This Book Is Full of Bodies

by Rick Wood

  I would have to maim you into something no one will recognise.

  “What is it?” she asks, twirling her finger around my hand not holding the bacon sandwich.

  I place the bacon sandwich on the plate, and I study her face. She could not appear more disappointed, although she tries to hide it.

  “Are you not hungry?” she asks.

  Maybe she’s put out because I haven’t eaten the breakfast she made for me. That could be the reason to her disappointment.

  Only one way to find out.

  “Take a bite,” I tell her.

  She smiles widely and sweetly.

  “I told you, I already had mine,” she says.

  “I don’t care. I want you to take a bite.”

  “Why?”

  “Because I said so.”

  “Don’t be silly, it’s your sandwich, I made it for–”

  “Take. A. Fucking. Bite.”

  She stares at me. She looks scared, tiny pores of sweat open up, a little shake of her arm, an O formed with her mouth.

  “Really, I made it for you, I just want–”

  “Do it.”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  I grab the back of her hair and lift her head back, pulling it close to me so her cheek is against the grease of the bacon and her eyes are staring helplessly up at me.

  “Please, stop,” she begs, “you’re hurting me.”

  “Why won’t you eat it, Flora?”

  “I made it for you!”

  “And what did you put in it, Flora?”

  “Bacon!”

  “And what else?”

  “Butter!”

  I slam her head against the kitchen side. It leaves a small imprint of blood that incenses me – I do not wish for this house to be anything but immaculate.

  “Tell me the truth,” I say.

  “Please…”

  She’s crying now. I don’t buy it.

  I grab the sandwich and I shove it against her mouth. She shuts her lips tightly and I hold her nose and her mouth opens and I shove the entire damn thing into her deceptive gob, then cover her mouth with my hand.

  She can’t breathe, such is the size of the sandwich. She looks beyond scared now, her wide eyes are beseeching me with tears, mortifying dread seeping from her eyes like blood from the damned.

  “Eat it,” I tell her.

  She doesn’t.

  She doesn’t even bite.

  She just holds it between her teeth, not chewing or eating.

  “I said eat it!”

  She shakes her head, whimpers, her face scrunched up.

  “You pathetic little bitch.”

  I let go and she runs to the bin and opens the lid and spits every bit of it out. I just stand and watch and she scrapes it out of the cracks of her teeth and her gums then rushes to the sink where she fills her mouth from water straight from the tap, and spits, does this repeatedly, before swallowing another mouthful.

  Then she stops. Panting. Helpless.

  And she turns.

  And she looks at me.

  And she knows.

  She knows she has been caught.

  The lying, deceiving, little fucked up piece of shit.

  After everything.

  All I have done.

  All I have forgiven.

  All I have offered, the compromises she never asked for, I just offered.

  The trust I endowed on her, the confidence, the stupid belief in her lie about the phone.

  And the disgust, that all this time, she was just waiting, waiting for the moment to dispatch me, then offends me by choosing such a ridiculous way as poisoning and leaving the fucking damn bleach out as if to taunt me with her severe stupidity.

  Yes, she has fucked me over.

  And she knows this now.

  She looks at me with dread, the knowledge that she is about to die falling over her, that she has made a so very huge mistake.

  Sorry, Flora.

  But I can’t handle liars.

  I can’t handle ungrateful little wenches.

  And I can’t handle the rage that you have caused inside of me.

  And I know, in this moment, just as she does, that she has to die.

  And she has to do it in the most painful, invasive of ways imaginable.

  33

  I do not want to dirty the walls of my new house. The architecture was polished immaculately before our arrival, and it’s so rare that cleanliness is ever to my standard.

  Someday, these walls will hear the screeches and be home to the trophies, but not today.

  Today demands a different location.

  I tell her to put some clothes on.

  At first, she refuses. Then, she sees what little sense that is.

  I am allowing her the grace of dignity before she walks the gallows. She is wearing nothing but one of my shirts, and I do not doubt that, once we are in public, this will take from her any self-respect she has left.

  I do not allow her to be alone, though.

  Not that it makes much difference.

  I have explored the contours and orifices of that body many times. I have watched it develop, watched the hips widen to child-bearing hips, watched the breasts mould from nothing to triangles, traced with my finger as the curves of those legs and that chest as turned from a girl to a woman.

  And I have a sudden wave of nostalgia come over me.

  I know that body so well.

  It brings me great sadness to decimate it so. That temple of flesh, that warmth of ecstasy... I knew it when it was smooth before she had to shave it to be smooth.

  Every birth mark, every evidence of scars, the odd piece of cellulite… it’s been mine for so long.

  It’s such a shame I am going to have to wreck it.

  Like a perfect painting I spent years crafting, only to go and paint over it with many brushes of red.

  She pauses, holding a dress in her hands. She is in her underwear. Black panties and black bra. Laced. It exposes her buttocks and, as she stands with her back to me, she must know what effect it has on me.

  That is why she has paused like that, of course.

  The dress is there in her hands. Blue, fitted top with a short, flowing skirt.

  She knows that’s one of my favourites, too.

  She knows.

  “What are you going to do to me?” she asks, not looking at me, only turning her head slightly so the daylight accentuates the expert features of her face.

  Damn, she is beautiful.

  And when she asks me this, she sounds like the lost little girl I discovered when I first married Lisa.

  Terrified and with no male role model in her life to guide her.

  I gave her that.

  And she threw it back in my face.

  “Get dressed,” I tell her.

  “Are you going to make it quick?” she asks, running the dress through her hands.

  I can’t help but look at her body, can’t help but trace my eyes back up and down it, and she is doing this intentionally, purposefully, because she knows how sexy she is and how it drives me crazy and I am tempted to grab her and throw her on that bed and–

  And what?

  Why don’t I?

  Just one final hurrah?

  But what if that’s the opportunity she’s looking for…

  The temporary ten to fifteen seconds it takes for me to cum inside of her, where I am vulnerable and exposed and unaware – it is the perfect opportunity she needs to pour that bleach down my throat, or pick a knife and cut me or, or, or… or whatever other sick idea she had as to how to do it.

  I mean, bleach.

  Fucking bleach.

  Even I would grant someone the grace of a good death not caused by bleach.

  It’s tacky, and it’s sickening.

  And I hate her.

  I want to hate her.

  I try to hate her.

  But I want her.

  So fucking much.

  “I love you,” she says
.

  “Get dressed,” I growl, and I know I should stay calm and this just lets her know it’s working but I can’t help it.

  “You have made me happy. Really, you–”

  I march forward, grab the back of her neck, and drag her across the room until I slam her forehead into the wall and the room shakes briefly in the aftermath.

  It would be so easy right now.

  Just pull down those panties.

  Bend her over.

  Take her like I’ve taken it before.

  But she doesn’t deserve that part of me.

  She’s trying to manipulate me.

  And I will not allow myself to fuck up like she did.

  I put my mouth next to her ear. I speak in a low volume, at a slow place, and enunciate every syllable so she understands me.

  “I know exactly what you are doing. Put on the fucking dress or I’ll put it on you.”

  “That would be different, wouldn’t it?” she says, her voice changed. “For you to aggressively put my clothes on, instead of taking them off.”

  I turn her around so she’s looking at me and, again, my anger flickers as she spreads her arms against the wall and her chest welcomes me and I want to touch her I want to feel her I want to–

  I want to kill her.

  And that is the priority.

  “What’s the matter?” she says. “Can’t decide whether to fuck me or kill me?”

  She sounds evil now, not vulnerable, not begging, she sounds assertive, dominant, and fuck if it doesn’t just turn me on even more.

  And she knows it.

  She knows it because she drops a hand and brushes it against my stiff cock.

  I throw her onto the floor.

  “Put on the dress.”

  “Or what?”

  “Put on the dress.”

  “You’ll kill me anyway.”

  “Put on the dress.”

  “Make me.”

  “Put on the fucking dress!”

  She doesn’t put it on.

  I go to unleash my anger, but again, it’s what she wants.

  I underestimated how smart this girl could actually be.

  “I don’t give a fuck,” I tell her. “It’s up to you whether you want your body to be found with clothes on, or clothes off. Either way, you have ten seconds.”

  She looks up at me, shooting me a look I have seen so many times in Lisa.

  She stands, puts on the dress, and turns to me.

  “Zip me up?” she asks.

  Reluctantly, I step forward and zip up the back of the dress.

  I am so attracted to her.

  But I have to remember.

  She betrayed my trust.

  She used bleach.

  She used it to try to kill me.

  “How long?” I ask.

  “What?”

  “How long have you been lying? How long have you pretended to enjoy the life I’ve given you?”

  She steps forward, looks up at me, and spits every word with her newfound spite.

  “Since even before you murdered my mother.”

  I want to strangle her here and now.

  I want to gut her and twist the knife and watch as her blood squirts down her leg like she squirts as she fucks.

  I want to gouge her eyeballs until she can’t see what I do to her, only feel it.

  But this response is what she wants.

  And I can’t let her have it.

  I grab her arm and drag her down the stairs and through to the garage where the car awaits.

  I shove her in the passenger seat, shut it, lock it, and break the lock off.

  I don’t wish to damage it but fuck it, I could buy a thousand of these.

  But I can only kill her once.

  I MADE THE MISTAKE

  I made the mistake.

  I left the bleach out.

  He knows I left the bleach out.

  But it’s not the first.

  My mistakes go back much farther than that.

  I made the mistake of having a childish crush on the man that married my mother. Of seeing him through the eyes of a child who was only just beginning to learn what it was like to have a crush.

  I made the mistake of blushing when you smiled at me, when you said things that made me feel special, when you put your arm around me after mum had gone to bed.

  I said it was okay when you accidentally kissed me, that I wouldn’t tell. That we could still have our time together. That there was nothing wrong with it.

  I made the mistake of keeping it our little secret.

  I had my first period and he had his first touch.

  I had the last day of my childhood on the day he had his first day inside of me.

  I was too old for my age, said my school.

  I had changed my attitude, said my mum.

  Leave me the fuck alone, said I.

  I made the mistake of not telling anyone there and then.

  I made the mistake of saying it was okay, people just wouldn’t understand, there was nothing wrong with an age gap, you don’t love my mum anyway, the marriage was just for show, it was me, and you stayed with her for me, because it was me you cared for and me you wanted and me that you made feel so very, very, very special.

  I made the mistake of believing you.

  I grew up because you made me.

  I saw it as normal because that’s what it was.

  To me, it was normal.

  It was all I’d ever known.

  And, if you grow up being told secrets are normal, this touching is normal, this love is normal, then you will come to believe this secret touching and this secret love is just that – normal.

  I made the mistake of being like every other child. Reliant on role models and carers and thinking they were right, that they knew best, that everything should be trusted.

  You never did anything wrong, Gerry.

  Don’t you worry.

  It was me. All me.

  I am to blame.

  I attracted you to me. I wore those school skirts and I didn’t cross my legs because I was too young to have anything to hide, and I believed you because I’d watched Disney films and the greatest love is always forbidden and you were charming and you made me feel like I was the only girl in the world.

  I made the mistake of letting you touch me.

  I made the mistake of not being given a choice.

  Porn was my first experience of sex. You were my second.

  So how would I know different?

  Hundreds of videos of THREE GUYS THREE HOLES and FUCK MY FACE and FUCK MY GF and BOUND AND GAGGED and GANG FUCKED ON MY WEDDING NIGHT taught me that this was what sex was.

  You bent me over and you were in control and you held my hands behind my back and I screamed because it’s what they did and you seemed to like it so I kept going and I made the mistake of believing that it was all okay.

  It was all I knew.

  It hurt.

  I ached inside as you finished.

  I ate crushed up morning-after pill for breakfast because it’s what you fed to me in my cereal.

  I told mum I loved her while I wondered how anyone could do something like this to someone they loved.

  But I did love her, and I did do it.

  Because you were my teacher and you taught me to do it.

  And I made the mistake of being such a great student.

  I hated my friends, hated my school, and most of all I hated the sex education lessons I would always get kicked out of because they told us things that shook what I knew.

  They said good sex is about good communication.

  They said you wait until you’re ready.

  They said porn isn’t a close representation.

  And I asked you to slow down, asked you to do it another way, asked you to be gentle and be slow rather than bending me over and fucking me every day when I obediently ran home from school.

  I made the mistake of asking.

  I made the mistake of runni
ng home.

  And I made the mistake of believing you when you said I was worth everything and nothing at the same time.

  And most of all…

  Yes, most of all…

  I made the mistake of leaving the bleach out.

  But that isn’t the mistake that’s killed me.

  It’s just one of many.

  34

  I drive and I glance at her sitting like a petulant teenager, her lips resting on her hand and her elbow resting on the window.

  I wonder how I am going to do this.

  What the best way would be.

  We drive away from the city and any great area of population and toward the country lanes. Some of them are single track, some are narrow enough to fit two small cars, and they are all surrounded by fields, occasionally with cows but rarely with people.

  This is the perfect place, really.

  Away from everyone and everything and fuck.

  What is a police car doing out here?

  I haven’t passed another car in fifteen minutes, and there he is in the rear-view mirror.

  Flora hasn’t noticed yet.

  But she will. And she may try to indicate something.

  My mind races with possibilities of what to do.

  I could pull in and let it past or I could break and ram into it or I could just keep going and try not to look inconspicuous or I could oh fuck Flora notices.

  She sits upright, her body alert, and I can see the thoughts in her mind, I can see her running through her possibilities just as I did.

  She is considering whether she could signal to this car, whether she could do something to attract his attention. I may not read people well – but she has made it all too obvious.

  It takes this piss, really.

  Why is everything out to get me?

  “Don’t think about it,” I tell her.

  She finally looks at me.

  She looks tired. Bags under her eyes, her face dropped, her eyes lolling. Maybe she hasn’t been getting much sleep.

  My mind instinctively wonders why when she’s so happy and content, and I have to remind myself it was all lies, and she was probably laying there all night planning my demise, working out where the bleach was and what she could do with it.

  “Or what?” she said. I know she’s being antagonistic, and I really don’t have the time for it.

  The police car is still behind me. I make an abrupt left turn, not indicating until the last moment, and carry on down another country road.