Higher and Higher

It started with stealing a pen from a bank. Banks helped destroy the country, hoarding honest people’s wealth, stealing their souls. Was anything wrong with stealing from them? No, ma’am. No, sir. The lady was on her computer, looking ditzy when I committed the theft. 

She didn’t notice because she was stupid. I wouldn’t have stolen the pen, but they had none on the customer’s side of the counter. 

Like I said, she didn’t notice. 

She glanced up. “Do you need a pen?” 

Smirking, I said, “I have one.” 

Then I signed the back of my check and handed it to the idiot. She cashed it, all 600 dollars. I lied “Thank you” and whistled on my way out the double doors. The street smelled of sour sewage and spilled liquor bottles. People milled everywhere. Nobody cared for the people they passed. I didn’t, either. That never worked. 

People didn’t matter. I walked through the human obstacle course. The sidewalk was cracked more than anyone’s back. The man in front of me dropped his wallet. I picked it up and walked up the hill to the Highland Sheriff’s Office. The blue boys and girls were busy ushering two guys into jail cells. One was a big boy, the other thin like wire. 

“What did they do?” I asked Sheriff Muller on the way to my desk.  

He was leaning back with a straw in his mouth, boots on his desk, like a wannabe cowboy.  “Stole someone’s wallet.” 

I watched one of the deputy’s push the boys into the dark corridor, where they disappeared. 

“The world’s gone to hell,” I said, taking my seat. 

The Sheriff nodded. “You can say that again, Deputy.” 

I went into the locker room, stole two wallets, then erased the cam footage when Sheriff Muller was on his doughnut-dipped-in-coffee break.

Stealing was empowering and financially beneficial. 

When the sun died, I went to the liquor store in uniform and bought a pint of rum and a bottle of cranberry juice. The employee was a moronic and morose man who had to recount my money three times. 

I sat in my living room, pondering reality. Yes, real reality. We came from nature red in tooth and claw. We built civilization to hide from that Reality. We were animals with canine teeth made for chewing and thrashing meat. We grew like fungus from primordial soup. Now we’re over-conditioned to our authentic selves. Our instincts got confused. Civilization wrapped us in a spiderweb of mental illness. 

After a few drinks, I finally accepted everyone was living inside a backward asylum. 

***

I woke up early and took my white civilian car to meet the street worker Lollypop, on Nile Avenue. She was my first hooker, which I admitted to her. She sucked me off in my car behind a gas station. 

It was liberating…until her tooth scraped me. I groaned and slapped her. She looked like she’d seen a ghost. I smirked, laughed, hit her between the eyes. She slopped over, unconscious. I reached over, opened the passenger’s car, and kicked her out. Her body fell weightlessly. 

What an incredible liberation. 

I arrived at the Sheriff’s Office. Nobody but Deputy Cyndi Mills was in our main office. Work was slow. 

I surfed the web for news articles on people beaten in parking lots. We’d probably never receive a report about Lollypop. She wouldn’t go to the police. 

She did have a pistol-whipping, crack-fueled pimp. But I didn’t give a fuck. 

***

A couple of weeks passed with me committing petty crimes, just playing. The air was heavy. I started to get morning headaches. I seemed to lose some altitude. But then grand larceny happened. 

Mr. Jenkins was an old grouch with a dingy, rickety Ford running on moonshine as white as his beard. I didn’t like him. And he wasn’t any saint, anyway. Mr. Jenkins was a shiner and a pill pusher. One night while he dreamed up jugs, I took his truck to the junkyard, where my cruiser waited. I removed the jerrycan from my car, splashed it onto and into his annoying truck, after finding a big bag of Oxycodone, a revolver, a jug of shine, and four thousand dollars. I lit a match. The flame was the sun, Apollo burning with the other gods. It smashed into the truck, bloomed an inferno. Grinning, I spread my arms to a night as dark as devil boots. And I’ll be goddamned if Mr. Jenkins didn’t jump up from the truck bed, all aflame, shrieking sins, arms windmilling. I waved at his charcoal-fire face, hurried into my car, and sped off watching the fireworks in my rearview mirror. 

***

The next day at the Office I browsed my files, finding a reputable drug dealer and selling Oxycodone to him. I’d always wondered how dealing felt. It was empowering like theft but even more thrilling. Drug dealing was entrepreneurial.

I kept a few pills. They were fun. Most nights comprised shots of whiskey and rum, sometimes chased by cranberries and weed. Twice a week I did snow from a gal in Philly. 

I learned to appreciate the art of getting fucked up. The world was mundane and muddy. The control freaks wanted us to live in a sandbox consciousness, no expansion. That way we wouldn’t know we were living a lie, a socially constructed matrix.  

***

I was off on Saturday and went to the local bar. There was a guy who called my favorite movie—Space without Safety—“a piece of trash.” I overhead him telling his friend. 

Looking over, laughing, I said, “You sure don’t know your movies.” 

He said, “Eat shit and die, dumbfuck.”

“Or else?”

He went to pull out his switchblade no longer in his back pocket. I’d stolen it when passing behind him. My gun wasn’t on me but there was a fifth of booze beside me. I smashed it into his head. 

He was hospitalized where doctors spent two days picking glass out of his face. 

Goddamn, I felt good. 

***

I worked late the next night, driving through one of the neighborhoods considered suspicious. A guy wearing a raincoat stood yapping in a payphone. I stopped my car, put on my mask, and approached. The man looked wide-eyed when my baton busted the glass. He dropped the phone, raced into an alley. I sped up to the opposite side, parked, and caught him at the edge of the alley. My baton broke his hand and nose and one rib.

It was the first time I’d seen someone piss themselves from a beating. 

Once in my cruiser, I licked blood from my baton. 

***

The corded phone rang. 

“Sheriff’s Office,” I answered. 

A weak male voice said, “I’d like to report an assault. Someone attacked me in an alleyway last night. I’m in the hospital with a broken hand, nose, and rib.”

“I’m very sorry to hear that, sir. Let me get your name and info as well as a physical description of your attacker, and I’ll personally see that the person brought to justice.” 

“Thank you. Thank you very much.” He coughed and then provided info. I doodled weapons on my notepad while he described a shadowy figure hitting him “with a stick” last night. I held in my laugh. 

***

There was plenty of nice writings on rape. I liked rape fantasy. Sometimes I watched it, even hentai. Most people hid their true thoughts and motives. Most wanted to either rape someone or be raped themselves. Everyone had a dark kink whispered on some night. But a lot only whispered to themselves and still called the voice a liar. 

Coworkers and I had discussed prison rape and why it was done. Of course, there were gay and bi inmates and those “gay for the stay.” But there were others who did the act merely for sake of power and domination. 

For women, rape could destroy the soul. They called this “spirit-death.” 

I debated whether to rape a male or a female. 

And I realized there were too many crimes and not enough time. Land of the Free. Ha. I’d do what I could, what they never would. 

I disguised myself as a homeless man living under a bridge. Instead of a mask, I wore a tattered shirt, mildewy pants, a fake white mustache, and a stringy gray wig. 

Cotton gloves covered my hands. 

Only a ribbon of moonlight shined under the bridge. I waited in the trash on the opposite side. A few people passed, apparently not seeing me. A minute later, a love dove couple passed. The woman glanced at me, then swiftly shifted her head away. An hour ticked by. The moonlight still caressed a thin walking path. 

It was midnight when the guy approached me. “Get lost, bum.” He looked like a shadow, but I rose and made him follow me into the light. He was 20-something, baby faced, petite. 

He pulled out a knife in a fighting stance too stiff. His hands were small. 

I laughed. He looked surprised. Maybe because my laugh was younger than my masquerade. He stepped forward. I angled backward. He lunged. I clenched the blade in my hand, then twisted his wrist while kneeing his crotch. I dragged him behind a purple bush. 

“Help!”  

I slapped him hard and put the blade to his throat. “Shut up or I’ll kill you.” I don’t know if I meant that then, but it was possible. I pulled his pants down. He started to get up. I punched him a few times. “Do that again and I’ll murder you. You’re gonna be a proper bitch after tonight.” 

I taped his mouth, lifted his legs onto my shoulders, spat on his hole, and entered. He was a virgin, which was obvious from the tightness and muffled screams. After a minute he opened a little. I pounded him for an hour and came. Then I jacked his cock while still inside, until he came. 

“You never forget your first time,” I said. 

He was motionless, spiritually dead. I had taken his ego and combined it with mine.  

To dispose of the evidence, I dropped his semiconscious body outside an underground brothel.

I was a shadowy bird rising on high, propelled by euphoric empowerment. I looked down and saw cattle nearing the cliff edge. 

***

Rape was so satisfying I didn’t even want sex for another week. But when I did, I craved literal BDSM. 

Murder or Torture, which was the ultimate moral crime? I asked myself for hours but got no answer. The following day I walked the short path behind the Office, meditating for an answer. I decided murder was the ultimate crime. 

The blinking neon signs and cars made the street look like a broken strobe light. Turning off my bodycam, I cruised to the fridges of the city. My pistol, its safety off, lay in the passenger’s seat. Adrenaline hammered my heart. 

Murder was necessary to prevent overpopulation. Murder inspired countless artists. Murder had its own genres in entertainment. It showed us what could happen. It helped us appreciate the days we weren’t murdered. 

Murder was a leisure from antiquity, when more birds flew. 

I’d held guns to several people during arrests. All cops think about pulling the trigger too fast if they’re on the force too long. I almost shot a few suspects, almost. 

The jackass was on the side of the road, thumbing vehicles. After holstering the gun, I stopped my cruiser beside him. “Where you heading?”

He was middle-aged ruggedness. “Tarcon Terminal.”

“Hop in.”

The dumbass did. 

I took a hard left turn. 

His face broke out in puzzles. “Oh…it’s the other way.”

Flashing a genuine smile, I said, “I know a shortcut.” 

He nodded because he was naive. 

We stopped where the land dried into a desert. Quickly I pointed the barrel at his forehead. He raised his hands. I ushered him behind a rock, where I shot him dead after he begged for his life.

Performing murder was less arousing but more euphoric than rape. It was surreal, indescribable, holy. 

I was the crimson bird flying up to heaven while cattle fell to hell. 

***

The Office received a call about a gunshot near the desert. Sheriff Muller answered. He and Deputy Frasher drove to the scene. I followed a few cars behind, already expecting the beautiful sight. There it was…the feds’ black vans. Sheriff Muller was arrested on the spot, beside the body in the black bag. Obviously, I hadn’t used my own gun. The prints linked to him. And whose baton do you think had been used in the alley? The front of a stainless steel lighter found in Mr. Jenkins’s burned truck read, Muller. 

The prints, the lighter, the baton, and the gun belonged to Sheriff Muller. That was a fact. 

He would be going away for a long, long time. But I was his replacement. The Office threw a party for my first day as the boss. They were confident I’d boost morale and keep the streets safer than Muller had. I dealt with the increased workload while planning to soar even higher. 

I was starting to think certain forms of torture were superior to murder. 

I spent four months plotting my next move. I had become a well-respected Sheriff, receiving two Outstanding Citizen awards from the community. Before being deputized, I had been a city cop walking the same beat day after day. Usually, three times a month I’d make an arrest, mostly for domestic violence or theft or harassment. Eventually I accepted we weren’t stopping “crime” as much as we were stopping authentic human behavior, the real gems and grits before the over-conditioning…before the indoctrination, the pieces that fell through the filter. Cops were pillars for the filter, which hid the ultimate Truth: being good didn’t do you any good. I learned this the hard way, in my old days (call it past life) of sainthood. 

I kept hiding my own nature even after accepting that criminal activity was the reality of humanity, a beauty of the cosmos. I just didn’t care to stop crime anymore. 

***

This evening, I kidnapped a newlywed couple. I was doing them a favor, right? Marriage was an oppressive institution, an enslavement. Most ended in divorce, the lucky ones. But the scars never healed, only killed. At least they’d die before learning their love wasn’t real. 

Their dangling bodies shivered and hung nakedly from chains welded to the ceiling. The room had walls painted frosty blue with streaks of orange. They screamed, slobbering under gags. 

I pointed the liquid nitrogen freeze gun at the dear lady. The couple writhed like electrocuted worms. They squirted piss. I’d never seen so much terror. I pulled the trigger. The cryogun made a pressurized hiss, turning her leg into an ice block. Still, she was conscious, her red screaming face contrasting the frost nicely. I strolled to the rolling cart and fetched my chisel, then went to work on her leg. She shrieked, vomited, mumbled, wheezed at each hit. Frosty leggy glass piled onto the concrete. Then I froze her other leg—whoosh—and smashed it with a sledgehammer. It fell off as two ice blocks crusted yellow and red. I removed her gag. Her dolls eyes blinked at me, and she wheezed, “Kill…me…please.” 

Suddenly I had my answer: torture was the ultimate crime. 

I started the same act on her husband. He passed out before his first leg could be chiseled away. When I turned to her, she was lifeless. I left and locked the door to save him for later. 

***

But I know I can go even higher. There’s world destruction. I’m climbing fast. I’m looking around. Who’s going to stop me? I’ll burn the world to ash and bust through the ozone. 

Takin’ Care

“I wouldn’t treat you like that, sweetheart,” Paul began, as they arrived by the dumpster behind the bar. The disheveled and emaciated camouflage clad middle-aged woman who picks cigarette butts from the parking lot had just offered Paul what she was sure he wanted, what all the day-drunk baby boomers wanted from her mouth, which might have been pretty, before the hydros and dry rot took her teeth.

“Naw darlin’, I respect ya too much for that,” he went on, “besides, them other fellas are sick. They’re just takin’ advantage of ya.” After saying this he shook his head. “That’s not me. I’m here to take care of ya.”

Paul stood looking expectant and sly, with a plastic bag dangling from his hand, and the woman began to wonder what he was about to propose. Most of these old guys don’t even get hard, and she was sure he was no exception. Usually, they just stand there, hands on hips, playing their part, and after a minute or two, tap the top of her head, hand her a twenty, and return to the bar, where they laughingly tell their buddies about ejaculating into her eyes and hair. Surely, she thought, Paul wasn’t going to proposition her for sex.

“Like I said, I’m here to take care of ya, darlin’,” Paul explained, as he handed her the bag. “I’m givin’ ya a meal, a little somethin’ to eat, and I’m still gonna pay ya.”

The woman reached into the bag and withdrew two sleeves of Munchies BBQ peanuts and a bottle of castor oil. “See?” he asked, with rhetorical reassurance, “It’s nothin’ sexual. You get that there in ya, and in twenty minutes or so, I’ll come back here—right here—so’s I can watch ya do your business. That’s it.” She decided that this was the strangest proposition she had heard, but not the worst. 

Paul stared at her with intense fixation as she painfully tried to gnaw the spicy bar nuts with the remnants of her rotted molars. Each time that she coughed, trying to swallow whole and half-whole peanuts, Paul would interject, applying an exaggerated soothing tone to his gravelly voice, “Aw, that’s alright, darlin’. Don’t choke now, you just swallow some of that there oil back. That’ll help.” As she struggled gulping back the liquid, he gently placed his fingers against the base of the downward tipped bottle, continuing his baby-talk, “That’s right, that’s right. Drink it up, now. Good girl.”

After the peanuts and oil were gone, Paul issued a stark warning, “Now, darlin’. I’m goin’ in there to finish my drink; in about twenty minutes time, I’ll be back out here for ya. Don’t matter how much ya gotta go, if I come back and you’ve already done your business, you’re gonna owe me twenty-five dollars for that there oil an’ them peanuts.” She noticed that, as he said this, his hand was clenched in a fist, which was pulsating with jolts of tension that momentarily whitened his hairy knuckles. “Trust me darlin’, you don’t wanna cross me. Understand?” 

She was already experiencing stomach cramps and intense nausea but, sensing that Paul was the strangling type, she nodded in agreement. “That’s a good girl,” he replied, “Now, don’t you move, and I’ll meet ya right here.”

Paul returned to the bar, endured ribs from fellow alcoholics who had their own theories about what he was doing by the blue dumpster, and then anxiously exited for his appointment. The woman was on her fours in the parking lot, which was dotted with old chewing gum, and sharp with leftover traction sand from the winter. She was swaying back-and-forth and visibly shaking as she shuddered out cyclic breaths while sweat droplets dripped from her nose. Paul bent and looked at the rear of her grungy denims. “Good girl! Good girl!” he said, pulling a twenty-dollar bill from his pocket. “Now, show me!” 

The woman ripped down her pants, and before she could settle into a squat, a mixture of sludgy and pure liquid feces shot from behind her and continued spurting down in a high-velocity stream. Paul’s eyes were brimming with delight as he stared at the mess behind her. He paid no attention as she yanked the bill from his hand, and scampered off, while pulling up her jeans, which were wet and stained from the ordeal. 

Paul dropped to the ground and lowered his mustached face an inch above of a prominent glob of feces, featuring a single intact peanut, that was sitting like an island in a small sea of diarrhea. He closed his eyes and inhaled passionately, breathing in the deliciously sultry scent, and feeling its warmth radiating onto his face. He dipped his finger into the pile and began tasting the oily, bitter-salted paste, before scrubbing it around his mouth with the intimacy of someone privately freeing peanut butter from their teeth. As he savoured the flavour, and the coating on his gums, he closed and eyes and moaned with deep satisfaction.

When he returned to the bar, bellows of laughter met him from the table of drunk sixty-somethings who sat waiting. “We saw you goin’ back behind the dumpster, Paul! We know what you were doin’!” 

Paul looked annoyed and retorted, “I’m not like you fellas, I gave the poor little thing a few bucks spendin’ money and a bite to eat.”

After a renewed round of laughter, another man asked, “Just tell us this, did she blow it as good as we told ya?”

Paul scowled, shook his head in disgust, and responded, “Yous guys are fuckin’ sick.”

The New Craze

Redgrave saw the blood first. The floor was a smooth white tile, those little hexagon pieces like you saw in public restrooms. Spatters beaded on their surface or spread into thick Rorschach blotches that reflected the bald overhead lights.

 He noticed the naked woman second because she sat on a little plastic chair further up the hall, moving a bit with music that throbbed in another room. She was pretty with angular features though she wore her brown hair limp and untended now. 

Her breasts jiggled a bit as she shifted slightly, taking his attention from her face. She was probably mid-twenties, and her right shoulder was decorated with a pattern of colorful tattoos. He thought it odd she’d spent so much time sitting for that, but people’s priorities shifted too.

She looked his way, and he almost jerked his gaze away, but the focus in her dark brown eyes was elsewhere, not really on him, not suggesting she’d taken offense at his ogling. Dreamy, he decided, just before he felt the sting in his upper arm.

The big man, bald, shirtless but wearing a black plastic apron had jabbed him with a needle. The man had led him in here with a grip on his upper arm. He looked at his bicep as the plunger drove fluid into the muscle. 

“On up here,” the man said when he withdrew it and took Redgrave up the passage to a seat across from the woman.

“Get undressed then just sit down here,” the man ordered. “Don’t drag ass. The drug’s gonna make your limbs feel heavy for a while.”

Redgrave looked back at the young woman, but she didn’t seem to notice him. He hesitated anyway. The bald man was pulling on latex gloves, but he noticed the vacillation.

“Go on,” he said. “Don’t slow us down.”

Redgrave peeled his polo shirt off as the man gripped the woman’s arm and urged her to her feet. She looked at his gripping hand, confused a bit, but she complied as the man guided her forward. 

Redgrave watched as they moved on into an area at the end of the hall, an open workspace. He felt a little shock as he looked at the blood smears on the walls. The patterns on the floor tiles were even more plentiful and scattered in there. Several white buckets were positioned near large hooks at the space’s back wall. 

A young woman wearing a surgical mask and a white apron of her own stepped to the bald man’s aid, slipping leather cuffs around the woman’s wrists.

“It’s just easier,” the aproned woman said. “You won’t have to support yourself.”

The bald man took the girl’s arms and looped the connecting chain between the cuffs over one of the hooks that extended down from the ceiling. 

Redgrave’s brain fogged a bit, and the voices became distant as he watched the aproned woman select a sharp instrument, a scalpel, its tiny blade sending a flare of white-light reflection as she moved it.

He realized his leg muscles felt soft. If he tried to turn away, move back up the hall, they would give way.

He just watched. The first incision produced a thread-thin red line in the young woman’s flesh, the line thickening in an instant before droplets of blood moved down across her flesh.

Redgrave felt stirrings inside himself then and despite the drug’s effect, he drew in a quick breath as memory projected those old images.

Danielle, Danielle from fourth period English. Wavy-haired, usually wearing glasses, sweaters that weren’t too tight but didn’t hide her form. Her glasses had been off that night. Sweater too, and she had moved on top of him that warm evening, striving to make the most of the tight space in the car’s back seat. 

She’d looked pretty fabulous there as he gripped her hips. 

The window smashed in as she arched her back, those firm breasts thrust forward as the moans escaped her throat.

The jagged chunk of concrete missed, but the shards of glass cut into her, drawing rivulets of blood from her face and neck, running down her breasts. Her blood rained down upon him as he scrambled to grab his shorts and get out to defend her from her jealous ex.

He fought to control his breath now as the scalpel continued to work and the bald man helped the aproned woman with the flaying, patches of skin dropping one after the other into a bucket. The brightly tattooed skin giving way from the shoulder to reveal black-red muscle beneath, dark, gleaming red as the music pounded, a soundtrack for the scene unfolding. 

The woman made no sound. She must have been given the same injection he’d received, must be numbed, but the drug was supposed to provide an energy burst. He wanted to ask, but the people were too busy.

And he couldn’t form words anyway. He just sat, continuing to watch, thinking of what was in store. 

He lost track of how long it took, but when all of the outer layer was gone, when her head had become a ribbed-crimson dome and her form, still so feminine was free, the aproned woman stepped back. 

“We’re going to unhook the cuffs,” the bald man said. “You should be able to stand now. The sprint should kick in soon.”

Sprint…that was what they called the drug. The drug that made this all possible, extended strength and energy…through…the process.

Redgrave breathed in again, anticipating. 

“Come on,” the bald man said. And cuffs were placed around Redgrave’s wrists then arched over the hook just as before. He let his weight sag, relaxing. They said it helped if you relaxed and the drug’s initial numbing effects really meant you didn’t feel much. Then the euphoria was a cannon blast of energy through your system.

He saw that demonstrated by the girl. She had grown steady. It was true. She walked toward the doorway that opened off this work room. In the dark larger room beyond, where the music originated, lights, laser slashes of purples, reds, greens, blues streaked everywhere.

The girl waited only a moment in the door way and then stepped forward into the mass of writhing, fleshless revelers. They twisted with the music, bobbed, twirled in the mad ecstasy that had been promised in the forms everyone signed.

As the scalpel bit into the back of his neck, Redgrave willed the blade to work quickly. He wanted to catch up to the girl and dance with her, watching her form and looking into those brown eyes until they both dropped.

 Back To Back Belly To Belly

Jordan woke up shortly after midnight but didn’t know why.  He turned over to check with his wife Janet, but she wasn’t there.  He then remembered she had gone on a tour to sell her book “What You Don’t Know”.  Next, he noticed there was a bright light next to the wall.  The amorphous light shape shifted slowly to a naked woman of prodigious dimensions as she approached his bed.  His upper brain shut down, but his lower brain became vigorously engaged.  The now totally realized woman slipped between the covers and embraced and kissed him.  His lower brain made him respond by entering the unknown being.  They rolled around mindlessly making low grunts and groans for a full half hour.  When they were finally spent, his upper brain began to function again and he asked, “Who are you?”

“I’m Penelope.  I mistook you for Jonathan.”

“The Penelope that died here around fifty years ago?”

“Yes, but the dead are bad at judging time.  It seems like it was just a few days ago.  I keep searching for my husband Jonathan.  We were newly married when I got sick.”

Jordan was somehow able to accept what she said despite how outrageous it was.  “I’m sorry but there is a good chance he is dead too.”

Penelope pulled back the covers and was pleased with Jordan’s lower half.  “I know this sounds crazy, but you’re a good substitute.  Jonathan and I had sex three or four times a day.”

Jordan took the hint, and they kept at it several times until they were totally spent.  Their variations kept it interesting.  Jordan had naïvely believed that people fifty years ago didn’t go at it so many different ways.

Jordan, who had never had extramarital sex before, surprised himself by saying “Janet will be gone for another four days.”

Penelope smiled.  Jordan, who usually didn’t go to bed before 11PM, started going to bed at 9PM.  Penelope led them though positions that Jordan had only heard of whispered in his adolescence.  All of their orifices and appendages were engaged.

Jordan expected his life to go back to normal when Janet got home.  After a couple of days, the guilt got to him.  That night in bed he told Janet “You know this house is supposed to be haunted?  Believe or not I’ve been having sex with the ghost, and I won’t recover for a couple of days.”

Janet shocked him by replying “Penelope?”

Jordan’s jaw dropped.

Janet told him “I’ve got my own confession.  She swings both ways, but I suspect she prefers men.  We’ve entertained ourselves while you were out of town.  Can’t say I blame you.  She’s a firecracker.”

While Jordan was recovering his wits, Penelope appeared.  “Do you mind if I join you?  I’d been hoping the time would come to see if three is company.”

Jordan’s strength miraculously recovered.  After an hour of switching partners Jordan and Janet were ready to call it a night and Penelope was growing dim as she did when she was done for the night.

Before they were asleep or disappeared, they heard a male voice inquire of them “I’m Jonathan.  How long have I been gone?”

A mist coalesced to show a sturdily built naked man appearing to be about forty years old.  Penelope and Janet smiled. Jordan was stunned.  The threesome became a foursome, and equity was achieved to the satisfaction of all participants.

Drug Interlude

Surrounded. Devastated. Depraved. Shunned. Something smelling rank, then tossed. Something stomped, soaked with lighter fluid, set aflame. The ashes rose up and formed smoke rings. Recurrent nightmares. I took a step forward, took a step back, like a crab dosed with estrogen, sideways, shuffling, scuffling, shambling, scrabbling. My nervous hands at my sides, jerking, pointing jittery in directions acute, obtuse, antenna, proboscis, bear traps set, suddenly snapped shut. I was alive but marginally. I was awake but subversively. I was. I wasn’t. Ivan! Huh? What the hell is wrong with you? Hands were waving before my eyes. It seemed natural to rear back as if confronted with charging lions, flamethrowers, military airstrikes. Eye! Snap out of it! I was cornered. Herded into the men’s. Snuffling sounds coming from the stalls. Noses packed and wiped. Covert air of insouciance. Yeah, nobody’s fucking high around here. Just business as usual, the basic bar crowd, tavern sleaze, dog-pound muff-hunt. I swear, I didn’t do anything, just minding my own damn business. My hands shaking, pneumatic tools on high vibe. Chuckles, there in front of me. Ya dropped your fucking glasses again, ya psycho. He placed them on my head, set the bridge on my beaky nose. You got a damn hook for a nose, Chuckles surveilled. It’s not growing fast enough, I sputtered, what I need is to lie more. Ivan, you are drunk; but I have just what you need, my son. Oh, shit. When Chuckles called me son I was surely deep in the doo-doo. But tastefully. He hustled me into a freshly vacated stall. With practiced élan he whipped out a crisp bindle and popped it open to reveal the minty crystal powder inside. Well fuck a ding-dong duck, I stammered. The straw was dangling before my sudden sharpish telemetry. I honored Chuckles’ lavish gesture by hoovering a generous portion, and transformed into a man reborn. Equipped with cape, tights, and a sudden ability to fuck off and die.

He Changes His Mind

She’s standing at death’s door. Well, not yet – but soon. Of this, he was quite certain.

Well, after all, it is inevitable. All of us eventually end up at that door. Who knows when one’s number comes up? Her number’s up. So unexpected. For her.

So he cleared his mind of all the usual clutter of data and text and … stuff. A clear mind, a stage on which all the possibilities of his future could play out. He set about making a mental reckoning: plusses and minusses, debits and credits, smiley faces and storm clouds.

Of course, before seeing to all of the other practical matters, there would be the grief. Of course. And the portrayal of his grief for the benefit of the living was certainly going to be a chore, but there was no dodging it. He could probably figure that the worst of the dutiful pantomime would be over in five days, maybe two weeks tops. Well, that’s death for you. Get it over with. 

Come on, now, you must truly and deeply appreciate how losing her will darken your life, before you go over and start to add up all the items in the other column. The loneliness; you must figure that in.

She is a kind and loving person who is always by his side. She has her talents, her flair, her imagination. She has certainly borne her side of the financial burdens in their marriage. All of these he would miss. Oh, he would never forget her; that was his vow. She was an all-around good human being.

But when she was no more, what then? Well, here is how the performance on his stage proceeded:

It means I will be alone, a free agent, on my schedule, with no one to veto my fishing trips or make plans on my behalf. He would go to church and the doctor and the dentist, and the gym when he decided to do so. And the barber and the optometrist ….

My retirement fund will go twice as far when I discontinue all her insurance payments and subscriptions. Why, the savings in hair and nail appointments each month alone! Also, her membership to the gym, where she and her crowd met to stand around in yoga pants and crop tops and chatter. He would cancel about five streaming services he wouldn’t watch if someone held a gun to his head. Let’s say that’s five services at approximately $15 a month per, plus that’s probably five movies a month at each – anywhere from $4 – $6 each. We’re looking at $200 or more a month right there. That halfway pays for a housecleaner every two weeks. They also splurge $200 a month on wine (which he hates and doesn’t drink); that right there is the other half of the maid service bill. Yeah, that would work out nice and tidy.

(Except he was going to have to clean the house by himself, top to bottom, one more time. And ‘clean’ the house he would.)

It means I will have lots of her effects to manage. Her brothers and their wives could have what they wanted of her clothing and jewelry, the rest to be donated. He would retain her laptop (wonder what he’ll find there?). He didn’t really need a second car or its expenses, so her Lexus SUV could be sold. Cancel her car insurance. He could think of three kitchen appliances and a couple of pieces of furniture that he had always found fussy and extraneous. He’d probably post them on the marketplace website and rake in a couple of thou on the sales.

It means I will have more space. Lots more space. Closets – plural! And her hobby room. Half the garage full of her collection of dolls (while his pickup sat out in the elements year ‘round). The dolls – there’s another couple thou if he could manage the online sales. His widower’s budget was looking even healthier.

It means I can upgrade the standard of living around here with potentially a bonus bank. If his numbers are correct – who knows – but the positive balance on the ledger is in black and white. He really doesn’t need anything he doesn’t already have. That’s not humblebrag, that’s just him living in the world that suits him. He loves clean sheets, good food, warm clothes (and cottons in summer’s heat). The world that suits him has southern facing windows and perfectly balanced heat/cool year round. His world, his settings, no compromise.

It means I am on my own for nutrition. He wouldn’t starve; of course not. He could enjoy two or three meals out each week. Keep a supply of cereal, bread, fresh eggs, bacon, sliced meats and cheese. I will have sole responsibility for my food choices.

It means I won’t be seeing her side of the family much anymore (yay). How would he finesse Thanksgiving and Christmas diplomatically? He entertained the fantasy of meeting someone who enjoys holiday cruises so that he would then be apologetically out at sea while her folks were having fun arguing about politics and letting their kids run wild. Something along those lines. This would not be a problem if her people didn’t live right here in the same town.

It means more time to read, more time for long walks to just think and to marvel at this place unto which I have delivered myself. Gone with her (dear girl) would be the nightly Jeopardy! competition, followed by some diversion for two: cribbage, Scrabble, double solitaire. So between the game show and the games, that’s almost the whole evening at least four nights a week. Yes, they were fun times, but now he would basically have an open calendar after 6 pm every weekday. Okay, so what does that suggest? Poker nights? Book clubs? Gym membership (hard no). He was determined that he would NOT waste three hours every night either curled up with his e-reader, or watching YouTube videos on the flat screen. 

It means I hide nothing from myself, and I reveal nothing to anyone. Other than perhaps a cruise companion once in a while, he would gladly not see anyone at all. Ever. Avoiding people is the most prudent plan for a happily-ever-after. To hell with poker night, book club and gym!

It means that – as I go through the most soul-wrenching moments of human experience – she will be in no position to help and guide and counsel me. She will be there of course, but not for his benefit, and certainly not for her own. How unfortunate.

It means I will need to become a different person. From now on, he must listen very closely to every word uttered around him. And he absolutely must weigh every word before he speaks. He must hold everyone he meets at arm’s length, must always think before answering even the most innocuous question. My freedom depends on living a mistake-free life as long as I can.

It means hard work and dedication from this moment forward if I am to live the life I envision. The life I am facilitating, the possibilities I am creating, the freedom I will win this very day.

It means that if I proceed with my plan, I will never sleep easily again. 

His heart nearly stopped. He hasn’t thought this through – no, no, not nearly well enough at all! She will be through that door in minutes – MINUTES!  – at which moment he must be ready to greet her. With a smile on his face – and the syringe behind his back. 

But now this. Doubt. Doubts plural. What ifs. 

It is said that a drowning man has his entire life pass before his eyes; now I can see every episode of Columbo in a flash. They never got one past him in, what was it? Ten seasons? They always get caught. I’m as good as caught. Life sentence if I’m lucky.

Her car door closing resounded from the driveway. Abort!

The kitchen door opened. Her eyes wide with bewildered surprise at the sight of him looming in the doorway, she beamed a sunny smile at him. 

With his left hand, he reached to relieve her of a shopping bag.

As she stepped through the door, he brought his right arm around her back.

Around her shoulder.

He pulled her close and held her tight.

And kissed her cheek playfully as his plot evaporated in a mist. Oh God, that was close!

What a lucky break for her. He hugged her so tightly that he couldn’t see the four-inch knife blade. Which she stuck with sufficient force between his ribs and into his chest.

As he collapsed to the hallway tile floor – stunned, gurgling, eyes wide with panic – she busied herself with the many small details of cleaning up the murder scene.