done? There were laugh tears dripping from Stacy’s eyes now. While Vera was staring at her, Stacy made a mock stabbing gesture with the knife, so that the geriatric porn stars laughed louder, grabbing their sides. Vera saw it all then—the irreconcilable depravity of it. Stacy had finally ascended to her status of high priestess; the four old people were the loyal, faithful subjects that Vera could never be. The next thing Vera knew, she was fleeing from the apartment. They laughed louder as she fled—or maybe that was just how it seemed in her mind. The laughter followed her; it seemed inescapable, so that even when she reached the limousine and screamed for the driver to take her home, the demented laughter of Stacy’s apartment continued to resound in her ears.

  Her mind was numb by the time she got home. The limousine driver told her that he could take her to work later, and she nodded, barely understanding. Like a short-circuited computer chip, her mind was now incapable of processing anything. Several times, she had found herself hyperventilating. The limousine driver had stared back at her via the rear view mirror, asking her if she was okay. She had been too dazed to acknowledge him.

  As soon as she got home, she took a shower. She needed to be cleansed—not only of the day’s grime and sweat, but of the things she had seen in Stacy’s apartment. In fact, the scene, in hindsight, seemed impossible. What had Stacy done? What had she become? Vera remembered how even Stacy’s face had seemed different, as if some new creature had taken over.

  When she was finished with the shower, her agent called her, talking in excited gibberish about how well Vera was doing, and about how more events were planned for later in the week. Vera agreed to everything without comment—again so that she could end the conversation quicker. When it was over, she turned off her cell phone. She realized that her hands were shaking. She flung herself on the bed; after a few moments, she found herself sobbing. She felt ashamed and stupid. In a strange sense, she felt as if she had just come home to find her husband screwing her best friend. …Had she merely been jealous of the old porn stars? Maybe that was part of it—she felt replaced. And yet, there had been something horrible about Stacy. Vera remembered the unhinged laughter. They had all been mad. Even in their closest moments, she and Stacy had never laughed at the sight of boyfriend’s corpse. The act had never been the subject of comedy…but then Vera remembered that first night in the back of the rental van: how Stacy had made jokes about the boyfriend’s penis. That morbid streak had always been there. Vera nodded her head. Maybe, today, Vera had merely seen Stacy as she really was. Maybe the four laughing porn stars were an example of what Stacy had always wanted her to be. The thought was too horrible.

  Vera closed her eyes and sobbed some more. Somehow, sh
e must have sobbed herself to sleep, because she awoke an hour later, with the same groggy hangover feeling as that morning. Her headache had grown worse. Whatever nightmares or demented thoughts she had had in her sleep, were like an aftertaste in her mind. She felt sick. She had awakened in a pool of sweat. She went to the bathroom and showered again. Afterwards, she waited over the commode for a few moments, either expecting to throw up or wanting to. She had the sensation that there was something in her that she had to purge from her system.

  When she returned to the bedroom, she saw her cell phone lying on the nightstand, and wondered if Stacy had called. Maybe Stacy had seen the error of her ways and had called to apologize. Anything seemed possible. She wished for it the way heartbroken women everywhere found themselves, in their weaker moments, wishing for the words that would allow them to forgive their cheating husbands and boyfriends. When she turned on the phone, there were five voicemail messages waiting. The first two were from her agent—more excited gibberish. Vera listened to each one for about three seconds before deleting it. The third message made her hair stand on end. She had been standing by the nightstand, but when she heard the third message, she sat down heavily on the bed, staring blankly into space.

  “Help me, Vera!” the boyfriend’s disembodied voice pleaded, “—I’m losing my mind…and Stacy’s gone!” That was the entire message. He left another message two minutes later. He was crying into the phone now, saying: “I’m having these horrible thoughts…! I can’t get them out of my head…!” Vera looked at the time on her alarm clock. He had called fifteen minutes ago.

  She dialed the number to Stacy’s apartment. The boyfriend answered on the first ring with a hopeful, “Stacy?”

  “It’s Vera. I got your messages.”

  “I can’t find Stacy!” he cried. “And my head’s full of these…these thoughts.”

  Vera remembered this all too well. She knew where this was going. The Pastranzo concert had only happened three days ago, but it seemed like a life lesson from her youth—from a bygone time of innocence and stupidity. She took a deep breath before continuing, “When did all this happen? What’s the last thing you remember?”

  He paused for a moment, thinking back. “…Everything’s so jumbled. I woke up on the floor, naked. There was blood on me…and I had these thoughts about—”

  “I’ll be right over,” she cut him off, knowing what his thoughts were. “Just wait there,” she said, before disconnecting the phone.

  She called the limousine driver to tell him to come and pick her up. Once that was done, she got dressed. She figured that she would go straight to the studio afterwards. …But after what? What was she going to do? The thoughts lay uneasily in her mind. She did not want to explore them too far, so she rushed her preparations. She ran out of the apartment with her blouse unbuttoned. She only realized it when she was riding down in the empty elevator. In the lobby, Mrs. Moore tried to interest her in a piece of gossip, but Vera only waved and ran out of the door. The limousine was waiting on the curb. She told the driver to hurry.

  When Vera got over to Stacy’s apartment, she rang the doorbell twice, but there was no answer. In her haste to get to the boyfriend, she had left her handbag in the limousine. She swore and went back to the limousine to fetch the keys. However, she left the bag in the vehicle, not feeling like carrying the entire bag upstairs. When she returned to the apartment and opened the door, the boyfriend was crouched in the corner of the living room/porn set, shivering. She ran over to him when she saw him there. He was unresponsive and dazed—catatonic. Vera saw that he had started to dress himself, but had only gotten around to his underwear. The left leg of his jeans was around his ankle. He had probably been putting them on when the catatonia struck. She shook him gently, and he shuddered and looked up at her.

  “It’s okay,” Vera reassured him.

  “Vera?” he said, frowning—almost looking as if he were going to cry.

  “Yes, I’m here. You’ll be fine.” However, as she said it, she wondered if any of them was ever going to be fine again.

  “Did Stacy come back?”

  “No—I don’t think so.”

  He shuddered and shook his head, staring up at her with a frown. “I keep having these thoughts!”

  “Don’t think about that now, sweetheart. Let’s get you something to drink. Come on, get up.”

  He complied, but his face had a faraway expression, as if he were reliving all the terrible thoughts in his head. Once he was standing, Vera helped him to put on the other leg of his pants. When she zipped up his pants for him, and looked up at him, he was staring at her.

  “What’s happening to me?” he said in bewilderment.

  “You’re a little confused, that’s all. There are strange thoughts in your mind. Don’t allow yourself to give in to them. Will you promise me that? You have to fight them.”

  He nodded, but seemed no closer to comprehending. He nodded the way a dutiful child nodded.

  Vera was walking him over to the kitchen now. She sat him down at the kitchen table, then got the orange juice out of the refrigerator. She remembered how she had gotten Stacy and the boyfriend orange juice the last time. She noticed Stacy’s ice pick in the drainer at the side of the kitchen sink. It was placed among some spoons and forks. Vera shook her head, remembering everything that had happened over the last five days. …Had it only been five days, or an entire lifetime? What she and Stacy had done to the boyfriend was criminal in every sense. Seeing this now, Vera knew that she had to get the boyfriend away from Stacy—the way an abused woman had to be extricated from an abusive relationship.

  The boyfriend was sitting at the table with his back to her and his head bowed. She brought the glass of orange juice to him. She smiled to reassure him, and he nodded his head uneasily to acknowledge her and her kindness.

  “Are you a native New Yorker?” she asked him now, if only to keep him from remembering everything that had happened to him. She sat down next to him.

  “No,” he said absentmindedly, “I’m from Maine.”

  “Is your family still there?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Maybe you should go and visit them for a while—get away from all this.” He looked at her before nodding again.

  That was when the plan came into Vera’s mind—or, at least, that was when she allowed herself to acknowledge it. There was only one thing to do: kill the boyfriend one last time, tell him to forget Stacy and everything that had happened, and then send him home to his family. Vera rose from the kitchen table and went to the sink, taking hold of the ice pick. She was numb inside. She needed to be numb. She approached him from the back, raising the ice pick in the air—

  “Agnes Smith!” he suddenly screamed out. He stood up abruptly, so that the chair was knocked out from underneath him. As he swung around, Vera instinctively hid the ice pick behind her back and retreated a step. He glared at her, with an expression that told Vera that she was too late. The psychotic break she had feared had come. He took an aggressive step toward her. “Agnes Smith!” he screamed again, the veins bulging on the side of his neck. “That was the bitch!” He looked like a monster, his eyes large, his teeth bared.

  “What?” Vera managed to squeak.

  He came over to her; in her terror, she got ready to stab him—for her own self-defense—

  “That was the bitch who stole my cherry!”

  “She did what?”

  “She stole my goddamn cherry!” he ranted. “She was an old bitch, too, about your age. I was barely fourteen when she did it—I didn’t know what the hell she was doing to me.” Vera fumbled to say something. “—That bitch!” the boyfriend went on. “She had no business being with me!” And then, he stopped and frowned, looking at her closely. “Hey,” he said, frowning, “you kinda look like her.”

  Vera shook her head, terrified.

  He took a step closer to her, his eyes narrowing as he surveyed her face. “You sure you ain’t related to that bitch? Your la
st name ain’t Smith, is it?”

  “No!” she pleaded.

  “You sure?” he said in a low, ominous voice as he squinted.

  “I’m sure!”

  “Good, because if it was,” he said, his voice rising explosively, “I’d snap your goddamn ne—”

  He stopped in the middle of the word, looking down confusedly. Even Vera had not really known what had happened. Somehow, she had stabbed him in the chest. When she realized what she had done, she pulled it out. There was a stream of blood, and he swayed. He looked up at her in the same confused way as before the rant:

  “Why, Vera?” he said then, his voice soft, his eyes pleading.

  Vera was numb again. She looked at his chest—the stream of blood—suddenly realizing that she had stabbed him in the wrong side of his chest. She had stabbed him on the right side: the heart was on the left side. Now, he coughed as his lungs filled with blood. There was blood in his cough, and some of it flew onto Vera’s face and clothes.

  He looked at her pleadingly again: “Why, Vera?” By now, his words were gurgled by the blood. All at once, he lost his balance and collapsed forward. He landed hard on the ground, and lay prone, but he was still alive—suffering. A voice of panic told Vera to put him out of his misery. She compelled the numbness to take over her again, and then she stabbed him in the back. He screamed out horribly as she did it, his back arching. However, even then, he did not die. He went into convulsions on the ground—slow, agonized convulsions, so that the blood was painted over the floor in a masterpiece of performance art. It was revolting, and when he finally stopped moving, Vera felt the ice pick fall from her hand. She managed to catch herself in the process of fainting, and grabbed onto the kitchen sink. It was a good thing, too, because that was when she threw up.

  A minute later, she was still slumped over the sink, washing her mouth and face. She was telling herself that the worst was over, and that all she had to do was reprogram the boyfriend when he came back to life. However, that was when she felt the boyfriend’s hand grab her ankle. She screamed out! His grip was strong. He was looking up at her with the most agonized expression she had ever seen. She screamed again, and kicked him in the head with as much force as she could muster—so that he grunted and released her—and then she found herself fleeing. It was all too much for her—too much to take! She ran down to the limousine, almost toppling twice. As soon as she was in the limousine, she shouted at the driver, telling him to go. He started to drive her to work. …Vera’s mind began to torture her with images of the boyfriend’s death…but of course, he was not dead. He was still alive, suffering, spending his last moments asking why she had done it. It was too horrible!