Steven starts to snore beside me.
Shooting him a grimace of annoyance, I close Tinder and open his photos. There aren’t very many. Steven doesn’t have an artist’s eye for the world. There are more shirtless selfies of him, a few pics from the stands at a Minnesota Twins game last summer, snaps of him and his dad at some Christian conference together, a picture of a crack in the foundation of his house. There’s also a picture of his erect penis, of course, the shot angled to make it look bigger than it is. All in all, no surprises.
Then I get to a selfie of him and Meg, similar to the one she sent me, but taken from a slightly different angle. There’s also a pic of her wearing cutoff shorts and a tiny little tank top, holding out her hand and laughing. Next is a photo of her in a small boat, a light beer in one hand and a fishing pole in the other.
Hitting the back arrow, I find a separate folder of photos underneath the general file. When I click on these, rage turns my vision red. Red Meg. Red nudity. Red breasts and thighs. Red pictures of her from behind, being penetrated by Steven.
These are the pictures he threatened her with, likely after begging and cajoling and promising her the world in exchange for them. He wanted these photos and then he called her a dirty slut for providing them. They were proof that she wasn’t good enough to even be alive.
I feel a wild urge to grab a knife and end this now. He’s naked and helpless and out cold, and I could carve him into a puzzle of gore. By the time he wakes up enough to fight back, he’ll be bleeding out, missing his throat or his balls, some crucial part now permanently fixed in a bloody, open-mouthed gape.
I stand and throw back the sheets to glare at his limp nudity. I hear my own panting.
This is love. This is my love, and it may be a dark, mean, greedy thing, but it is real. I feel it. I love Meg and I would kill for her. I should kill for her. All of this dancing around, all of this toying with him—it needs to end.
Before I’ve given myself permission, I’m in the kitchen, at the knife block, sliding out a medium-sized utility knife. People are scared by the big chef knives or meat cleavers, picturing those as murder weapons, but I want precision. I want to feel exactly what I’m severing inside him.
I return to stand over him again and measure all the hollowed spots of his body where no bone or muscle presses the skin. There, at his throat. Under his eyes. The spot just beneath his breastbone. The hollows of his hips right above the groin. Or the groin itself, all of it so squishy and unprotected from the danger I present. The insides of his thighs . . .
I lay the blade of the knife flat against his leg. He doesn’t stir.
I slide it up, scraping the edge along his crisp hair. His balls are loose and heavy with satisfaction and sleep. Will he wake if I take them in a gentle grasp and lift them for a tiny metal kiss?
Smiling, I raise the knife and smooth it gently up his testicles and over his penis. The shaft stirs a little at the touch. Just a twitch. Then a slight thickening. His respiration stays the same, but his dick will take any kind of attention, even in sleep.
Pet me, it says. Pet me with your knife.
I slide it over him again, snickering at his stupid vulnerability. They’re all stupid. Stupid and worthless.
He’s not that deeply drugged. He could wake at any moment, but what do I care? At his first sign of protest, I’ll slip the knife deep, and it will be too late for him.
But I’d rather take my time, so I lift the blade and move it higher.
His belly rises and falls in a slow rhythm like the skin of a toad’s throat. Up and down. Up and down. I can almost hear him croaking.
I point the blade at the hollow between the bottom curves of his rib cage. The aorta is just there, unprotected by bone or gristle. I could pop it like a balloon and watch the blood shoot out with impressive pressure. It would paint me scarlet, but I’m already naked. A quick shower would clean me up.
I lower the knife until the next deep breath pushes his skin into the point. When he exhales, a tiny nick is revealed. Another inhalation, another little pinprick. I leave five behind. The first is bright red now. I press my thumb to it and smear the faintest bow of blood across his skin. Finger painting.
What do I want to remove? I’ve never cut anyone before, and there are so many choices. His genitals for pointing his selfish body in Meg’s direction. His eyes for the pictures he wanted and kept and used. His stupid tongue for all the evil words he beat her with. His treacherous, traitorous, ugly goddamn heart.
All of it.
I drag the blade over his penis again. And again. The metal makes a sweet chuffing sound against the skin as the shaft gently swells.
This is where I’ll start. So Steven can wake up and look down with clear eyes and see that he’s losing the center of his universe.
I angle the blade. I poise the tip to split his dick open from base to crown.
Except . . . I don’t. I don’t cut him.
I want this with every fiber of my being, but my heart rate has calmed and I know I can’t. There’s evidence of me everywhere. At work, in his phone, on surfaces here at his house and in his car. My DNA is all over his body and his bed. It’s on the empty beer bottles and the crumpled napkins in the trash.
I’ve marked him as surely as a cat marks its possessions, and if I kill him this way, I’ll never escape it. I could probably avoid capture, but I could never go back to my comfortable life.
I should have killed him the moment I stepped into town, but I was seduced by the fun of it, of invading his life and toying with him, making him into the ultimate fool.
Conceit is my greatest weakness. I know this. It’s why I inserted myself into his world instead of keeping my distance. Because I wanted to feel him slide into my trap.
It’s why I used my real first name instead of a complete alias. I wanted him to know it was me doing this to him. Me, even if he never connected the dots. Me Jane, as primitive as it was in the old Tarzan movies.
Good times indeed, but now there’s a price to pay. I can’t do what I want.
Damn it. I despise consequences.
But I reassure myself: it’s only a momentary sacrifice. I’ll find another way. He deserves to die. I can see that now. I’ll find a way to take his worthless life without risking my own. I will. I whisper it aloud: “I’ll find another way, Meg.”
But I don’t believe there’s any part of Meg left in the universe to hear me, and the sad truth is she wouldn’t want me to hurt him anyway. That won’t dissuade me. This isn’t about honoring her wishes. If she’d wanted a say in this, she should have stuck around.
I stare at him for another minute, letting my heart believe I could still kill him. Then I return the knife to the block and shut off the lights. I don’t look at the pictures again because I can’t risk the rage. But I can’t allow him to ever look at the pictures again either. He killed her, and he used these photos as a murder weapon even as he delighted in jerking off to them.
I delete the entire folder. Then I climb into bed with Steven. He’ll never know it was me. Even if he suspects, he’ll assume I was only jealous.
I try to settle into bed, but I realize I’m aroused by my close brush with vengeance. So I masturbate, turned on by the idea of hurting him, turned on by the camera, turned on by the video I’ll watch later of me hovering on the edge of murder.
When I’m finished, I tuck us both in and fall quickly asleep.
CHAPTER 35
I’m up before him in the morning, thanks to my not mixing drugs and alcohol. I shower and dress and put eggs and bacon on the stove before returning to the bedroom.
“Good morning, sleepyhead!”
He opens his eyes slowly. “Oh. Hey.”
“I wasn’t sure you were going to wake up. Sleep well?”
“I guess I did.” He stretches hard.
“I’m cooking breakfast. It should be ready in two minutes.”
I’m not a great cook, but I can handle breakfast, at least—not that
I’ve made it for many men. Even if a guy sleeps over, I’m not looking to make him feel cherished.
Steven arrives at the table in sweatpants, rubbing a hand through his tousled hair. He sits down and waits while I find plates and silverware. The timer on his coffee maker kicks in and the machine begins brewing while I serve my lover his plate. Two eggs, three strips of bacon, and a little kiss on the mouth to add sweetness.
“Thanks, babe.”
“You’re welcome.” It’s easy to play the passive, clueless girlfriend this morning because I woke up with a plan. And I think it’s a good one.
“God, I slept great,” he says. “You really wore me out.”
I giggle and serve myself one egg and two strips of bacon like the modest lady I am. “You seemed pretty satisfied.”
He stretches again, then reaches down to scratch his bare belly. I hear the scritching of nails against skin and then he winces. “Huh.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Something bit me.” He’s hunched over, trying to get a good look at the little cuts I left in him.
I get close and crouch down. “Let me look.” I make a show of peering at the tiny marks. “I’m not sure. It looks like maybe something bit you and then you scratched it while you were sleeping.”
He shrugs and rubs his palm over the wounds.
“Or maybe I scratched you during . . . you know.”
He grins. “The superhot sex?”
I mean, I’m not sure what his standard is for hot sex, but it’s obviously pretty low. Still, I giggle and drop back into my chair to eat breakfast. When the machine stops brewing coffee, I pour us each a cup. I hum a little to show that taking care of him makes me so happy.
Before I can move away after delivering his cup, Steven snags my waist and pulls me onto his lap. “So,” he murmurs into my ear, “it seemed like you relaxed after all.”
I titter as he nuzzles my neck. “Maybe.”
“Did you like it, baby?”
“I did. It was better with you than my ex.”
“Hell yeah it was.”
I know I shouldn’t. I really know I shouldn’t, but I didn’t get to carve him open last night and I need a little fun to make up for that. “With him . . . with him it hurt sometimes because he was so big. I hated it.”
Steven jerks back to glare at me and it’s nearly impossible not to burst out laughing at his outrage.
“With you it was real nice.” I try to relax into him with a dreamy sigh, but he’s having none of it. He pushes me off his lap, his mouth twisting in a snarl.
“What a slutty thing to say.”
“What? Why?”
“You’re telling me about another guy’s dick? Are you kidding me?”
“But I said I like yours better! It was a compliment!”
“You shouldn’t even know the difference! But, oh, I forgot: you’ve had a few dozen inside you. You’re running a slut survey of the world.”
“Steven!” I make my chin shake. “Don’t be mean! I liked it, and I don’t always like it, so it was—”
“Oh, I’m being mean? You just threw some other man in my face the morning after we had sex. Do you think I wanted to know about that?”
“No. I—”
“Do you want to hear about my exes? Because my last girlfriend had a great rack. Way bigger than yours. And, yeah, she was skinnier than you too. Fucking hot.”
“I’m sorry,” I say quickly. “I’m sorry, okay? I shouldn’t have said that.”
“Whatever.” He shoves his plate away and stalks to his bedroom to shower.
I lean against the table, laughing too hard to support my body weight. God, I hope he obsesses about my ex’s penis for days. Weeks.
I finish my breakfast and steal his bacon, then scrape the remains of his eggs into the trash. I leave the dirty plates in the sink to give him one more thing to chastise me about later.
He’s supposed to drop me off early so I can change clothes and put on makeup and still have time to get to work, but the shower keeps running and I figure he’s now aiming to make me late. Whatever. I’m not super worried about my thirty-day evaluation. In fact, it’s going to be very hard to drag myself into work today when all I want to do is watch the video of last night over and over again.
But I shouldn’t. Each time I watch I’ll hope for a different ending. I’ll hope for blood and guts and joyful vengeance, and all I’ll get is disappointment.
When Steven finally emerges to drive me home, I’m waiting with an insulated cup I found in the cupboard. “You didn’t get to drink your coffee.”
“Thanks.” He still seems surly about his size issues, but he accepts the coffee and off we go.
As we drive, I spy a small lake at the edge of his neighborhood and recognize a great chance to put the first step of my plan into action. “Is it too cold to go fishing right now?” I ask.
“It’s never too cold for fishing. If the lake freezes over, just drill a hole.”
“I’d love to go sometime. Your dad suggested a fishing trip.”
“Yeah. We could do that.”
I watch him for a moment, then reach out to touch his shoulder. “Steven? Can I go to the cabin with you this weekend if I promise not to tell your dad?”
His eyes widen with surprise. “You really want to go that much?”
“I want to be with you. And I think it would be romantic. No one needs to know.”
“If I take you, I won’t have a hunting partner.”
“I could hunt with you. I won’t make any noise or anything, I promise.”
“It seems like a bad idea. We’d be out in the woods all day. Where would you pee?”
I roll my eyes. “In the bushes. It’s not that hard.”
“I don’t know.”
“Pleeeease? You don’t have to take me out while you hunt if you don’t want to. I could just wait in the cabin for you.” I circle his biceps with my hands and lean in to kiss his neck. “I love you and I want to like everything you like. I promise I’ll make you happy you brought me.”
He chuckles at that. “Oh yeah?”
“Yeah. You’ll be very, very glad. Cross my heart.” When I make the motion, his eyes fall to my breasts.
“Well, how can I pass that up?”
“Eee!” I kiss his cheek several times. “Can I go?”
“Can you be ready on Saturday morning bright and early?”
“Yes.”
“You’ll need to be all packed and ready to leave.”
“Got it. I’ll be ready. I promise.”
“Bring some sexy underwear.”
“You’re so bad.”
I feel better now. I have a plan and it’s easy as pie. Go to a cabin in the woods. Kill him in the forest. Cover it up.
I even have several choices for how to carry this out. I can make it look like I stayed in the cabin and he accidentally shot himself while hunting. I can pretend he was teaching me how to use the rifle and I accidentally fired and killed him. I can stab him and bury his body somewhere deep in the woods, then find a way to get back to the city and pretend I never left.
It’s an embarrassment of riches, really. So many possibilities.
It’s crystal clear to me now. I wanted to destroy his world without putting myself in too much danger. But he has to die. I can’t let him go on with his smug little life. Meg deserves more than that.
It’s settled. Now I’ll be able to enjoy last night’s video with no regrets.
But I’ll wait until after work. Probably.
CHAPTER 36
Luke’s little brother is having an impromptu dinner party, and Luke wants me to come. I don’t have time. I need to find some hunting gear at the secondhand store. I can afford to buy new, but I refuse to spend that much money on something so stupid. Plus, I really shouldn’t leave any trace of my purchases. Better to hit the Salvation Army and pay cash.
Really, there’s no point in me going to this party anyway. My fun with Luke is over. After
this weekend I’ll need to play the worried or grieving girlfriend full-time for a few weeks before I move on. I have to be back in Malaysia in a month.
I like Luke. A lot. He’s great in bed and he makes me feel normal most of the time I’m with him. I’m not ready to give him up, but I have to.
Those are the reasons not to go to this party, but I still find myself saying yes. Have I mentioned that I’m bad at resisting my impulses?
In the hallway at work, I whisper to Steven that I can’t see him tonight because I need to find a coat and boots. He makes a joke about women and shopping. I leave the office at 5:30 and head straight for the store.
The selection isn’t great, but I find boots that almost fit and an ugly camouflage coat that is too large but more than warm enough for November. Good enough.
I put on tight jeans and a nearly sheer gray T-shirt, wind my hair into a tight bun, then accent it all with bright-red lipstick and diamond studs. I told Luke I’d meet him there at 7:30, so I call up a car on my phone and head downstairs.
By the time I arrive, I know Luke has been at his brother’s for a good half hour, but as soon as I get out of the car, he is on the front steps of the little bungalow so I don’t have to walk in by myself. He really is a good guy. It makes sense. That’s why he can’t see how bad I am.
I didn’t have time to find him another gift, and I desperately wish I had something more in my hands than the bottle of wine I brought for his brother. But even when I don’t present a gift, he seems happy to see me.
“You made it,” he says, tugging me into a quick, hot kiss before he reaches to open the door.
“Thank you for thinking of me.”
“Ha. I think about you too much, to be honest.”
I grin at the attention and give him one more kiss as a reward.
“You look beautiful,” he says.
“You have lipstick on your mouth.”
He laughs and swipes his mouth across the sleeve of his dark-blue shirt. “Totally worth it.”
Maybe he’ll miss me when I’m gone. That will be something nice to imagine when I’m alone in a sterile apartment somewhere. Without Meg in my life there’s no one who thinks about me, no one who wonders how I am.
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