She drops the tainted syringe covered with Charles’ fingerprints in the sharp’s bucket.
She’s back at her desk and charting for at least a half hour before Tawny codes.
VI
JANE LAYS OVER the edge of her claw foot tub, her finger slipping from the page she turns. Charles thrusts inside her, quaking jarring her vision of the book on the floor.
“Slow down, cowboy. First, this is all you get. Second, just because I have no nerve feeling between my legs doesn’t mean I can’t be hurt.”
“Sorry,” Charles grunts, kissing her shoulder as he draws slowly in and out of her. “You know it’s hard for me to get into this when you don’t seem to care.”
“Fuck off, Charles. Tawny wasn’t going to get into you while in her coma. You left precum on her thigh.” Jane lies about that part. “Now finish. I want to soak in the tub alone.”
He pumps his hips, his shutters informing her he completed his task. He lays against the porcelain.
“Want to cuddle?”
“No. I just allow you to do what you do because I don’t want you touching any of the patients when I’m not on shift. And don’t kiss me again.”
“We had a deal. I won’t break it,” Charles says.
“Good. What I don’t understand is how a handsome, well-built man doesn’t have women lining up at his door.”
“You’re a woman who has no physical desires.”
“The nursing gals always enjoy out-sizing each other’s loves, boyfriends and husbands,” she says.
“They lie, just like men. I’ve been with a few dozen women. Want to guess how long my longest running streak was with a single girl?”
She closes her book and twists around. “Besides me.” She’d allowed him to relieve himself inside her for three weeks now.
“Twice. Two sexual encounters with the same woman. Girls talk about landing the huge one, and some do. Some want to know what it is like. But most see it and say no. Some, as it stretches them, say no. Most women are scared of it. Some tell you it will never fit and outright refuse. One or two try and then don’t want a second date because it hurt so bad.”
“Become a porn star. Those girls are smaller than me and take bigger than you,” Jane suggests.
“I don’t care what you think of me. I want a lover and partner,” Charles says.
“You’re right, but raping a comatose girl…”
“It was a moment of weakness. When you go so long without you get desperate. What about you? Why…well…why don’t you work?”
“I never have. My plumbing has never worked. Never bled, never had any sexual desires. Part of why I attended nursing school, but there was nothing in the books about it. I was even a little slutty in high school and not one boy did a thing for me, not that any of them tried.”
“You like girls?”
“Nope. I just don’t have any tingle.”
“We could get you a vibrator, try some clit stimulation,” he offers.
“I have three. There is nothing going on down there. I allow you to do it in the tub so you don’t tear me.”
“I thought it was to keep me on your leash. Tawny’s dead, so you don’t have anything over me anymore,” Charles says.
“Buy me another gun.”
“I don’t have the money,” he says.
“I’ll give it to you, I just want you to be the one to buy it,” she says.
“You changed the subject.”
“I don’t want to speak about how I’m not normal, that every medical book I’ve read lumps it into female sexual dysfunction. I’ll let you get your rocks off and you do what I want.”
“I just thought you might want to make love over being a warm-blooded blowup doll,” Charles says.
VII
IN FRONT OF her full-length dressing mirror, Jane flips open the chamber on the Smith and Wesson—empty. She examines herself—her body posture—her every nuance as she holds the gun to her temple.
Holds it under her chin.
Places the barrel between her breasts.
Her forehead.
She studies the angle her body would be in if she made such a choice to end her life with a gun. She memorizes how the elbow would be cocked if she jerked her head as if changing her mind at the last second, flinching as the hammer slams down. Finally, after she knows how she would be if she made such a choice, she places the barrel in her mouth.
VIII
WHEN JANE DOES work the same shift as Charles she uses her time to build a pattern, constantly dispatching him to the burn ward on slow nights to check on the patients. He builds a relationship with Chrissy, the bubbly girl fresh from nursing school. Coed with perky tits. The kind of breasts mothers with kids hate seeing on childless women because they believe their husbands will leave them for such younger, firmer girls.
Being friends with Chrissy, Charles visits the burn ward even on nights Jane is off shift. He must pass through the keycard required doors. No one checks the logs, but they are there—an electronic footprint.
He is a pawn. Jealousy in their interaction would overwhelm Jane if she had sexual desire for Charles.
She slips into the burn ward using Charles’ identification.
Careful—Jane’s mantra since Tawny.
The deformed baby coded, the ninety-seven-year-old slipped away. Both were cut short in life, unnaturally. No one even noticed. Jane’s stockpile of medication, untraceable back to her, begs her to be used. Each death was weeks apart, leaving her with only one syringe left with Charles’ prints. Victim number four had fared better. It lacked the maximum dose of her cocktail, but the levels in toxicology would have pointed to someone on her shift. The hospital will only cover up deaths for so long.
If Charles liked miss perky tits, and she wasn’t scared of his dong, she might lose her control over him. Men are quick to chase sweeter smelling tail.
These poor souls in the burn ward have been suffering, but not from pain. The longer a person burns the less pain they experience. It is healing and recovery and the rule of nines. According to the math all three of these people will die, they just shouldn’t in one night.
Jane waits until Chrissy goes to the bathroom. To save the hospital money she is the only nurse on the ward. Jane injects each well-done person with her concoction and drops the syringe in the sharp’s box. She is gone from the burn ward before Chrissy washes her hands.
Jane offers Charles his identification back before the codes on the burn ward hit the interclan.
It’s while everyone rushes to assist Chrissy that Jane slides into the room of a seven-year-old boy. He crashed his four-wheeler and the brain scan is inconclusive, but nothing happens when the doctor tickles the kid’s left side. She removes the breathing tube and places the kid’s hand as if he had a spasm and jerked it out. Jane rushes to the codes on the burn ward. Everyone knows poor Chrissy is alone and will need help.
IX
“IF YOU WERE the target of the investigation then they would have placed you on administrative leave,” Jane assures Charles.
“I spent all day being questioned,” he says.
“They were burnt on over eighty percent of their bodies. They were not going to survive.”
“All three coded at once. They said they suspended Chrissy and they wanted to know why I go down there all the time.”
“Suspending her is normal procedure. Chrissy works alone some nights shifts, you would do your rounds and then you would check on her. Also normal.”
“I told them that. They also asked me about missing meds, and some other deaths. I was on shift during all of them.”
She meets Charles accusing eyes. “People die. The bean counters are just trying to scare you to make sure they have their ass’s covered. No one has died on this ward that wasn’t natural. The little boy died the same night as the burn ward codes. He jerked his own breathing tube out and we were all on the burn ward helping. You were down there, too. You just keep your mouth shut,” she says.
W
ith a dry throat Charles blurts, “Murder is a little worse than an attempted rape.”
“Why don’t you go to the car. I’ll bring you something to calm your nerves.”
As Charles moves away from the nurse’s station she whispers, “Hey, you got to pull your car around to the south entrance.”
“That wing is closed for renovations.”
“And no one is parked there.” Jane smiles.
• • • • •
Rain. She hates the rain. It is proof she was outside.
Charles was smart, at least, in parking between two dusk-to-dawn lights, dark due to the remodel. The hospital expansion means more health care money and no room for a three-death scandal. Jane has yet to be questioned. Some repercussions may come from the little boy’s death since she left the ward unattended.
Jane slides into the passenger seat, using her hands to towel the water from her face.
“What did you swipe?” he asks.
“I decided against medication.” She reaches over and fondles his crotch. His member grows. “I thought I might…well give you something a little more therapeutic that won’t show up if they do a piss test.”
“You said you don’t like doing that.”
“Just put your head back. I don’t want you watching me acting like some dog lapping at a popsicle.” Jane pushes his chin up so his eyes meet with the ceiling.
Smiling, he likes how she fondles him through his pants.
Cold metal presses up against his chin. The pressure hurts—confuses him—in the second he realizes that it is his brains that decorate the car ceiling. Jane fumbles the gun into his hand. The haze of gun powder covers her and him in the enclosed space and her ears ring. She has to get inside, change and dry. She’d bet some blood specks her white uniform.
Charles’ suicide will close the investigation. Either it confirms their suspicions of him or it cements it. She will have to wait a few months before allowing any unnatural deaths to occur on her shifts.
THE SHIRTLESS EDGARS pulls Taylor’s hair back behind her head. The girl’s eyes stare at the floor refusing to glance at the reflection in the hotel mirror.
“You’re pretty.” He slips off her oversized glasses.
“I’m a bookworm.” A funhouse version of herself now reflects back at her. She closes her brown eyes.
“And beautiful.” With one hand he places the glasses on the dresser next to the mirror and with his other hand he strokes her long brown hair.
“All those women, there to get your book, they all desired you. Why did you ask me to stay?” Under his touch she trembles as his fingers brush the back of her supple neck cleft.
“See, women lack an understanding of what beauty is.” He slides gentle fingertips along her neck and draws a line along her chin, easing her face up. “It’s not just this pleasing flesh.” He leans in to whisper in her ear. His warm breath tickles her. “It is what’s in here.” He taps her temple. “Those women all love the protagonist, my imagined hero, because of his suave demeanor, his conquering of women. Despite all their protests women love the dominating man with rippling muscles, but not you.”
His warmth confuses her. “I…I like muscles.”
“You gleaned deeper into the text. That excites me.” His hand grabs her hip firmly, but not hurtful, pulling her back so she detects the pressure in his pants against her cheeks.
“I. I. I,” she stammers. “I’ve never kissed a boy. Not really. I mean, this one touched his lips to mine, but no more.”
“I don’t want you to do anything you don’t want to do.”
His warm breath melts any forcefield she may have had.
He circles his lips around her neck, never touching her—just breathing.
“Why would you want someone who doesn’t even know…”
“Do you know what to expect when you open a book?” His finger draws along the bumps of her spine.
Her bottom lip quivers. “I’ve read the book jacket.”
“And I bet you’ve watched porn.”
Taylor’s china white skin reddens.
“So you have an idea what you desire, but viewing’s not the same. Each new book is an adventure for the first time.” His hands slip under the bottom of her shirt, his fingers exploring the slight paunch of her belly. “Do you like what you saw in the videos?”
A confusing mess of emotions churns her stomach. Taylor desires this, but she’s never been asked such questions. Her time in front of the computer was private.
His fingers slip into the waistband of her pants, but before they creep too far south too fast she grabs his right wrist. “I don’t…I do…I.”
“Don’t be embarrassed. It’s normal.”
Taylor knows him. She’s read all his novels, short stories and blogs, listens to the radio interviews and clips newspapers. She knows and trusts this man. “I don’t know how those girls do it. It hurts when they slide in a finger. And they take men. So big.”
“Which finger?”
She extends her middle finger. He kisses the thin digit before exploring a more erogenous zone. His lips caress her neck at the same moment he slides her pants down an inch, exposing the top part of her lacy black panties.
“Did you wear those for me?” He tenderly massages her neck with his lips.
“Yes.” Her mouth turns into a desert. “I just…never thought you’d see them.”
He rubs his fingers along her middle extremity. “Did you think of me when you used this finger?”
Her knees wobble. He holds her up on noodled legs as she weakens in his arms.
“What did you want me to do to you?”
“I wanted to bounce on top of you.” Her knees scream at her to sit down, “I like watching that.” Her admission spills out having never even shared the fact with her journal.
He slips her pants down just below her thigh gap, places his right hand on top of hers and guides it toward her own crotch. She only resists once her fingers reach her mound.
“I’ve never…”
He overpowers her using her own fingers to rub her special spot. Her next gasp lacks protests as her clit swells. Never had it felt this good when she had touched herself.
He runs his left hand back to her chin brushing past her breast as he clamps tight pushing her face up again. “See your face. Your eyes. You’re allowed to enjoy this.”
Blurry both from her lack of control and her pleasure, she locks eyes with her reflection.
“You’re beautiful.”
She releases her first moan.
He drops his left hand and she keeps her chin in place. Her fingers move faster as she watches her blurry self.
The clink of his belt clasp fills her ears, followed by a zipper.
He slips the back of her panties down under her rump. The next part happens so fast.
His right hand leaves her fingers, but she doesn’t cease her rubbing. Before the burning pain his hand seals her mouth shut with his palm. She must concentrate to breathe through the one clear nostril. At first, she swirls her fingers faster on her clit. She thinks the pressure was normal, now she knows. He opens her up from behind. Taylor’s whole body presses into the glass—trapped. He sinks into her.
She didn’t want this. With each push her ass burns. The first few slow thrusts—possible to get used to—swiftly turn into a jackhammer.
Taylor’s screams are blocked, but her mouth remains open.
As the surprise of this not being a session of lovemaking but a destruction of her, her vision blurs further as her eyes water.
• • • • •
Taylor draws her knees up to her chest. Her bra dangles loose under her shirt. Her pants and sexy panties still around her ankles would act as leg shackles even if she found the courage to bolt for the door. With her slightly off vision she spots Edgars next to the sink cleaning his dong with a washcloth.
It was never like that in any of the movies. Even when the girl said it was too big the dude never…
It wasn’t gentle…but it wasn’t…
Edgars moves around the room folding his clothes and packing his suitcase, as if this assault was normal.
Taylor wonders if it was normal. She fantasized about him being with her. She had heard it hurt the first time. No. He hurt her and it was…
She lifts into the air and he puts her on the bed so her rump hangs just off the edge. Grabbing the back of her head, he mashes her face into the sheets. The sting burns and she screams. He muffles her with the bed as he slaps her ass, one cheek then the other. When he releases her she gulps air. He tosses an empty condom wrapper on the bed near her face. The next sharp pain, at least, was in the correct hole.
• • • • •
Before the third time he slipped off all her clothes. Taylor just laid on the bed fully nude. Never has she been unclothed in front of anyone in her entire short adult life. He dropped the condom and then the wrapper into a sandwich baggie. The strong odor of bleach. Even if she wanted to understand why bleach her brain doesn’t want her to move from the bed. The sex was rough. It hurt. He hurt her, but he has made no suggestion he wants to harm her. Maybe this is how he likes his sex. Maybe she will learn to like it. Sex hurts the first time.
He cleans the hotel room as she just remains on the bed—feeble to his commands. She did desire him. She did come up here with him.
As he scrubs down places they had been or touched in the room, Taylor wonders if that means he will scrub her down too. No, she just wouldn’t tell. Never speak of today. Promise never to tell. She had come back to the room with him, and chosen to come into the room. She allowed him to caress her and… She never told him no. She wanted to be with him. She just had no idea it was like this.
He slips inside her again.
• • • • •
The fifth time of him being inside her ended as morning light peeked around the cheap hotel curtain. Taylor was numb—at least the husk on the bed was. She didn’t know where she was anymore. Her abdomen burned. She thought she peed herself. He made her go potty after the third time and the warm jet spilled from her like glass shards. She held it in. The pressure was too much. She had to empty her bladder—worse than any cramp she ever had. Her grandmother’s description of a kidney stone sounded about right.
SKA: Serial Killers Anonymous Page 12