by Jeff Strand
Having a girlfriend was a new experience for me and one that I cherished. We saw each other every day, though we didn’t get to spend as much time together as I wanted. Melanie was a straight-A student, but as she frequently said, “I have to struggle for every grade.” I knew that she could get equivalent grades in half the study time, and wasn’t convinced that the fourteenth draft of a term paper could be notably superior to the eleventh, but her obsessive attention to detail was just one of the many, many things I loved about her.
After our first study session together, we were forced to admit that perhaps we were not the best study partners (something vague about kissing being preferable to quizzing each other) and I respected her need to devote much of her free time to schoolwork.
I got a part-time job bussing tables at a much better restaurant than the one I’d bussed tables at during high school. This gobbled up some of my spare time, but I still had time to hang out with Darren. He’d begun to date regularly, and he, Melanie, and I had gone out on a few double dates, each time with a different girl. He and Melanie seemed to get along fine. Darren could be remarkably charming when he put his mind to it.
Melanie and I had a few heavy petting sessions. She was technically a virgin (“but only technically”) and after working out an “if the room’s a-rockin’, don’t come a-knockin’” arrangement with Will, who was still seeing the Goth chick, Melanie and I spent some quality time on my top bunk. I remained a virgin by definition, but a happy one.
Then Will went home for a weekend, and Melanie decided that she was caught up enough in her studies to take the weekend off. I traded shifts at the restaurant and spent all day Saturday and Sunday in my room with her. We dragged the mattress onto the floor, watched bad movies, ate worse pizza, and cuddled.
We fell asleep in each other’s arms.
When we woke up, I told her that I loved her.
She kissed me in response, and for a second I thought she was doing it to avoid an answer, but then she whispered: “I love you, too, Alex.”
We kissed some more, and then made sweet, gentle love.
Then we made sweet, gentle love again.
Then we had some more pizza.
Then we made love once more, though it wasn’t quite as sweet and definitely not as gentle. But it was fun. Lots of fun.
“Oh my God, you’re holding out on me!” said Darren. “You fucked her, didn’t you?”
“Like I’d tell you.”
“Did she come?”
“Like I’d tell you.”
“Is she loud?”
“Like I’d tell you.”
“Was she a wild animal? Did she hurt you? Do you want me to check you for claw marks?”
“I’m not telling you a damn thing,” I said, putting on my best smug expression. “You’ll just have to use your imagination. Your vivid, wet, dripping imagination.”
“That’s just gross.”
“And yet I feel no regret for saying it.”
“I hope you were careful.”
“Of course.”
“Because you know, when a man and a woman love each other a lot, they take off their clothes and try to make a baby.”
“Shut up, dork.”
“Well, I’m happy for you,” said Darren. “I’d shake your hand to congratulate you, but I have a pretty good idea about where it’s been.”
“Sleaze.”
“Don’t call me a sleaze! You’re the one who’s out there engaging in rampant sexual activity. Oh, by the way, you won’t find this in any book, but the first time you have sex your testicles swell up to watermelon-size and you have to hide yourself from society for a few weeks. It’s a ritual that people don’t like to talk about. It takes about two days for the swelling to begin…when did you do her again?”
“I can’t believe I’m hanging out with you instead of her.”
“I know. Why is that?”
“She’s studying.”
“Ah. So are you going to keep seeing her, or are you going to dump her like a scoundrel and move on to the next conquest?”
“I told her I loved her.”
Darren raised an eyebrow. “Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Did she say ‘I love you’ back?”
“She sure did.”
“Wow. That’s great.” His expression turned serious. “To celebrate, I’m going to quit making any and all crude comments about you two. I’m serious. If you two are in love, I couldn’t be happier.”
“Thanks.”
“I meant after this conversation, of course. How did her pussy taste?”
“You are such a prick.”
“Kidding. I’m just kidding. Congratulations, man. You deserve it. And I mean that.”
“Thanks.”
Two days later, Darren and I walked into my room. Will was seated at his desk, reading a new book about serial killers.
“Hi, Psycho-Boy,” said Darren, plopping down on the floor in front of the television.
“Hi,” Will replied, not looking up from his book. “How was class?” he asked me.
“Not too bad. How was yours?”
“Eh.”
“Yeah.” I glanced at the wall, frowned, and then stepped over to look more closely. I felt a sudden burst of rage beyond anything I’d ever experienced. “You sick motherfucker!”
Chapter Fifteen
“What the hell…?” asked Will, flinching and nearly falling back in his chair.
I tore the picture off the wall. It was a black-and-white picture of Melanie (a photocopy of the same one I kept on my desk) that had been doctored to look like she was a severed head. The only color was the red blood gushing out of her mouth.
“You think that’s funny?” I demanded, waving the picture in his face. “You think that’s fucking funny?”
“I didn’t do that! I didn’t even see it there!”
“Bullshit!”
Darren stood up and hurried over. “Hey, hey, calm down, there’s no reason to…oh, Christ.”
I glanced back at the wall. The severed head picture wasn’t the only one of Melanie. Her face had been taped to a shot of a woman strapped to a gurney, several knives protruding from her chest. Another picture had her hanging from a meat hook, while yet another showed Melanie dismembered, her body parts stacked in a pile, bloody head on top.
I tore them down.
“Is that your sense of humor?” Darren asked. “Or were you really planning to do that?”
“I didn’t—” Will protested, right before I took a swing at him.
He blocked it easily. “You sick fuck!” I screamed, not caring if the entire goddamn dorm could hear. “You sick motherfucker!”
“It wasn’t me! Chill the hell out!”
I threw another punch. Will grabbed my hand and tried to hold on to it, but I pulled free. Darren came up behind him, dragged Will out of his chair, and pulled him to his feet.
“You touch Melanie, we’ll fuckin’kill you,” Darren said, wrenching Will’s arms behind his back.
“Get your hands off me!” Will shouted, struggling violently.
I looked at the picture of Melanie on the floor and punched Will in the face as hard as I could. His head rocketed back against Darren’s face, and as it slumped forward, I could see blood spurting from Darren’s nose.
“Oh, jeez, I’m—”
“It’s fine! Hit the fucker!”
I punched Will again, so blinded by fury that the punch didn’t even hurt my hand. Actually, it felt good. Invigorating.
The door flew open. “Knock it off!” I heard Michael, our resident advisor, shout.
I raised my fist to deliver another punch, but hesitated. “You do that again and I’ll kill you!” I screamed at Will.
“Enough!” Michael shouted, pulling me away. “Let him go!” he told Darren.
Darren shoved Will to the floor. He hit the ground hard, groaning in pain. I tried to pull free of Michael, to kick that son of a bitch in the stomach whil
e he was down, but Michael was a big guy and his grip was too tight.
“Enough, I said!” Michael repeated. “Everybody calm down! I’ll call the police if I have to, so let’s get through this.”
For a moment nobody spoke. We just stood there, catching our breath.
“What happened?” Michael asked.
Darren picked up one of the pictures and handed it to Michael. Michael sucked in a deep breath. “Jesus, Will, that’s not funny.”
“I didn’t do it,” said Will from the floor.
“If he touches her, I’ll fucking kill him,” I said.
“Okay, now Alex, you really need to just calm down,” Michael told me. “He wasn’t threatening your girlfriend; he just has a warped sense of humor.” He looked back at the doorway and the crowd that had gathered outside. “All of you, get back to your rooms, I’m handling this.”
Will lifted his head and wiped his bloody mouth off on his sleeve. “I didn’t do it. It was probably your friend.”
“Yeah, right,” said Darren. “I’m so into the idea of covering the walls with shredded corpses.”
Now my hand was really starting to hurt, and with the initial rage fading, I wished I hadn’t attacked Will like that. It had obviously been a joke. A joke that wasn’t the least bit amusing, but still, a joke intended to be harmless.
“It wasn’t me,” Will insisted, looking at me.
My stomach lurched as I suddenly realized that I believed him.
“I don’t want to have to make a big issue out of this,” said Michael. “Alex, you’re going to be my roommate tonight. Will, I’m going to get you to the nurse. You, too,” he said, nodding at Darren.
Darren wiped some blood off his nose and looked at his hand. “I’m okay,” he said with a smile. “It was worth it to watch that freak get what he deserved.”
“Fuck you,” said Will.
“Okay, go back to your own dorm,” Michael told Darren. “Until we get this sorted out, I’m going to ask you to stay away.”
Darren shrugged. “Not a problem. Alex, I’ll give you a call.” He walked out of the room, letting blood drip onto his shirt.
“I’m sorry, Will,” I said, feeling queasy.
“Go to hell.”
“Enough! Alex, do you need ice for your hand?”
“No, I’m okay.”
Michael helped Will to his feet. “We’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere.”
“I won’t.”
Michael led Will out of the room. The crowd of spectators hadn’t dissipated, so I shut the door.
I sat down at Will’s desk, gathered up the pictures, and tore them to pieces, ignoring the pain in my hand as I did so. I wanted to burn them, dunk them in the kerosene I used for my flaming torches, but that had been confiscated weeks ago.
No way in hell had Will made those pictures.
I picked up the phone and dialed Melanie’s number.
“Hello?” she asked on the third ring.
“Hey.”
“Hi! How’s it going?”
“All right.”
“Are you okay? You sound weird.”
“No, no, I’m fine. I just wanted to call.”
“I’m glad you did.”
“I need you to do me a favor.”
“Sure. Anything.”
“Just…just make sure you keep your door locked tonight, okay?”
There was a long silence on the other end.
“You there?” I asked.
“Yeah. Is there something wrong, Alex?”
“No, there’s nothing wrong. It was a funny dream I had, that’s all. Sorry if I scared you. Look, I should go, I fell asleep at my desk and woke up in the middle of a nightmare, no big deal.”
“We can talk as long as you want.”
“No, you need to get some sleep; you’ve got an early class.”
“I could come over.”
“No, really, I’m fine. Just got kind of spooked.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
I wrote Michael a note promising him that everything was fine and that I’d be back in the morning and slipped it under his door. Then I left the building, walked to Melanie’s dorm, and found a good vantage point where I could sit outside and keep watch throughout the night.
As the first students started to emerge from their dorms and head off to class, I walked to Darren’s room and knocked on his door.
“Hey, Alex,” he said, grinning as he answered. His nose was red and swollen. “That was one hell of a punch you threw. I think you probably hurt me as bad as you did him.”
“Can I come inside?”
“Jeez, aren’t we Mr. Formal? Yeah, c’mon in.”
I walked inside his room. Darren shut the door behind me, then went across the room and plopped down on his bed. “Did you even sleep?”
I shook my head.
“Why not? Hand hurt too much?”
“My hand’s fine. Did you do the pictures?”
“Dude! I adore Melanie! You’re all glowy and stuff when you’re around her. I’d never do something like that. Why would you even think that?”
“Because Will said he didn’t do it and I believe him.”
“You believe that freak?”
“Yeah, I do.”
“I’m hurt. I’m really hurt. Do you really think that putting up death pictures of your girlfriend is something I’d do?”
“You faked a journal to get my friends kicked out of school.”
Darren let out an incredulous laugh. “I was twelve! Holy shit, I thought we were long over that!”
“I thought we were, too.”
“How could I have even done it? I don’t have a key.”
“You’ve heard me complaining to Will lots of times that he leaves the door unlocked.”
“So, what, you think I made up some pictures of Melanie, snuck into your room, stuck ’em on your wall, and waited for you to blame Will?”
“Yeah.”
“Why would I do that?”
“That’s what I’m here to find out.”
Darren gave a slight nod. “Did you notice that you haven’t backed down?”
“Huh?”
“You haven’t backed down. I said I didn’t do it, and you didn’t apologize and pretend everything was okay.”
“So?”
“So that’s good. How did it feel to punch him?”
“That’s not what this is about.”
“That’s exactly what this is about. How did it feel?”
“It felt good.”
Darren grinned. “That’s how it was supposed to feel.”
“It felt good when I did it, because I was more pissed off than I’ve been in my entire life. Then I realized that he wasn’t the one who deserved it, and it felt absolutely sickening.”
“That’s understandable. But you can get over that. Focus on how good it felt to finally let that son of a bitch know what you thought about him.”
“That’s not what I thought about him. I made a mistake.”
Darren was silent for a long moment. “Do you want a Coke or something? I’ve got some in the fridge.”
“No.”
“Yeah, I made the pictures. But don’t flip out on me…hear me out, okay?”
I nodded as I clenched my fists.
“I swear to you, it wasn’t because I have any bad feelings about Melanie. None at all. I just wanted you to let out some frustration. It felt good, right?”
I didn’t respond.
“Yeah, it felt good,” said Darren, standing up. “If we’d thought to lock the door, I could’ve held him while you beat him into a bloody smear.”
“He didn’t do anything.”
“Maybe not. But it still would’ve felt good.”
“You stay away from Melanie.”
“You’re not listening, Alex. This isn’t about Melanie. This is about you. This is about feelings that you have that you need to let out. I watch you. I know what you’re l
ike.”
“What am I like?”
“You’re like me.”
I shook my head. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but I don’t want to see you ever again.”
Darren chuckled uncomfortably. “Are you breaking up with me? Shouldn’t we have a trial separation first?”
“It’s not funny.”
“No, it’s not. I’m sorry.” He crouched down, reached underneath his mattress, and withdrew a dark red pocketknife. It looked just like the one he’d had as a kid. The one he’d used to cut up Killer Fang. He snapped out the blade, rested it on his mattress, and stepped away. “Pick it up,” he told me.
“Why?”
“I want you to cut me.”
“You want me to what?”
“Cut me.” He bent his left arm in front of his chest. “Not deep or anything, not so that I need stitches, but a few cuts to draw blood.”
“There’s something really wrong with you,” I said, turning toward the door.
“No! Hear me out! Please!”
I turned back to face him.
“Take the knife and slash my arm a few times. I promise I won’t retaliate. I just want you to know how it feels.”
Suddenly I understood. “You want to tell the cops that I cut you, right? Show them my fingerprints on the knife? Nice try, asshole.”
“No, no, but that’s good. Calling me an asshole is good. How about this? Tell me what to cut. Nothing deep, nothing to get me sent to the hospital, and I won’t mark up my face, but anything else is fair game. Tell me where to cut myself and I’ll do it.”
“So, what, you’re a sadomasochist now? Get some help, Darren!”
Darren violently shook his head. “No, you’ve got it all wrong. I don’t want to cut myself. But I want you to see how it feels to make me do it.”
“I’m outta here.”
Darren quickly grabbed the knife and lifted his shirt. “Tell me to do it.”
“No way in hell.”
“Damn it!” Darren flung the knife at the mattress. I flinched as it bounced up, thinking that it might fly across the room at me, but it struck the wall beside the bed and dropped to the ground.
“I just wanted to help you,” Darren said, his voice weak.
“Get help for yourself first,” I told him. I left the room. He didn’t follow me.