Sex and Murder

by Douglas Allen Rhodes

  Still, I don’t bear the group any ill will for it. At least it wasn’t another flick like Clueless or that Levi’s commercial.

  The SUV smelled pretty bad from the dead guy.

  I spotted a lake. To reach it, I had to take the truck off road for a little bit, but hell, I’d wanted to do that since I’d got in the damn thing.

  I scoured the area. No one around, and no houses nearby.

  I set to work and found several large rocks (each about the size of a deflated basketball) and placed them inside the corpse’s clothing, intending to weigh down the body long enough so that the Cadillac wouldn’t be reported missing for at least a little while. Weighting the body down quite well, I dragged it to the edge of the lake and rolled it in.

  Immediately, I realized my mistake.

  The lakebed only went down about four feet from the surface at the shoreline—leaving the body visible. I cursed my luck and, frantic, looked for a solution.

  I spotted a boat—just a small row boat, the kind kids play in, but it floated unattended and offered just what I needed. It had drifted out to the middle of the lake, not too far off, but at least a hundred yards out. Now, it was a pretty decent temperature out that night for the time of year, but during a Pennsylvanian winter, a decent temperature is a relative thing.

  With no choice in the matter, I stripped down to my boxers and tested the water. Cold—very cold. I walked a few feet down the shore from where the body lay and waded in, my body adjusting to the temperature. It took a while, but I acclimatized enough to swim out to the dinghy.

  I made it. Shivering in the night air and using (and re-using) every swear word I knew, I rowed the boat back to shore.

  I reached the side of the lake and climbed back down into the water, my foot coming to rest, at first, on the corpse’s head. I bent down to grab hold of the body. It took several tries and many an angry outburst, but I managed to heft the thing up into the boat.

  I dressed again—fast—treasuring the warmth of my clothes in the way that only a freezing person can. Once back in the boat, I rowed for the center of the lake. Though rejuvenated from the warmth of my clothing, by the time I reached the center of the lake I’d grown tired, nearly exhausted. I tried to roll the body out without expending much more energy, but a weighted corpse is far too heavy for so awkward a ploy. I failed in my attempts to keep the boat steady and ended up pitching myself, and the corpse, over the side of the boat.

  I returned to shore and started my trek—soaking wet, freezing cold, and thoroughly disgusted—back to the SUV. I wondered if Rachel had had any better luck on her mission.

  I stopped in front of the truck’s door, my clothes dripping ice-cold lake water in a pool around me. I looked them over with distaste. A thought struck me, and I threw open the back door of the truck and rooted through the packages my victim had been carrying.

  Jackpot.

  I found a pair of Khakis and a sweater in my size, and a pair of Doc Marten shoes (complete with socks) that were only a half size too small. I smiled at my luck. Things were looking up.

  I changed clothes, climbed back into the Caddi, and turned the heater on high. Midnight had come and gone by the time I arrived back at the hotel. I felt drained. The swim, not to mention the rest of the shit I’d gone through, left me more than just tired. Briefly, I wished for a long, deep sleep, but threw the idea out. Our plans for the evening were far from over, and I had miles to go before I could sleep.

  * * * * *

  Light streamed out from behind my room’s curtains, beckoning me to come inside. I laughed and inserted the key into the lock, wondering just how successful my wife had been.

  I threw the door wide and stood in the doorway, an appreciative whistle sailing past my lips. There, on our hotel room double-bed, knelt my wife, naked, and engrossed in fucking a gorgeous little beauty, using a rather large strap-on dildo.

  The girl—Tiffany—cut short a deep moan as she noticed me standing there speechless. Rachel followed her gaze and flashed me a beaming smile.

  “Daddy,” she bubbled. “I was starting to worry. Do you like what I’ve brought home?”

  I shook my head, chuckled, and closed the door.

  “Babydoll, you are truly awesome.”

  Tiffany smiled at me, and her intense blue eyes beckoned me to join in the games.

  “So this is who we’ve been waiting for,” she said, lapsing into a half-shriek as Rachel pounded into her.

  “Silence!” Rachel barked, smacking her plaything hard on the rear. “So, Daddy. Did I do good?”

  “Babydoll, she’s perfect.”

  “Well, thank—” Tiffany started, her words cut short by a new wave of thrusts and slaps.

  “I said silence!” Rachel bellowed and smiled at me playfully, bobbing her eyebrows. “Why don’t you give her something to fill that noisy little mouth of hers?”

  Unfastening my pants, I obliged.

  The three of us maneuvered endlessly, switching positions and partners, licking and biting, thrusting and grinding, moaning and screaming, until, at last, I found myself on my back, Tiffany riding me and my wife sitting behind her massaging the dancer’s breasts.

  A wave of déjà vu washed over me, and I knew what would happen next. Rachel took her right hand from Tiffany’s breast and reached over the side of the bed, producing the dull black form of my fighting knife. In that instant, her grin transformed, going from impish to demonic.

  “Yes!” Tiffany cried out. “Oh, fuckin’ yes, God, yes…fuck my pussy, oh, fuck me…I’m coming.”

  My eyes gleamed death, and blood surged through me, the thrill of culmination running strong. Rachel brought the blade around and, still cupping Tiffany’s breast in her left hand, she slit the stripper’s throat from ear to ear.

  Tiffany’s eyes bulged wide, surprise and terror filling them. Her mouth opened and closed in a futile attempt at speech, and I sat up to kiss her. My wife held Tiffany’s convulsing body on top of me throughout its death throes.

  The whole thing had me so aroused that I threw the stripper’s corpse from on top of me and grabbed my wife. Eager, she came into my arms, and I laid her down beside the body and mounted her.

  Unrepentant, we fucked each other, the joyous pain of our own violent love accentuated by the glory of our recent murder.

  Finished, we set about the business of preparing the rest of our plan. I grabbed a towel from the bathroom and wrapped it around the dead girl’s neck to absorb the flow of blood from her throat. While I tended to the stripper, Rachel gathered up the girl’s clothes, the strap-on, the Spec Plus, and our guns.

  We both showered and dressed, and I left the room and opened up the back door of the Cadillac. Making sure we were unobserved, we carried the dancer’s corpse and loaded it into the back of the truck. We shut all the hotel’s doors and climbed into the truck. I fired the engine to life, turned and kissed Rachel, and we drove off to our final objective.

  Chapter Ten

  We found the preacher’s house easily. Located on the outskirts of town, far removed from the rabble the Reverend was so fond of rousing, his home sat alone in a hollow surrounded by fir trees and a small, well-landscaped pond.

  I killed the Caddi’s lights at the start of the driveway, drove halfway down to the house, then cut the engine altogether.

  Rachel and I climbed out of the truck and started the short hike down towards the large, colonial-style mansion the Reverend called home. All the lights were out except for the small, flickering brilliance of a TV set on the second story.

  I considered the problem of how best to get inside. A thousand scenarios and possibilities played through my mind. We had to get inside, round up the family as fast as possible, and make sure they were all subdued without anybody having a chance to call for help. After all, 911 would be all it took. Just three simple numbers, and the plan would fail. In the end, Rachel persuaded me that the direct approach would be best.

  I rang the doorbell. It chimed a symphoni
c melody several times. Lights began to come on, and the cacophonous sound of waking confusion filling the house filtered through the door.

  We stood on the doorstep—me in my new sweater and pants and Rachel in schoolgirl togs (and substituted blue top)—and waited for our victims to arrive.

  Above us in the lit up bay window of the upstairs hallway, the face of a fat, twenty-something girl appeared and stared down on us in obvious distaste. Soon, the middle-aged mold from which her dumpy visage had been cast joined her, and they both glared at us. A porch light above us flared to life, bathing us in its brutal fluorescent illumination. I blinked at the light’s assault, but managed to flash a meager smile at the twin sows, who still stood framed in the window above, studying us in the way that one might look at an icky bug that has just made its appearance on the dinner table. I waved at them in what I hoped seemed a friendly manner.

  The sound of bolts unlatching—three in all—drew my attention back to the door, just as it was thrown wide open to reveal the Reverend. Around six feet tall and weighing an easy three-hundred-fifty pounds, he dressed in silk pajamas, slippers, and a fine-looking, monogrammed robe. He held an equally fine-looking, un-monogrammed shotgun.

  That set me back for a moment. I hadn’t expected an armed greeting (although given the shit this man kept stirring up, I guess I should have).

  I stammered in surprise, almost dropping the ball.

  My wife never missed a beat.

  “Hi,” she cooed, stepping to the foreground and drawing the Reverend’s undivided attention. “We didn’t mean to scare you or anything. We’re lost and we saw this big ol’ house, and I figured it’d be a safe place for directions. My hubby here never admits he’s lost, but…oh, pooh, we’ve gotten you all up and frightened.”

  The Reverend smiled a practiced grin and lowered the shotgun a little. His gaze fixed on Rachel, moving over her form.

  “Now, little lady, you didn’t frighten me,” he boomed. “It’s just that I’ve been the target of many an un-Godly man’s anger of late and I’ve always found that a loaded shotgun will turn even the angriest sinner into the saintliest guest.”

  He laughed a little too heartily at his own joke, but Rachel matched him right up, using that special sort of agreeing laugh that women reserve for first dates and guys they want to hook. I recalled it being used on me a time or two and how special it made me feel before I realized what it was. Of course, by the time I had figured out the secret, my wife had long since stopped using it on me. Here, though, she wielded it like an expert.

  “Oh my,” she said and sighed. “A believer and a comedian. Well, now, aren’t we lucky? We weren’t sure what we’d find here.”

  “Little lady, you’ve not only come to the house of a believer, but a man of God to boot. My name is Reverend Wilkinson.” He shook his head and chuckled, lowering his shotgun completely. “Where are my manners? Come in, come in.”

  Rachel bubbled her thanks and brushed past the Reverend, me in tow. I managed to cut a much wider berth from Wilkinson than Rachel did, but judging from his disapproving scowl, it wasn’t quite far enough—Alaska wouldn’t have been far enough.

  Once through the door, we stood in a lavish, giant foyer, its furniture, flowers, and paintings seamless. Vases of elaborate floral beauty competed for attention, and large Italian-looking oil paintings of seraphim and cherubim covered the walls. The entire room seemed geared towards radiating a celestial feeling of tranquility. To either side of the foyer, dual staircases ascended, winding around the room and leading to a balcony above the foyer.

  At the top of the stairs stood the mother and daughter sows, their twin sets of sallow, little hate-filled eyes staring hard at Rachel. I nodded at them and received a snort of derision from the matron. Offering a final wan smile, I turned away from them to find Rachel chatting up the Reverend, unleashing the full force of her charm on him. He didn’t stand a chance.

  I stayed silent, offering a few cursory yes and nos while the preliminary conversation took place. The Reverend leaned his shotgun up against a polished wood end table and moved several feet away from it. Rachel maneuvered him even farther away, firing off a rapid succession of questions and asking about this painting or that vase. Once she’d positioned him where she wanted him, Rachel stopped and looked up into the scowls of her portly observers as if she were seeing them for the first time.

  “And that must be your lovely wife and daughter.”

  Reverend Wilkinson followed her gaze and frowned. Evidently, he thought much less of his wife than the term lovely intoned and resented having to acknowledge her presence.

  “Judith,” he snapped—too harsh, “don’t just stand there gawking! You and Esther get down here and introduce yourselves.”

  The mother pig stepped back, looking for all the world like she’d just been slapped. Nevertheless, she complied, dragging her offspring behind her.

  They reached the bottom of the stairs, and Judith scurried over to her husband’s side and linked her arms around his waist, more in a show of ownership than to express any sort of amorous bond. Esther waddled over at a slower rate.

  Once they were all clustered together in a disgusting little family group, I pulled my .45.

  “All right, mother-fuckers,” I barked. All three of them jumped. “Just fucking behave and no one gets shot.”

  I guess the preacher didn’t hear me—or, more likely, didn’t listen—because he made an immediate move for his shotgun. Instead of his gun, though, he found Rachel’s 9mm pointed square at his face. She shook her head and clucked with disapproval, wagging her free hand’s index finger (making her look more like a little girl in the middle of admonishing her doll than anything else).

  The Reverend looked stricken.

  “Now, now, now, Preacher. You heard the man say ‘behave’, didn’t you?” Rachel waved her gun in the direction of his family, guiding him back. “Now, step back over there before I blow your fucking nuts off.”

  She said the last bit so sweetly that I laughed. Reverend Wilkinson didn’t laugh. In fact, he turned a bright shade of pale; he did obey, though.

  “Sit down,” I said.

  Nobody moved, so I tried again, this time putting some force in my voice. “Sit the mother-fucking hell down, now!”

  Y’know, it seems like the word fuck has the ability to stimulate action in people like no other word—they’ll react to it when nothing else seems capable of getting through to them. At least that little truism applied to the three pigs we’d rounded up for the slaughter.

  They did what I told them.

  “All right now, I’m gonna leave for a minute. While I’m gone, Rachel’s in charge. You cross her, you die. Believe me, if she doesn’t shoot you, I will. Now stay put.”

  I turned for the door, paused, and looked back over my shoulder.

  “Fuckers,” I added.

  I figured it couldn’t hurt to be safe.

  After I pulled the Cadillac up to the front door, I unloaded Tiffany. I hefted her still-naked body up onto my left shoulder, the towel from around her neck draping part way down my back. Rachel had packed a bag of goodies, and I grabbed them with my other hand.

  Once inside the house again, I shut the door and took a look at my group of hostages. Aside from their horrified gapes at the naked corpse on my shoulder, everything seemed exactly like I’d left it a moment ago. Everything, that is, except for the trickle of blood running from the corner of the Reverend’s mouth.

  “He get stupid?” I asked Rachel, nodding in the preacher’s direction and walking over to her.

  “Nope,” she beamed. “Just felt like hitting him.”

  God, what an awesome woman.

  “Well, let’s get on with this,” I said and turned to face the bawling women and the bloody man. “Get up.”

  They managed to get it right the first time. That shocked me. It seemed a little abuse and the sight of a dead stripper in their living room was pretty good motivation.

  “
Good.” I chuckled. “I guess a little kick in the face was just what you needed. Now—”

  A flurry of barely understandable dialogue from the Reverend and his hog-women cut my words off. They alternately threatened, cajoled, and begged me to leave them alone.

  After several minutes of telling them to shut up and getting nowhere, I cocked my .45 and put it to the daughter’s head.

  Instant silence.

  “Finally,” I sighed, exasperated. “Listen, I don’t give a shit what you have to say, so understand this: nothing you say will save you. Nothing. But if you don’t stay quiet, I will execute every fucking one of you. Nod if you understand.”

  All three nodded—very quiet now—and I continued.

  “Now, head for the dining room. Any trouble, try anything, and I swear to you you’ll wish you hadn’t.”

  Rachel giggled and grabbed my crotch. “God, you make me hot.”

  I passed the bag of goodies to Rachel, and we marched our hostage family into their dining room. On the way, I stopped and scooped up the shotgun. Even though I hadn’t expected to be greeted by it at the front door, the shotgun—or something like it—had figured into our plans from the beginning. I’d known there’d be at least one gun in the house. After all, the Reverend was Pro-life.

  Still carrying the dead stripper over my shoulder, I followed the group into a spacious and opulent dining room. Beautiful, plush gray carpet ran from wall to wall, accentuating the pastel gray wallpaper, decorated by an interesting series of flowers and paisleys, which ran from floor to ceiling. A large, polished oak table filled the center of the room, stained a deep, rich red. Dominating the far wall a huge, similarly stained hutch displayed exquisite china dishes.

  I tossed the corpse on the table and faced the hostages.

  “You and you,” I pointed to the father and his piglet daughter, “get naked.” I pointed at the mother. “You go stand in the corner by the hutch.”