She straddled the body, cursing herself and Ti for the unexpected company. Sophia had to admit she wanted to attract the girl and bring her into her web, maybe to share with Paul, but not this way. Not while she was still enjoying the company of this guest.
She’d have to hurry. Normally, she liked to enjoy the rigid, morbid pleasures of rigor mortis until her pubic bone ached from humping, but she’d have to enjoy as much of him as she could as she dissected him, cut him up and parceled the rest of him away in large, black trash bags. With her outer thighs pressed against the sides of the tub, she used her scalpel to trace a pink line starting from the victim’s chest, down through the tummy, nearly reaching the groin.
She loved this part a lot, especially when the victim was male and had dark hair. She loved the sooty contrast of body hair against the deathly pale pallor of the skin in that sweet spot, beginning right below the belly button and trailing down to the pubic hair.
Sophia’s scalpel cut through the now toughened skin. In some places, she had to saw a bit more than she would have liked. She used her fingers, wriggled them inside the layers of flesh, and pulled. She inhaled the ripe aroma of the body’s innards, a grisly concoction of rot and putrefaction.
Quickly, she scooped out the innards, using the knife when she needed to. She had this down to a science and could move as swiftly as a fox if she was under a time crunch. This would be a challenge during broad daylight. She usually saved clean-up projects for early morning.
Soon, she had every part neatly cut and packaged in the black trash bags. She put those in her old suitcases, arranged them by the door and scrubbed everything down with her usual bleach and hot water solution. As she cleaned with the strong solution, Argie hid under the bed. He hated this part.
Soon, she was clean and incense smoke hung in a heavy grey curtain all over the apartment. She trundled the suitcases down the stairs, heaved them into the Honda, headed back upstairs, and then waited. Normally, she would have reveled in the body, carving the skin away and coating herself with thick blood before boiling the silken fat down in the warehouse. But she wanted to see what was going on with this curious girl. She thought again about drugging her and bringing her to Paul, and how much he’d appreciate such a kind gesture.
As soon as Ti had returned, Sophia wished she hadn’t.
“And I don’t know where she is,” Ti said with desperate eyes. Ever since she had come back, Ti had been like a teakettle, talking and babbling and crying and looking like she would explode at any moment. Sophia watched her and tried not to cringe.
How exactly am I supposed to react to this?
Sophia sat motionless on the couch, watching the strange girl explain what had happened to Tamara. Sophia was a statue compared with the animate Ti, her stone cold eyes watching. She only moved every so often to casually sip her tea. The girl hadn't touched hers.
"Had she been acting strange before she disappeared?"
Ti sniffed and looked down at the rug. "Not really."
"Do you think she had a fight with someone? A lover?"
Ti looked over at Sophia, seeming to study her. "She would have told me about that."
Sophia sighed, resolved. She couldn't think of anything to say that wouldn't sound too cliché.
"I'm sure they'll find your friend," she said, not sure if her statement offered any comfort whatsoever. She wanted to be charming and lure the girl into her web effortlessly, like Paul. How did he do it? How was he so good at manipulating and wooing? She frowned as she briefly thought of him hanging around on her doorstep. She still wasn’t sure if she wanted to see him again.
"It's strange," Ti continued, her brow furrowed. "She's very intuitive, so I don't think she could have been dragged off just like that," she said, snapping her fingers for emphasis.
Sophia stared blankly, still unsure of what to do. She supposed Paul would have gone over to the girl, folded her up in his arms, and made comforting sounds. Sophia couldn't really do that without giving in to the urge to drug her, drag her to the bathtub, and then stab her in the heart. She thought how nice it would be to bite into the flesh or pile-drive her nails into the skin.
She simply couldn't do that. Not with the girl's friend missing. It would be entirely too suspicious, and Sophia felt she must err on the side of discretion these days.
Argie tracked a tense, stealthy beeline into the room. He nudged up against Sophia's foot.
Ti gasped, enamored. "What a cute cat!"
"His name's Argie," Sophia said while the large tomcat arched his back, stretching into Sophia's touch.
"I'm taking care of Tamara's cat until she gets back. She's very...moody." Sophia only gave a tight smile, sensing the conversation might turn to more personal questions.
"Do you have any roommates?"
"No. It's just me and the cat."
"Don't you ever get lonely living alone? I do."
"I don't."
"No boyfriend or anything?" Sophia's mind quickly flashed over to Paul.
"No."
“Really? No one?” Sophia could feel her annoyance beginning to trickle out of her ears. She held her tongue.
“All I really care about is the cat. I don’t need people. I have a few friends around, but I don't really feel like I need them," she said, and shut up before saying too much.
“Everyone needs people. Humans are social animals. Don’t you think?”
“I disagree. I’m perfectly content on my own.”
“I’m not. I wish I were more like you…content on my own. Whenever I’m out and about, I’m usually by myself, but I always keep my eye open for others. Maybe others like me.”
Sophia looked at Ti out of the corner of her eye. Ti was gazing back with intense fascination and it made Sophia feel like she was an animal under observation at the zoo.
“I don’t. I find a lot of freedom in being alone. I can be myself. No one’s around to judge.”
“What would anyone judge you for? I wish I could be like you. I envy you.” She grazed her hand across Sophia’s velvet black drape of hair and moved it away from her face. Sophia flinched and moved back.
“Sorry. I’m just interested in being friends, that’s all.”
Sophia sat in silence. She wished Ti would go away. Why had she come here, anyway?
The rain trickled down outside, cutting through the silence like little metallic knife stabs.
"I guess you aren't. Sorry to bother you. One last thing…" Ti rummaged in her shoulder bag and produced negatives. She fumbled with them, her hands shaking and awkward, and handed them to Sophia. "Tell me which ones you want."
"Fine. Thank you."
“I guess that’s it. Call me when you've decided.” Ti gathered her things and headed out the door. Sophia didn’t look up, didn’t watch her walk away. She wanted to call after her, tell her she wanted to pass off as normal, that she wanted to shed her old lifestyle and become human again, but the words didn't come out.
CHAPTER TWELVE
Black and the Breaking Point
Two weeks had passed since they’d found the femur at the Sutro Baths and Black had no real leads on the case of the disintegrated bones, the missing girl from the coffee shop was still an open case, and he needed a beer.
The only thing they were able to determine was that most of the victims—at least, the ones they found with teeth—were down and out types: prostitutes, missing persons, drug abusers. He sat in his patrol car on Point Lobos Avenue near the Sutro Baths, drinking coffee and thinking.
The coffee tasted like shit, probably because he had been consuming large quantities of it in an attempt to focus on his work and wean himself off of the booze. Every time he opened his mouth to talk, he caught whiffs of rancid stale brew and he noticed his teeth looked more stained than usual. A wave of longing passed through him, and he craved the strong bite of a cold beer or the warm comforts of whiskey. On top of everything, sleep was not coming to him very often, and when he did drift off, he woke up in a f
ilm of sweat. He was glad it was nighttime now—it sucked to work during the day. Even with all the cloud cover and rain, his sensitivity to light was so astounding it caused him to double over with dry heaves on a regular basis.
Oh, the stomach issues. It felt like the whirling depths of the ocean were trapped inside him, ready to crash on the nearest inappropriate shore. He felt like he could deal with everything else. Nothing settled his stomach. He rolled down the window of the patrol car and dumped the rest of the coffee out onto the street.
Wong had been keeping her mouth shut, but Black knew that look. She was likely on the verge of telling the higher ups, which might mean a stint in rehab. He had never actually been to AA, but he received plenty of threats from Rita and work over the years, enough to quit for a while, go through hellish withdrawals, then secretly pick up drinking again. Rehab seemed like hell on earth. Rita and Jason would come up, and that was the last thing he wanted to think about—but the thought and memories came anyway.
He barely remembered anything from two years ago—an alcoholic haze shrouded the past. He did remember Jason stealing Rita’s car and wrecking it in some shitty neighborhood way out on the East Bay, and that had been the final straw. Robert Black always threatened to punch everyone into next week for one thing or another during his drunken tirades, but this time he followed through.
“You’re fifteen, for fuck’s sake. You think you’re getting a license now? I ought to lock you up in jail right now, you ungrateful piece of shit!”
“That would be a whole lot better than living with you,” Jason had said, his voice strangely deep and unemotional.
It was meant to be a stinging little backhand. Instead, the slap landed on Jason’s cheek so hard it knocked him onto the floor.
Jason left that night and Black flushed all his beer and whiskey down the toilet. What a way to leave home. Crash a car to get your parents’ attention and get so much of it you end up with a bruised face and nowhere to go.
This time was different. He quit drinking because it crossed his mind that Jason’s disintegrated bones could be floating around out there in the depths of the frigid ocean. What a lonely way to be buried, he thought as he placed his hand over his grumbling stomach.
Wong was probably right: the semi-dissolved bones could have come from some drug gang. They would probably never really find out what happened. Not without more evidence. He needed something else to go on.
Black headed back up Point Lobos until it turned into Geary, then onto Castro. One more cup of coffee, then he was going home. It was unlikely there would be any activity near the Sutro Baths since that article came out.
Whoever was chucking bodies out into the whirling, chilly seas of the Pacific was killing in highly erratic patterns. Mostly men, a few women here and there. No one was safe.
He drove past Tamara’s coffee shop. Still closed. But there was a faint light glowing in the depths of the shop, and a black Honda parked right in the front. He took note of the plate number.
He wondered about this Tamara. We found these bones, and then she disappears. He spun it around in his brain over and over.
Then he remembered filing the reports at the station. Tamara had a rap sheet.
Prostitution. Obvious fake IDs, no records of her past life as a man. He remembered the case because she was one of the many Hurricane Katrina escapees—many of them arrived with nothing but the clothes on their backs. No birth certificates, no driver’s licenses, no nothing. But somehow, she had cleaned up her life quickly and was managing a coffee shop of all things, a stark contrast in comparison to her previous life.
Tamara, where are you? Did you know something?
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Sophia: Worlds Collide
"I've been waiting for you, you know."
Something about the way he turned up just one side of his lips sent a strange, electric chill down her spine. The smile was almost fake, but she wasn't sure what element about the whole thing was phony. However, she set aside her doubts once she noticed the glimmer of lust in his eyes. Sophia could smell his desire intermingled with her own as she crossed the threshold. He smelled musky and also emitted something enticingly coppery, and she wanted to suck it right out through his velvet pink tongue.
Was this why she came here? Was it to solidify the fact that she was stalking him, was fascinated by him, or did she just want to lose herself in someone? The whole encounter with Ti had thrown her off kilter, left her feeling vulnerable and exposed.
She didn’t feel like she had control over anything anymore.
She wanted to see him stripped down, way down to his core, wanted to explore his innards under a magnifying glass. But she knew she'd never understand him. He was a totally different monster.
That's what spellbound her.
Without saying anything at all, she found herself drawn further into the dark blue pools of his eyes, which were cool and unusual. The smell of his musk was almost too intense and drew her in further, further into his poisonous embrace. As her tongue mixed with his, she tried to put that thought out of her head. So what if he was a demon? So was she.
But as he slid her clothes off, the voice kept nagging and clawing at her brain. It was still there when she felt the hardness of his cock up against her thigh, his hands all over her, gliding up and down her body. It felt so primal though, so unlike anything she'd ever experienced with her victims or even Claude.
For a while, they tangled and wrestled as if trying to assert who was the dominant one, with him eventually winning out on top. She let him. Even through the darkness, he instinctively knew her every spot and wish. Even if she wanted to get away, she felt completely bound by her own pleasures.
For the first time, she let herself go and trusted someone to her body.
From the edge of night on, everything ran together in sex-sweat and red hot, fleshy desires. It wasn't just the sex that felt amazing. Being in his arms, feeling his warmth up against her was fulfilling in ways she had never known before. She wondered if he understood and accepted her. Really, she thought that was all she was looking for. With acceptance and understanding, she wouldn't feel the need to suck her victims dry, to prey upon their souls, to build them up and break them until they came crashing down, to turn them into something cleaner and more useful.
They lay together and Sophia became wrapped up in her sleeping fantasies, Paul's hot embrace interweaving with her dreams. Except in this world, she shut her eyes tight against the real world and the blinding daylight and reminisced. She could feel the fading warmth of a newly killed body up against her skin, its body stiff and positioned like one of those wooden artist's figures. The dead could do anything: snuggle, serve as passive sex partners, serve as non-judgmental friends, or just hang out and fill a void.
“Tell me why you were following me around. Were you planning on killing me?” Paul’s voice sounded slightly muffled by the pillows and scrunched up sheets.
She thought about it for a long time before she turned over to face him. “I found you to be different, I suppose—I mean, different from the rest of society. There is a reason I do the things I do. I take all those disgusting and worthless people and turn them into something clean, something society wants. I’m saving them. It makes me feel powerful. I don’t know why you do the things you do—maybe it’s to have a sense of control. I know that is a big part of it for me. I found you fascinating. You were definitely not disgusting and worthless. Maybe it’s because we are one in the same, maybe it’s because I recognized something in your eyes.” She reached out and caressed his brow with her thumb and marveled at the cold intelligence behind his blue eyes.
“You should help me do it. We could still do what we do and make a lot of money in the process.” She declined to tell him about Claude. I’ll save that for later, she thought as she drifted off.
Sophia snapped out of it when she felt Paul move. She sat up and rubbed her eyes.
"Where are you going?"
"
Out."
She watched his tense movements as he got dressed. Fuck, she thought to herself, he knows he made a mistake and is disappearing on me! He barely made eye contact with her as he hurriedly dressed. It was all she could do to keep from pouncing on him, driving her long fingernails into his throat, and dominating him. She grit her teeth instead.
"Going to see someone else?" The question was brimming with sarcasm.
"If you must know, yes." This time he did make eye contact, but it was cold and void. She knew that look. She was familiar with his mood now. She had been his appetizer and he couldn't hold out for the main course any longer. She supposed she should feel special for not dying at his hand, but it left her feeling strange and empty for some reason. She sat up and hugged her knees for comfort.
"Who?"
"Her name is Beth. She's having a lot of problems lately."
"Uh huh. I'm sure you'll be her knight in shining psychotherapy."
Her jealousy was raging. Especially because she knew that the girl was so unlike herself. Even though she was sure Paul was doing it for the sole purpose of getting a reaction out of her, it worked. The mere fact that it had such an impact on her set her teeth on edge. Even though she didn't really want to, even though she knew it'd make it all much, much worse, she parted her lips to speak.
"I want to watch."
"Do you?" There was that half-smirk again, the one that was beginning to make her second guess everything that was going on with this man. She nodded slowly, hoping she came across as confident. He didn't say anything else. He cocked his head in a 'follow me' gesture, and she quickly got dressed.
* * * *
Fuck, it was frigid that night. It wasn't so much the cold as it was the wind and the rain. Especially up here in Marin County.
That girl, Beth, had a nice place up here. One could go out on the deck and gaze at the chopping current of the San Francisco Bay, dark and dense as a mystery, as well as the vague bluish peaks in the background. In fact, the deck was where Sophia posted up, but she wasn't looking at the water or the hills.
Inside, Paul looked as though he wanted to die of boredom. She could see him through the foggy, rain spackled window, his image distorted. She could see the back of the girl's head, which moved slightly as she talked. She couldn’t care less about the girl, though. She wanted to see how Paul did it. She wanted to watch him again.
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