Held, Pushed, and 22918 (3 Complete Novels)

by Kimberly A Bettes

  “I guess I better get back. This money ain’t gon’ make itself. That’s for damn sho’.” She flicked her cigarette butt onto the ground and started to get back in the car.

  Deciding to just do this as quickly as possible, I said, “Hey. What do you say we do it again before you go?”

  She turned to face me. “Again? Ain’tchu had enough?”

  “What can I say? I like it.” I shrugged and smiled at her, throwing out my best charm.

  “Alright then.” She quickly held out her hand. “But it ain’t gon’ be free.”

  “I know.” I fished the money from my wallet and handed it to her.

  When we got to the back of the car, she hiked up her skirt again and said, “I hope you don’t wanna do that again. I don’t know if I could take two times in a row. It chafes my ass.”

  “No, no. We won’t do that again. And this time will be much quicker.”

  “That’s good then.”

  She bent over the tailgate just as she had before. I took a second to look at her and enjoy the fact that she was completely submissive to me. It gave me such a feeling of power and control. I loved it.

  After a minute ticked by she asked, “Whatchu waitin’ for?”

  I did what I promised I’d do. I kept to the front and made it quick. She must’ve been shocked by my big finish, taken by surprise when the blade of the knife sunk into the back of her neck just as I exploded into her for the second time. She didn’t say anything though and how could she? She was dead.

  Blood spurted from the hole in her neck when I pulled the knife free. I wiped the blood from the blade using her shirt, and then I put the knife back in the pocket of my jeans. It sure was a handy tool to have around.

  After fastening my jeans, I lifted her legs and pushed her body further into the bed of the Ranchero. Then I closed the tailgate. That was much easier than I thought it would be.

  Driving through the city, I kept to the side streets, making sure to follow the speed limit and obey all other traffic laws. The very last thing I needed was to get pulled over with a dead hooker in the car.

  When I neared the house I slowed down and killed the lights. I pulled into the driveway slowly and looked around. No lights were on in any of the nearby houses and the sidewalks were deserted.

  My only problem now was to get the whore out of my car and onto the lawn. I would’ve loved to have put her in the house, but that was out of the question.

  She wasn’t as heavy as I’d imagined she would be. Well she probably was, but after spending the past few months doing yard work, it wasn’t as hard for me to move her as I thought it would be. Lifting bags of fertilizer, raking, moving wheelbarrows full of dirt, laying sod, and other miscellaneous tasks had done wonders for my physique. I’d even lost the extra weight around my midsection that I’d acquired over the winter. I hadn’t really noticed my body until that moment. I was impressed, and I made a mental note to marvel at myself in front of the mirror later when I got out of the shower.

  After pulling the dead woman’s body around to the back yard I went to the shed to get the shovel. I picked a spot right out in the open and began to dig.

  A few yards over, a dog barked. I wasn’t too worried about it since it sounded like a small dog and those yappy bastards barked at everything. Had it been a big dog I might’ve been afraid that someone would come out to see what had riled the beast up at such an hour.

  When the hole was big enough to accommodate the whore’s body I stopped digging. I removed her shoes and took the money from between her tits. Earlier I’d wondered what all she kept in between those mountainous knockers of her. Now I knew. A wad of cash—the bills damp with perspiration, a tube of lipstick, a crumpled pack of cigarettes, a lighter, and a small comb. I had to wonder why she didn’t just carry a purse.

  I put the lipstick in my pocket and rolled her into the hole, covering her body with dirt before returning the shovel to the shed.

  Before I left, I took one more look at my handiwork. One of the hooker’s arms stuck up out of the ground from her fingertips to her elbow and her butt wasn’t completely covered with dirt. It was a sloppy burial, but that was the way it was supposed to be. She needed to be easily seen.

  On the way back to my car I quietly overturned patio chairs, tipped over the table, trampled some flowers, and dropped each of the whore’s shoes in the driveway, about thirty feet apart. Both could be seen from the street.

  I got in my car and quietly drove away, only turning my headlights on when I turned the corner at the end of the street. I drove straight home and made a phone call.

  “North Kansas City Police Department.”

  “Yeah, I’d like to report some suspicious activity at my neighbor’s house.”

  “What kind of suspicious activity, sir?”

  “I think something’s happening over there. Something bad.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Earlier I heard someone screaming next door, and that was followed by sounds of a struggle. Now I hear what sounds like digging.”

  “You can hear digging?”

  “I don’t know for sure that it’s digging, but that’s what it sounds like. I can’t see into the yard, but I’ve opened my back door so I can hear better and it sure sounds like a shovel scraping against dirt. You need to send somebody to check this out. My neighbor’s been acting strange lately. There’s no telling what he’s done over there.”

  “What’s the address, sir?”

  I gave them the address of the asshole who wanted his lawn mowed north to south instead of east to west. When the police dispatcher promised to send someone out to check on things, I hung up and laughed, knowing that even if he didn’t get convicted of murder, at least his life would be turned upside-down for a while. Then I took a shower and went to bed, completely satisfied both sexually and mentally.

  11

  Killing that hooker renewed my passion and desire for both murder and prostitutes, the two things I loved more than anything else. By the fall of 1973, I was back in the swing of things. The only worry I’d had was that after summer ended, I wouldn’t be able to afford hookers. With no lawns to mow, no hedges to trim, my biggest fear was running out of money. Fortunately that didn’t happen. With all the gutters to clean and yards to rake, I had just as much money as before. And as the holidays neared, I earned even more money putting up decorations for people who wanted to be cheery and festive but either didn’t want or wasn’t able to do all the work that went with it.

  You couldn’t forget that it was almost Halloween even if you wanted to. Nearly every house was adorned with pumpkins and cobwebs and other decorations, most of which I was paid to put up. I imagined all the excited little kids that lived in those houses who just couldn’t wait to dress up and go out begging for candy. Hell, I was a kid once. I knew the drill, even though many of my Halloweens had been ruined by a whiny Cathy Ann complaining that she was cold and tired until my mother decided that we should call it a night and head home. According to my mother, we had enough candy. As if there was such a thing as enough candy.

  The Saturday before Halloween I made my way home from the liquor store with a couple of twelve-packs of beer resting on the passenger seat next to me. It had been one hell of a week and I was ready to get drunk, jack off, and go to sleep. It would’ve been nice to have a whore around, but I was too tired to mess with it.

  As I pulled into the driveway, I noticed a man walking up the sidewalk to my house. For a second I sat in the car watching him, wondering who he was and what he was doing at my house after 8:00 PM. When he rang the doorbell, I got out and crossed the lawn to join him.

  The front door opened before I made it to the porch. My mother stood in the doorway, smiling at this stranger. At first, I tried to figure out whether or not she knew the guy. Then I noticed what she was wearing. A pink and black poodle skirt, a pink sweater, white socks, and black and white saddle shoes.

  “Mom?”

  It was on
ly then, when I spoke to her, that she tore her attention away from this man and acknowledged me.

  “Oh, hello, Lester. I didn’t expect you back so soon.”

  “Who’s this?” I asked, pointing to but not looking at the man standing beside me.

  “This is Fred.”

  “Okay. Who the hell is Fred?”

  “Fred is a friend of mine. He’s taking me to a Halloween party this evening.”

  I turned my head and glared at Fred, noticing that even though he was dressed in jeans and a leather jacket, he was my mother’s age, possibly even older. Then I understood what was going on. They were dressed as a couple from the ‘50s.

  Suddenly a knot formed in my stomach and I wondered if they were a couple for real.

  From Fred, I turned my glare to my mother.

  “I’ll only be a second, Fred. I have to grab my purse.” She turned and went inside to retrieve her purse, leaving Fred and me standing on the porch. Ignoring Fred, I followed her into the house, slamming the door behind me.

  As she flitted from room to room through the house, my mother said, “Can you imagine? Me? Going to a party? Isn’t it silly? I haven’t been to a party in such a long time.”

  “How long have you known Fred?” I asked, following her through the house.

  “For quite a while.”

  “How long is quite a while?”

  “Oh I don’t know. A few years, I suppose. Why?”

  I blurted out, “Are you dating him?”

  She hesitated. I’d expected—well, I’d hoped she would respond immediately with some sort of denial, telling me how silly I was to even think she could possibly ever date anyone other than my father. Instead, she hesitated.

  “Lester…” She wouldn’t look at me.

  “Are you dating him?” I shouted.

  She whirled around to face me, her purse in her hand. “Yes. Yes, I am dating him, Lester.”

  Shocked, I couldn’t speak. I had plenty to say, but I couldn’t make any of it come out of my mouth. My throat had closed up on me, betraying me every bit as much as my mother had.

  My mother began walking back toward the front door.

  “How long?” I finally managed to ask.

  “Years, Lester. I’ve been dating Fred for years.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  With one hand on the door knob, she turned to face me. For the first time in a long time, she actually looked at me. Eye to eye.

  “Frankly, Lester, I don’t have to tell you. It’s not your business. But I wanted to. I really did. It’s just that…”

  “That what?”

  “It’s just that our relationship, yours and mine, isn’t what it used to be. I don’t feel as though I can tell you things. So I keep them to myself.”

  She said it all lightly, as if she wasn’t twisting a knife in my heart as she spoke.

  She then opened the door and was greeted by Fred, who reached just inside the door and picked up my mother’s little blue suitcase. I hadn’t even noticed it before. It was sitting just inside the doorway, packed and ready to go. As the door closed behind them and they headed out to have a fantastic time without me, it hit me what had been going on the whole time. My mother had never spent the weekends with her friends. She’d spent them all with Fred. Every weekend she had lied to me. Every damn weekend.

  The sound of the door closing masked the breaking of my heart. My whole world shattered around me. I felt lied to and betrayed by the only person in the world I was certain would never do such a thing. When I heard the car pull away, I screamed. I absolutely lost it, flipping furniture and throwing lamps and even putting my fist through the wall. I was pissed, absolutely furious with the one woman in the world I thought would always love me. But she didn’t. How could she love me and lie to me?

  Seething with rage, I got in my car and raced across town, heading to the only place I knew I could feel better.

  I could’ve picked up the first whore I saw. Hell, I could’ve been picked up any one of the next thirty I saw. But I didn’t. I was looking for a particular woman. Older, with brown hair, a kind face, and a small frame. The longer I looked, the more frustrated I got that I couldn’t find exactly what I was looking for. Aggravated with the search, I found the woman who closest resembled my mother and I picked her up.

  To allow room for her to sit, I pulled the beer toward me. She looked at it when she got in but didn’t say anything. I wanted one. Damn near needed one. But if I drank one now she’d probably want one too and I wasn’t in the mood to share a beer with a whore.

  As soon as she spoke I wanted her to shut up. Her voice was raspy, worn down by years of smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, and sucking dicks.

  “You look like a nice guy,” she said. “I love your red hair. It’s not that fake red hair some people have. You know the kind, where they’ve dyed it so red it’s actually purple? You don’t have that kind, which is why I like it so much. It’s natural, you know? What kind of stuff do you like? You probably like it missionary, huh? You look like the kind of guy who likes it missionary. You’ve probably never tried any of the dirty stuff. Have you tried any of the dirty stuff? If you did, I bet you’d like it. Maybe we can do some of the dirty stuff tonight. If you want, that is. It’s your money though, so we can do whatever it is you like. If you want it straight, you got it straight. But if you want it dirty, you can get that too.”

  Without taking my eyes off the road ahead, I said, “Could we not talk, please?”

  “Sure thing. It’s your money, after all. If you don’t want to talk, that’s fine with me. I won’t say a word. Not a single word. If you want to ask something, ask and I’ll answer, but otherwise you won’t hear a peep out of me.”

  Her voice was a razorblade scraping against the inside of my brain. I just wanted it to stop.

  The silence lasted all of about a minute before she started again.

  “I haven’t always been a hooker, you know.”

  And there she went, telling me about how she once had a life, had dreams and goals, and I was willing to bet money that before she stopped talking—if that ever happened—she’d tell me that she wasn’t always going to be a hooker, that she had a plan to get off the streets and live a normal life. If I had a penny for every time I heard that bull shit, I wouldn’t have to work.

  Unable to listen to one more sob whore story, I tuned her out.

  The image of her trying to go down on a guy popped into my head and made me smile. Imagining her with a mouth full of dick, still yammering on about how she never wanted to be a prostitute nearly made me laugh out loud. The only thing that kept me from it was the endless stream of questions she’d ask if I did. I figured it was best to keep my mouth shut and keep as straight a face as I could manage.

  “So that’s when I decided enough was enough,” she continued. “If I was gonna be forced to screw a bunch of men anyway, I might as well get paid to do it. Been doing it ever since. But I’m not always gonna do it, you know. I’ve got my eye on a house. It won’t be long until it’s mine. Then there won’t be no more hookin’ for me.”

  My hands tightened around the steering wheel and I had to bite my tongue to keep from laughing. It was always the same story with the whores. I wondered if it was something they had to tell themselves in order to survive. Maybe that thought was what kept them from slitting their wrists. Their lives were worthless and wasted. That had to be the only thing that kept them going. The lie they told themselves every day.

  I tuned back into her just as she asked, “Hey, where are we going, anyway? None of this looks familiar.”

  Figuring if I didn’t answer her, she’d just keep asking questions, I said, “My house.”

  “No no no,” she said quickly. “I don’t go home with johns. No. You turn this car around and take me back, pick yourself up another girl that will. I won’t. You hear me? I won’t do it.”

  “I have a nice house. I’ve taken girls back there before and none of them
minded.”

  “Oh yeah? And where are those girls now, huh? Are they back on the streets or are they chopped up in little pieces in your freezer? Stop the car.”

  “They’re fine.”

  “Stop the goddamn car,” she yelled as she reached for the door handle.

  With no time to reason with her, no time to do anything else, I reached over, grabbed the back of her head, and shoved it as hard as I could toward the dashboard. All that did was elicit a scream from her, so I did it again. This time, she fell limp in the passenger seat, blessing me with beautiful silence and a smear of blood on the dash.

  When I got home I pulled around the house and carried her in through the back door. She was small and didn’t weigh much. As angry as I was though I could’ve probably heaved that whore I’d buried in the asshole’s back yard up the stairs as if she were a loaf of bread. I was that livid.

  Instead of taking her to my room I took her into my mother’s bedroom. Wishing I had formed a plan earlier so I could’ve prepared for this, I had to improvise. I dropped the still-unconscious hooker onto the floor at the foot of the bed. From my mother’s top dresser drawer, I grabbed a pair of panty hose and used them to tie the whore’s hands behind her back and around the foot of the bed. If she woke up while I was gone, she wouldn’t be able to get anywhere.

  Then I raced outside to the shed and grabbed a tarpaulin and some rope. I ran back upstairs with it, spread the tarp out on the bed, and untied the whore, who was still unconscious and bleeding from the nose. Picking her up, I placed her on the bed and ripped off her clothes.

  I didn’t wait for her to wake up. After taking off my clothes and getting on the bed, I released all of the anger and resentment I felt toward my mother onto her, this unlucky whore who happened to closely resemble the woman who’d raised me. I was brutal, hitting and biting and hitting again.

  It took a few hours for my anger to subside and the exhaustion to take over. As I put my clothes back on, I looked at the mangled whore sprawled on the bed. She didn’t look as though she could move, but there was always a chance. I’d learned the hard way that you could never trust a whore.