Jewels and Panties

by Brooke Kinsley

  "Cancer," I said, my throat pulling itself tight. "He died... he died..."

  I found myself choking on the urge to cry. What the fuck is wrong with me? I thought. I hadn't shed a tear for my old man since I was a kid but here I was, wiping salty tears from my cheeks with a sand covered hand.

  "He died of bowel cancer when I was twelve."

  "Aw, geez, I'm sorry."

  "It's fine."

  "No. Really. That must have been awful."

  "It was."

  Now it was my time to totally lose it and I fell against the wooden fence and sobbed into my hands.

  "Fuck, what's wrong with me? I'm over him. Completely over him."

  I felt the heat of a hand on my back and looked over my shoulder to see Cooper with a concerned look on his face.

  "We're both a couple of nutters," I tried to laugh. "Just two weirdos crying."

  "It's good to cry."

  "Yeah. It is."

  When the tears dried, I felt as though a knot of darkness had taken flight from my body. I was lighter and more relaxed.

  "Sorry," I said. "I don't know where that came from."

  "Don't be sorry," he said, reaching into the top pocket of his checkered shirt for a pouch of tobacco.

  He rolled a skinny cigarette that was soaked with his sweat at one end so it lay floppy between his fingers as he handed it to me. I noticed his nails were bitten so far down he was bleeding. I wondered what he had to be so nervous about.

  "Thanks," I said, reaching for a lighter.

  The smoke burned my throat as I inhaled and I coughed as I felt the sting in my lungs.

  "What the hell is this stuff?"

  "Locally grown tobacco," he explained. "It's not the best but it's all I have."

  "It's like smoking pubic hair."

  "You're saying that like you have some sort of experience."

  He laughed and walked over to the horses to give them one last look before he closed the stable door over.

  "Anyway," he said as he let the shade glide over his beloved horses. "Thank you for thinking I'd be a good father. It's never something I ever thought I could be."

  "Why's that?"

  He chewed on his bottom lip and began rolling his own cigarette, his whitish tongue reaching out to lick the thin paper.

  “Men like me don’t become fathers,” he said. “Well, not when I was back home.”

  I didn’t know what that meant but nodded anyway, encouraging him to talk.

  “Of course, in an ideal world, if the sun always shone, money grew on trees and the grass was made of cotton candy there would be someone I’d like to be parents with.”

  “Oh? An old flame?”

  “A boy named Eugene,” he said, breathing in smoke. “I would have done everything for that boy and in a way I did.”

  Chapter Two

  Lincoln

  I didn't know what was overwhelming me more, the sound of Schiele screaming or the smell of decay. Etta lay in front of us, her body half slid out of the ice amidst a puddle of water that mingled with her rotting skin. She was blue, as blue as the Earth itself only more beautiful. Her complexion was marbled with veins, her eyes a milky white, sunken in disk of mulch but I could have stared into them forever. The stench of death was so strong in the air it made my eyes sting and made Cynthia giddy while her husband retched.

  He was on his hands and knees screaming like an infant. This was someone who had seen everything the world of science had to offer and he'd studied it all through a microscope until he had the deepest understanding of life itself at a molecular level. But seeing death now, for real, in a way that was less than academic or medical was making him lose his mind. I could see how the panic intensified throughout his body. He was shaking, crying, clutching his chest as though trying to fight off a heart attack. He may have seen everything but he hadn't seen this.

  Clenching his eyes closed, he mumbled to himself as he tried to cope with the vision of Etta. I looked back over to her and saw her breasts were beginning to separate from her ribs so that they were gliding down toward us, the ducts beneath the fatty tissue hanging around the edge of her nipples like gristle.

  Turning my attention back to Schiele, I tried to hear what he was mumbling. For a few seconds, I was sure he was praying and that only made the moment more absurd. I burst into a flurry of short fired giggles and he looked up, horrified. It was only then that I could hear what he was saying.

  "Fucking mad man.Should never have come here.Fucking crazy bastard. The rumors are true. The rumors are true. The rumors are true."

  There were no prayers of mantras escaping his lips, only the ramblings of a man who was confronted with the worst of humanity. Me.

  "This is what you wanted the Tricepthial for," he said, his entire face trembling as he tried to keep his gaze away from Etta.

  But it was impossible. Inevitably, he had to look at her. She was right in front of him, her flesh only inches away from his knees. When he looked down at her face, the exposed bone of her cheek protruding up through her skin like the peak of a mountain, he finally lost control of his stomach. He shuddered once, screamed once more, then reached to the side and vomited into the melting ice cubes.

  "Good Lord, Gustav," his wife tutted. "You're acting like you've never seen a dead body before."

  "Not... like this..."

  He struggled to his feet, staggered backward and leaned against the wall. All the while, looking at Etta as though she was a monster. Bastard, I thought. Does he not know true beauty when he sees it? She is a goddess and he dares to vomit beside her.

  "You're... You're... Bosworth, there are no words to describe how truly despicable you are."

  He heaved again and tried to be sick but only a long strand of bile came from his lips like watery egg yolk. I watched in horror as it came within a few inches of Etta's face.

  "Hey! Will you have some respect?" I shouted and he blinked a few times to clear the tears from his eyes.

  "Respect," he repeated. "Have you lost your fucking mind! Wait, don't even answer that because it's obvious you have."

  He continued to ramble but I didn't hear what he was saying because I was too busy watching the case of Tricepthial. Through all the commotion, the screaming, the sickness and the panic, he'd managed to hold onto it the entire time.

  "Honey, will you calm down?" Cynthia suggested, standing up to comfort Schiele. "Isn't this what we wanted? A chance to do real research on death?A real chance to witness it like no other?"

  He looked at her as though he was seeing her for the first time and he thought he was just as insane as me.

  "That's what you always said. I should never have brought you here."

  He held the case even tighter and fumbled for the door handle.

  "You're just as sick as him!"

  He cracked the door open and we were all graced by the fresh scent of clean air. Perfume from the roses in the garden danced into the room along with the smell of heat and chlorine from the pool.

  Schiele moved to exit the room.

  "Hey!"

  Before I knew it, I was panicking, lunging at him, trying to grapple the case from his arms. He was stronger than I expected, way too strong for an old skinny guy like him. I yanked on it, kicked him in the shin, slapped him across the face and dug my knee into his ribs but still, he wouldn't let go.

  "Help me!" I called to Cynthia but she just watched from the sidelines, entertained at the spectacle.

  Schiele and I continued to struggle with the meager amount of energy left in my body soon dissolving as I thrashed my limbs. When everything I tried failed, I resorted to animalistic tactics and bit him hard in the face. He screamed but still, he wouldn't let go. Exhausted, I tried my hardest to latch onto the case but he was now on his feet, overpowering me and making his escape up the stairs.

  "No!"

  I chased after him, my burning limbs failing me as I tried to keep up.

  "Schiele you motherfucker you get back here!"
>
  But all I heard in response were his lightning quick footsteps scurrying up toward the hall.

  "Fucker!"

  "You stay away from me, Bosworth."

  I followed his footsteps into the kitchen. He was sprinting toward the patio doors, the case cradled against him like a baby. He struggled with the handle, desperate to free himself from the house but the more he pulled at it, the more it locked shut.

  "Fuck!"

  A long stream of spit was trailing from his mouth to his shirt as fear and anger took over. He tried his hardest to open the door but only locked himself inside some more.

  "Let me out!" he screamed.

  "By all means, please leave anytime you want."

  But I knew he wasn't going anywhere. The key fob was in the top drawer beside me. I sauntered over to it, plucked it out from the assortment of menus, pens and Etta's hair ties and dangled it in front of him. His eyes widened in horror as he saw the fob between my fingers.

  "Hand it over!" he yelled, the spit swaying from side to side like a great, swaying pendulum.

  "Sure," I replied, affecting my most reasonable voice. "How about a trade? You hand me the Tricepthial and I give you the keys. Sounds good, right?"

  "Sounds perfect," came a voice from behind me.

  Cynthia was in the doorway. She gave me a nod of alliance and winked.

  "Whose fucking side are you on?" bellowed her husband. "You lunatic!"

  "Calm down, honey. Don't you realize this is everything I've ever wanted? The rumors have been circulating for years. This billionaire serial killer working beneath the radar under a shroud of wealth. It always seemed so ludicrous, didn't it? It couldn't possibly have been true but I needed to know for myself."

  Her words echoed around the room. Rumors... There was that word again. How long had people known? And what did they want to do about it?

  "You're a rockstar," she said and wound her arm around mine. "You make the greats like Gacy and Bundy look like amateur mad men but you're pure class. Just look at you, handsome, okay I mean you were handsome when you had a little meat on your bones but you can get back there. You're rich as shit too, own everything, can do anything you want and you killed because why? Because you thought you were doing the right thing and you knew you could get away with it."

  I was bemused and it dawned on me that she wasn't just tagging along with her husband to meet some collector. She was here just for me. I realized that not only was she the craziest person in the room, but she was also most likely the smartest.

  "You may be shocked, Mr. Bosworth but I've been following you for a long time. Messages have been appearing on forums for years, stories from girls in the underworld who spoke of a wealthy doctor and inventor who had the ability to make girls go missing. But of course, the girls needed to go missing, didn't they? They hurt little children. They were evil."

  Schiele was frozen to the spot with his mouth dropped open and I couldn't move either because I was starting to realize I wasn't so smart or secretive as I thought I was. People knew what I was doing. People who weren't believed but they knew nonetheless. Murmurs must have been circulating the internet like an urban legend.

  "You're the best, Bosworth," purred Cynthia.

  She placed a hand on my chest and I could feel the heat from her body and smell the sweat on her powdery skin. Everything about her stank and made me nauseous. Everything about the moment made me want to melt into the ground and disappear forever because nothing I had planned was coming to fruition and I was still no closer to holding Etta.

  "Just... give me the Tricepthial," I told Schiele.

  Slowly, he swiveled his eyes in his head toward me but remained frozen.

  "You'll never get it," he croaked. "You evil, psycho, son of a bitch."

  "Schiele, if you don't hand it over I'm going to come and take it from you."

  "And I'll help him do it," chimed in Cynthia.

  He looked at her with pure hatred in his eyes.

  "Cynthia..." he breathed. "I... I..."

  Unable to articulate how shocked and horrified he was at his wife, all he could do was stammer and sweat as he leaned against the patio. He loosened his grip on the case and shifted his weight from foot to foot as though he was getting ready to give up and hand it over, but I wouldn't be so lucky. I took one step toward him and he reached for a sushi knife from the block on the counter. It sliced through the air as he brandished it in my direction.

  "I can't let you do what you want. What you've got down there... What you're planning to do... It's not right. It's evil."

  "It's not evil," I said. "It's love. It's nothing but love."

  "That down there is not love!"

  But he didn't know what love was. To him, love was being married to a woman he knew nothing about who harbored dark fantasies about things that made him sick. He knew nothing of love. But I did.

  "Put the knife down."

  "No!"

  He waved it some more.

  "Put it down!"

  Desperation took over my mind and part of me wanted to fight him for it but he was just as angry and pent up as me. He'd kill me if I approached him. We looked into each other's eyes, trying to stare each other out in a mental stand-off that would see no winner.

  Then I felt a soft touch on my arm and looked down to see Cynthia. She was beckoning me down to her level so she could press her smeared mouth up against my ear.

  "Leave him with me," she whispered.

  There was a peculiar authority to her voice and I found myself nodding meekly and stepping backward out the room. She closed the door and left me out in the hall. From inside the kitchen, I could hear muted voices and footsteps. A second later, the screaming started.

  Chapter Three

  Berger

  "So, this Eugene. He was, like, your boyfriend or something?"

  The old gave me an anxious look, terrified that I'd become hostile.

  "Dude, I don't care that you're gay."

  "You don't?"

  "Er, no. I don't care. It's not, like, the nineteen-fifties anymore."

  His entire body sagged with relief.

  "You really don't care?"

  "Literally, not many people care about that kinda thing anymore."

  He moved back as though he'd been physically hit by the revelation.

  "Tell me you really mean it," he cried.

  "Jesus, man. Calm down. Yeah, I really mean it. It's cool. People are gay. It's not really that interesting."

  "Not that interesting!"

  "You know what I mean. It's not like a whole whooop die dooh fantastic ding dong anymore. It's cool."

  His eyes began to water and if I was being honest, I'd have to say I was sick of the sight of him crying.

  "Chill," I told him but his bottom lip began to quiver and once again he was off gibbering and sobbing.

  "You've no idea how long I've waited to hear that... that what I wasn't terrible. That I wasn't some sort of pervert or wrong' un."

  Fuck, I thought. I'm going to have to hug this guy all over again and tell him everything's okay. The more I looked at him, the more I could see just how much he had suffered beneath the weight of his sexuality. It was almost impossible to believe that people could still feel such shame.

  "When was the last time you were back home?" I asked. "I mean back home in the States."

  He pushed the heel of his hand into his eye socket and shook his head.

  "A long time ago.When I was nothing more than a boy."

  I was doing the math in my head when he said.

  "Probably over fifty years ago."

  "Shit."

  "Such a long time ago."

  "A lot has changed since then. You wouldn't recognize the place."

  I tried to figure out what life would have been like back then, what life would have been like for my dad when he was a kid or even my grandpa. It felt like I was imagining a parallel universe and it made me uncomfortable.

  "Eugene," I said, trying to
keep him on topic and stop him crying. "You must have really loved him."

  "Fuck I really did. Love of my life. There's never been anyone like him. Probably never will be although Lord I've tried to find a replacement."

  "I know how that feels."

  "You do?"

  "Kinda. I've loved people and... loving them sometimes just isn't enough to be in their life."

  He slumped down into the sand and began rolling another cigarette. When he finished, he slapped the ground beside him and I sat down too. He offered me the cigarette and for the first time in my life, I declined.

  "I actually like having vocal chords," I said.

  He laughed and put it in his own mouth.

  "Suit yourself. Anyway, Eugene. We met in the last year of high school. We were both keen football players although he was better than me. He was like my idol, you know. It started off that I just wanted to be like him.

  By the way he talked I figured this was going to be a long story so I made myself more comfortable and leaned my head back to gaze up at the sky. There was only a single wisp of a cloud floating by that soon dissolved beneath the growing heat of the sun like cotton candy in water.

  "You know I was thinking earlier that you might have played football," I remarked. "You've got shoulders like a bison."

  He winked at me and I could see he still had the boyish charm that Eugene must have witnessed.

  "Football was my life until I met Eugene. Then he was all I could see."

  "So, like, how did it happen? Life was conservative back then, right? How did you both know?"

  He closed his eyes as he remembered and the lines from his eyes cascaded all the way down to his jawline.

  "Conservative," he said, chewing the word. "It was more than that. It was oppressive. The town I grew up in only had one set of crossroads, two hardware stores, a deli, two ice cream parlors, three doctors, one high school with only a hundred kids and no hospital. It was about as small as a postage stamp but less cultured."