In any case, she was right on time—I appreciate punctuality—and came directly to my room. I had ordered a pitcher of margaritas from room service and poured us each a glass. I sat in the faux leather swivel chair and she lounged in the grey-upholstered easy chair, and we used the desk as a makeshift cocktail table. I casually mentioned my Apache Chief, telling her it was a pharmaceutical sample I had procured from the conference, but to my dismay, she shook her head.
“I don’t do drugs,” she said. “Sorry. I don’t even take Tylenol for headaches. I’m not even much of a drinker, to be honest.”
I squinted at her. “Really? Interesting.” It wasn’t interesting. It was irritating.
“Yeah,” she continued. “I’m a vegetarian too. Vinyasa yoga three times a week, guided meditation daily. It’s so important to be centered, you know?” She clicked her giant horse teeth together for emphasis, then stood up. “I’ll be right back,” she said suddenly, giving me an awkward grin, and wandered into the bathroom and shut the door.
As soon as I heard the water running, I pulled out the vial of white powder from my pocket, removed the red cap, and tapped a bit of the substance into Lisa’s margarita. I felt zero guilt as I did it: after all, I was preventing her from experiencing pain or discomfort. If anything, she should thank me for stealth drugging her, I thought. Besides, if she was stupid enough to still drink from her glass after leaving it unattended with a strange man, well, I washed my hands of responsibility.
She was stupid enough.
For such a centered person who didn’t drink, Lisa downed her margarita awfully fast after returning from the bathroom. In less than sixty seconds, she had replaced the glass on the table, empty save for a handful of ice cubes; she had given them so little time to melt, they still showed sharp edges. She leaned her body against the dresser and placed her hand on her hip. “So, any special requests?” she asked.
I crossed my right leg onto my opposite knee. “You do yoga, do you?”
She attempted a tight-lipped smile, but half of her teeth burst forth from her lips. “I do. Pilates too. Is there a pose you’d like to see?”
After the incident with Mary Jane, I had spent hours surfing through yoga and Pilates, contortion and gymnastic websites, adding image after image to my fantasy gallery. I had done my research. “Can you do an inverted grasshopper, a full locust pose?”
Lisa clapped her hands excitedly. “I can! I’m so impressed you know that pose!” She pulled off her shoes and began to kneel down on the floor.
“No,” I said. “On the bed. And naked.”
She seemed embarrassed at forgetting where she was but quickly recovered. She briskly unzipped and removed her dress, then unclasped her bra and peeled it and the matching panties from her body. She climbed onto the light brown bedspread, not bothering to push aside the red bed runner draped along the foot as decoration. “I don’t know if this is the best place to balance,” she told me. “Not a lot of grounding support here. The mattress is kinda squishy.”
I uncrossed my legs. “We’ll make do.”
Lisa lay on her stomach in the middle of the king-sized bed and placed her arms at her side, palms down. She lifted her head and rested her chin on the bedspread so that she was looking at the pillows but kept her breasts firmly on the mattress. “Ready?” she asked. I stood up and positioned myself at the foot of the bed to get a better view.
I watched in amazement as she lifted her legs behind her, keeping them almost perfectly straight and hip-distance apart, and when her shins were perpendicular to the floor, I saw her pelvis and stomach follow, until her entire torso formed a straight line starting with her shoulders, which were pressed hard against the bed, and ending with her toes, which pointed directly at the ceiling. She clasped her hands together on the bed like a kickstand. She had made herself into an upside-down T.
We were both silent in the moment, and then I whispered, “Keep going.”
She tilted her legs forward toward the headboard, then bent one knee and pressed her toe against the pillows. She followed with the other leg, stretching it first toward the top of the bed as far as she could, then pulling her lower body until both of her feet were planted firmly on the bed in front of the pillows, where she could gaze at them facing her.
I stuck my hands inside the duffel and silently removed the yellow rope. I pulled my dress shirt over my head, not bothering to remove my undershirt, and practically ripped my pants and shorts off. I was still wearing my black dress socks when I climbed onto the bed and stood in back of her, holding the rope with one hand while positioning my feet on either side of her still-clasped arms. I put my free hand on her stomach and felt her abdomen; the muscle felt like heavy, raw steak beneath her taut skin. I moved my hand to the front of her thighs, which were now nearly parallel to the bed, and stroked their smoothness.
“Okay,” said Lisa. “I have to pull my legs back now. It’s starting to hurt a bit. I told you: this mattress is too soft. It isn’t supporting my neck.”
She didn’t see me pull the rope under her thighs. She didn’t know what was happening at all until she felt me pull the rope tight, sealing her thighs together. I weaved the rope back and forth along the entire length of her legs to her ankles, knotted it, then ran it back to her torso, securing it at her ribs. Unable to bring her legs back to the original position, Lisa began to panic. “Please…oh my god: please untie me,” she said, starting to cry. “Please…I’ll do anything you want.”
I climbed off of the bed and fumbled around my bag for another rope. I had to affix her arms and head in order to complete my masterpiece. It wasn’t until Lisa began to cry that I realized the drug I had placed in her drink wasn’t having any effect. Perhaps one couldn’t simply ingest it, or perhaps putting in a drink had diluted it too much. It had worked like a charm on the two women I had used it with previously, but they had snorted it and rubbed it on their gums without argument. Did Apache Chief have to be snorted or smoked to have any effect?
As I gazed upon Lisa’s beautiful, contorted shape, twisted like a fishhook in the middle of my hotel bed, I realized: I no longer cared. I tied a noose into the second rope and climbed back onto the bed.
VIII. Rebekah
I had prepared myself for the worst, but at the same time, I couldn’t fathom walking into a hotel room with a corpse in it. After that day, I would know someone who had actually killed someone. I mean, sure, you fantasize about following that asshole who cut you off in traffic, walking up to his driver’s side window, and smashing it with a rock, maybe even pulling him out by his neck and scaring the bejesus out of him, but you don’t actually attempt it—I mean, most people don’t. The sane ones don’t.
Jesse seemed sane. He seemed normal. I know that sounds like a weird thing to say, but in my line of work you come to realize something: there are only two types of people—those who engage in sexual practices that might seem strange to others and those who wish they had the balls to engage in those sexual practices. (There is a third category: those who read the Fifty Shades of Grey series and think they’re hip and dangerous but are really just in need of some serious education on literary merit, but that’s a discussion for another time.) Above all, Jesse was a medical professional: if anyone was qualified to engage in sexual pursuits that pushed the boundaries of traditional fucking, it would be him. Wouldn’t it?
He pushed his keycard into the door slot and the light lit green. I noticed he had placed the “Please Do Not Disturb” hanger on the knob. I turned the handle and walked slowly inside, Jesse following behind me and shutting the door.
Three steps into the room, the stench of urine hit me like an ocean wave. Jesse switched on the lamps next to the bed and on the desk. On the bed was a woman—but at first, my brain didn’t process that it was a woman, or that it was a human at all. She was on her side, but her arms stuck out awkwardly straight in front of her. They were covered in blue rope woven so heavily that there was more blue visible than skin. More unnerving we
re her legs, which were bent backwards at the hip, the back of her ankles almost touching the back of her head. They, too, were bound, but with yellow rope, and tethered to her neck and torso. The skin that bulged between the strands of rope was purple and deep red, and in some places her flesh seemed to be stretched to the point of almost bursting. By far, the most disturbing part of the tableau was the woman’s head: it lolled unnaturally to the side, her mouth partly open with a brown substance dried and caked where it had dribbled onto her cheek and along her broken neck. Her eyes were open and black, like those of a cheap plastic doll.
I turned and looked at Jesse. “Holy Christ, J! What the fuck happened?!” Jesse was standing motionless, staring at the body. He was not smiling, but he wasn’t frowning or furrowing his brow in worry either. He wasn’t answering me, so I grabbed his shoulder and shook it.
“She wouldn’t take the drug,” he said. He walked nonchalantly to the other side of the bed, keeping his eyes on the body at all times. “And I guess I pressed down too hard at one point…broke her neck.” He started to laugh a little, making my skin crawl. “And you know, I’m not exactly sure when she died: I was flipping her around and taking her every which way, and after a while, she just stopped complaining, you know?” He let out a hearty cackle at that point, and I stepped backwards instinctively.
I rested my hand on my left temple, like I was warding away a pending migraine, but I was really doing it to block the woman’s corpse from my field of vision for a minute. “When did this happen, exactly?” I asked.
“Two days ago,” Jesse said. “I wasn’t sure what to do, you know, and then it finally hit me: a plan. I just needed a companion to lend me a hand.”
I let out an audible breath. “Wow, Jess, I mean—this is beyond my field of expertise, I have to tell you.” I allowed myself to look at the body again. “You don’t want me to help you cut her up, do you? I’m not really a…manual labor kind of gal.”
Jesse laughed. “No, no, nothing like that.” He reached down beside the bed, out of sight, and reappeared with a large, wheeled suitcase. “I’m gonna stuff her in this, but I thought it would probably look weird if a single guy was carrying all of this big luggage through the lobby. If he had a wife with him, well, that might look a little less weird—you know?”
I frowned. “Let me get this straight. Is this some sort of misogynistic pantomime? Like, women are clothes whores, so people won’t think twice if she’s making her man haul her giant suitcase around?” I put my hand on my hip, only then realizing the absurdity of the whole situation. I was missing the point—the bigger problem was that Jesse had killed someone and had now involved me in the cover-up. If I didn’t tell the police, I could be implicated and charged as an accessory.
As if reading my mind, Jesse said, “Listen. I called you because I trust you. Did I make a mistake to think that?” His face went blank, like a robot whose batteries had been suddenly yanked out of its head. There was something in his eyes that made the bottom of my stomach drop.
“No, Jesse—you weren’t wrong,” I said quickly. “But that’s all I have to do? Just walk next to you in the lobby with the suitcase?”
He unzipped the side of the case and dropped it on the floor in front of him. “Yep, that’s it.” He quickly gripped his hands around the woman’s wrists and ankles and began pulling her body toward the edge of the mattress. For a moment, I thought of a checkout clerk pulling a frozen turkey down the conveyor belt at my local Star Market grocery store. The body made a heavy thud as it dropped off the side of the bed and out of sight, and Jesse bent down to do some rearranging in the suitcase. Where the woman had once been there was a distinct imprint and more than one visible puddle of various colors and wetness. When Jesse reappeared, his eyes followed mine along the bedspread, and he reached over and pulled the blankets this way and that, concealing the evidence and making the bed appear slept in. It was soiled and filthy, but easily interpreted as having been utilized by living people.
We said nothing to each other as we walked coolly down the long hallway to the elevator, rode the five floors to the ground, and sauntered across the lobby past the front desk. When we reached the sliding glass door exit, however, Jesse stopped. He rested his hand on top of the case. “I have to check out,” he said, as casually as if we had just completed a relaxing vacation at a spa in the Hamptons. He walked to the concierge, exchanged a few words, turned in his key card, and returned without breaking a sweat. I bit my lip as we walked side by side to a long, silver sedan in the parking lot.
Jesse clicked a button on his keys and the headlights flashed. “This is me,” he said and opened the trunk. “The passenger door’s unlocked. Go ahead and get in and I’ll take care of the luggage.”
I hesitated. I guessed I couldn’t make an excuse and call a car service now. If anyone was watching, it would look weird. I would have him drop me at the subway and be on my way.
He opened the driver’s side door and climbed inside. “So, where to?” he asked. “Hey, are you hungry? I’m starving. Want to get something to eat?”
“No…that’s cool. I really have to get home,” I said. “Why don’t you just drop me off at the subway? It’s right down the street, and then you can do…whatever you plan to do with your girlfriend. If you don’t mind,” I added.
Jesse turned on the engine and shifted the gearstick into drive. “Don’t be silly, R. I owe you big-time for this. And we are intimates now, don’t you think? We may not have fucked, but I think this trumps fucking as far as a bonding experience, don’t you?” he laughed.
He seemed so at ease, so normal, that I started to question if what had just transpired had really occurred at all. Maybe this was all some sort of colossal joke. Or maybe I had taken a drug or was dreaming. Whatever it was, I knew Jesse was not going to take no for an answer, and there was nowhere I could pass off as my home without rousing his suspicion. I gave him my address, he plugged it into his GPS, and we rode home in the dark, making strange small talk and discussing plans for the upcoming long holiday weekend.
When we had reached my address, Jesse lowered his head in order to glean a better view of my building through his windshield. “This is you, huh? Nice building.”
I shrugged my shoulders. “Yeah, I guess. Thanks.” I patted my coat pockets to make certain I hadn’t dropped anything in his car and took my keys out. “Thanks for the ride.”
He reached over suddenly and grabbed both of my wrists and held them together. “I want to let you know that I really appreciate you helping me today,” he said. “You can’t ever tell anyone about this, though: do you understand?” He tightened his grip on my skin.
I tried to yank my hands away but found I could not. He was stronger than he looked. Much stronger. “Jesse, I make a living off of keeping people’s dirty little secrets. I think I can manage to keep this one.” I didn’t know if I could, but Jesse was making me very nervous. I had never seen him look the way he was looking at me. In the dim glow of the streetlights, his eyes were blank, cold, and steady. Dead. Dead like the woman’s. “Now let me the fuck go,” I said with as much steadiness as I could gather.
He maintained his grip for five seconds longer, then released his hands and turned his face back to the steering wheel. “I’ll see you soon,” I said, and opened the car door and slid out.
As I walked up the steep cement stairs to my entrance door, I felt Jesse’s eyes boring holes in my back. I turned my key in the lock and waved at him. He rolled down his window. “Just want to make sure you get in okay,” he said. “I’ll see you soon.” I heard his window roll back up as I walked inside my building.
My apartment was the first one on the right, the same apartment I had had so many years back when I brought Chris home. Many roommates had long since moved away and into shared homes with husbands and partners, but I had kept the place, repurposing their bedrooms as guest space and storage. I flipped on the hall light, took off my coat and hung it on the rack in the living room, then k
icked off my shoes and walked to the front picture window to pull the shades. As I grabbed hold of the shade, I glanced down into the street; I had to cup my hand over my eyes and press it against the glass to look closer. Jesse’s car had not moved. I put my other hand against the side of my face to block out more of the glare. Jesse wasn’t inside the car.
I stepped back from the window, and as I did, I saw his reflection in the glass. I turned to run, but I was trapped—there was nowhere to go. “What the fuck, Jesse?” I yelled. “What are you doing?” It was only then that I saw the rope in his hand.
He walked toward me, slowly but methodically: a cat trapping its prey. “I don’t want you to think I am ungrateful. That couldn’t be further from the truth.” He pulled the rope through one of his hands, letting it glide along his fingertips like a lover’s skin. “It was a mistake to involve you…I can’t have loose ends, not if I want to keep doing what I’m doing. And I will never stop. I’m getting too good at it, and it’s best not to be reckless, you know?”
He stood in front of me, his pale eyes wet and amused, almost excited. I stared at him, saying nothing. He raised his free hand and placed it on my cheek; it was smooth and cool, just as it had been the morning we first met. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to make you my rope bunny. To tie up the dominatrix, make her helpless for once.”
My mind raced, but I kept my eyes steady. Jesse was smart. He would see me formulating a plan if I didn’t keep my face a blank slate. “Well, why didn’t you say so?” I raised an eyebrow and painted on my best mask. “Would you like to see my room before you go?”
Year's Best Hardcore Horror Volume 4 Page 11