The dead woman had dirty feet. No. Not just dirty. They were filthy. Her soles were almost black on the heels, outer edges, and toe pads. Her insteps lightened to muddy brown, then joined the lily white skin on the top of her feet.
He sat in the kitchen of her tiny apartment staring at the bottoms of her feet. His gaze followed the pale white of her shapely legs to where they disappeared, just below the knees, into the light yellow fabric of her day dress. He giggled as he thought of a line his old friend, Blacky, had come up with: “Looka that, bud, a woman with a perfect set o' gams. A foot on one end and a pussy on the other, legs all the way up to her asshole.”
The grin slipped from his face, a drowning man's fingertips beneath the surface of a body of water. This was supposed to be the best part. The After. She was to caress him with the privacy of her death, the sharing of warm fresh heat, a body at stop.
His fists clenched in anger. He wanted nothing more than to beat her for soiling his moment. He began to shake as Daddy's stern voice insinuated itself into the bottom of his consciousness. "Don't ya ever hit yer sister agin! Matter o' fact, don't ya ever hit no woman, boy!" His face twisted and became red, the shape of Daddy's hand lying on it, a forever brand of guilt.
"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry..." He recoiled at the sound of his own voice. His jaws slammed shut and he was vaguely aware that he had bitten his tongue. A small trickle of blood formed on his lips and he licked it away. He squeezed his eyes shut, then slowly opened them and focused on the yellow fabric of her day dress. He recalled the last hour or so in perfect clarity.
He had opened the cheap door fixture easily with his picklock tools, then poked his bolt cutters through the crack to cut the chain lock. He passed through the kitchen of the small apartment and entered her bedroom. She looked so perfect at first, lying on her back and waiting for him. Her dark hair was parted in the middle and spread out around her face like a silken halo. For a shocked moment he had believed her already gone, stolen from him before The Before.
The Before. Almost as good as The After. Life pulsing on the edge, heartbeat down and almost... She had ruined that for him too, now that he thought about it. He had stood over her, lamenting the fact that there was no extra pillow. He flexed his fingers inside the plastic food handler's gloves. She would bruise on the throat and those who looked for him might trace the imprint of his hand from her skin. One had to be careful of such things.
The good thing was her eyes. When he mounted her, pinned her arms down with his knees, and began to throttle her, the eyes would open. The glow of the street lamp outside made her skin glow like wax. He would look into those true eyes in the false light and taste the forever she would soon reveal. Then he would close them and have his way with her. She wouldn't have time to get him with her eyes.
But that's not how it happened. She came awake with a gasp, as if from a bad dream and those very eyes blinked wide and open. Her mouth dropped open and she stared up at him in mute terror. "Wha..." A hollow hiss from the back of her throat.
"Shh." He pressed a plastic covered finger to her lips. Of course she was afraid. He had greased his eyebrows down and his head full of hair was covered with plastic. He must look like some kind of monster. "Be quiet and I won't hurt you," he assured her. "I don't hit girls."
So The Before had been ruined too. She had written herself a part in his play, the bitch. She had ruined The Before and The After. He had been forced to ad-lib The Inbetween. There were too many voices in his head and he was afraid of voices. If he had pounced on her then she would have cried out. Daddy would hear and he would remember sister and oh no.
When her voice did issue forth, it surprised him. It was low and husky, a tone above a whisper, a voice used to seduce strangers. "Let's go in the kitchen. I'll make some coffee."
He stood back, then followed her into the kitchen, fascinated by her apparent calm. She reached for the light switch and he whispered, "No!"
"It's on a dimmer," she explained. "I'll keep it mellow. I don't want to know what you look like."
And so she did. The light came on dim and yellow. Maybe she was like him. He liked the halflight, ethereal glow, a hunter's moon. He remembered following her with his eyes, the sway of her hips, the pointed impressions of her breasts behind the thin yellow dress. What would it be like to touch them alive with his tongue?
The woman pressed a button on the coffee maker and it gurgled to life. Evidently she had prepared it earlier. With trembling hands, she opened the cupboard and reached for a cup. Her elbow brushed a glass on the drain board and it crashed to the floor. He was on her in an instant. He used his body against the back of her to press her into the sink, his thumbs and index fingers holding her elbows in a pincer grip. "You're very strong," she groaned. "You don't want to hurt me though, I know you don't. I feel you through my dress. I'm naked underneath." She moved her hips provocatively from side to side.
She wanted to have intercourse with him. They are vile, the woman. He backed slowly away and sat down carefully in a chair, never taking his eyes off her. She stayed pressed against the sink until he ordered her to clean up the mess. She got a broom and dustpan and bent to the task.
I could do her, he thought then, give it to her like she wants, like they all want. Then maybe... The sound of glass clinking into the trash brought him back to the moment.
She turned and looked at him. There was a single tear on her cheek. "It was my favorite glass," she said as she brushed the tear away. "Would you like to see me?"
"I see you," he mumbled.
She stepped across the small room and stood before him. She was perfect, everything he looked for in a woman, white skin, long dark hair, mid twenties, large upturned breasts. His breath caught as she began to unbutton the front of her day dress. She reached for his head. "I'll bet your hair is gorgeous under that plastic bag."
"Don't!" he warned, a single word hanging like death on a stick.
She lifted her dress, revealing a perfect dark triangle. "I'll give you this. You don't have to take it."
He closed his eyes. "I can't," he moaned, "Evidence... blood...DNA."
When he opened his eyes, she was kneeling before him. Her hands shook as she touched the front of his jeans. "I'm a psychology major at the community college. I just..."
"Don't talk and don't look at me!" His own shout startled him. He stared in disbelief as she opened the front of his pants. No woman had ever seen him there. He kept it shaved and smooth. It felt like a detached steel pole as her fingers touched it. She held him with her hands, then began to lick and suck.
Her body was racked with sobbing as her head bobbed up and down on him. Somewhere he had read about women crying during sex. Is this what it was like?
He gripped the sides of the chair and arched into her. She gagged but held on tight and brought him to an exploding climax. He grunted and pushed her away. "Wash your mouth in the sink," he ordered. "Use some of that stuff."
She stood and stumbled to the sink, drank half of the bottle of mouthwash. She rinsed and spat, rinsed and spat. He needn't have told her to clean himself off her. She took a deep breath, dried her mouth on a towel, and turned toward him. "Was it good for you?"
He stuffed his still-erect penis back into his jeans and zipped them up. "It was my first time. I never..."
"You're still hard," she sobbed. "I have condoms in the bedroom. We could..."
"I told you don't talk," he reminded her.
She forced her mouth shut and stood, pulling nervously at the hem of her dress. "The coffee's done. Would you..."
"I don't drink coffee," he said angrily. He hadn't been able to escape her eyes. They get inside you, eyes. Worse than voices, they scream and cry and try to find ways around you, through you, into you. It was all he could do to pull himself away from their frantic moist pleading. "Go to the bedroom," he mumbled. "Get your rubbers and get yourself ready for me."
"Just don't hurt me," she wept. "I'll do anything...anything...just don't..."
"I ain't gonna hurt you," he promised, "But you gotta shut up and quit looking at me like that."
She cast her eyes down, bit her lip, and turned away in relief. Her hips and the yellow dress, running away, fear. Yes! This was how it should be. He sprung from the chair, a coiled spring, and flew across the space between them. He was on her before she knew it, his weight bearing them down to the floor. He was stronger now, stronger than eyes begging, and the voices howled for blood.
He stood and fell back into the chair, plastic-covered hands fumbling for the condoms in his own pocket. The pole was his now and it was throbbing for attention. That is when he noticed the bottoms of her feet.
He stood and released the hard thing. He rolled the condom down the length of it, careful to leave a bit of slack at the business end. He forced her legs apart with his foot and bent over her. His senses were assailed by the odor of excrement and coffee. His penis shriveled up like a tomato worm dropped into a bottle of grain alcohol.
He stood and peeled the condom from the end of his shriveled pecker, shoved it into the pocket of his Levi's. He tidied up the kitchen, made sure he had his bolt cutters and pick locks, stepped through the door into the hallway, then sauntered down the hall.
The voices were starving tapeworms wiggling through his brain. The bitch had taken The Before and The After but he had gotten his first blowjob in the Inbetween. He'd never do that again. It just didn't measure up. And he would never again kill a woman...with dirty feet.
