Georgia turned. If she couldn’t protect her face or stomach, it would at least hurt less if Monica hit her in her back. She would have time to breathe, to recollect herself and protect the sensitive skin of her face. An in that moment, Monica’s forearm embraced her neck, locking her against the woman and preventing her from breathing.
“It’s your fault!” Monica grunted on Georgia’s ear. “And you’ll pay. You’ll pay!”
A flesh-eating and frightening shiver ran through Georgia’s whole body when she felt herself cornered, choked, dominated. She knew that feeling, she had a huge familiarity towards such feeling, the only difference being that now she knew how it felt to go through that situation under another woman’s hand, a comparable abuse, however as violent as the other possible ways. Her eyes scorched, narrowing down into her head that throbbed, swollen, the blood gathering without being able to flow somewhere else.
Monica was a woman.
That thought hit her abruptly, offering her a sudden revelation. Monica didn’t have experiences on how to dominate someone and, although her forearm had been stuck around Georgia’s throat, the other arm pulled her hair and didn’t push her head, as an experienced person would’ve done, increasing the pressure even more and forcing her into fainting. Georgia could breath, were she calmer, and most importantly, she could get rid of Monica’s headlock.
Georgia, while trying to control the restless and trembling leg, lifted it up and put her feet against the wall the best way she could, lifting one of her arms at the same pace. It only took her a strong elbow against Monica’s ribs to see herself free from the woman. The foot offered her propulsion, hitting Monica unexpectedly and they body fell to the floor on a deafening thud, Georgia over Monica, who desperately yelled, trying to breath, trying to cast away the pain that came from the sudden fall.
As they fell, Georgia met freedom again and, this time, she couldn’t fail. They were, though, closer to the door than to the glass table and as Georgia put herself up again, she noticed Monica to be closer to the target. And Monica also noticed that, because they both stood up now, just waiting for the first flinch.
They were complete chaos, just like the room. Monica’s blood, still running from the role in her head, had dripped all over the carpet and the evidences from Anthon, leaving behind a trail telling where they had passed by. Both their hairs were flying all around, stuck to the face sweat, to their lips and nostrils. Monic no longer had that polished and expensive pose from before, now she was all raggedy, barefoot and embarrassed. They both were breathless, panting, a scene to leave any asshole of a man crazy.
Monica’s eyes, in a glimpse of seconds, moved away and Georgia knew, in that moment, she would run for her husband’s gun.
Monica turned around and started, her pantyhose covered feet slipping on the floor as she reached the uncarpeted side of the bedroom. Georgia also took off and, having her feet naked, she could dominate the race and win distance in fewer time. They were both disputing a deadly race across the room, heading for the prize in the shape of a pistol.
When Monica made a curve, avoiding the corner of the bed, two steps from grabbing the gun and shooting, Georgia took a new impulse and, sinking her feet into the hard floor, she completely halted standing exactly behind Monica and used both her wide-open hands to push her with thrust across the room.
Monica, who hadn’t been expecting anything of the sort, saw her head suddenly whiplash, while her body kept on going forward, loose in the air when her feet took flight for a few seconds. As in slow motion, Georgia saw Monica spread her arms to support her fall and she also saw when Monica opened her mouth to scream, for it was already too late. The shattering of the glass rumbled, along Monica’s grunts and moans, who broke the glass table into a million pieces, exploding into countless shards shrapnel all over the posterior side of the apartment. The impact wasn’t enough for Monica, who also felt the shock of being thrown against the metallic structure that existed below the glass top. There was more blood now, besides the debris and the shards of glass stuck to Anthon’s wife’s clothes and skin.
Georgia also saw the gun slide and spin across the floor until coming to a stop, just before the bathroom double doors. The suite was a warzone and Monica didn’t seem willing to wave a white flag anytime soon. She tried to move up, feeling the pain caused by the pressure of metal against her skin and muscles, a movement Georgia took for granted, while she calmly walked towards the abandoned pistol on the floor.
Monica, however, clawed Georgia’s neck again, pulling her back and sending her to the floor, all over the shards and the trash left in there by Anthon. Georgia felt the shrapnel scratch her skin with the impact and the sliding of her body, while a bloodied and further angered Monica returned to attack her, kicking her thighs, hips and even her stomach. The kicking was not too strong, but they hurt enough to piss Georgia off, who grabbed Monica’s feet when she rolled around on the floor and brought her down again, knocking her to the floor as a freshly-sawed Christmas tree.
To Georgia’s dismay, Monica showed a cat-like agility when she jumped to her knees in the blink of an eye and came against her again, both of them down, rolling around the glass-sprinkled floor.
After struggle, screams and grunts, Georgia managed to subdue her again, sitting on Monica’s agonizing body, both hands around her neck. She knew how to position her fingers, one hand on top of the other, flattened against the neck, the thumb pressing the opposite side of the fingers and it would only take continuous pressure and a few minutes until she had lost her conscience. And she kept on pressing down, the hair covering her eyes and face, while Monica held her by the wrists and scars, trying to scratch her, trying to free herself from that hug.
Georgia kept the pressure until Monica gasped for air, wide-open and red-eyed, just like her face. For a few seconds, in her movements, the hair gave her sight again and she saw Monica’s face, the despair, the fright.
She didn’t want to kill her. She was not someone who violated, assaulted and killed women, she couldn’t be that person. Monica was another victim and, in her hands, she would be the victim twice the time, specially there, betrayed by another woman. She didn’t want to do it, she couldn’t allow herself to that. Georgia controlled her own breathing and relieved the pressure slowly, until freeing Monica’s throat to freely breathe again.
Monica coughed hard, almost spitting blood in the process, violently panting underneath Georgia, her hands trying to alleviate the pain of the pressure in her neck. Georgia, on the other hand, tried to breathe, holding the tears back inside with her crying. She didn’t want to be one of the monsters, she didn’t want to carry that burden with her, the same and the horror of having killed a woman who, just like her, had faced not but disdain and humiliation through the years.
It was in that moment of thinking that Georgia lost the control. Monica, oblivious to the thoughts of the half-naked dark-haired woman, bent sideways and stretched herself, reaching for the tip of Anthon’s gun barrel. With a quick movement of her fingers, she got to bring the weapon closer, taking advantage of her assailant’s distraction. One more pull and she would have the gun at last.
Grasping the gun with both her hands, Monica turned to Georgia, aiming her face, the space between the eyes, perhaps the nose.
And Georgia came back to reality. Those weren’t time of bonding old friendships or apologizing for the violent times. Those were times of war, a game in which only one of them would survive or would get out with an intact face, at least. If Monica were severely injured, she would be sent to one of the best hospitals, where she would recover from it, while Georgia would disappear in the world. Georgia, if seriously injured, would be sent to prison and that was something she didn’t long for.
At seeing the gun pointed to her face, while Monica shifted her face from despair to extreme panic caused by what she was about to do, Georgia felt her mind go blank and her body be controlled by a major force she couldn’t fathom. There was a irregular shaped s
hard of glass, a long triangle of extremely sharp and thin edge, just like that glass that used to compose the table top, resting beside Monica’s head. Perhaps she wouldn’t have time for that, maybe Monica would act faster and shoot first, but Georgia wasn’t thinking. She saw it all in fluorescent blurs, just like one of those experiences of being in a lucid dream, where she knew she was there, but didn’t know how to run from or control whatever was going to happen there. Without thinking about it and not even sure how, her hand reached for the glass.
She clawed the glass and, as Monica laid her finger on the trigger’s surface, Georgia shove the improvised blade against her neck, a few inches below the ear, in an area that felt excessively soft and vulnerable.
The stab cut the inner side of her hand.
The stab made Monica’s eyes open as if about to explode, while the gun fell from her petrified idle hands.
Georgia couldn’t tell the amount of force she had applied to it, but outside Monica’s neck remained only a small piece of the shard, now also covered by her blood.
Monica opened her lips, trying to speak or scream, but all that came from it was a thick and red squish that stained her teeth and face while she started drowning in her own blood. The sound of Monica’s agony was like a thousand tortured children screaming for Georgia. It was too much for her to bear. It was possible to hear air bubbling through the blood trying to escape Monica’s throat while she tried to inhale and exhale, breathe, spraying droplets of blood around her on the attempt. Her limbs slowly danced in a funereal ballet, as she started to realize that, in a matter of seconds, she would finally die.
Staggering, Georgia fell backwards, trying to crawl as far as possible, as if it would ease her guilt. Monica’s head shook violently for a quick second, as also did her chest that could barely move up or down, making her unable to absorb oxygen enough. She dragged one hand to her shoulder, touching the shard of glass stuck in her neck that was also bleeding, while the other hand twisted, slapped and tapped and punched and scratched the floor, grabbed the fabric of her silk blouse in a cry for help.
Georgia withheld the tears and the fright. There was nothing else to be done, there was no way back. She had to convince herself all she had done so far had been in self-defense, measures to preserve her own life. Any jury would understand that.
Monica, then, lifted a hand, not the one trying to pluck the glass from the wound, but the one that shook and twitched. She raised her hand as if pleading for help, a last SOS cry. Her fingers touched the exposed edge of the shard, but she had no forces to pull it out. The sound of the bubbles and blood keep sounding and singing, a final agony that seemed to extend itself longer than necessary.
Monica’s body squirmed in a sudden spasm, which came with the same strength as Georgia’s sobbing, and again she choked, the blood splattering.
The movements ceased. The raised hand slowly toppled down, while her legs lost the endurance of keeping themselves still and also succumbed to stagnation.
Georgia took a hand to the mouth, blocking the short scream that tried to escape, just like her tears.
The glassy and unresponsive eyes of Monica stared directly at her, covering her with a blanket of guilt and remorse, demonizing her, threatening to stay on her backs through eternity.
Georgia, however, knew she had no time for that. She had no time to blame herself or find excuses to what had happened; the immediacy of the moment didn’t allow her free time to cry and drown in sorrows, regretting the murder and sinking into despair.
Blood ran from Monica’s mouth and neck, already settling itself into a pool around her head. She had no time for feeling pain.
Trying to keep herself steady and straight, Georgia stood up and crossed the room, doing an open curve to avoid Monica’s body as long as she could. She entered the bathroom, nervously looking for something important in one of the drawers underneath the sink until she found it: the plastic shower cap and the cleaning gloves she had stored in there.
Looking at herself in the mirror, in a mess of tears and scattered hair, Georgia pulled the locks of hair up to the top of her head and locked it all in a bun again, covered by her cap. She put the yellow gloves on and burst through the double doors back into the room, stopping in front of Monica’s body. Holding her by the shoulders, Georgia dragged her to the bathroom, leaving a crimson trail on the way.
She let Monica’s body fall to the floor again and closed the bathtub tap, now halfway full, and dove her hand into the marble pool, opening the drain. While the unnecessary amount of water flowed down, she tried to pretend those warm tears weren’t coming down her face. As the level of water lowered for less than a palm, Georgia closed the drain again.
Dressed in the care a medical examiner would have, Georgia started to remove Monica’s clothes. Kneeling on the cold bathroom floor, she took the woman’s earrings and placed them on the sink, taking all the clothing and ornaments and putting them all at the same place of the earrings. Next, she put an effort on removing the heavy winter coat and the loose silk blouse. At last, Georgia took the long, tight skirt, pulling it through Monica’s legs and removing also the pantyhose and the underwear.
There it was, naked, the body of the woman she had just killed. It was obvious that Monica, at the age she was in, frequently visited a gym and took care of her eating habits. She looked young, even with the somehow apparent aging signs. There were no bruises or evident marks, apart from those that had just happened in the struggle. An intact body, beautiful and considerably young, however now lifeless, colorless, futureless. A life that had ended in her hands, it was not something to suffer about. The life of a woman had ended in her hands, and that was something that strongly tightened Georgia’s chest.
She bent down and lifted both of Monica’s legs, trying to lift her as people carry children. She needed to bring her up just a few inches so that her body would slide into the bathtub. She had to take a beat to regain her breathe and energies a few times until he got it done, water splashing and shaking furiously inside the tub when it suddenly received the body.
Mindlessly, she folded the clothes. In the background, the TV announced some tragedy caused by the recent snowstorm somewhere north from there. She ignored it and left the clothes on a corner of the bathroom, as if Monica had carefully gotten undressed before going into a bath.
Georgia sat at the side of the tub and fixed the woman, leaving her partially sitting, as any person who enjoys an immersion bath. The head fell back, revealing her white neck now covered by layers of blood and, steady as a surgeon, she held Monica’s head with one of her gloved hands and, with the other, she took a grip of the exposed glass and pulled it out with a clean and straight, precise movement.
The relieve came only after she saw the glass had come out completely, unclogging the hole in Monica’s skin, more blood coming down from her neck, running across her shoulder, her bare breast and, finally, dripping and spreading through the warm water that covered the dead woman. And Georgia felt calm. Maybe too calm.
She walked out of the bathroom, closing the door behind herself. Her hands finally went back to shaking, along with her chest that twitched anxiously, while she crossed the chaotic scene of blood and glass.
What have I done?
Her plan had, so far, worked out perfect. She should have imagined Monica, as any decent human being, would be moved by her own free will and could come up. She should have considered every and each variable, risks and troubles. She should have been more careful, cautious.
Anxiety came to surface in an explosion of tears and angered shouts, for so long kept inside herself. Georgia let her body drop onto the floor again, while the dark room only reflected the lights that came from the window, besides the colorful shadows projected from the TV. The sound was now muffled, all her ears could do was to capture her own pulse and her restrained crying in between her legs, while she embraced herself in tears, trying to comfort and recompose herself.
She was still rocking back and f
orth and sideways, shivering, the arms wrapped around her legs when she heard the familiar noise echoing all around the room under the news noises.
It was a phone.
It was Monica’s phone.
V
Clarice pulled herself up, trying to find the gun, trying to find Jason. He was right over there, on the other side of the sofa, facing her, huffing, his shoulders lifting and lowering repeatedly in aggressive moves, as well as his wrong breathing. It was possible he was still hallucinating, but he was sane enough to free himself from the ties and attack her. She couldn’t falter.
“You know what I love the most about hospitals?” He asked, the sarcasm printed all over his smiling face. “The excessive medicine they shove down your throat.”
Jason moved the sofa away with a shove, moving against Clarice, who seemed to distance herself away. She was on the wrong side of the room, heading the main door while the gun lay on the other side, after Jason, in front of the fireplace. She had to find a way to reach the other side, to get out from there.
Jason was closer at the second and she felt her heart speed up, ignoring all efforts she was making to keep that memory, that thought far away. It was a trauma, being cornered. It would be an even bigger trauma being cornered by him, by Jason, by Michelle’s killer.
“Some of them really keep you numb, Clarice. While other… the others are to heal the effect of your drugs. About that have you thought?”
She took two more steps backwards, now meeting the thick glass wall that kept her from the cabin’s front yard. Outside the snow didn’t fall anymore, but the dunes had settled themselves, creating this oppressively white expanse, perhaps whiter than Clarice’s face. She tried to conceal the gentle fear, but she knew her eyes would give it away.
The Woman Hidden Page 40
