Dimly, Through Glass

by Knight, Dirk

  Dennis is immediate in his mount. Using his considerable weight advantage, he immobilizes her, wraps a leather-clad hand around her slender neck then starts to squeeze. He can see the panic in her eyes amplified by the tension in his hands. He has to turn his eyes away to avoid being scratched by her flailing, weak fists.

  He dimly hears shouts from Jiménez. Dennis has been so tangled up in the moment, the thrill, and the lust, that he missed the warnings of the large man now bearing down on him with a tire iron. He missed the sounds of this man’s pickup truck sliding to a halt behind his Acura. If not for his need to protect his eyes from the black and purple gothic-painted nails of the small girl, he would not have turned his head, and instead would have been stilled under the iron weight of the tire tool.

  Dennis springs back just in time to miss the lug-nut-socket end of the bar as it collides with the aluminum doorframe. The man is enormous and swings with the might of a lumberjack. Though not a bladed edge, the metal carves a thin slice into the crater it leaves behind, shearing the aluminum.

  As he falls back, Dennis’s posterior finds what feels like a jagged rock or random beer bottle and feels the whatever-it-is tear through his overpriced slacks and into the meat of his ass. The lumberjack is holding the rod out, pointed at Dennis’s face, as if he is keeping hungry wolves at bay with a torch.

  “Are you okay? Can you walk?” he asks the girl in an explosion of voice.

  “I think . . . I think my leg might be broken.”

  The crack of the handgun echoes across the barren field. The tiny slug carries enough momentum to slam the lumberjack back into the fender of the car, his white t-shirt reddening as he looks down to his wound, puzzled. He coughs for breath once, then again, before his eyes become as limp as the rest of his body.

  The girl tries to run-crawl-limp away, fighting against her busted limb, but doesn’t get too far into the sand and thistle before Dennis catches up, flips her body over with his Italian leather shoes, and mounts her again. Before he can apply his python vice to her throat once more, she sharply raises her knee to meet his testicles. Dennis rolls off her into the sand, and she brings both of her hands together into a massive ball of knuckle, and collectively down on his ear like a hammer, deafening him.

  Presently his phone, which has spilled from his pocket along with his keys and some Chapstick, erupts in song. Just as she reaches for the device and slides the lock screen to answer the call, and screams, Dennis regains his bearings, fumbles to end the call, and smashes the butt of the .38 down on her forehead.

  The wrestling match now over, Dennis collects his few items, hoists the slender girl onto his shoulders, and carries her back to her bashed Lumina. For good measure, and because she seems to be a fighter, he—not without considerable effort—rolls the lumberjack’s body on top of her, posed in a lazy coitus, to keep her pinned in case she should rouse before Dennis is through with her car.

  Jiménez tells him how to cover his tracks, and Dennis listens obediently. He collects the items from his spilled pockets.

  Using the multi-tool, he strips the Vehicle Identification Number from the driver door panel and dash, so that authorities cannot identify the vehicle.

  He converts the handheld tool into a Philips and removes the license plate.

  “You’re coming with me, Tater Tot,” he says, looking over his shoulder to insure she hasn’t crept away, and tosses her license plate near her body.

  The seatbelt saw is now produced from the convenient tool. Dennis extends and removes a length of the nylon safety harness. Knowing the girl is a smoker, he searches the floorboards, the backseat, and even the center console, before eventually finding her lighter.

  He pulls the gas cap release handle in the floorboard and then stuffs the length of the nylon belt into the opening that leads to the fuel supply.

  It takes all of his might to deadlift the lumberjack of a man, but he manages with a little leverage and adrenaline to get him installed in the passenger seat before igniting the fuse.

  The nylon seatbelt produces a thick, acrid smoke as it catches fire, and small flaming droplets of burning liquid napalm spatter onto the desert floor.

  Dennis collects his prisoner, the license plate, and the VIN placards, along with the girl’s cigarettes and lighter, and dumps them all into the trunk of his scratched and dusty Acura TL.

  With his hands full and his mind occupied he doesn’t think of the broken beer bottle.

  He doesn’t have time to deal with the Samaritan’s pickup in the same fashion, and is watching in his rearview when the nylon meets the unleaded and the flames lick the edges of the sky.

  Dennis cautiously pulls off the shoulder, trying to enjoy for as long as he can the fiery display behind him.

  Once back in route, he produces his phone, asks Jiménez to sit quietly for a moment, and returns the call that he hung up on during the hostility. He doesn’t recognize the number, but he does recognize the voice that answers.

  “Hey Larry, it’s Dennis. You called?”

  —

  “Yeah, sorry about that, I was listening to a book on CD, didn’t mean to answer but it was at a good part so I hung up. Thanks for calling me back. Hey listen, I got a call from my ex-girlfriend today saying that detective showed up at my place . . .”

  —

  “Oh, he called you too?”

  —

  “Well, I’m headed up to visit my parents, in Show Low—”

  —

  “No, I think she’s still there, I just really didn’t want to talk to her. Say, could you do me a favor? I was wondering if you could get rid of her for me. You know, just tell her I’m going to be out of town and ask her to lock up . . .”

  —

  “You sure you don’t mind?”

  —

  “Thanks, it’s just . . . I don’t want to tell her why I left her there, and she’ll get all bitchy. Plus I don’t want her there if the cop comes back. You were right about him, by the way; he’s an asshole.”

  —

  “Alright, thank you, Larry.”

  Taking it Back

  She sits alone in the twenty-third floor apartment. She sits on the patio, looking as the tiny ants of society meander below. She sits in the living room, as the actors and actresses play on the television. She sits on the floor of the shower, legs partially blocking the drain, feeling lonely and used . . . again.

  After her elongated and steamy shower, Libby also starts to meander a bit. She pulls down boxes from the closet, feeling confident that, since her assortment of phone calls and text messages have gone unanswered, she has free rein of the apartment.

  She discovers a collection of handwritten journals in black composition books bespotted and bespeckled with white. The journals seem to date back to Dennis’s teen years. The journals intrigue her. The words only somewhat frighten her.

  Some of the entries discuss methods and best practices surrounding murder. Some revel in the longings of a rapist.

  She should leave.

  She should pack up all the pills and his stash of weed and get in her Suburban; never come back. She should, but she is really quite interested in reading through to the end, if there is one.

  She is intrigued with the journals as if they were a new novel. As if they were made-up tales to scare readers and not the psychotic ramblings of the man she’s been balling. Libby is caught in the headlights, and isn’t all too surprised at what she’s reading. She isn’t learning anything she hasn’t suspected before. She is with him in part because of the scary side he lets out when he’s drinking. The side he reveals when she’s told him of an indiscretion or secret desire.

  Having read enough to convince herself that Dennis is not as mild mannered as she’d once thought, and that his desires travel far beyond the occasional rough sex accompanied by a firm backhand and choking, and is, in fact, something more sinister, she slams the journal down on the bed with the others.

  The knock at the door catches her off
guard, and she hides behind the jamb in the bedroom, as if the very resounding thud had the power to harm her. She hasn’t any designs on opening the door, sure it’s the cop again, and that Dennis will be in trouble. She’s even concerned a little that she, herself, may be in trouble; feeling guilty for having read the words that were scrawled so darkly into the comp books. She feels helpless and afraid, hiding as she does in the shower after Dennis has had his way with her, when the person who’d knocked dampens her fears by calling her name.

  “Libby, I know you’re in there. Dennis sent me to speak with you. My name is Larry Whesker, and I’m his attorney”

  She opens the door sheepishly, revealing a tall and pudgy, though slightly appealing man with salt and pepper hair, a stern look stapled across his brow, and five o’clock shadow.

  She likes his mouth.

  The way it is pursed and tight, with purpose; pre-moistened and yearning to flap. She surmises instantly that he is the type of man who likes to hear himself talk.

  His hazel eyes fix upon her as she more confidently opens the door wider, to reveal her exposed legs completely displayed under one of Dennis’s button down shirts. She giddily takes notice as the lawyer scours her form, tracing the lines of her physique as she is outlined in the backlit blouse, taking in her dampened curls of hair, and the beads of water on her shoulders and neckline, remnants of her sorrowful shower.

  The determined and obviously rehearsed statement he was set to deliver seem to be caught in his throat and he is much less cognizant of what he needs to say. This is because while he cannot take his eyes off of her, they are twitching back and forth between her long, exposed legs and the shadows of her nipple erections, plainly visible through her warm wet white shirt.

  He finally makes eye contact with her again when she extends her hand to accept his formal greeting, albeit a floundering one.

  He tells her that Dennis is concerned with her being here and speaking with the police. Tells her that the detective, Staley, with whom she’d met, was a real hard-case and was no stranger to harassment. He tells her that Dennis has taken a leave, using vacation time at work, and has split town; that he is sorry he didn’t tell her himself.

  Larry tells her she needs to leave.

  She asks where he’s gone, but the lawyer claims ignorance, or attorney client privilege—she is not exactly listening in detail, so much as waiting for her turn to talk. She is angry, indignant, and feels victimized. With him hovering over her she starts for her purse, prepared to leave quickly, when she notices a message waiting on her phone.

  “Speak of the devil,” she says. The message tells her to expect the lawyer. She is curious why he has provided this warning, and if he really wants her to leave.

  Yearning for control, to be the one with power, she offers him a drink. She tells him she was just about to shower, that she will leave after, and that he really shouldn’t be here while she is so . . . exposed.

  Whesker, pointing to her still-damp hair and perpetually being an attorney, questions, gently, the need for a shower so soon after she’s just had one. She notifies him that she may not need a shower just yet, but will soon.

  She turns away and saunters into the adjoining bedroom, looking over her shoulder as she does, and pulling her shirt forward enough to reveal the crease where her legs and ass meet in a glorious symphony of female architecture. She bends at the waist, legs taught and straight, stretching her panties down to the carpeted floor and revealing her pussy in full glory to the legal counsel, who appears to be taking the stand in his two hundred dollar pants.

  She flicks the still-warm panties with her foot and they hit him squarely in the jaw. He catches them, and quickly closes the gap as she sits on the edge of the cluttered mattress and separates her knees. He doesn’t question her motives, nor does he seem to care that she is his client’s lover.

  He falls, willingly, into her Rube Goldberg device of seduction, as a tumbling piece with no idea his single purpose. She points down to her tiny pink gash, and he dives headlong, again without question: his knees popping as he crouches are the only sounds of argument from the man. She lies back and lets him work her with his mouth. She tosses the journals off the bed, pushing them about in all directions, almost as if she were making a snow angel in the pile of books. One jams under the pillow, she kicks the near-empty box she’d gotten from the closet off into the floor to join the psychotic journals.

  Her breath becomes ragged and hitches in her throat as she edges closer and closer to climax. She screams overdramatically in exaltation and grasps fistfuls of his graying hair, pulling many from root and drowning his face in her juices as she continues to cum.

  She pulls her hands away, tufts of his hair in the crooks of her fingers spread out like a Japanese fan and pulls her knees to her chest softly.

  Larry stands, knees cracking like a burning log once again, and he unbuckles his pants. She lets him get his cock in hand and prone on her slippery oyster before she stifles him. He thrusts the tip in as she starts to push away.

  He tries to mount her. She stops him with a solid kick to his soft midsection and tells him that he needs to leave. She feigns injury from his attempt to enter her. As if he had crossed the line, and had not been invited.

  “I’m going to take that shower and leave, but you need to go, now, before I get any more upset, and tell Dennis that you took advantage of me.”

  Confused, but well aware of the potential consequences that a stupid bimbo can create simply by changing her mind after an orgasm, he buckles his belt and exits quickly. He stops at the door, intent on calling back to her that she really must go, but loses heart when he sees that she’s now sitting Indian style with the sheets pulled up to her chin, with a childish look of hurt on her face. Like a toddler who’s been scolded for stealing cookies before dinner. He closes the door behind himself in disgust.

  “What a cunt,” he says to himself, but loud enough for her to hear. The forced look of fear and hurt shatter the second she hears his words.

  The corners of her mouth curl up as her elation builds. She loved taking the power from that bull of a man.

  He didn’t have what Dennis had.

  He may walk around in his expensive suits, no doubt drives a new Mercedes every year, and she wagers he pays a hooker twice a week to go out with him on fancy dinners, like Pretty Woman, but he hadn’t had the balls to get what he wanted from her, otherwise she would have given it to him. She had broken him down in minutes, and he knew it.

  This is just a glimmer of what he must feel, she thinks, of Dennis.

  Her whole life she has played second fiddle to her older brother. He was always the star pupil; he had all the friends. When he got a little older, he became the “bad boy” that got all the attention and who had friends with drugs and money. She had been reduced to a second-class citizen aboard his ship.

  Right now, she feels first class. She absorbed the power from the attorney and sent him away battle-weakened and defeated.

  She’s not ready to relinquish the power, just yet.

  She had helped Dennis set up his new iPhone, when he bought it. She knows his password, and just now realized the significance; it’s the date of his father’s death.

  He probably uses the same password for everything, she thinks.

  Quickly pulling on her shorts, again, and darting to the sofa, she pulls out her smart phone and thumbs the “find my phone” app.

  Taking a shot in the dark, she enters Dennis’s email address and the date of his father’s death, as it was in the journal. After a few moments’ hesitation, the screen reflects a satellite image with a bright blue blip.

  “There you are, you son-of-a-bitch!” she shouts at the phone.

  Her heart pumps harder. Her blood vessels loosen up and she feels warmth spreading through her chest and body. Her senses are alive and she has the sensation of having to take a shit, it’s a precursor of things to come, like just before you do cocaine and your body is fully expecting
the high that will come soon. She doesn’t know how else to describe the feeling, but, nonetheless, that’s what happens.

  She hurriedly dresses for the cold that awaits her outside in her SUV and leaves the apartment.

  Thinking she may be paranoid from her heightened senses, and more concerned with monitoring Dennis’s movements on the satellite feed, she dismisses the car that is following her.

  Molly Ringwald

  The television buzzes in the background as Staley wanders through the kitchen, grabbing first a beer, then pecking about in the pantry in search of a bag of pistachios. He’s home earlier than usual, tonight. There’s finally been a break in the action and he knows as well as any dick, you gotta get the sleep when you have a chance, but he can’t sleep. Never has been able to; could never quiet the thoughts enough to shut down his brain. Coming home is just a ritual he keeps up for the sake of Molly Ringwald, his bright orange cat.

  With his arms full—three bottles of beer, the bag of pistachios, a can of Pringles, and a bag of tuna-flavored treats for Molly—he settles in on the couch and turns the volume to a reasonable level. He tosses a few of the rank nuggets on the floor for the cat to chase and pulls a hard swig off the open beer. He looks to his wedding ring as he sets the beer down with a clang on the glass table.

  Molly was her idea; she thought the name was cute, and that it would be fun to introduce the cat to guests at dinner parties. Dinner parties, she had said not so subtly, which he never attended, forcing him to buy the cat, which he hated.

  Molly hates him too, as best as he can tell. She uses him for food and the occasional leg to bristle up against, but he knows she’s secretly plotting his murder: a trip getting out of the bath, an infected scratch, or suffocation while sleeping.

  Like his wedding ring, Molly serves as a reminder that he’d failed another marriage, and that rather than be present for a relationship, he would continue to collect souvenirs, even little furry orange ones. He cannot get rid of the cat any more than he can bring himself to shed the gold band.