by Jacob Stone
“Passport, driver’s license, birth certificate, Social Security card, high school diploma. All as good as the real thing,” he had promised her.
“Deal,” she agreed.
When it came time to picking a new name, he suggested she keep Sheila since it would be familiar to her, and for a last name to use something popular, like Jones. That way she’d blend right in. She agreed that made sense, and two weeks later she had her new papers, and Sheila Proops ceased to exist while Sheila Jones soon afterward boarded a flight to São Paulo, Brazil.
After that it was a whirlwind of foreign cities and dead bodies. Rio, Buenos Aires, Bogota, Lima, Sidney, Tokyo, Seoul, Cape Town, Frankfurt, Nice, Rome, and too many others to remember before spending the last three years traveling through southeast Asia. Sheila couldn’t even remember all the men that she’d killed. None of the murders were planned. All of them had been spur of the moment. Pure impulse. Most of these men had been interested in her sexually, but not all of them. A few had only wanted to hang out with her to drink, share drugs, or swap war stories. Early on, Sheila had either bludgeoned these men, choked them to death, or sliced their throats with a handy kitchen knife. Later she started carrying a switchblade, so their deaths might not have been as spur of the moment as she might’ve liked to have believed.
None of these men deserved to die. None of them did anything to hurt her or seemed particularly awful. It surprised her at first the utter lack of remorse she felt after killing them. In fact, if she felt anything at all it was only a sense of relief from the anger that had been choking her, but this relief would be fleeting at best. Invariably the next day when she’d fly off to a new country or region, she’d promise herself she wouldn’t be killing anyone else, although she’d still hold on to her switchblade.
Even though it was only two weeks ago, she could barely picture the last man she had killed. A wealthy French industrialist—she remembered that much. Also that he was married and that he had a chest covered with coarse, black hair. He had coaxed her to his hideaway for a night of passion and hedonistic adulterous sex. Like a fool, he had allowed Sheila to tie his hands to the bedposts, and she used a butcher’s knife to split him open from his sternum to pelvis. That much she remembered.
As with all her other murders, she got away with it, or at least seemingly got away with it since she never hung around after any of them. Maybe the police were after her for butchering this French industrialist, or perhaps police in one of the other countries were looking for her, but if they were, she had no idea about it. Unless police or Interpol one day came knocking on her door, it appeared as if she’d somehow gotten away with all of it. In a way that would make sense since all the murders were so random and senseless, and while others might’ve seen her chatting with her victims in nightclubs or at parties, it would always be days or sometimes even weeks later when she’d find herself alone with one of these men. And their rendezvous were always handled so discreetly.
After the last one, she had an epiphany of sorts. She couldn’t keep doing this. It was time for her to start afresh and have a different life. She had to find a more productive and longer-lasting way to get rid of the anger that was eating away at her insides as if it were cancer. That was when she decided to move back to the United States and not kill anyone ever again.
As she walked out of Monty Hellinger’s office, the apartment manager asked her what she was going to do now that she was in New York.
She smiled at him, because at that moment her anger wasn’t suffocating her, and she believed that she could close the door on her old life and that the possibilities for a new life were endless.
“This is a fresh start for me,” she confided. “After I get my apartment furnished, I’m going to find a job. Maybe as a hospital orderly. It’s certainly not glamorous work, and I don’t need the money, but I need the stability. And maybe later I’ll go to college. In any case, I plan to drop all my bad habits once and for all.”
“Hopefully not all of them,” he said with a wink.
“Well, maybe for old times’ sake I’ll hold on to one or two of them.”
“That’s the spirit. And perhaps you’ll let me buy you a drink sometime, and you can tell me some of your stories and we’ll see if my hair turns white?”
“Perhaps. We’ll see.”
Chapter Forty-eight
New York, 2010
Sheila briskly knocked on the office door and walked in without waiting to be invited. She had been surreptitiously watching Professor Levine’s office and knew he was alone, and she also knew that his office hours were ending in the next five minutes and that it was doubtful anyone else would be coming by.
Professor Levine stared up from a stack of papers looking like a startled owl, his eyes first darting toward Sheila’s chest (she had gone braless that day and was wearing a tight T-shirt under her suede jacket, which she had left open), and then reluctantly moving up to meet Sheila’s eyes. The look he gave her was a mix of inquisitiveness and annoyance, with a hint of lust.
Sheila smiled innocently at him as if she hadn’t caught him ogling her breasts, and said, “Professor, I know your office hours are ending soon, but I was hoping you’d have a few minutes for me.”
“Certainly,” he said, clearing his throat. He gestured for Sheila to take the chair to the side of his desk, and she did so. That day she had also worn a miniskirt, and she crossed her legs so that the professor would have to be left wondering whether she had worn underwear. His eyes moved quickly to her legs, hoping to catch a peek of what her crossed legs were hiding before once again settling back to Sheila’s eyes. She continued to smile as if she hadn’t caught him doing this.
“You’re not in one of my classes, are you?” he asked, his face scrunched up into a forced perplexed look. “I’d have to hope I’d remember you if you were.”
She laughed good-naturedly, again acting as if she didn’t catch the way his eyes had lingered on her naked legs.
“No, not yet, anyway,” she said. “That’s what I would like to talk to you about. I had a difficult time of it growing up, and didn’t have the opportunity to continue on with my education after high school, and I’ve been thinking for years about enrolling in college and majoring in psychology. One of my concerns is how much older I’ll be than most of the students here.”
Completely straight-faced he said, “My dear, while twenty-five would certainly be older than most of our undergraduate students, I don’t see that being a problem.”
“Aren’t you kind, but I’m thirty-three.”
A hint of a smile showed through his poker face. “Impossible!”
“Sadly it’s true.”
His smile stretched a fraction of an inch. “Well, you had me fooled. But if that were true, which I’m not saying I absolutely believe, it would simply mean you’d be bringing more life experiences into your studies.” He pursed his lips. “Why are you interested in psychology? For career opportunities?”
“More to better understand myself.”
Sheila uncrossed and re-crossed her legs, and smiled inwardly as she caught the professor’s eyes once again darting downward and discovering that she was going commando that day.
“What I’m particularly interested in is better understanding the irresistible impulses I have,” she said. “Once certain desires take over, I find myself helpless against them.”
Professor Levine swallowed hard as his eyes fell once again to Sheila’s naked legs, his cheeks mottling pink and white.
“Are you by any chance having one of these desires now?” he asked.
“I’m afraid I am. Professor, if I was a student, or even if I was enrolled in the university, I’m sure it would be highly inappropriate for me to sit on your lap and continue this discussion. But since I’m neither, I assume there would be nothing improper about me doing so at this time?”
He cleared his throat, and said, “Quite right, my dear.”
Sheila smiled impishly as she got up, walke
d over to him, and lowered herself daintily onto his lap.
“Now isn’t this much cozier,” she whispered into his ear while jabbing the hypodermic needle into his neck that she had earlier kept hidden in her jacket pocket. His body stiffened, but before he could otherwise react, she injected him with succinylcholine. Although fear and surprise registered in his round, owlish eyes, his body instantly went slack, and she guided him onto the floor. She rejoined him after retrieving the hammer and chisel that she’d brought in her backpack, and sat down onto the floor next to him.
“I did come by here two weeks ago to talk to you about enrolling in the university and majoring in psychology,” she told him. “I was sincere about that part of it. But the moment I saw you, I was struck with one of my irresistible impulses. I hoped it would go away, I truly did. But it didn’t. In fact, it only grew worse, and soon all I could think about was what I wanted to do to you.”
Since he had no muscle control, his head had rolled to the side. Sheila took hold of his chin and moved his head so he had to look at her.
“I won’t bore you with the details, but what I had told you about having a difficult time of it growing up isn’t the half of it,” she said. “I understand fully what’s behind this compulsion driving me. While you only superficially look like my dad, I guess that’s enough, and I so much need a do over. I can’t help thinking that if I do the things to you that I wanted so badly to do to him, then I’ll stop feeling all this pressure pushing down on my chest, and I’ll be able to breathe easily for the first time in years. I’ve read enough psychology books and am self-aware enough to understand that I’m simply projecting my feelings about my dad on to you, and that none of this is fair. That you might be a genuinely nice man who’d never do things to a daughter that my dad did to me. While I logically understand all that, it doesn’t help. But what I’m sure will help is if for the next half hour or so I trick myself into pretending you’re my dad.”
Sheila took one last look at the terror flooding Professor Levine’s eyes, and then rolled him onto his stomach. She undressed completely so she wouldn’t get any blood or gore on her clothing, and then used the hammer and chisel in the way that she’d been dreaming about, all the while saying things to the professor that she’d always wanted to say to Mr. Proops.
Her estimate about the time she would need with him had been almost exactly on the mark. Thirty-five minutes later she snuck out of the professor’s office without being seen, and soon after that out of the building. If anyone looked at her as she strode through the campus, it was only to catch a look at her legs, or maybe her ass.
She was amazed at how complex the subconscious mind could be, and how she could be doing things for over a year without fully understanding why. The reason she had moved to New York and gotten a job again as a hospital orderly wasn’t so that she could start fresh as she had believed. It was because she was getting so little relief from killing all those men the way she was killing them, and she instead needed to discover this way to have a do over with her dad. Which meant she needed a job that gave her access to succinylcholine. She might not have understood any of this until very recently, but she understood it now.
She was grinning from ear to ear by the time she left the campus, and when she arrived at Washington Square Park, she broke out giggling and did a somersault on the grass, landing flat on her back. As she stared up at the hazy sky, she realized that for the first time since she was five she could breathe easily. All the pressure that had been squeezing her chest was gone. She started crying then. Tears of joy.
Chapter Forty-nine
New York, 2010
The woman was tall and skinny like Sheila’s mom had been, and she also had a similar longish, thin face, but otherwise she really didn’t look much like the late Mrs. Proops. Her long, brown hair fell well past her shoulders, while Mrs. Proops had worn her blonde hair in a short bob cut. Her nose and chin were completely wrong also, and her lips in contrast were far plumper than Mrs. Proops’ razor thin ones. She was also younger than Mrs. Proops had been at the time of the fire—as with Professor Levine, this woman was more around the age of Mrs. Proops when Sheila was banished from the Proops’ family home. Still, as Sheila spotted this woman unlocking the door to a small boutique, she knew this was the woman she’d been looking for even if she hadn’t been consciously aware that she’d been looking for anyone.
Subconsciously, though, she had to have been out searching for a replacement for her mom, even if she hadn’t realized it until right then. That had to be what sent her to this quiet street in Queens, and it also had to be why she had brought a dose of succinylcholine in her ridiculously large pocketbook, as well as the hammer and chisel that she had wrapped up in a hand towel.
The fact that this woman had just unlocked the door to this boutique and flipped the sign from closed to open at 6:45 P.M. must’ve meant three things: (1) she was coming back from dinner, (2) nobody else was working there, and (3) nobody else was in the store. This woman who was meant to be a substitute for Mrs. Proops so that Sheila could have a do over was all alone in there.
Sheila gave a quick look around before crossing the street and entering the store. The woman had started folding blouses, and she looked up to smile at Sheila. Sheila smiled back at her and picked up a blue-and-green patterned shirtdress. She held it out in front of her, and the woman commented that it would look nice on her.
“If you’d like to try it on, there are dressing rooms in the back.” The smile the woman offered Sheila was much nicer than any she’d ever seen from her own mom. “That would be very pretty on you. It would bring out your blue eyes, which are lovely.”
That almost ruined it for Sheila. Almost. For a brief moment she saw this woman very differently than as a substitute for her mom. Even her voice had been nice, with none of the shrill hysteria that her mom’s voice had always held. But then she turned from Sheila so she could continue folding the blouses, and the light hit her in such a way that everything went back to being perfect.
“I think I will try it on,” Sheila said.
The woman smiled again at Sheila and told her to give a yell if she needed any help. Sheila promised her she would do so.
Sheila found herself trembling in anticipation as she stood in the back dressing room and removed her clothes. She hadn’t realized just how much she needed to do this until right then. Bringing a hypodermic needle and wearing only her bra and panties, she left the dressing room and stuck her head out of the back area so the woman could see that she was mostly naked and also to make sure that nobody else had entered the store.
“The dress was a little too snug on me, could I try a medium?”
“Of course.”
The woman dutifully searched through a stack of the shirt-dresses before pulling one out and bringing it to Sheila, again a warm smile stretching over her lips. When she held out the dress, Sheila grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her forward, jabbing her in the arm with the hypodermic needle before the woman could otherwise react. As with Mr. and Mrs. Proops and Professor Levine, the woman’s body went slack within a second of being injected with succinylcholine. Sheila lowered her to the carpeted floor, then pulled her fully into the back area so that nobody passing by the store’s front window would be able to see her. She then took a deep breath to calm herself, put her clothes back on, and went back to the front of the store so she could lock the door and flip the sign back to closed again. If anyone had entered the store before she’d been able to do this, she would’ve killed this person too. Nobody was going to stop her from having her do over!
With the store locked up and the substitute for Mrs. Proops paralyzed and helpless, Sheila again removed her clothes. She had been careful with Professor Levine and didn’t get so much as a drop of blood on herself, but it wasn’t worth taking any chances. Besides, it was exhilarating doing this naked. At the end with Professor Levine, she had actually obtained an orgasm for the first time in her life. If she bothered to exami
ne the psychological reason for this, she knew it would be mixed up with how her parents and Penelope would always strip her naked before her punishments, but she didn’t care to delve any deeper into it.
She used the hammer and chisel and said all the things to this woman that she had always wanted to say to Mrs. Proops, and at the end she obtained an orgasm that was so powerful that she almost blacked out. As it was, it left her whole body throbbing with pleasure, and it was minutes before she was able to put her clothes back on. Also, as with Professor Levine, at the end of it she felt freer than she could ever remember feeling.
The store had a locked door in the back dressing room area, and Sheila found a key on the woman that unlocked it. The door was to a stockroom, which also had a bathroom and a door that led to a back alley. Sheila was glad about the bathroom, both because it gave her a chance to wash off the hammer and chisel before wrapping them back in the hand towel, and that unbeknownst to her she had gotten several blood smears on her face. After she washed her face clean, she slipped out the back door.
Chapter Fifty
New York, 2010
“Excuse me, but you didn’t use soy milk for my vanilla latte like you were supposed to. I know skim milk when I taste it.”