This Book Is Full of Bodies

by Rick Wood

  “You wanting some – some – some…” She can’t even get whatever synonym of sex she wishes to use out of her overblown lips.

  My God, I have just noticed her lipstick. It looks like a clown with poor functioning hands has decorated their face. There is just nothing discreet about this woman whatsoever.

  “I believe you mean to ask if I would like some sex, or a hand job, or something between, correct?”

  She smiles like a clown too, and nods as her eyelids lilt again.

  “Well, I would rather incinerate my genitals on a barbeque.”

  “… huh?”

  Another thing I despise: people who grunt instead of saying pardon or excuse me or even just a simple what did you say?

  It repulses me.

  I take out my knife.

  She sees it and I hold it up just at the moment my bloody phone goes.

  “Aw shit,” I bark, and I take it out.

  It’s an alert from the house.

  It’s the phone.

  Someone is trying to use the phone.

  But who could possibly…

  Flora.

  Why on earth would she wish to use the phone?

  I check, and no call has been made, but a single 9 has been entered.

  I deny myself the instinctive thoughts that she could be going against my wishes, betraying my trust, that she is lying to me.

  But how could she lie to me?

  No one could fake happiness like this, no one could feign the pleasure or the way she tries to cuddle me and…

  Is she hurt?

  Could she be trying to get to an ambulance?

  The hooker still hasn’t moved. She’s seen my phone and my knife and she still hasn’t moved.

  I ring home.

  I wait.

  It rings and it rings and it rings and it rings.

  She doesn’t answer it.

  Is she incapacitated? Is she hurt? Does she need me?

  I put my phone away.

  “Are you going to–” the hooker begins to ask, but I don’t have the time.

  I stab her in the gut, in the chest, in the neck, in the face, and again and again in all the places that I have yet to stab. By the time I’ve finished she’s a bloody heap on the ground.

  She could survive, of course. But she won’t. Because no one will care enough to take her to the hospital.

  I don’t even need to dispose of the body. No family will report it. My DNA is not on file with the police, there will be no connection between anything on this knife and the blood seeping out of her body.

  The only obstacle would be if she was a witness to her own attempted murder.

  Just to make sure, I drag the knife across her throat, standing to the side to ensure the blood does not splatter on my suit.

  That will do it.

  I leave her, choking and wriggling, and by the time I have returned to my car and looked in the wing mirror she is not moving anymore.

  It feels good, but it’s not as satisfying as I wished it to be.

  But I need to make sure Flora is okay.

  There could only be two reasons for her dialling a 9 in the phone.

  And I do not wish for her to be hurt.

  But, I hope for her sake, that she is.

  As the other reason can’t bare thinking of.

  31

  I walk through the door slowly and sternly, particularly, listening – but for what, I’m not entirely sure.

  Sobs? Groans of pain? Moans of needing desperate help?

  No sound meets me.

  I walk further in. There is no broken legged girl at the bottom step, no body bleeding to death in the kitchen as a result of a catastrophic cooking accident, and no girl with slit wrists in the bathroom.

  What there is, however, is Flora, sat on the sofa, watching the seventy-two-inch television. She is wearing one of my shirts and nothing else but socks. Her thighs are curved and her legs are smooth and immediately I want to take her, but I control myself.

  Just for now, I control myself.

  She turns and she smiles at me. An adorable smile. A loving, caring smile.

  The smile of someone who is not injured whatsoever.

  “Hey, you,” she says ever so sweetly. “Did you have a good night?”

  I nod.

  “Did you do what you need to do?”

  She means did you kill somebody?

  I don’t understand why people do this, but they tend to avoid asking questions they aren’t comfortable with directly. Another example is, “has he passed on?”

  The word is died. Use it and make it clear to everyone what you are on about.

  I say it again: I hate subtext.

  Not just because I can’t read it, but because it has no use. People who aren’t direct are trying to convince themselves of something more than anyone else.

  “Yes,” I finally answer. “Yes, I did.”

  “Are you feeling better for it?”

  She is still asking me so sweetly, so adoringly.

  Just how I would want her to ask me.

  “Are you okay?” I ask, ignoring her question.

  “Of course.”

  “No injuries?”

  She sticks out her bottom lip and shakes her head.

  “No close call injuries?”

  “Not that I can think of.”

  “No reason to need an ambulance, no reason to call out?”

  “Nope.”

  I take a step toward her, keeping my hands in my pockets, biting my lip and looking around.

  “Have you used the telephone?”

  She looks at me and I see it. Just a momentary flicker, I see it – the widening of her eyes, the recognition that she has been caught.

  Now she’s trying to decide – does she make up a lie or does she deny it?

  “I did,” she finally says.

  Ah, the lie it is.

  “Why?” I ask, my voice curt and calm.

  “I was going to order a pizza,” she says. “But I didn’t know any numbers and the phone wouldn’t dial out.”

  “And how would you imagine a pizza delivery man would be able to give you a pizza through the shutters?”

  She shrugs, then she giggles. “I know, I was quite silly. I completely forgot!”

  “And a phone number would normally begin with an area code, which would begin with a zero, would it not?”

  I crouch in front of her and I can see up her shirt just I can see through the destructible lie she has concocted.

  “Like I said, I didn’t know any–”

  “But if you went to dial out, you would start with a zero first, would you not?”

  She nods, warily.

  I put my hands on her shins.

  I rub my hands up and down affectionately, feeling her skin – damn it’s smooth – feeling her legs as I rub further and further up until I’m rubbing the inside of her thigh.

  “I need a verbal answer, if you please.”

  “Yes,” she says, her cute façade beginning to fade. “Yes, it would.”

  “Then why, oh why, did the number you went to dial begin with a nine?”

  “I’m not sure that it did–”

  I cease my sensual rubbing of her legs and part them, digging my fingers in, my thumb piercing through the inside of her thigh, squeezing her skin and muscle through the cracks of my fingers, harder and harder until she starts to wince and the tears start to form.

  “You are lying to me,” I point out.

  “Please, I am not, I want to be with you, why would I–”

  I grip harder still. She screams out.

  “Please, stop!” she begs.

  “Then tell me the truth.”

  “I am!”

  “You are not!”

  “Please, just stop, please, I love you and I want to be with you and I just want to–”

  I can now feel her bone rubbing the edge of my fingers and I can hear her moan even harder and it satisfies me in a way I can never quite articu
late.

  She reaches out and puts her hands on the side of my face, despite the pain, and she cups my cheeks, and her tearful eyes stare into mine with a distant hurt, a need for me, a yearning for me to trust her.

  I take my hands away and she rushes from the sofa to her knees, so she is knelt before me, her body up against mine. She puts her arms around me and squeezes me, and she begs me to forgive her, to listen to her, to just hear how she would never want to hurt me or leave me or betray me again.

  “Then explain,” I say.

  “I just pushed a button,” she claims amongst the hysteria. “I just pushed a button as I didn’t know any numbers and it must have just happened to be a nine I didn’t mean to push anything else I didn’t I mean it I mean it please I swear I swear I would never leave you never ever!”

  She is kissing my neck and she is kissing my collar bone.

  I am inclined to believe her.

  Against my better judgement, I believe it is possible that she just happened to press a nine.

  After all, she only pressed the one.

  It was a moment of stupidity.

  A weakness where she abruptly realised she would have no way of receiving a pizza anyway.

  And she stopped.

  And she has taken off my shirt.

  And she is massaging my chest with her tongue and I go to grab her but she lifts her hands delicately against mine.

  “Please,” she says. “Let me just take care of you.”

  She guides me onto my back and she continues kissing me all the way down to my belly and she undoes my trousers and she slides them off, taking my throbbing cock in her hand. She winks at me and puts it in her mouth.

  I forget about everything.

  Forget about any distrust or reason to not believe her.

  Forget about any way in which I might be wrong.

  She loves me, she said it.

  She has learnt.

  And she is a good girl.

  And it takes minutes until I am exploding and she swallows it like a good girl.

  And she doesn’t take her lips away until all the mess has gone.

  And we go to bed.

  And she tries to spoon me, but I’m not the spooning type. She goes back to her side of the bed and she closes her eyes and every now and then, they flutter.

  And I am asleep almost straight away.

  Drifting from a perfect life that I cannot wait to wake up to.

  I KNOW

  I know I made a mistake

  How long until I make another?

  Such a simple mistake, yet one I could not see coming.

  I know it happened because of me. I know it did.

  How foolish I was.

  And regaining his trust and convincing him of the lie was the hardest and easiest thing I ever had to do.

  He’s been inside of me before, but never have I tasted him, never have I had to swallow the seed of the man who…

  I know I should stop saying it so much.

  I know he killed my mum, I know I’m numb to it, and I know I keep reminding you but he did it and there is nothing I can do but suck the bastard off.

  And now he’s asleep next to me.

  I lie on my back, fluttering my eyelids, pretending that I can actually get to sleep, pretending that laying here, next to him, I can actually relax enough to settle into my unconscious.

  I know this can’t last much longer.

  I know it has to end.

  I can’t bring myself to keep it going, I can’t tell myself to bide my time anymore as my time is empty. I can’t keep touching the man who touched my mother and touched Mark as he killed them with those hands.

  Those hands.

  Those hands those hands those hands those fucking hands.

  They grabbed my hair as he came.

  As he shot into…

  No.

  Mustn’t cry.

  Mustn’t wake him.

  If he knows I cry, he knows it’s fake.

  If I step out of bed to go elsewhere, he may awake, he may follow, and the illusion will be ruined.

  I know I can’t take much more.

  I know that I cannot take another night like this.

  I can’t take him thrusting inside of me, I can’t appease him and quell his worries with anymore inane acts of forced pleasure.

  I know you don’t pity me.

  After all, I had sex with him, didn’t I?

  And I did it for two years.

  Two years.

  Two whole years I was fucking him behind my mum’s back – so now you say, how could I possibly feel such loss from a mother I betrayed so severely?

  I know.

  But I was fourteen.

  I was a child. My body had not long since begun its development, my mind had yet to mature, my understanding of right and wrong did not exist.

  But then again, some people live their whole lives without understanding the existence of right and wrong.

  Don’t they, Gerry?

  I know you think there’s no such thing.

  And maybe you’re right.

  But I know just as anyone else does that you do not do that to a girl of fourteen, stepdaughter or not.

  I don’t remember being given much choice.

  But I also don’t remember saying no or pushing him away.

  Does that mean I gave him consent?

  By not denying him at the beginning, through the lack of understanding as to what was happening, does that mean it was okay?

  I know I shouldn’t blame myself, but I do.

  Maybe he wouldn’t have killed you, Mum. Maybe if it weren’t for his desire to have me like this, then…

  Stop it.

  I know I shouldn’t feel responsible.

  I am not responsible.

  I know.

  But I am.

  And I can’t take it anymore.

  I can’t take him and his expensive life he thinks I love.

  I can’t take him and his greasy fingers and the hairs on his chin and the way he looks at me like I’m in a permanent state of undress.

  I can’t stand feigning love toward the man who hacked up the pieces of my youth.

  So it’s going to stop.

  I don’t care about my survival anymore.

  I can’t wait any longer.

  It’s a risk, but I’m going to take it.

  I know I won’t endure anymore before I break down and the image shatters and the performance loses its momentum.

  I know he will kill me if he even suspects, but hey… I would rather be dead than be his bitch any longer.

  So it is decided.

  Tomorrow, I will seek out my opportunity.

  I will take it.

  I may survive, I may not.

  I know it won’t be easy.

  But do you know what?

  I also know I have no choice.

  I cannot be this person anymore.

  It’s time for me to find the opportune moment and break it and run and face the trauma.

  I know I will have to face the trauma.

  I know I will never recover.

  But right now, I know I do not care.

  Surviving is all that matters.

  Is all that I am thinking of.

  And I know that this thought will see me through to the end, whichever end it may be.

  32

  It is such bliss to wake in the morning without Lisa prodding me out of the bed, encouraging me to go to a work that never existed.

  Here, I can just lay, and allow myself to wake naturally.

  No alarm piercing through my slumber, no overzealous wife hesitating to request morning sex, and no shitty little house and shitty little life to have to dread facing.

  This is it.

  This is the perfect life.

  Flora isn’t next to me when I awake. But it’s okay. I’m sure she is not doing anything else as foolish as trying to alert a pizza delivery boy that I would ultimately have to kill.

&nb
sp; Still, I wish to know where she is.

  I sit up and rotate, placing the tufts of carpet between my toes. I put on a t-shirt to accompany the boxers I am wearing, and I leave the room.

  For a moment, I’m unsure where to go. Even I get lost sometimes, it’s such a marvellous, grand house. But I recall and I walk down the corridor to the stairs, of which I have to go down two floors to find the ground floor. As I near the final steps, I can hear sizzling and a radio from the kitchen.

  In the kitchen, I find Flora, still wearing that fuck-me-shirt with her fuck-me-legs out, and if I didn’t have morning wood, I do now.

  “Morning,” she says, and smiles at me. She flips some bacon in a frying pan.

  “Morning,” I reply, sitting on a stool at the kitchen side.

  She butters some bread and places the bacon from the frying pan into the bread. She places the sandwich in front of me and kisses me gently on the lips, allowing the kiss to linger just enough to excite me, then pulls away.

  I notice that she has no breakfast.

  “Are you not eating anything?”

  “I already had mine,” she says, and gazes at me.

  Fair enough, I think, until I look to the sink and see no plate.

  She could have washed it up, but no plate is in the drying rack.

  She could have put it in the dishwasher, but the dishwasher is still propped open and empty.

  Maybe she cleaned up and put the plate away. After all, there is a bottle of bleach behind the sink that I am sure was not there yesterday. I am not even sure where the cleaning products are, but she must have found it.

  I put the sandwich to my open mouth then pause.

  The surfaces aren’t any cleaner.

  The sink isn’t sparkling.

  If she used that bleach, there is no sign of its effect.

  Then I go to put the sandwich into my open mouth and pause again.

  Oh, Flora.

  Please, Flora, no.

  I hope you didn’t.

  I really hope you didn’t.

  Because this would mean you have been lying to me all along. Not just yesterday, but from the moment we had sex in the basement. The moment you said you had seen sense.

  That would mean every touch, every piece of affection, every kiss every suck every fuck, all of it, would be a lie.

  And I really don’t want it to be a lie.

  Because then I wouldn’t just have to kill you.