Prodigal

by T M Heron

  Prodigal

  TM Heron

  Dedicated with love to my parents, Tony and Judy.

  1

  Afterwards we lie relaxed and my mind wanders back to something my barber said. For most of the appointment he was white noise. But at one point I tuned in to hear him telling me about being hit by a drunk driver when he was twenty-five.

  His left femur was broken in three places. He woke up in the ICU where he endured three weeks at the mercy of our national health system. He then labored through six further months of rehabilitation.

  The driver got four months’ home detention.

  Four months.

  It’s a shame my barber wasn’t killed. Then the driver would have got a proper sentence. But he lived and I’m now partially dependent on him to look this good. However, I find it incomprehensible that my barber has achieved any degree of happiness in the face of such injustice. How he limps around being a barber. A dead-end career and a deformed limb.

  If it had been me. If it had been my femur . . .

  I’m not sure whether I’d set fire to him or bury him alive. The driver, not my barber. Burning is painful, of course, but can it really compete with the terror of a live burial? Of course, you could always inject that element by burying him alive for a couple of hours then digging him up and setting fire to him.

  I’m nudged out of my musings by Michelia’s cold toe. She’s demonstrating an impressive amount of flexibility given she’s blindfolded and hogtied.

  I don’t really feel like talking yet and I’m tempted to tell her that this is what we men do after sex. Just drift off into our own little worlds — which more often than not includes sleep. I’d offer up the excuse it’s biological. Not an excuse, a legitimate reason. But I sense there’s something else on her mind.

  I prop myself up on a shoulder and give her my undivided attention. It’s a shame she can’t see how good-looking I am. In her mind I’ll always be ugly.

  “Yes?” I say, stretching indulgently.

  “I won’t tell anyone about this,” she says. “Just please don’t kill me.”

  A negotiation.

  She starts crying. Quietly. She’s already learned the hard way I don’t like criers. It ruins the ambience.

  “I don’t want to die.” Her voice has a quiver.

  “Neither,” I say. “Not yet anyway.”

  More quiet crying followed by a sniff. Gross, I’ve just been inside this wreck.

  “You know bloody well who I am,” I say finally. “Have we killed anyone else so far?”

  I put a tissue to her nose so she can blow it. Mucus revolts me. Even through latex gloves.

  I lie back and watch the sky. The clouds are turning bulky and fibrous and darkening to the purple of a freshly bruised face.

  “No one really knows. I just—”

  My brows fold into a frown. From what I have gleaned from colleagues, repetitive nagging coupled with an inability to take on even basic information is characteristic of most women. Regardless, with every repeat performance it’s becoming more difficult not to feel a little slighted at this kind of reaction.

  Please don’t kill me.

  These bloody girls are always so obsessed with the same concern it’s become tedious. And it’s so damn unwarranted. They must see they’re part of a pattern. The rest of the city does.

  The boldest of all of them (so far), her name was Suzanna Montgomery, said to me straight after I’d finished, Kill me and someone in my family will make you sorry you ever lived.

  I beat her within an inch of her life for that display of insolence. And no one in her family has ever contacted me to express their displeasure.

  I stop staring at the clouds long enough to realize Michelia is crying again. She’s stopped worrying about being killed, finally, and is thinking about what she’s seen on TV. As I put my clothes on, her crying becomes louder and more annoying and it’s with some degree of relief I leave her there.

  I walk out of the clearing.

  It’s getting darker. Fast, as it does in winter. And I can barely make out the gristly, stunted outline of Dukie hovering by the car. Even in the darkness his excitement is palpable and disgusts me and I wish we didn’t have to breathe the same air.

  “You’re meant to wait in the car,” I tell him. The words come out harsh as I detest Dukie and everything he stands for. “You weren’t watching, were you?”

  “Dukie not watching Frank,” says Dukie earnestly.

  Frank isn’t my real name. I loathe how Dukie talks about himself in third person.

  “You’ve got twenty minutes,” I say. “Don’t beat her. Don’t remove the blindfold. Don’t speak to her.”

  I slide into the car. It’s a late-model Maxima. Dark blue. Respectable enough not to alert suspicion but not showy enough to draw attention. It’s registered to a shell company that’s owned by another that’s owned by another. It’s unlikely, though, it will ever be put through a search base. When Dukie abducts our girls he drives a small white van.

  At ten minutes I yell out for Dukie to wind up the party. He’ll have saved his least savory urges until the end of the allocated twenty minutes, but she doesn’t know this so I’m not expecting expressions of gratitude.

  While Dukie puts a new liner in the Maxima’s boot I walk back down to Michelia. It’s completely dark now and I pick my way over the rough ground by torchlight. I sit down on the rug which is damp with dew. “Ready to go home?”

  I encircle her cold slender arm with my non-torch hand. “I need you to sit up. I’m going to remove the blindfold. This is nearly over now, so don’t ruin it for yourself by trying to see me. I’ll be behind you.”

  Michelia obliges with difficulty. Her hands and elbows are still tightly bound. I kneel behind her and peel back the blindfold. I’m wearing a new pair of latex gloves.

  When the mask is off, she stays perfectly still, apart from trembling. I cut through the rope, freeing her arms.

  “Give your arms and legs a rub, it’ll help bring back your circulation,” I tell her, but she just sits there, making me want to give her a sudden shove.

  I lean forward and point my torch over her shoulder. Her breathing, unnaturally loud in the darkness, quickens. The trajectory leads down over a series of large rocks and through native shrub to a body of water. At this time of year, the temperature will be glacial.

  “When you get to the pond, I want you go right under,” I tell her.

  I give her a cake of Dettol “for sensitive skin”. “Just follow the torch. Remember, I’m not going to be impressed if you look back.”

  The pond isn’t actually a pond but the end of a secluded tree lined run-off from the Lower Hutt river. But later when Michelia talks to the police she will describe a pond.

  Michelia’s legs shake. She wades in and immediately slips over. I can hardly be angry with this as the rocks are sharp and covered with slime.

  I keep the torch directed on the back of her head. She has nice brown hair that all but covers her skinny back. It looks silver in the moonlight. If she does turn around all she will see is the blinding light of the torch. But she looks straight ahead and doesn’t disappoint.

  “No, right under.”

  I patiently direct Michelia through the process of thoroughly washing her hair and all other relevant parts with the pH-neutral soap. By the end of it I’m shivering from the cold and more than ready for a drink. The air is heavy and there’ll be rain soon which I’m hoping to avoid. I’m sure I hate this clean-up part as much as if not more than the girls do. It’s repetitive and dreary. But necessary.

  Finally I tell Michelia she can come out. She trembles but has the good grace not to cry.

  I can already make out the beginning of a bruise in the shape of Dukie’s boot on her ribca
ge. I’m furious. He’s becoming headstrong. I swear quietly inside my head. The papers will print us like a violent bunch of thugs. They’ll say our violence is escalating, when in reality I’ve never been more in control.

  There will be consequences for this. Dukie will be lucky if he gets as much as five minutes alone with the next girl. I tell this one that the cold water will have assisted in minimizing the bruising, but she doesn’t look that appreciative.

  I pull a laminated photograph out of my pocket and shine the torch on it. It shows a dead Labrador hanging from its neck on a washing line. There is washing on the line as well. Someone evidently felt a strong need to ensure there was no confusion whether it really was an authentic washing line. How unhygienic.

  I point my torch at the dog. “I did that,” I tell her. This is a lie. I’ve downloaded it from the net. I’d never do that to a dog. I love dogs.

  She stares at the photo. I’m standing behind her, my breath falling gently on her ear.

  “No matter who tells you you’re safe from me, you’re not,” I say slowly. “Your parents can’t keep you safe, and neither can the police.”

  I place a latexed hand on her shoulder. “After all,” I say, “I know where you live. We’ll be dropping you there any minute now.”

  She starts whimpering. Did she honestly not believe she was going to make it home? She really should read the papers. But I give her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “That’s enough now. But just remember, if you do say anything to the police I’ll know. I have contacts there.”

  I do have a few good contacts, too. All of whom would be horrified it they knew what our respective friendships enabled.

  “Tell the police, and I’ll come back for you, Michelia. And provide you with a whole new experience altogether.”

  Dukie giggles from somewhere nearby. I’d tell him to shut up, but it would detract from the gravity of the message. The girl averts her head from the photo and starts crying again.

  This little speech I’ve just given her is of course totally irrelevant. She hasn’t seen us — unless she can see through a blindfold. She hasn’t seen the Maxima. She doesn’t even know where she is.

  But I’m hoping she’ll repeat it verbatim to the cops — once someone’s dragged it out of her. I can see them now, wound up, getting all uptight with themselves and one another but still having to be nice to Michelia. Wondering helplessly if there are more girls out there who haven’t come forward out of sheer terror.

  I already know the police have deduced our team consists of a dominant, more intelligent leader and a submissive follower. This is correct. I also know they believe eventually I’ll become arrogant and trip up. Not so.

  I shake open a huge plastic bag. It’s made of thick opaque plastic and is about three times the size of a Council rubbish bag. They can be purchased at any hardware shop and are commonly used for storing large items in industrial warehouses.

  “Get in.”

  She looks (if this is possible) more scared. But she’s too scared not to. Unsteadily she steps into the bag and I pull it up around her.

  “I’m going to secure it over your head,” I say. “There’ll be plenty of room to breathe so don’t panic.”

  At this she starts to panic and claws at the bag as I raise it over her. She is still screaming and tearing as we secure the top and throw her in the boot. The boot has been pre-lined with yet more plastic. Not a classy solution but we don’t want evidence of any kind in the car.

  Dukie and I change out of what we have been wearing and put those clothes in the rubbish bag along with the rug and soap and condoms. I will put this in a dumpster later and set it alight. But first we must drop Michelia home.

  We drive around in circles for about half an hour to disorient her. Then we head for her suburb, Khandallah. I stop the Maxima in a dark street not far from the address she has given us. Which I already knew.

  Mature oak trees line both sides of the street. They hunch against the gathering winds, leafless and gnarled with age. Behind high, impregnable fences sit the houses of some of Wellington’s most privileged. The upper-story windows of most are lit with an inviting orange glow and smoke billows out of chimneys. I know this area well. I live just down the road.

  The car is parked in the shadow of a tree. We lift Michelia out in the plastic bag, like a giant parcel. Deposit her gently and safely on the side of the road. She doesn’t know, but we’ll be watching her, fleeing naked through the rain to her home. Just to make sure she doesn’t run into harm.

  2

  Ava lies exactly where I left her. Naked on the tile floor of the conservatory. Luckily the tiles are heated. My interior designer was determined to have a sub-tropical theme going on. Ridiculous in a city with weather patterns like Wellington. But with heated floors and central heating the little faggot’s managed to pull it off. Ava is surrounded by puka plants and potted hibiscus. Winter still closes in nastily outside.

  It’s been four hours but for Ava it won’t have seemed that long. She drifts in a timeless stupor courtesy of the clonazepam cocktail she imbibed earlier. She’ll come to when I wake her, and will proclaim with true astonishment that she just doesn’t know how one innocent champagne cocktail can do that to her. Never ever does the thought occur she may have been drugged.

  This was once amusing. But sex all afternoon with Ava has been my alibi for the last nine outings so the irony has grown stale. Sometimes I find myself wanting her to decline the champagne, forcing me to come up with a more creative solution to render her unconscious.

  I pour myself a deep hot bath. I’m going to need to think more intelligently about my next winter outing. I’m so cold that this one was nearly the death of me. Although I’ll probably only fit one more in before spring, so maybe I should tough it out?

  The real deal-breaker is that just the thought of conducting an indoor outing makes me claustrophobic. I have issues around this. Actually, the word “issues” minimalizes it. What I have is a serious and deep-rooted phobia. It’s a shame I can’t consult a professional.

  I drink my wine and wait for the stinging in my fingers and toes to subside. My entire face feels like rubber. Slowly, between the alcohol and the heat from the bath, I start to relax. My thoughts flick backwards and forwards between the outing that’s just happened and work tomorrow. Outings and work. The double pivots around which my life revolves.

  It’s funny how things turn out but Michelia reminds me a lot of the first girl I ever forced. It was very basic back then. Nothing as elaborate as the process of selection and observation that has naturally evolved over time.

  My first was called Becky and she was Head Girl at a private school. I was fifteen and she was seventeen and we’d been having sex for weeks. Sex with Becky had been just as anti-climactic as sex with the other few girls I’d been with before her. I’d started wondering if that was all there’d ever be to it. I’d even questioned if I was normal.

  Then one day, out of the blue, Becky went sulky. She told me she wouldn’t have sex with me until I told her I loved her. My thought at that moment was that I couldn’t care less if she dropped dead right there in front of me. The thought made me laugh and she slapped me.

  Before I knew it, I’d hit her back. When she gaped at me in shock something sheer and glorious exploded in my mind. I slammed her to the floor and what ensued was life-defining. It felt like a first time should. I knew then that all of my previous sexual exploits had only been in sepia. And so had my life.

  And there is where it all started. Straight away I knew I’d never fight it. Why would I?

  I smile nostalgically and pour myself another wine. When I get out, I think I’ll smoke a joint.

  Of course, I should be doing work tonight. Most of my colleagues will be. Gearing up for Monday with a few hours of work crammed in on a Sunday night. But for as long as the firm is not rewarding me with a partnership, I’ll be spending my Sundays in a leisurely manner.

  Ava appears in the doorway. Here
I was silently castigating her for being predictable and she’s gone and woken up all on her own. Originally from London, Ava is stunning. A classic beauty. So beautiful she’s a cliché. It’s one of the things that bores me about her. That and her well-rehearsed intelligence.

  “You’re looking lonely . . . ”

  Ava’s left nipple is pierced. She’s so proud of her breasts. They’re natural, as far as I can tell. Although, in fairness, I haven’t spent much time on them. Her nipple piercing used to be a gold hoop. I bought a diamond to replace it. Ava has taken this as a sign of impending emotional commitment, but really, I just can’t handle her looking like a slut.

  “Want company?”

  Either Ava has an unnatural sex drive, or she believes endless nagging for sexual interaction is an attractive quality in a prospective life mate.

  “Company? You’ve just spent all afternoon wearing me out.”

  Ava smiles sleepily. “I can’t believe how late it is.”

  “I know. And I’ve got work to do tonight.”

  “Christ, not again. Let me guess, now you want me to go.”

  She knows better than to look sulky but God she’d be a nightmare in the hands of someone who really did give a shit.

  “I’d find it near impossible to concentrate on work with you in the house, Ava.”

  “But it’s too late for you to be starting work. And I’m too tired to drive all the way home. I feel like crap, actually. I just want to sleep. You won’t even know I’m here.”

  I already just about don’t know she’s here. I’m busy wondering if Michelia’s parents have called the police yet. Then the OIC will be summoned to the station from his cookie-cutter family and their Sunday roast. And all hell will once again break loose. It may just be the bath and the wine, but a glow washes over me just thinking about it.

  “We’re never going to graduate from this, then?” Ava’s voice tunes back in. She stands there, hands on hips. Completely comfortable starting an argument naked, as only the mentally impaired or exceptionally vain can be. “Just sex all afternoon then I go back to Waikanae?”