by Edward Lee
Nevertheless, she felt curious as to whether or not Taylor had had dinner at The Carriage House, as he’d said he would. Certainly, as a scout for an accounting firm, Taylor would have a company credit card for business expenses. She flipped through night’s credit receipts but—
No Terrence Taylor, she discovered.
Kyle had checked Taylor into one of Vera’s suites. Next, she checked her room register to see when Taylor had checked out.
That’s weird…
According to the register, Mr. Terrence Taylor, Room 201, never checked out at all.
««—»»
He’d checked in instead—
Good Christ…
—into a nightmare.
When Mr. Terrence Taylor’s eyes finally opened, all he could see at first was an ill-lit wash of murk. His legs felt numb, and a headache gnawed his brain. What the fuck happened?
Taylor’s memory struggled back…
That guy! What was his name? Kyle? He’d taken him to meet this Feldspar fellow, the general manager, but he hadn’t been in his office. “Oh, that’s right, he’s in the stockroom checking in a morning shipment. Follow me.”
Sure, Taylor thought. But hurry it up, will ya? Wrestling comes on in a half hour. Kyle led him down a cramped hallway behind the front offices, which seemed an odd access to a supply room. And—wait a minute. Why would Feldspar be tending to a supply delivery? Taylor had been a manager himself once, at a T.G.I.F. in Charlotte. Inventory and supply receipt was the service manager’s job, not the general manager’s…
Along the way, they passed several housemaids who were not exactly…provocative in the looks department. Sullen. Pasty-faced. Fat. One, with breasts like flaccid goldfish bowls, seemed to shrink at the sight of Kyle. If you were the last girl in town, Taylor thought, I’d be cutting holes in watermelons. You better forget about trying out for that Cosmo cover, baby.
A large security door stood at the end of the hall. room service staff only, read a plaque. Kyle unlocked it, and showed Taylor in. “The first pantry,” Kyle indicated.
Pantry? Taylor wondered. “I thought we were going to the supply room.”
“We are. Right in here.”
Taylor viewed the long kitchen, amid vague cooking smells. Pretty complete set-up, he appraised. Sure as hell more complete than the kitchen at T.G.I.F. Everything looked brand new. Along the back wall behind the prep line stood three heavily padlocked pantry doors, the first of which Kyle unlocked. They’re awfully security conscious around here, Taylor concluded.
“Mr. Feldspar’s right in here,” Kyle said.
It never occurred to Taylor (not the most deductive of men) to wonder why the general manager of The Inn would be behind a padlocked door. He was too worried about making his pitch. He straightened his tie and lapels, then his hair, then checked to make sure his phony Rolex was still ticking. Yeah, it would be great to sell this Feldspar guy a bookkeeping contract. The company needed more business, and Taylor sure could use a contract himself since he worked on commission. At least at T.G.I.F. he’d gotten a salary.
Then:
What the hell is this? he thought when he entered the pantry.
The pantry was smaller than a trailer bedroom. And it was—
Empty, Taylor realized.
Nothing on the shelves because there were no shelves. No foodstocks, no supplies—
“What gives?’’ Taylor began to turn. “This is no pantry—”
And before he could finish turning, Kyle had the garrote around his neck nice and tight. Taylor tried to yell but no sound came out. His fingers tried to dig in under the garrote. His heart beat to explode…
Kyle was chuckling from behind, tightening the cord. The buttons on Taylor’s suit jacket flew off as he struggled. Next, he was powered to the floor, his Florsheim’s thunking the walls. The cord around his throat tightening in increments; Taylor felt his face swell up. He was a strong man, more than a match for this psycho Kyle, yet every expenditure of his energy proved a waste. Not much more than shock and pure, primitive terror coursed through his brain. Beyond that, however distantly, he somehow sensed that he was…descending.
Kyle’s knee pressed against Taylor’s neck; the garrote continued to tighten. And next:
A gush of air. A block of bright light.
Feet thumping, his eyes fit to launch from his skull, Taylor was dragged out by the throat. “Right this way,
Mr. Taylor,” Kyle mocked, his face huge in Taylor’s warped vision. “Mr. Feldspar seems to be detained for the moment, but I’m sure that we can take care of you.”
“Oh, we’ll take care of him, all right,” another voice issued. It was clearly a woman’s voice, rough and densely sultry. Two more hands were on him now. His brain starved of blood, Taylor could think now only in snatches and obscure chunks of terror. As he felt himself being lifted up onto some sort of table, his consciousness began to dim out…
“Aw, shit!” complained the woman’s voice. “He’s dead already. Why’d you kill him so fast? We could’ve had some fun first.”
Kyle’s hands came away. The garrote lost its tension. “Well, what difference does it make if he’s dead?”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right.” The woman laughed. “We can still have a little fun at that.”
Blood swam back into Taylor’s brain—
They think I’m dead, he thought.
Unseen hands next were pulling off his slacks.
“Oooo! Red undies!” exclaimed the woman. “How sexy. I just hate plain old white shorts on a man.”
Don’t move! Taylor thought beyond the madness of what was being done to him. Play dead! Let them think you’re dead!
Not an easy task, considering what happened next. His fancy red undershorts were skimmed off, and, very quickly—
“Holy shit!” Taylor yelled, lurching on the table.
“How do you like that? He’s not dead after all—”
A bottle cracked Taylor in the head, then shattered. His brain bounced within his skull.
“Yeah, that ought to calm him down a little.”
Only then did Mr. Terrence Taylor pass out for real. But just before that final spark of his consciousness faded away, he did indeed realize what exactly what was being done to him: He was being very enthusiastically sodomized.
««—»»
Eventually it all came back. No details, just the barren facts. The fuckers tried to kill me… His vision, and consciousness, returned to him in little drips. Pain roared in his skull.
Where am I now? he struggled to wonder.
He lay flat on his back, elevated. A table, he thought. It felt cold beneath him. His eyes roved behind slitted lids, against cold white light, but his vision remained too blurred to make out any features of the place; beyond just a few feet, objects turned to blobs.
Then he heard…whistling.
Very slowly, Taylor turned his head to the right. Just a yard off a figure stood with his back to him. It’s that Kyle psycho, Taylor realized. The fucker that tried to strangle me, the fucker that—
Well, Taylor didn’t finish that thought. He squinted on. Kyle was whistling as he tended to some unseen task at what appeared to be a long stainless-steel table.
Like the prep tables he’d seen earlier, and the ones he remembered when he’d worked at T.G.I.F. A kitchen. A restaurant kitchen. Was that where he was?
Taylor strained his eyes. The effort steepened the throbbing pain in his head, but soon his vision began to clear.
He craned his neck off the table, staring. Then his thoughts ground to a halt…
Kyle was fileting strips of meat off a long bone, and placing each strip in a pan. Yes, it was meat, all right—
Human meat.
For what Taylor made out next, as his vision continued to focus, were the two bare human legs lain out across the table before Kyle.
What in God’s name…is this place?
This was a reasonable question, but by now the answer scarcely
mattered, at least not to Mr. Terrence Taylor. Because in the next moment he became aware of an even more atrocious fact:
He managed to rise up on his elbows.
He looked down.
Oh my God no holy Jesus—
It wasn’t enough that the legs on Kyle’s cutting table were human. When Taylor looked down—
—holy Jesus holy Jesus to God…
—he realized, upon the sight of his own short-stumped hips, that the legs Kyle was so calmly fileting were his own.
“Well would you look at this!” Kyle had turned, noticing Taylor over his shoulder. “You’re still alive? I’m impressed, Mr. Taylor. Not many guys could go through what you been through and still be kicking.” Kyle smiled, picking something up. “But I think we can fix that real quick.”
Taylor shuddered as if encased in ice. He tried to get up but, of course, that prospect wasn’t very good since his fucking legs were no longer connected to his body.
Kyle, still whistling, inserted the long, thin Sheffield fileting knife directly into Terrence Taylor’s right eye. When the tip of the blade met the back of the eye socket, Kyle smacked the butt with his palm, driving the blade deep into the brain.
Terrence Taylor croaked aloud. He should have stayed at T.G.I.F.
“I’ll bet you’re dead now,” Kyle remarked.
For good measure, he gave the knife a couple of quick, hard jiggles. Then he withdrew it and went back to fileting the legs on the opposing prep table. He was whistling “Sweetest Legs I Ever Did See” by Robert Johnson.
— | — | —
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
He’s here, Vera thought.
Or at least his car was. At once, butterflies careened in her stomach. In less than a minute, I’ll be talking to him. I’ll be standing right in front of him. Paul.
This realization caused a surge of the most unpleasant dread. A thousand excuses came to mind, to get out of it, but then she remembered what Donna had advised. Until she gave herself the chance to have her final word, she’d never be at peace, she’d never get the memory fully out of her psyche. As unnerved as she was, Vera knew there was no other way.
She parked the Lamborghini in the apartment lot, sat a moment, then got out. The cold chafed her, wisping down her chest through her collar despite her efforts to keep it clasped shut. She looked up at the apartment, and felt hollow…
Don’t think about it. Don’t think about anything, she insisted to herself. Just go up there, get your stuff, tell him he’s an asshole, and leave.
The long drive from Waynesville back to the city had been neutral and numb, despite the initial scenery and open, winding roads. What would her reaction be, seeing Paul again for the first time in months, for the first time since…
The hideous ménage à trois played in her mind, and the look in Paul’s eyes when he’d glanced up from the bed. An expression empty of recognition, empty of any sort of care whatsoever.
She seemed to be shoving against a great, invisible weight when she walked up the steps. Full minutes passed while she stood at the front door, staring at it. Should she knock? She should let herself in with her key? Maybe Paul wasn’t alone—
Maybe he’s in there right now with one of his drug-head perverted little girlfriends, she considered.
God. That was one scenario she didn’t even want to think about much less see again.
Then her mind strayed. Maybe I should forget about this. I’ll just tell Donna that I told him off. What good will any of this really do? It’s not necessary. It’s stupid.
But then another, more sensible voice screamed at her. Bullshit, Vera! You’re going to go in there! Right now! You’re not going to chicken out!
All right, all right, she agreed with herself. She withdrew her key, took a deep breath, and opened the door.
She expected a mess, and contrived den of drugs and iniquity, but when she stepped into the living room, it looked exactly as she remembered it: neat and tidy, everything in its place. What do I do now? she wondered. She felt imbecilic standing there. Just walk down the hall, go into the bedroom, and get it over with.
She turned, took one step into the hall—
Paul nearly walked into her.
“Dammit, Paul!” Vera yelled. “You scared the shit out of me!”
Paul had turned out of the hall just as she had turned into it. The moment held him in a mute shock. He blinked hard and stared—then rejoiced: “Vera! You’re back!”
“Yeah, I’m back to get my things,” she said, and brushed by him. “And that’s it.” She stormed into the bedroom, expecting to see evidence of Paul’s decadent secret life, but the bedroom, like the rest of the apartment, was clean and orderly. Come to think of it, Paul himself looked…normal, she considered. Dressed in jeans and the typical flannel shirt he wore when he wrote. He looked like the Paul she’d always known, not a sadomasochistic drug denizen she’d seen the last time she was in this room.
Paul jabbered as he scampered behind her. “Vera, Vera! I’ve been looking all over for you! We really need to talk!”
“No, Paul. We don’t need to talk, I need to talk.” She traipsed about the room, but, now that she was here, she really couldn’t think of anything she wanted. So just say what you came here to say, she resolved.
“You’re a deceitful, cheating scumbag, Paul,” she said, staring him down. “I can’t believe what you did to me, and by now I don’t even care—”
“But—but—” Paul stammered.
“And that’s really all I came here to say Paul. You’re a—”
“But Vera!”
“—lecherous, disgraceful—”
“Please, listen to me!”
“—disgusting—”
“Vera! No!”
“—piece of shit.”
They faced each other then, in thickening silence. That should shut him up, Vera thought. Watch. Next I’ll bet he’ll say something really original, like ‘You don’t understand’ or ‘Let me explain.’ What a pathetic schmuck.
“I know what you must think, and I know how you feel,” he began.
“No, you don’t!” she spat back. She rummaged through the closet, then the dresser. All her old things refaced her now, but they seemed tainted, poisoned. She didn’t even want them anymore. “You don’t know how I feel, and you don’t give a shit anyway,” she finished.
Paul tremored in place. “Vera, at least let me explain.”
Vera laughed. Yes, so predictable. “What’s to explain, Paul?” Then she marched out of the bedroom and back down the hall. “But since you’re so talkative, tell me this? How long were you cheating on me?’’
He followed her, frantic. “Vera, I never cheated on you! I swear it!”
She had to look at him in the utmost incredulity. His audacity astounded her. “Oh, and you were just playing hopscotch with those two girls I caught you with… Well, one of them was a girl. I don’t know what the other one was.”
Paul’s face appeared corrugated as he groped for words. “Please, Vera, listen to me, I’m begging you. I don’t remember much about what happened that night but—”
“Um-hum, and let me guess. You smoke marijuana too, but you never inhale.”
“I know what I did was wrong, but, really, Vera, it wasn’t my fault.’’
“Oh, so whose fault was it then? The girls? They put a gun to your head and forced you to have sex with them? They made you snort cocaine? Is that it?’’
“I don’t even think it was cocaine, I don’t know what it was. I was sick for days afterwards,” Paul yammered. “But at least hear me out, Vera. Please—”
Vera crossed her arms, smirking. “All right, Paul. I’ll give you one minute.”
Paul sat down on the couch, pushed his hair off his brow. “That night, you remember—I went to Kaggies to do my piece on the downtown singles scene. Those two girls showed up, and I swear I never saw them before, and, yes, I started talking to them. But I never had any intention of…you know—
”
“Of fucking them,” Vera assisted. “While I was at work.”
“It’s not like that at all,” he pleaded. “All I did was have a drink with them. I wanted to talk with them, I wanted to hear their perceptions about singles bars and stuff. Next thing I know we’re back here, and all kinds of weird stuff is happening. I didn’t know what I was doing, I wasn’t myself at all. I think—I think they must’ve put something in my drink.’’
Vera’s eyes turned in her head. “Paul, that is the lamest bunch of crap I’ve ever heard anyone say. You’ve got to be out of your gourd if you expect me to believe that cock and bull.”
“Vera, I swear, it’s true, they put some drug in my beer that made me nuts. I didn’t even know who I was. I was unconscious for two days. I missed my deadline. I lost my job…”
“Good,” Vera told him. “You deserve to lose your job for talking such ridiculous shit.”
Paul’s face fell into his hands. Suddenly he was sobbing. “Aw, God, Vera, please believe me. And please, please forgive me…”
“Forgive you? What, and then we’ll just pick up where we left off? Just forget it ever happened, and everything’ll be peachy? Is that what you want?”
Even he must realize how foolish he sounded. His face was wet now when he looked up at her. “We had so many plans, didn’t we? We had a life together. You want to throw that all away?”
For a fraction of a second, Vera paused. It was true. They did have plans, wonderful plans. They did have a life together; what they had together, in fact, was what she wanted more than anything in the world. They’d had it all—
And he destroyed it all, she thought.
“I’m leaving now, Paul—”
“No, please!”
“—and I hope I never see you again.”
Now Paul sobbed outright. It was so pathetic to see him cry; it was also very satisfying. His words hitched out of his throat like a ratchet: “I’m begging you, Vera, please forgive me. Please don’t go...I love you, Vera.”