by Stuart Keane
Shay looked at the other woman. “Odette? What sort of fucked up name is that?”
Odette didn’t respond.
Gavin looked over to his girlfriend, who continued to stare at the woman, but didn’t move.
He turned back to Shay. “Look, Shay, whatever we had, whatever you think that we had, the truth is that it was a total mess. I was scared of you. I was scared of your violent outbursts, and I was terrified of your mood swings. I called the whole thing off for my own safety.”
Odette raised an eyebrow. “You saying that this whore is dangerous?”
“Yes, no … maybe … listen this was a long time ago. Four years is a small lifetime.”
Shay laughed. “You really think that you’ve got this all sussed out, don’t you, Gavin? You really think that I’m the disgruntled little wife to be, who’s returned to try and win back your love. You’re pathetic.”
“But –”
“But nothing, the only reason that I came back to this place was that, following my release, you were the closest and most convenient thing that I could find to bend me over and give me a good hard fuck. Truth be told, I’d have jumped anybody, but I remembered how good it once was. You do have some talent, after all.”
Odette frowned. Gavin followed suit, and stiffened a little. “Release?”
“That’s right. For the past four years, I’ve been a guest inside the Carterton Facility on the other side of town.”
Odette interrupted, “The Carterton Facility? Isn’t that a place for the criminally insane?”
Shay winked. “That’s right, sweetheart, full marks to you, but I can’t be too many spanners short of a toolbox. After all, they let me out.”
Shay suddenly started pouting her lips, and fluttering her eyelashes.
Odette snapped and raised the knife, pointing it directly at Shay’s face. “So are you saying that you’re not back here because you’re still in love with him?”
Shay rolled her eyes. “God no. Haven’t you worked it out yet, you dumb broad? I just told you. I came back here because, after four years of being incarcerated, I had a major itch that needed scratching, and I know that old Gavin here would have been too weak to say no. Simple chemistry, nothing more.”
Gavin went to reply before Odette snapped at him, “Shut the fuck up, Gavin.”
She looked at Shay. “So what are you saying? That you’re insane?”
Shay smirked. “I’m a genuine, cold blooded fucking psychopath.”
Odette’s eyes narrowed. “Really?”
“You bet your ass on it.”
“Well, isn’t that just marvellous,” Odette uttered, grinning.
The two women shared a glance, both smiling.
Gavin trembled, his thighs erupting in stiff gooseflesh. He ambled over to his girlfriend. “Shay, I think you should leave. Now. Odette, dooo something,” he whined.
Shay laughed, deep and husky. “I don’t think your girlfriend is going to make me do … anything.” She paused, watching the couple, one trembling, and full of panic, the other stoic, uncaring, not fazed by the events surrounding her. Odette was grinning, and Shay liked it. “Are you, darling?”
Odette shook her head. “Not a fucking jot.”
Gavin’s eyes widened and stared. He groaned and staggered backwards, a deep bubbling noise rumbling deep in his stomach. He glanced from Shay to Odette, watching both women, and realised they were both looking in his direction.
No, not looking.
Leering.
Assessing the threat, like a predator to its prey.
Shit, he thought.
And there was no threat. Gavin was more useless than a turd in a wet paper bag. He groaned as he felt his bowels drop a little, threatening to vacate and spray shit all over the floor. He backed away, putting distance between himself and the two women, two adorable women who’d shared his bed on numerous occasions, provided him with some of the best times of his life, and who he loved more than life itself.
Two lifetimes, two completely different people.
Or so he thought.
“Where are you going, Gavin?” Shay said, stepping towards him.
“Stay back,” he spat, the threat empty.
“Or what,” Odette chimed, once again twirling the knife.
Gavin noticed, and tensed.
No, don’t shit yourself, don’t do it.
You have little power, and shitting on the floor will destroy that.
He clenched, and placed a trembling hand on his left butt cheek, the fingers breaching the cleft slightly. The probing tips became wet, and the faint whiff of fresh excrement stung his nostrils. He lifted an empty plate from the bedside cabinet and held it up, pointing it at the women.
Shay chuckled. “Ha, you’re really going to do a mischief with that, ain’t ya?”
Odette smiled. “Maybe he wants us to wash it up, you know, we are women.”
Shay nodded. “I always thought he was a little … Stone Age, for my liking.”
“Sex, cooking, cleaning and washing up. Our relationship in a nutshell,” Odette said, a moment of clarity lighting up her brain like a Christmas tree. “I realise that now, he wanted me for nothing more than a maid and a slut, in no particular order.”
Gavin held the plate level with his chin, poised, a shaking hand ready to launch the crockery at whichever of the two women made the first move.
He stuttered, “Stay … stay where you are, or I’ll –!”
“Or you’ll what, you pathetic piece of shit?” Odette chimed, cutting off his sentence. “Start spinning that thing? I never knew you had any Greek in you.”
Shay glanced at Odette and raised an eyebrow. “Really, plate-spinning jokes at an intense moment like this? Maybe we should get him to change the CD to something a little more … fitting.”
Odette smirked, snorting in the process. She held her hand over her nose.
Gavin’s jaw dropped open, and he began shaking his head. “I don’t believe this. Look, ladies, just let me past –”
“Ladies?” Shay snapped. “You have no right to use that word. Since when did you start treating me … us, like a lady? From best memory, you were a decent ten minutes in the sack before rolling over and falling asleep, leaving me to lie on the soggy part of the mattress. I emphasise decent, it’s the whole reason I’m in this fucking mess to begin with.”
“It’s good to see that some things haven’t changed, at least,” replied Odette, becoming increasingly agitated.
“You know what?” He looked at Odette, and then Shay. “Fuck the pair of you,” Gavin spat, attempting to show some bravado. “Both of you are two digestives short of a fucking packet, and you’re both in my house.” He directed his rhetoric at Shay. “Now, fuck off out of it, before I call the police and they come and drag your insane little arse back to the looney bin.”
Odette replied, “Gavin, that’s just rude.”
“Fuck you, Odette, you’re just as crazy as her. Consider this,” he pointed his finger between the two of them sharply, “me and you, finished.”
Odette’s face twisted, and she began to cry; her eyes scrunched up and her bottom lip began to quiver, in response to the man’s horrible statement, before turning into a deep maniacal smile that spread to both sides of her face, displaying her perfectly white teeth. She shook her head, not bothered in the slightest.
She looked at Gavin, who was becoming increasingly disconcerted. “Well, well. I actually think he’s grown a set of balls. You took your time.”
“You know what?” he spat. “Fuck the pair of you.”
Immediately enraged, he flung out his arm and released the plate from his grip. It went spinning through an arc in the air, in a trajectory that was headed directly for the middle of Shay’s face. The woman instinctively took a step back, but it was too late.
Upon impact, there was a dull clattering sound as porcelain connected with the bone in her forehead, and the plate broke into two pieces. One piece fell to the carpet wi
th a soft thunk at Odette’s feet, whilst the other piece went flying past the side of Shay’s head and clanged off the wall behind where she stood.
A deep gash appeared on Shay’s forehead which immediately began to sluice a slow stream of deep, warm blood. It dripped into her right eye, down her cheek and spooled from her chin. Instinctively, she rubbed her fingertips along the wound and looked at her hand which was now coated with fresh blood.
Shay glanced down at the broken piece of porcelain lying at Odette’s feet. She snapped round and spotted the other piece of broken plate behind her. She watched Odette, who was standing to attention, her arms crossed, with the knife still gripped in her hand. She looked at Gavin, who had started to shake with fear.
“Oh, you’re in fucking trouble now.”
Odette looked at Gavin, contempt in her eyes, a hatred brewing deep down. “Why did you do that?”
“Why? You bitches are ganging up on me, that’s why?”
“It doesn’t give you a reason to assault someone with your cheap crockery!” she spat, dumbfounded by the sentence she had just uttered. Odette couldn’t help but laugh.
“Yeah, well fuck you. I want you both gone. Now.”
Odette looked at Gavin, her eyes focused. In her peripheral vision, she saw Shay rubbing at the wound on her head, licking the bright blood from her fingertips. There was a curt smile on her face, one that spoke of something sinister, something unnatural. She seemed to be enjoying the taste of the spilt claret, maybe a little too much.
“No,” she said, staring Gavin down.
“No? What do you mean no?” The man didn’t move, didn’t try to pass her.
“You hurt Shay, both mentally and physically. Tossed plate or broken love or the lack of commitment, I don’t care. You need to be taught a lesson.”
“Yes,” Shay uttered, chuckling. “You hurt Odette here too. That’s just not on.”
Both women looked at one another, a shared thought passing between them.
“Odette?” Shay said, wiping her hand on her jeans.
The other woman smiled, her gaze directed at Gavin. “Yes?”
“Give me the knife, darling.”
“Sure thing.”
Gavin screamed before the women could even touch his sweaty flesh with the blade, but no one would hear him on that fatal night. The other apartments were empty, void of life. No one heard his moans of pure agony, and no one stopped the violence that occurred.
After several hours, both women left the apartment, their lives changed forever.
IV
Shay felt at home inside the twenty-four hour diner. It was a stereotypical American establishment which catered for its customers’ needs based upon quantity and value for money more than the quality of its food. Her eyes roamed across the red faux leather seats and glistening chrome furniture. The pristine black and white tiles gleamed beneath the fluorescent lights, and the stench of burnt fat and smells of overcooked bacon and burgers loitered in the air.
An analogue clock on the wall displayed the time. 22:15.
The place would be hit by its heaviest business in thirty minutes.
Shay took another look around. In the distance at the counter, she spotted Odette paying at the till as a portly middle-aged man with a sad excuse for a comb-over leered at her whilst taking her money. The rest of the establishment was totally empty. She had intentionally taken the window furthest away from the counter so that they could conduct their discussion in private, away from prying eyes and ears.
Odette walked back to her table carrying two mugs filled with black coffee. She placed them on the table, and pushed one towards Shay. The rim was yellowed and chipped.
Odette took the seat opposite her, her eyes narrowing. “How’s the head?”
“Not too bad now that it’s stopped bleeding. If you’d told me this morning that I would have a plate smashed off my bonce by the time the day is out, I would have laughed at you.”
Odette raised her right eyebrow. “In fairness, I think the day has been eventful and unpredictable for both of us. We didn’t see a lot of it coming.” She flicked her damp hair over her shoulder.
Shay raised the coffee cup to her lips and took a swig. The bitter contents tasted sour and barely lukewarm. She groaned, “This coffee is fucking disgusting. I haven’t had a decent cup in four years and you bring me to a rundown shit hole like this. What’s the deal with this place, anyway?”
“There is no deal, I’ve never been in here before myself, either. I just thought it would be a good place to come to discuss things, you know, out of the way.”
Shay took another swig from the cup and grimaced, the cold contents offending her tongue. “Thanks for lending me the clothes, by the way, they’re almost a perfect fit.”
“It’s the least I could do,” Odette uttered, her eyes scanning a dishevelled man who entered the café. “We can’t have you walking around in your old gear now, can we? By the time we’d finished with him, everything was spattered in blood and piss. No, they had to go, they were ruined.”
“Not to mention faeces and semen. Ick,” Shay said, faking a shiver of utter revulsion.
Odette nodded. “Indeed.”
Shay held up her hands and inspected them. “Damn it, even after thirty minutes in his power shower, I’ve still got traces of blood under my nails, see?” She held out her hand, fingers splayed, and Odette noticed dark flecks attached to her skin, one or two missed from the hot spray of her shower. Glancing around furtively, she relaxed. None of the staff had seen or looked in their direction. Shay retracted her hand and placed it in her lap, beneath the table.
Odette sipped her coffee. “So what do we do now?”
Shay held the cup in her hands, rubbing the rim with the tip of her index finger. She looked back at Odette, immediately recognising that mischievous spark in her eye, the slight smile on her lips. “It depends, doesn’t it? We can’t let the authorities know what we’ve just done now. Can we?”
“Nope, that’s not an option,” Odette replied. She looked around the interior of the café slowly, taking it all in. The quiet sound of crockery and cutlery clinked in unison. The woman smiled. “I had fun, didn’t you?”
Shay smiled. “You bet your sweet arse I had fun, lady. Four years. Four years I’ve been locked away in that nut house, and I got to partake in two of my favourite pastimes within an hour of being let out. It was totally worth the wait.”
Odette smiled. I know, bitch. You fucked my boyfriend, she thought.
She let it slide. After all, it took two to tango, and regardless of who instigated the behaviour, Gavin wouldn’t have broken her trust if he was either happy or loyal. Better to be rid of a cheater than stroking his ego on the side. Gavin was the one in the wrong here, and she couldn’t blame Shay for that, not in the slightest. She hadn’t even known of Odette’s existence, which was obvious when she arrived and broke up the sordid tryst.
Odette sipped her coffee. She decided to test the waters. “You glad to be out?”
“Of course. It’s all about playing the game. I got friendly with this doctor whilst I was in there, who gave me some of his wonder medication. The truth is, at first, yeah, it helped, it helped me see things more clearly, but after a couple of weeks, I found that I could control it. I made out that it was the best thing since sliced bread, but between us, they could have been giving me Smarties and the effects would have been the same.”
Odette nodded. Said nothing.
“And what about you? You seemed to get into the swing of things back at Gavin’s gaff.”
Odette nodded once, a slight dip of the chin. Her eyes watched the black coffee swirl silently, the effect enthralling. “Not really. I mean, I suppose so. I’ve never felt like that before, I just felt something snap inside, something exploded in my brain when I heard you two … going at it. My instincts took over and … well, when I was pushing that knife into his belly for the first time, deep and slow, the moment punctuated by the sucking noise of the
slippery wound as the muscle and flabby flesh contracted around the blade … man, I never felt anything like it before.” She laughed nervously. “I felt alive, and I don’t mean happy or ecstatic, or the normal buzz you get from events going your way, I mean alive!”
Shay’s pupils dilated, her mouth opened in an O, emitting a low groan. She felt a tingling sensation rise from the depths of her loins and begin to make its way into the pit of her stomach; she was certain that she felt her face flush with embarrassment. She giggled. “That’s the best part. For me it’s all about that window of opportunity, from the first blow until the last, when their life slowly drains from their bodies.” She looked around, lowering her voice a fraction. “I love to make them suffer, I like to cut them, burn them, and sometimes skin them. I usually draw the line at having a nibble on the dead corpse, but I suppose with Gavin earlier, I just got a little excited. I’ve been denied my excess. It’s to be expected after a four-year break.”
Odette narrowed her eyes, admiring the woman opposite her. Her dark hair, still ruffled and damp from the shower, curled over her right shoulder, hanging in a mess over her right breast. Her skin was darker than pale but not from her genes as Odette had originally thought. She’d clearly had a tan on multiple occasions in the past. She remembered calling the woman a wetback during her outburst and cringed, feeling a tad embarrassed. Her body was curvy in all the right places, slim and attractive. She didn’t blame Gavin. Had she been that way inclined, she would have fucked Shay herself.
No, she didn’t admire the woman for her beautiful looks, she felt drawn to her intense charisma, her bright personality. Or one aspect of it anyway. She smiled, the question lingering on her lips. She sipped her coffee. “So, when did you first know you were … you know?”
Shay eyed the woman, confused for a second. “What?”
Odette smiled, teasing her companion. “A psychopath.”
Shay’s first reaction was to burst out laughing, which in turn caused Odette to join her. Both women continued for a few seconds in their raucous cacophony before settling down and remembering where they were. Both women looked around the room nervously; luckily the place was still somewhat empty and their actions hadn’t drawn any unwanted attention.
