Walt began dragging the bodies into the largest of the bathrooms off the main bedroom. Before trying to clean up the blood, Erica walked around the apartment to see if it had been worth it. Light birch floors throughout. White walls, except for the nursery. She’d probably have to change that. She wasn’t a big fan of pink. Spacious kitchen with stainless steel appliances, most of the brands so high end they weren’t even familiar to her. It was impressive, but the kitchen wasn’t really her thing. The living room had an angular black couch, leather or an impressive imitation. No, it was definitely leather unless it was one of those eco-friendly vegan kinds of material. A couple of chairs at either end of the couch. A swamp green rug she hated on sight. A black coffee table shaped like a surfboard. French doors opened onto a balcony overlooking the tiny city. She opened the doors to let in the breeze. Sirens blared a couple of blocks away. She walked down the hall, careful to avoid the twin tracks of blood left by the man’s feet. She’d already seen the nursery at the end of the hall so she followed the trail of blood into the master bedroom. A huge bed covered in clean white linens. Neat dark wood nightstands with industrial-looking lamps on either side. Only one of the lamps was on but she knew it emitted just the right amount of light. She hadn’t owned or used many expensive things but, in her experience, those were the ones that seemed to work better. She always thought it wasn’t really any wonder poor people were so unhappy. When everything you own is junk that only does the job half right, it makes whatever you’re trying to do seem like a chore. This room also had French doors opening onto a second balcony. Or maybe this was the first balcony and the other one was the second. It probably didn’t matter but she was sure there was a correct term for each of them. Like the major and minor balcony or something. She opened these too. The smell of blood wasn’t so bad when the air mingled with it. Another siren joined the one already going, a growing chorus. For just a moment, she was worried the sirens were meant for them. But it was probably just the sound of living in a city. She had never spent any amount of time in anything close to a city and imagined that even a small one like Dayton was in a constant state of crime and emergency. She smiled at the thought of Walt loading the bodies into the bathtub. All that noise and those were just the known crimes and emergencies. All the after-the-fact ones, those were the ones dealt with in silence.
A painting she hated hung above the bed. It was abstract, she supposed, but her first glance revealed a grinning red devil head staring out from a chaotic black and yellow swirl. She climbed up on the bed. It was at just the right height, not too low to the ground or so high she had to heave herself up. She took the painting off the wall and went through the doors to the balcony. She held the painting out in front of her. It wasn’t framed or anything and she wondered if they dusted it like they did any other piece of furniture. Now it seemed dull, outside and with the bright lights of the city behind it. She let go of it and watched it fall. It fell fast at first and then turned so the canvas acted like the world’s worst parachute and it slowed before tipping over and then diving toward the street, the wooden frame under the canvas shattering. When she went back into the room she looked at the wall. The wall behind the painting was the same shade of white as the rest of the wall. It may as well not have ever been there.
She walked into the bathroom to see how Walt was doing.
“How’s it going?” she said.
He was peeling the guy’s underwear off. Both the man and the woman were now in the bathtub. The water was turned on to a steady but not wide open stream. “Good,” he said. “Trying to figure out what I’m going to do with these.”
“Aren’t you going to get rid of them?”
“I was thinking about hanging onto them. Have you ever eaten a human before?”
“No. I don’t know if I want to start.”
“Well, you still owe me one. What if that was what I asked you to do?”
“Then I guess I’d have to do it.”
“I’m just kidding. That’s not what I want to use it for. But I’m not kidding about eating these corpses. Have you ever really thought about cannibalism?”
“Not very much.”
“It seems like it would be the last word in luxury fare. Think about it . . . there are so many different tiers of what people eat. There are cheap brands and that goes all the way up to expensive brands, but that stuff’s harder to find. And then you start getting into expensive dishes, no name brands, the price based on the rarity of the dish. But what is rarer than a human being? Even the rarest of animal species is not as rare as the most common human being. Almost every animal of a species is exactly the same. It’s the species that is rare, not the individual animal. But every human is one of a kind, or so our guidance counselors in school would have us believe. These people were born and given names and social security numbers that would set them apart from others in their species. They spent their entire lives developing personality traits and quirks, acquiring an education, a good wardrobe and a sense of worth. Sure, it’s a human desire to share interests with a number of other people – we call that community – but everyone, deep down, thinks they are truly unique.” He patted the man on the shoulder. “So that’s what I’ve been thinking about doing. But we’ll probably have to go to Home Depot first thing in the morning to get a small chainsaw. I don’t think they’re going to fit in the freezer the way they are.”
“I’m sorry I snapped at you earlier.”
“It’s okay. Every relationship will have its bumps. So what’re you doing?”
“I was going to try and clean up the blood but I think I’m going to wait till the morning. I’m kind of tired. Come to bed with me.”
He held up his bloody arms and hands. “I’m kind of messy.”
“I don’t mind.”
Chores
Erica woke up with a stiff neck and sore vagina. Naked, she shuffled out of bed. The formerly white sheets were now streaked with brown she knew had probably been red only a few hours before. Walt was running a chainsaw in the master bathroom so she continued shuffling to the one off the hall. She peed and washed her hands and face. The remnants of the cheap Halloween makeup washed off much more easily than the real stuff. She had liked the way it looked. She would probably make herself up like that again. She thought about putting on clothes but didn’t want to and didn’t think she really had to.
Her stomach grumbled.
She went into the master bathroom to check on Walt and see if he needed anything. It looked like he had made good progress. A number of body parts, cut down to a relatively uniform size, were stacked on the vanity, draining into the sink. The bathroom was glistening with blood. It spattered the walls, pooled to coagulate in the corners. It would probably require some serious cleaning later or else the whole apartment would smell like a slaughterhouse.
“How’s it going?” she asked.
Walt, wearing goggles and yellow rubber gloves, looked up from his crouch in front of the bathtub and said, “Huh?” He grabbed some toilet paper from the roll and wiped his goggles with it.
“How’s it going?”
“Oh, pretty good. You were still sleeping so I went to Home Depot alone this morning and got the chainsaw. They already had a really good set of kitchen knives so I didn’t need those. I’m just trying to get this down to manageable portions and then I’ll do some deboning before freezing the meat.”
“And this is what you want to be doing?” She tried not to sound judgmental.
“Well, yeah . . . Why else would I be doing it?”
“I don’t know. Are you hungry or anything?”
He nodded his head toward a hairy forearm at the top of the pile on the vanity.
“I’m not cooking that.”
“I’m not hungry then.”
“I’ll make some coffee.”
“Can you put on some clothes?”
“Excuse me?”
“Yeah . . . I don’t know. If I see you naked all the time it loses something. I’m p
retty sure clothes were invented to make nakedness more alluring.”
“So, what? You think that, like, naked pygmies or whatever don’t have sex because it feels good?”
He pushed the goggles up to his forehead, his blue eyes staring out from the narrow expanse of clean skin. “I don’t think we’re fucking pygmies. I think we’re at the height of evolution and evolved people wear clothes. You look about this bitch’s size. I’m sure she’s got a closet full of real nice stuff.”
“But she’s like thirty. I don’t want to look thirty.”
“Then maybe you should get the shit you got yesterday out of the car.”
Erica slumped her shoulders and walked out of the bathroom. Not bothering to put on any clothes, she walked to the elevator and down to the lobby. The attendant wasn’t behind the desk so she rummaged around until she found something that looked like a key fob. Probably should have asked Walt how he managed to get back in this morning. The car was parked on the curb, a ticket fluttering beneath the windshield wiper. She plucked the ticket out, wadded it up, and dropped it on the ground. A number of people walked up and down on the sidewalk. Cars drove by. No one seemed to gawk at her. She remembered what Walt had said about people only really noticing her clothes and her makeup and becoming more familiar with them than her. So here she was, completely naked on a busy street in the middle of the day, and no one even turned his head. She climbed up to the top of the Bug, threw her arms open to the day, and shouted, “I am here and I am alive and I can do whatever the fuck I want!”
From above the street level city sounds she heard clapping and looked up to see Walt leaning over the balcony railing, slowly smacking his hands together. She beamed at him. She didn’t know if he could see it or not, but she smiled as large as she possibly could at him. He reached down, came up with the woman’s head, and dropped it off the balcony. It cracked on the sidewalk, the brains oozing out. It wasn’t the dramatic explosion she would have thought. She grabbed her bags of clothes from the backseat of the car and went back into the building.
In the apartment, she put on one of the woman’s robes she found, ground some fantastic smelling coffee, and brewed it in a coffee maker that looked like a science experiment. Then she took a cup of coffee out to the balcony, smoked cigarettes, and listened to Walt finish taking the humans apart from somewhere deeper in the apartment.
She felt good.
Dinner
Since Walt was using the bathtub in the master bedroom to clean and bleach the bones from the man and woman, successfully flayed, Erica took a shower in the smaller bathroom off the hallway. She had noticed her vagina needed shaving while she was roaming around nude earlier and took care of that as well. Already, she had begun to think of this bathroom as hers. She hadn’t really picked out many comfortable clothes from the store but was able to find a suitable t-shirt and black yoga pants from the woman’s wardrobe. When she came out of the bathroom, the apartment smelled like food. She walked past the stomach-high bar separating the dining room from the living room. Walt sat at one of the four modern chairs surrounding the sleek glass table. A plate piled with meat sat in front of him. A matching plate with maybe a slightly smaller pile of meat sat in front of the chair to his right.
“I made this for you,” he said.
“I told you I’m not eating that.”
“You’re not even going to try it?”
“No.”
He took a bite. “It’s delicious. Really fucking delicious.”
“It doesn’t matter how delicious it is. It’s people. I’m not eating people and I know you want to save your one favor for something really hideous.”
“It would make me so happy if you would at least try it. I worked really hard on those bodies. Worked to cook this for you.”
“I’m sorry, baby, I don’t want to.”
She went into the kitchen to throw some bread in the oven to warm it up. For people who obviously had a lot of money, Mr. and Mrs. Whoever had a downright scarce amount of food in their refrigerator. They probably ate out a lot. Erica supposed there was nothing really stopping her from getting something delivered but guessed she wasn’t that hungry yet. She brought her bread back to the table. Walt ate his meat slowly. It almost looked like he was ready to cry, but he kept eating and this made it somehow sadder.
Erica took a bite of her bread. “What’s wrong?”
“I feel like you’ve stopped caring . . . About us.”
“Are you fucking kidding me? While you took care of those bodies I scrubbed all the blood off the floor, off the walls. I worked for hours on that and you never even said thanks.”
“That’s why I went to Home Depot this morning. Why I went through all the trouble to prepare this meal. Besides, I didn’t mind the blood.”
“It would have started to stink eventually. Attracted flies. It would have been gross.”
“Then thanks, I guess. But, still, I wanted to bring you here so you could live like a queen.”
“It’s a nice place. Thanks for murdering the owners of a really nice place so I can live like a queen.”
He threw his hunk of meat on the plate in disgust. “That’s exactly what I mean. You’re just being sarcastic now. You said you wanted to come with me. I told you I saw us being together for a really long time, told you I love you, and now . . . I don’t know.”
“Fine. Will it make you happy if I eat the meat you cooked?” She reached toward her plate of meat. There must have been at least three pounds, mostly rare, sitting in a pool of blood on the bone white plate. She grabbed an indiscriminate handful and held it up to her mouth, fought her gorge, and started eating it like she would an apple. “Mmmm, this is really good.” Blood and juices trickled down her chin, dripped onto her clean white shirt. “Best fucking thing I’ve had in a really long time.” She finished what was in her fist, gagged a little, and licked her palm and fingers clean.
Now Walt was mad. She saw it in is eyes. “Exactly what I mean,” he said. He grabbed her plate, stacked it on his unfinished plate, walked them both across the living room, through the open balcony doors, and tossed them off. He came back in. “There, thanks for ruining dinner.” He rested his forehead on the back of his right hand, a drop of blood hanging from the fingertip.
Maybe she liked him better this way. There was something vulnerable about him when it looked like he was about ready to cry, when it looked like something had been taken from him. Actually, it made her feel better but made her like him even less. She wouldn’t say she hated vulnerable men but she didn’t think it suited Walt. There was something about him that was missing and his tough exterior let him get away with it. It was like a cover. Once that cover was lifted it was like, she didn’t know exactly, it made her think of some amorphous lump of clay.
“Fuck you.” She pushed her chair back from the table and stood up, faced him.
The electricity was back in his eyes. The clay hardened back into the stone exterior and he stood up.
He turned her around, bent her over the table. He grabbed her arms and pulled them behind her back. “You want to eat fucking bread?” he said. “Is that what you want? There’s nothing better in the world then what I just tried to feed you and you want this shitty stale bread?” With his free hand, he picked up what was left of the baguette. He put it on the table, just beneath her face. “So why don’t you go ahead and eat the bread? Eat every last crumb.”
She heard him unbutton and unzip his pants. She should have tried to fight him or get away, but there was something about this that excited her. He probably wanted her to fight him.
“No,” she said.
“I told you not to say no. It seems like that’s all you say now. Eat the fucking bread.” He shucked his pants and underwear down and mashed her head toward the bread. She took a bite.
He pulled her stretchy pants down to her knees. She hadn’t bothered putting on any underwear.
It was hard to take bites of the bread without any hands. Walt noticed thi
s. He grabbed the bread. “Here,” he said. “Open up.”
He tapped the bread against her face and she opened her mouth. He slowly worked all the bread into her mouth. She gagged and vomited on the table. He let go of her wrists and placed both of her hands to either side of her head in the warm, expanding pool of vomit.
“Don’t move them off this table.”
She heaved again. This had suddenly become not the slightest bit fun but he seemed worked up and she was actually afraid of what he might do if she told him no again.
He dropped to his knees behind her and spread her ass cheeks, plunging his tongue into her anus, working it in and out, spitting on it. He stood up and pressed himself against her asshole. He tried for what felt like a very long time to get the head of his penis inside her. Once started, he slowly slid the rest of his length in. This wasn’t the first time they’d done it this way but the pain, even though expected, was still there. He forced her head down into her vomit and she began retching and heaving again.
Quickly, he came inside of her and then said he was going out.
She didn’t move until he had slammed the door behind him.
She flicked the vomit from her fingertips and used one of the expensive linen napkins to wipe the rest of it from her hands before pulling up her pants and walking out onto the balcony. She watched Walt as he got into the bright yellow car and went speeding down 2nd Street, the only car on the road.
Sociopaths In Love Page 9