by John Coyne
“There’s no need to worry, Tom,” Jennifer answered coolly. She was angry with him for not believing her at first, and now angry again that he was telling her what to do. “I can take care of myself.”
“Jesus, Jenny, let’s not try and prove anything, okay? I was wrong. I admit it. Now get out of there.”
“I’m going home, Tom. To Brooklyn. Come over later and we’ll have dinner. I have more to tell you. Kathy Dart called me at the office.”
She hung up the receiver and turned around to David, who had stepped closer to her, but only so that he could lean against the wall to steady himself.
“That was Tom,” Jennifer said quietly, pulling on her leather gloves. “He told me that he spoke to the coroner and that the tests came back on Margit’s skin tissue. They found evidence of the lidocaine, David. I guess the police have a warrant for your arrest.” She spoke without raising her voice.
“You knew?” David asked weakly.
“Yes, I knew.”
“How, goddamnit?”
Jennifer went to the apartment door and paused there with her hand on the knob.
“Margit told me on the morning after her death. We talked.”
“She couldn’t!” David protested, stumbling forward.
“She loved you, David. She loved you all her life. She kept your home and raised your sons. She never wanted anything but your love and respect, and what did you do in return? You turned her out for another woman, a younger woman who was—what did you tell Margit—’more interesting’? And then you just didn’t settle for a divorce. No, you had to kill her for her money.”
He threw his glass at her. With the speed and deftness she was only beginning to realize she possessed, Jennifer grabbed the glass out of the air before it hit her, and set it down on the small hallway table. She managed to smile curtly at him, and then she went for him. It suddenly seemed so natural and so right. She would use her powers to settle the score. He had taken her dear friend’s life, and now she would take his.
Jennifer grabbed David by the throat and jerked him off the floor. Holding him at arm’s length, she smiled at him while he gasped for breath and tried to break her grip. Then with one motion, as if she were flicking off a fly, she tossed him away. He flew across the living room and hit the wall, then crashed to the rug.
She moved closer, knowing she had to finish him off, that she couldn’t let him live, when she heard the doorbell. The sharp ring snapped her concentration, broke her desire to kill, and she turned away from him, leaving him choking up blood. She walked toward the front door, and in desperation he lunged at her, tried to grab her leg. Jennifer kicked him in the face, knocking him away, and opened the apartment door.
“You’re looking for David Engle?” she asked the two men at once.
They nodded, startled by her question, and then by the sight of David behind her on the living room floor. He was trying to pull himself up onto his knees.
Jennifer gestured toward David, who had recovered enough to begin to cry. “Well, you’ve found him.”
Then she moved quickly to the elevator doors and caught them before they closed. She looked back and saw the two men reach down to help David Engle off the floor. They were already reading him his rights.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JENNIFER COULDN’T FOCUS ON her surroundings. She was thinking of Margit, of David, and of herself. She was thinking how she had gone after David and would have killed him if the police hadn’t come. She was trembling, frightened again, as she realized they could have arrested her, too, there in David’s apartment. She was mad, she thought, trying to kill David. She was losing her mind. In her confusion, she found herself walking along Riverside Park.
Plowing through the snow tired her, and she decided to turn left at the next corner, cross over to Broadway, and catch the subway home. Two men were ahead of her. They had come out of a park entrance, turned and walked off. Jennifer felt her heart race. She glanced around to see another man trailing her by fifty yards, and she knew instantly what they were planning. She should have crossed the street in the middle of the block and walked into one of the co-op buildings as if she lived there. The doorman there would call her a cab. Then she spotted another man on the other side of the street, tramping through the snow with his head down, his hands deep in his pockets. She should cross, she knew. Cross immediately, right there in the middle of the block. But she didn’t.
She kept plowing ahead, with her own head down, as if she were consumed with her own thoughts. What was she doing? she asked herself. Why was she behaving this way?
The two men had hesitated at the corner, as if waiting for the light to change, but she knew they were waiting for her. She knew, too, that they would come back toward her as the third man approached, and then they’d surround her and pull her off into the park. A dozen yards and she’d be completely out of sight in the winter afternoon darkness. There were no joggers in this weather, no one walking dogs. She was the perfect prey. They knew it. She knew it. And the thought made her smile. She felt her blood pumping, as her body warmed to the encounter.
The men were turning toward her, and from far behind, she heard the third man pick up his pace and start to run. She watched the men approach. They had spread out on the sidewalk, as if to give her room to pass. Both had long wool scarves wrapped about their necks, and stocking hats pulled down over their eyes.
They were close enough now for her to see that they were Hispanic, teenagers who weren’t more than kids, really. As they passed her, they said something in Spanish and lunged at her, grabbing her between them, lifting her slight body easily, and pulling her off the sidewalk.
Jennifer looked up to see the third one waiting. He had raised his fist and was holding a club in his hand, a short piece of pipe wrapped in electrical tape.
She waited for the surge of strength, her wild power, to consume her, and at that moment, as the small one raised the clumsy club, she thought, It won’t happen, I’m defenseless. Then it hit—the rising rage of her primitive self.
She felt the sudden shudder of cold through her body, felt her heart pump, as if it had a life of its own, then her blood surged through her limbs and, using the two men who held her as posts, she suddenly lifted her body up and swung her legs. The heel of her right cowboy boot caught the short man in the mouth, driving his teeth up into the soft roof of his mouth. He couldn’t even scream when she kicked him away.
The two others swore, furious, and one of them freed his left arm and swung at her head. She ducked the blow, slipping down onto the snowy path and pulling both of the men with her as she fell. She seized their thin necks with both her hands and heard them gasp and gargle for breath as she squeezed the life from them. She realized, holding them both aloft, that she was smiling at her own strength, at her own revenge.
She smelled their breath, the odor of their bodies. She smelled the beer they had drunk that day, the tacos they had eaten somewhere in Spanish Harlem, the women they had slept with. She slapped her hands together, banging their skulls.
The force of the blow, the smashing of flesh and bone and brain, sounded hollow, like pumpkins squashed by a car. There were no other sounds, no cries of pain. Their bodies sagged in her arms. She flipped them away then, into the bushes beyond the footpath, where they fell together in a lump of legs and arms, all bent out of shape.
She went for the third one next, knowing, as no animal would, that she couldn’t let him escape to tell the police. The small man had recovered enough to stumble away from her and was spitting out blood and bits of teeth while he tried to run deeper into the park.
She loped down the hillside as he dashed frantically for the bushes that framed a children’s playground. She grabbed him in full gallop by the scuff of his neck and, without losing speed, threw him like a human javelin into the high iron-mesh fence that surrounded the children’s park.
The force of the impact bent the thick iron webbing. And when his body slipped down, the jagged points
caught his clothes so he hung there on the wire like a wet, dirty rag blown up against the fence,
Jennifer stopped to pull her racing heart under control. She could smell herself, her own sweat, and the musky scent pleased her. When she looked up again at the dead man, at what she had done to him, she marveled once more at her speed and strength.
Jennifer took the subway home. She had only stopped at the park fountain to wash their blood off her hands and face. She knew her wild look would keep anyone from sitting beside her.
At home, she started a log fire and burned all her clothes, even her underwear. She got rid of her brown boots, stuffing them in a trash bag to go out with the garbage. Then she took a long hot shower and shampooed her hair, and finally she filled the tub with steaming hot water and scented bath bubbles, opened a bottle of white wine, and took glasses and an ice bucket back to the bathroom. Stretched out in the tub, she listened to WQXR playing Mozart and waited for Tom to arrive.
Tom had his own keys, and though she was drowsy from the hot water and the wine, she heard him closing the front door, dropping his attache case, and calling for her.
She listened to his voice grow louder and nearer. She smiled and moved her arm slowly in the hot water. The bath had made her weak, and she was tired, too, from what she had done. She thought back on the murders as if they were something she’d just seen in a movie or in a late-night news clip. None of it had any connection to her life, to who she really was.
“Jenny, there you are,” he said softly, appearing in the doorway. “Why didn’t you call out, tell me where you were?” He came into the bathroom and sat down on the toilet seat. He had already shed his suit coat and tie, and now he carefully rolled up the sleeves of his blue Oxford shirt.
His body always excited her, and she was absurdly pleased by her own arousal. It was such a simple emotion, and so gratifying. Slowly, gracefully, she stroked her breast with the sudsy water.
“David confessed,” he said. “I spoke to the detective uptown.” He sighed and slumped down on the seat. “Well, why are you smiling?”
She shrugged, and when she did, her pink, flushed nipples broke the surface of the hot water. She watched him focus on her breasts, watched him catch his breath.
“Do you want me?” she asked.
He nodded. His eyes were canvassing the length of her, and she obliged him, arching her back so that the wet web of her sex, foamy with bubbles, surfaced like a pale buoy. Then she settled back in the scented, soapy water.
As Tom shed his clothes, she moved in the tub to make room for him. The water whooshed, and large drops dripped from her arms and breasts as she sat up.
“How do you want me?” she whispered. She could feel her throat tighten, and her fingers, as they always did, trembled with excitement.
“Hurry,” she told him. Tom stepped gingerly into the tub, and she reached out for him, gently nipping his penis with her teeth.
“Easy, honey,” he said, “that hurts.” He couldn’t move. She had total control of his body, holding him by his genitals. “Don’t,” he demanded. He tried to ease himself down into the water, but she wouldn’t release her hold on him. “Jenny!” He was becoming angry.
She kept at him, ignoring his protests. Whenever they made love, he was the one who dictated the terms, and now she wouldn’t give up her advantage. A part of her wanted only to relax, to let him have his way, but right now she couldn’t stop herself from playing with him, from making him do what she wanted.
She grabbed his waist and tugged him down, her teeth still clenched around his penis. As his erection began to fade, Jennifer gently caressed the inside of his thigh with her warm hand and then abruptly shoved her index finger into his rectum.
He came in her mouth.
She gulped, trying to swallow the flood, then choked and pulled away as he showered her face and hair with jetting semen.
When she could breathe again, she laughed at her own foolishness.
“What are you trying to do, kill me?” Tom said, lifting her into his arms. “Trying to bite off my cock, are you?” He grinned. “Well, I know how to shoot back.”
“It feels like sticky molasses in my hair,” Jennifer complained, and immediately turned on the shower, drenching them both in hot water.
“More S and M,” Tom shouted over the water, but his voice was happy and excited. Both of his arms were wrapped about her body, with his fingers grabbing her taut bottom.
Jennifer spread her legs and, hooking her arms around his neck, she clung to him as he slipped inside her, and rode him a moment with her face turned into the hot spray. Then she concentrated on coming, moving against him as he drove up against her. She jabbed her nails into the flesh of his shoulders, wanting to draw blood, and her breath came in a quick series of gasps. They were splashing water all over, soaking the towels, but she didn’t care. All she wanted was to sustain the driving, escalating force which gained and gained, until she was breathless and in wonderful, excruciating pain. She was gasping, trying to consume his life, trying to suck the breath from Tom as she drove her tongue into his mouth, reaching for the very soul of him, and then the orgasm slammed through her, leaving her limp, out of breath, and clinging to him for safety. She ached with pleasure.
“Oh God,” she whispered, and licked the damp hairy mat of his chest.
Tom was not done with her. He seized her buttocks again in both his hands and hoisted her up. She still was impaled, and he turned her to the wall, centering them both under the driving shower. He had her pinned to the wall, and braced his feet against the corner of the tub as he drove into her.
He hit her bottom once, slapped it hard, and she gasped with delight. He slapped her again, and she grabbed his head, slipped her long fingers into his thick black hair, then stuck her tongue in his ear, licked him, and snapped at his right earlobe. He slapped her again, harder and harder.
He had spanked her before when they made love, and she had liked the tingling sensation as she came, the naughty notion of being beaten. He had never hurt her, and always he had been gentle with her later, kissing her flesh, soothing her bottom.
Now he did not stop and she did not want him to stop, and he slapped her harder and she fought back, growling at him, digging her fingers into his shoulders. He swore at her and pumped harder, kept her jammed back into the corner of the tub.
She lashed out at him, hitting him ineffectually on the neck and shoulders with her fists, but her fingers were slippery, wet with water and the blood that she now saw was discoloring the water. She did not want to hurt him, but she did want to resist; she wanted him to ravish her, and she did not know why.
He came. He stopped fighting her. He squeezed her body and shuddered. His face was turned against her; her ear was in his mouth, and her head was pinned to the corner of the shower stall. She was momentarily thrilled at her success, at having made him come with such violence.
When he stopped gasping for breath and kissed her gently on her neck, they slid down together into the deep water and forced another tide of it onto the bathroom floor. Tom reached to shut off the shower, and Jennifer was briefly stunned by the silence. She shook her head to clear the water from her ears, then she lay resting against Tom’s wet chest.
“Well,” he said, laughing, “that’s one for the record books.”
“Are you still bleeding?”
“I don’t think so.” He strained his head to look at his shoulders. “I hope I don’t have to explain this to some doctor.”
“I’m sorry,” she whispered and sat up. “I don’t know why I tried to hurt you.”
“You didn’t hurt me, darling.” Tom pulled her again into his arms. “That was fun. You surprised me, that’s all. Where are you learning all these new tricks?”
“I don’t know any new tricks! What do you mean?” She turned to him. She was wedged between his raised legs in the tub, which now seemed too small for both of them.
“Honey, you came on to me like some goddamn animal.�
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“Don’t say that!”
“Well, it’s true!”
“Don’t say that! Don’t ever say that!” She pulled herself out of the tub, wrapped her terry-cloth robe around her, and went at once to the sink, where she wiped the palm of her hand across the foggy mirror. Seeing herself reflected there made her feel immediately better. She had begun to have a terrifying premonition that she’d look into a mirror one morning and see some sort of she-ape grinning back.
Behind her, Tom splashed out of the water and grabbed a towel to dry off his hair.
“I’m sorry I upset you,” he said, his voice muffled by the thick blue bath towel. “What’s the matter?”
She watched his face in the bathroom mirror.
“You make me feel like I’m weird, the way I make love.”
“I love the way you make love.” He kissed her earlobes.
“I don’t do tricks.”
“Okay, I’m sorry. What’s the matter? Why are you so edgy?” His face darkened, as it always did when he was upset.
“Oh, great. You insult me, then call me ‘edgy’ because I don’t just sit back and take it.”
“You’ve been edgy for weeks, since Washington, really.” He stepped up behind her and began to dry her wet hair. “I think that thirteen-mile run drove too much blood into your brain.”
“Damnit, Tom, stop making comments like that.” Jennifer took the towel from him, threw it on the floor and walked out of the bathroom, making large wet footprints on the hall rag.
He caught up with her in the kitchen. She had taken out a carton of milk and a packet of gingersnaps and was dipping each cookie into the milk before she took a bite.
“What do you want me to do, Jennifer?” he asked, standing in the doorway and tucking the large blue bath towel around his waist. “Tell me, what in the world do you want?”
“I want you to take my kitchen knife and plunge it into your heart,” she answered back, biting a gingersnap cookie in half.
