“By all the power vested in me by the State of New York, I now pronounce you man and wife. Mr. Casey, you may kiss your bride.”
I stared into Stella’s dark eyes, and I saw my future. It was darker than her eyes. That darkness would last forever and ever. I would become the tortured soul who’d played the worst trick a man can possibly play on himself. A man who had traded in his soul for riches and wealth that had managed only to sink him further into the cesspool of despair. I wasn’t a man who was on his way to hell. I had already arrived, married into it. Now, the devil presided over me. He was as much my partner as Stella had become. He was the warm pussy that I would invade with my hard-on. I would live forever, but it would be a tortured existence devoid of peace or God, and I trembled at the thought of the suffering to come.
I made out sniffles and happy exhalations coming from Tara and Allison behind me. For them, this was a sentimental occasion. They were both crucial figures in my newfound fame and wealth. It wouldn’t be right to disappoint them. I leaned into Stella, pressed my lips against hers, kissed her like I meant it. Her fire engine red lipstick was smooth and sweet tasting. It wasn’t the time or place for it, but our tongues collided like two angry serpents and for the life of me, I wanted to pull her dress off and enter her right on the spot. How horrified the judge would have been. Instead, I pulled away to the cheers and claps of not only Allison and Tara but one more person too.
A man who, for the second day in a row, had shown up in my life entirely unannounced.
Mackey.
Stella asked the judge to stay, but he’d grown pale and sickly looking.
“We have champagne and a feast,” she added.
He tried pathetically to work up a smile, but he shook his head while droplets of sweat poured off his brow. He couldn’t wait to get the hell out.
“I really must be going. I wish you the best of luck in your marriage.”
He held his Bible to his chest like it was body armor, as he made his way to the front door, opened it and exited the premises. But then, that’s not exactly right. It was more like he escaped the premises.
Mackey approached me. He was unsteady and reeked of liquor.
“Now you have everything you’ve always wanted, Vic. Book contracts, movies, money, fame. And now you’ve landed the biggest prize of all. The muse of muses. Stella. You’re in, and I’m out on all fronts. Oh, how I envy you.”
He was wearing his usual uniform of black jeans, loafers, gray button down under his ratty brown blazer. His hair was thick and black and disheveled, while his thick eyeglasses were balanced precariously on the crown of his nose. I could only guess that Stella had invited him. Knowing what she had in store for him, I decided to be as pleasant as possible.
“Grab yourself a drink, Mackey,” I said. “Looks like you’ve already had a couple.”
He made his way into the kitchen, pulled a bottle of champagne from the bucket, poured himself a glass. He poured a second glass too. He carried the glasses, one in each hand, handed me one.
“What shall we drink to, Vic?”
“How about to a long life?” My eyes shifted from him to Stella. She was standing on the other side of the room with the two girls. They were drinking champagne and taking selfies which they would post on social media.
Mackey laughed.
“Mine or yours?” he posed.
Did Mackey know something about Stella’s plan? Was his intuition speaking to him? His gut? The cold wind blew through the house again, and once more the candles flickered, their black shadows dancing against the walls like dark spirits awoken from the dead. The shadows mesmerized me, paralyzed me for a moment. It was almost as if they were entering into me. I felt my body go cold. My body trembled, and I ground my teeth. I felt like I was levitating off the wood floor. I looked up and saw not the ceiling, but the entire universe. It had all opened up for me like I was no longer just a mere mortal but had instead become something supernatural.
I was excited but scared out of my wits at the same time. What the hell was happening to me? Who had control of me, because I damn well didn’t. Gazing once more over my shoulders at the girls, I saw they had gone from taking selfies, to something entirely different. Stella was seated on the long sectional couch. Allison was between her legs, licking her pussy, while Tara had positioned herself over Stella’s face by kneeling on the couch back. Stella was licking Tara’s pussy. They were still dressed, but they had pulled up their dresses and discarded their panties.
For a split second, Stella came up for air. She smiled and waved me over. Waved us over. Meaning me and Mackey. Without a word, I went to them. That’s when Allison slowly made her way onto the couch like a cat, her naked ass before me.
“Fuck me, Vic,” she said. “It’s my gift to you.”
I unzipped my pants and entered into her, my eyes not on her perfect heart-shaped ass, but instead Stella. She was undoing Mackey’s pants, pulling him out. For a time she sucked on his hard cock while Tara slipped back down onto the couch and joined her. I’m not sure why I didn’t feel an ounce of anger or jealousy. Maybe it had something to do with whatever had entered me moments before. The dark shadows that had seeped into my blood stream and become a part of me. My essence.
I worked on Allison, feeling her tight, hot pussy surrounding my cock, feeling her thrusting against me, hearing her subtle moans. Then, I saw Mackey enter into Stella, pulling her legs over his shoulders.
“Harder,” she begged. “Harder, Mackey.”
Tara was fondling Stella’s titties while Mackey fucked her with a particular desperation. I saw a tear fall from his eye and then another and another. I swear to God, that’s when the cold realization entered into me, and I knew that Mackey was not going to leave this house alive. That it was going to be my job not only to see to it that he didn’t leave the place alive, but that I take special note of every detail, of every sound, taste, and smell. I was going to write about this night, and I was going to do so with terrifying accuracy. So much so, the reader would question if what they were reading was not made up in the author’s imagination, but instead, had actually happened to them.
I felt myself fill up to the point of no return and I released into Allison with everything I had. When I was finished, Stella looked into my eyes.
“Mackey,” she said, lowering her legs. “I want you to save it. I have something planned for you.”
He took on a confused expression, and he pulled out. Stella took Allison’s hand and together they got up off the couch. Their long black gowns fell back down past their knees, while Allison took hold of a remote control from the glass coffee table. She aimed the device at the roof rafter, pressed a button that initiated the descent of a harness from the rafter. Stella helped Mackey undress entirely. She and Allison then fitted the complicated harness to Mackey’s ankles, wrists, and neck. They also fitted a thin leather extension to his cock.
“Auto erotica,” I whispered to myself. “That’s what she has planned.”
“The Handyman is about to kill for his art again. This time, it’s going to be really something. Glorious even. You just wait to see what I’ve got planned for you both.”
“Raise him,” Stella ordered.
Allison pressed another button, and the cable went taut as it began to raise, pulling Mackey up with it not only by his wrists and ankles, but by his neck and cock. It was painful to look at, but I also knew the oxygen deprivation would cause him to experience an orgasm that would be both extended and deeper than anything he might realize under more natural circumstances. Circumstances God intended, you might say.
He wasn’t saying anything, but he was making moaning sounds. Groaning. I couldn’t be sure if he was in pain or euphoria.
Stella glanced at both women. “Let’s set the dinner table,” she said.
Allison handed me the remote control before heading into the kitchen with Tara.
Stella placed her lips against my ear. “You know what to do, Handyman. Make thi
s your best one yet.”
Then she left me. Left me alone with Mackey.
He was looking directly at me and struggling like he was losing too much oxygen. Like he wasn’t having fun anymore. Like this should have been over by now. Like he was choking.
He began to get agitated. Then agitation turned into panic. He was struggling to get free of the cross-like harness. His face was turning blue, his mouth opening and closing, gasping desperately for breath like a fish out of water. He was choking to death.
I stared up at him, his arms outstretched and straining on the cross beam, his bulging eyes locked on mine. In my hand, I held the device that could either save his life or take it. I didn’t have to do a thing to murder him. All I had to do was stand by and do nothing. I could forsake him . . . or I could save his life.
I wasn’t playing God. I was God.
My heart beat rapidly in my sternum, my temples pounded, my brain buzzed with adrenalin. I shifted my focus to the girls in the kitchen. They seemed oblivious to what was happening in the living room despite the fact that no walls separated the two spaces. Except for the bedrooms, bathrooms, and closets, the entire floorplan was wide open. How could they not hear Mackey’s struggles? How could they not seem him squirming and thrusting himself against the leather and wood harness? How could they not know he was dying?
Instead, they happily chatted away while they set the table with fine china, cloth napkins, and expensive silverware all while they carved large slices of bloody roast beef, setting them on a big silver platter. Stella poured red wine into crystal goblets before making her way to the stereo system console where she chose an old vinyl album for what used to be Andrew’s prized turntable.
I recognized the record as Nat King Cole with George Shearing on the piano. The music was soft but as smooth as silk. Shearing’s fingers caressing the keys with all the tenderness of Stella’s lips on my earlobe.
“Oh, it’s a long, long while, from May to December,” Nat’s smoky voice sang. “But the days grow short when you reach September.”
Hanging from the rafter, the now yellow and blue-faced Mackey struggled and struggled, his body trembling and thrusting, his fingers and toes blue from lack of circulation.
“Oh, the days dwindle down, to a precious few.”
I soaked up every detail of the scene. The tongue protruding from the gaping mouth, the wide, bulging eyes, the snot running out of the nostrils, the urine dripping from his purple cock, the veins popping out of his forehead, the artery protruding from his elastic-like neck.
“September . . . Novemberrrrrrrr.”
The song reached a crescendo then came to a stop for a single, but extended, beat. A beat long enough for Mackey to lose the battle. Lose the war.
“And these few precious days, I’ll spend with you. These precious days . . . I’ll spend with you.”
I glanced at the kitchen. Stella was holding up her glass of red wine as if saying, Cheers. But instead, she was asking me to come to dinner. I took one more look at Mackey. He peered down at me with wide-open eyes that cried for mercy, longed for peace. And now he had it for all eternity.
“Coming, baby,” I said.
Setting the remote back down on the table, I made my way into the kitchen area to enjoy my first meal as a married man.
THE END
If you enjoyed this third and final episode of season one of The Handyman, then please view the first two episodes: Lust & Letters and Naked Heat.
Winner of the 2015 PWA Shamus Award and the 2015 ITW Thriller Award for Best Original Paperback Novel, Vincent Zandri is the NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and AMAZON NO. 1 Overall bestselling author of more than 30 novels including THE REMAINS, MOONLIGHT WEEPS, EVERYTHING BURNS, and ORCHARD GROVE. An MFA in Writing graduate of Vermont College, Zandri's work is translated in the Dutch, Russian, French, Italian, and Japanese. Recently, Zandri was the subject of a major feature by the New York Times. He has also made appearances on Bloomberg TV and FOX news. In December 2014, Suspense Magazine named Zandri's, THE SHROUD KEY, as one of the Best Books of 2014. A freelance photo-journalist and the author of the popular "lit blog," The Vincent Zandri Vox, Zandri has written for Living Ready Magazine, RT, New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, The Times Union (Albany), Game & Fish Magazine, and many more. He lives in New York and Florence, Italy. For more go to WWW.VINCENTZANDRI.COM
Vincent Zandri © copyright 2017
All rights reserved as permitted under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior permission of the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.
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Cover design by Wit & Whimsy Designs
Editing by Bridgette O’Hare of Plot2Published Editing
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The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to a real person, living or dead is coincidental and not intended by the author.
Published in the United States of America
The author is represented by Sam Hiyate of The Rights Factory
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