A Study in Scarlett Ch. 02

"William? Hello? William?"

"Here, darling." I answered her as if it were the first time she had called but I knew, in a foggy far-off way, that it was not.

"Are you okay?"

"Yes, dear."

"Are you sure? You were starting to scare me."

"I'm perfect. I love you."

"Awww. You're sweet. God, that was so intense."

"Mmmmhmmm."

"William...about what you said, I know we were just into it and, uh, I just mean, you know. I know that you didn't mean it."

"No. I did. I will protect the woman I love."

I expected her to argue, to try and talk me out of it. Instead, she gently placed her hands on either side of my face, looked deeply and lovingly into my eyes and said, "It's almost four. You need to get ready."

***

"Getting ready", as it turned out, was a surprisingly simple affair. I had always thought that if I had to kill someone, I would come up with an elaborate scheme, some truly diabolical shit. I didn't. I learned in the span of the next thirty minutes or so that I wasn't an assassin, that everything I had ever seen or read about being one was, at least from my perspective, complete bullshit.

It wasn't stealthy or artful. There was no hidden grace or beauty to the process of preparing for killing another person in a lurch. It was more like discovering that you'd slept through your morning alarm and, now late for an appointment, having to hurriedly put clothes on and comb your hair while you ate breakfast, only that in this case, the appointment was murder.

Having never been prone to any true violence outside of schoolyard brawls that ended at the first bloody nose, I didn't have much in the way of weapons of destruction. I had no guns, no swords, nothing that seemed a worthy implement for ending a life. Where was this attack going to take place? I dashed around my house, examining and calculating, plotting dozens of different ambush scenarios. Scarlett, all the while, stood in the kitchen tapping her foot and examining her bruises in the sheen of the toaster with a mix of nervousness and impatience.

Sadly, when all my cunning was spent, I found myself standing, somewhat disappointingly, in the middle of the living room holding an aluminum baseball bat—taken from a neighbor kid who had previously used it to create two large dents in my mailbox--in one hand and a nondescript butcher knife in the other. The second of which, I was so unsure of that I continuously cycled through a variety of grips trying to decide which would be the most appropriate. I stood sheepishly hung on the horns of the unexpected dilemma, until a nod from Scarlett settled my mind on the bat, and after taking a few awkward with it, I had to agree that it was a good choice for a novice thug such as myself.

As for my battered lady, we hardly spoke. She seemed edgy too, but even in her anxiety she had a poise and confidence I envied. I wondered if she wouldn't be better suited to do the deed but was immediately shamed by the thought. This was my task, my responsibility, as the man. I would protect my woman.

We both agreed that it would be for the best if she wasn't present for the act, the less her having to do with it the better. A fight between me and Russ would look a lot more like an act of self-defense—a man defending his home from a burglar—than would an altercation involving a vengeful stripper and her two rival lovers. We decided she would put her ruined dress back on—the less planned this looked the better--and walk down the road a bit and call a cab and take it somewhere very public. I kissed her lightly on the lips and told her that I would call her when everything was over. She hugged me tightly, opened the front door, and stood for a minute, like a tattered wisp of cream against the night, looking in at me with a weak smile on her face. I tried to return it, hopefully a bit less anemically. The door seemed to close excruciatingly slowly, like she was leaving me inch-by-inch, alone, with just a kid's bat and my own apprehension. Finally, I was staring at a wooden door. Her footfalls were the rapid click of heels on pavement, a typewriter pecking out a trailing sentence, and then gone.

***

Another thing about murder, it seemed, was that it was mostly about waiting. After turning out all of the lights, except my alarm clock which I placed on an end table so I could clearly see the time, I positioned myself to the side of the front door—back against the wall so that I would (hopefully) remain undetected by anyone entering the house—and waited. It was just me in the weak blue glow, white knuckled hands tensely wrapped around the handle of my chosen weapon, my breath so restrained in an attempt to be quiet that my head began to hurt from oxygen deprivation. My grand plan—to hide and hit him when he wasn't looking—would be enacted; I just need to be patient, to wait. So, I waited. I waited as intensely and as actively as I ever had in my life. Each minute ticked by with pressure that threatened to crush me from every side. Syrup slow, time flowed in the smallest of increments, but flow it did. It was three, then three-thirty. Four o'clock arrived on a high-wire and left with a crawl, with no sign of Russ, no churn of violence, no life-defining drama.

There, braced against the wall and stuck between adrenaline and ennui, I began, unexpectedly to think about my life. I imagined what I must look like, a would-be assassin in khaki pants slinking against the wall of his own home. I turned it every way I could, and each rotation, every angle, just made it seem more improbable. Surely, this couldn't be me. Indeed, when I thought about my life as a whole it seemed ludicrous that I would end up here. Strangely, though, it didn't feel unnatural. Rather, it was my earlier life that felt queer. It was not the desperate man holding the bat--the guy with the dungeon in his home--that felt like a stranger, but the man in the suit, the one working fifty hours a week to work fifty more the next. I tried to go back, in those quiet hours waiting for Russ. I attempted to slip back into my past, to put on that old skin and walk through my memories. I sat next to Mandy and ate popcorn on the couch. I waved at my neighbors over the fence as I mowed the grass. I danced with my date at the prom. I settled for a blowjob at the hotel afterward because she wasn't ready for more. In the memories, I seemed excited, satisfied, but looking back, this new me just found it all so silly. Scarlett had changed me. She had, in a scant few months, taken me and reshaped my values and my beliefs. Why didn't that thought bother me? It should have.

I wanted to be objective, to think critically, but, like always, Scarlett--even the thought of her--was slippery. Just as her body had once done on the stripper pole, her image danced in my mind. Each time I would try to pin her down, to contain her, she would spin, this way and that, deflecting and rebuffing yet somehow drawing me deeper into her entangling embrace. Whenever I tried to apply reason to her, I would recall the sway of her body, the thrill of her wanton words whispered in my ear, the fire she conjured between us, and my logic would simply break-down, unable to stand up to the heat.

Even in the murderous moment I found myself in, I couldn't resist even the bare thought of her. Need and devotion swirled in me. I felt myself harden. I imagined her, soft and supple, engulfing me. Her admission of love echoed in my head. One of my hands slid absently to my groin, slipping under the waistband of my pants. A fantasy life flooded unsolicited to my mind, of her and me together, in a happy life of undiluted passion. We would be together forever, taking and giving without end. I would never go back to being that person I was, that boring tan life unspotted by the vibrant, profanely wonderful colors of our love. Still leaning against the wall, bat resting on one shoulder, I stroked my cock with exuberance, forgetting, for the moment, anything except the pleasure of my fetish.

I was so lost in it that I didn't notice when the doorknob first moved, caught fast by the lock. Nor did I realize what was happening when the credit card was slid into the crack of the door, making a slight snapping noise as it was bent back and forth. It wasn't until I was cumming powerfully into the crotch of my pants that I noticed the door creeping slowly open. Terror and gratification raced each other to my mouth and released in a small, strangled noise somewhere between a moan and a gasp, followed by a purposeful clinching of my teeth and a prayer that it had gone unnoticed.

The next thirty seconds were perhaps the slowest of life. My living room was a swimming pool at night, dimly lit and murky, each movement ponderous, every noise amplified. Swinging open with the slightest of creaks, the door continued on its trajectory before being stopped by my hip, producing a cushioned thud, which, while quiet, seemed to reverberate around the entire house. No one entered at first, but the light from the street washed into the room faintly illuminating a slice in the middle. Standing out like an oil spill on concrete, a man's silhouette blocked out the largest part of the light. Even allowing for the stretch of shadows, the man's profile, cast imposingly across the carpeted floor and part of the opposing wall, seemed impossibly large. There was no movement at first and I feared that my ardor had betrayed me, that the giant in the doorway had heard my rustling and would fling back the door, revealing me.

Fright needled my skin and, even with my dick still partially hard, I worried I might urinate. I wanted to run. Before I could act on my apprehension, however, the shadow moved. One step, then another, heavy and cautious took him past the threshold, almost within view. One arm, sleeved in gray dangled past the protection of the door.

I couldn't breathe. My chest tight, I slowly wormed my hand free from my pants and brought it up next to my face to grip the handle of the bat. Having neglected to wipe it off, I could smell the cum on my hand, feel it squishing between my fingers as I firmly clenched the weapon. With a tight throat and unsteady legs I did my best to steel myself for whatever happened next. A huge part of me hoped he would just turn and leave. More cum dribbled out of my cock and clung distractingly to my trembling thighs.

Another step and he was in full view. It was Russ. I wasn't sure why I had doubted it. Though it was hard to clearly make out his features, his fuzzy mustache and height made him distinctive even in the dim light. He looked even bigger than I remembered. Despite the thickness of a gray suit, he seemed made of muscle.

I only had seconds to examine. He had something in his left hand, an object of some sort. He was looking around, to the sides, ahead, back. His eyes met mine. I thought I registered confusion and anger. It was hard to tell. I thought so many things. I wondered what his childhood was like, if he were a better lover than I was. I tried to put myself in his position. I didn't blame him, not really. Not with Scarlett. I couldn't imagine losing her. I hoped I would be better if she left me, but I didn't know. Russ was right; she was incredible, was worth fighting for, worth doing anything to keep, but she was mine. I was going to keep her. We were going to be happy. Nothing was going to stop that, especially not him.

It was cartoonish, really, how strange and inelegant it was, how the sound the bat made when it connected with his head was pitifully similar to the sound when a batter connects on a line-drive. There was no battle, no great struggle; he never even raised his hands. There was just me, a half a tent still pitched in my pants, swinging a blunt object at a man as hard as I could until he wasn't a man anymore. He collapsed after the first hit. I think it was over by the second, but I was just so scared. I don't know how many times I swung. It was a lot. I don't know if I ever would have stopped, except that the handle was slick from all the jizz and the bat flew out of my hands at one point. Even then, I was so lost in fear and panic that I ran over and quickly picked it up and spun around like my life depended on it. Only the fight was long over. Only there had never been a fight.

I stood outlined in the doorway, lungs pumping against my ribs, waiting for something, anything, to happen. The gory mess of what had been Russ seeped at my feet, his upper half bisected by the light from the street. I waited for him to get up, wipe off the blood, to laugh like it had all been a joke. I waited for the devil to come drag me to hell. I waited for the world to change. There was nothing, however. The devil kept to his den, and the body on the floor stayed firmly, permanently, still. If I listened closely, I could still hear the hum of cars driving on neighboring streets. The wind blew. Dogs barked. The world spun on, unheeded and unimpressed by my homicide. People everywhere, in far-flung places and familiar spots, remained blissfully unaware that, in an unremarkable suburban house in an unremarkable neighborhood, where a man--with dreams and thoughts, with a smile, with a fucking face—used to be, there was now only a corpse, a shell, just a pile of meat wrapped in very fine gray suit. I was not so lucky. I knew. I would always know.

I vomited. Falling to one knee and leaning heavily on my aluminum murder weapon, I threw up more violently than I had ever thought possible. I emptied the contents of my stomach, choking and heaving in the spotlight of my front door. I pushed out food and bile, acid, and still it wasn't enough. I still felt so full of it, the smell of iron and the sound of metal on bone. I tried to wretch up my heart, my insides, to turn my skin inside out and expel it from me. I wanted it out. I wanted it all out.

When it had finally passed, when I had nothing but air and guilt left inside me and my eyes stung with tears, I crawled over to the door and weakly closed it from my knees. I knelt with my forehead pressed against the wood and waited for the room to finish its spinning. After it had, I flicked the light switch on and turned to survey what my actions had wrought.

It almost looked like the aftermath of some terrible party. The carpet was smeared and stained with sick and blood, furniture was knocked over. If I didn't look too closely, I could almost pretend that Russ was simply passed out from a night of heavy drinking. I tried to think of it that way, with him just being asleep. It made it easier. Careful not to look directly at his face, I deliberately made my way across the room, picked up my house phone, and dialed it.

"This is 911, what's your emergency?"

"Hello, miss. A man tried to break into my house." I sounded surprisingly calm to myself as I spoke.

"Is he still in the house?"

"In a manner of speaking."

"Sir, is the burglar still on the premises?"

"His corporeal form is. His essence lies elsewhere."

"Come again, sir?"

"He's dead. I killed him. He tried to assault me. I killed him."

"Sir, are you okay? Are you sure the man is dead?"

"I'm fine. Well, except for being frightened. I'm terribly frightened. You know, on account of the assault. Which is why I killed him, because he tried to assault me. I think I may have already said that." Everything I said came off very business-like for some reason. I wanted to sound distraught, devastated, but instead it was as if I were talking about the stock market.

"Could you give me the address, sir?"

I gave it to her.

"Thank you, sir. Are you sure you're all right? You sound as if you may be in shock."

"Now that you mention it, my wrist is aching a bit. I think I might have injured it swinging the bat."

"Bat?"

"Yes, of the sporting variety, not the mammalian. I got it from a neighbor kid. Pimply little punk. Makes me hope I'm sterile. Not today mind you, but earlier. I don't know why I chose it. I guess I was just so frightened, you know? I thought about using a knife, in my rush to defend myself, but there's a lot of ways to hold a knife, you know? There's Psycho-style and straight out, even the way ninjas on TV lay them back on their forearms. It seemed like a lot to think about. In the end, I guess the bat worked pretty well."

There was a pause. "Now this man, sir, are you sure he's dead?"

I looked over at the smashed pile of hair and crimson. "Quite."

"Now, I don't want you to panic, but I'd like you to do me a favor, sir. Do you think you can help me out?"

"Sure."

"I'd like you to walk over to the man and put your two fingers right under his right jaw. You're going to be feeling for a pulse. You'll have to focus for me, sir, because it could be very slight if he is unconscious."

"Yeah...that's not going to work." I walked over anyway, but not to check for a pulse. Something else had caught my interest. Fully revealed for the first time, I could now clearly make out the object he had been carrying. It was a silver briefcase, which seemed an odd thing to bring to a home invasion. I wondered what he could have stashed in there. A gun, maybe? Some sort of torture device he intended on using on me for stealing Scarlett from him.

I knelt down and tried to open it but found it locked. The woman from dispatch prattled to me as I did.

"Sir, are you still there? Did he have a pulse?"

"No, a briefcase."

"What?"

"Big shiny bastard. Locked, though. I bet he has a key." I felt like I was floating above myself watching as I searched his pockets. Sure enough, I turned up a cell phone, a wallet, and a key ring from which dangled car keys, a Cadillac emblem, a house key, and a small silver one that looked like it would likely fit the briefcase.

"The police and an ambulance are on the way. I'm going to stay right here with you, sir. You're going to be fine. Everything is going to be all right. Do you have any other injuries besides your wrist?"

"Jackpot," I exclaimed, as the silver key turned in the lock and released the latch on the briefcase. I lifted the top gently and found neither a gun nor some exotic form of punishment. Instead, the case was lined side to side with neatly wrapped stacks of one-hundred dollar bills.

"Money? Why would he bring money?'

"Are you talking to me, sir?"

"So much money." Despite my confused state, something tickled at the corner of my brain, a sensation of wrongness. "There has to be over a million dollars in here."

"A million dollars, sir?"

I opened the wallet looking for more answers. A shred of urgency tried to cut its way through the confusion. A driver's license belonging to Russell Thomas Recker peered up at me from the front. Something about the name seemed familiar, like I had heard it before. More troubling, however, were the pictures held in the plastic photo holder. They were of Russ and Scarlett--the latter looking unlike I had ever seen her, with blonde hair and looking very domestic. There was one of them in turtlenecks hugging in front of the Arc de Triomphe. Another showed Russ, in hiking gear, dipping a similarly clad Scarlett like they were dancing perilously close to the edge of what looked like the Grand Canyon. A snapshot of them having tea over-looking Niagara Falls peek out next, followed by one of them in blue veils riding a camel, the Sphinx looking down on them in the background. The final one showed a beach. Russ, dressed in a tuxedo, stood to the left while Scarlett, outfitted in a long white dress, stood to the right. They were holding hands and facing each other with loving smiles painted on their faces. A priest stood behind them.

"Are you there, sir?"

"That fucking bitch...."

I picked up the phone. My hands trembled. I don't know what I expected to find. I knew it would be bad. Still, it was worse. There were text messages sent from my cell phone. There were many of them. I managed to process the highlights.