|
The long slender spike hovered over his left eyelid, then moved to poise momentarily above the hairy dark cavity of his left ear, quivering almost imperceptibly. There was no sound in the hot midnight bedroom except for the exhalations lightly fluttering his slack mouth and leaving the smell of expensive bourbon on the motionless air. He was sprawled limply on his right side, his flaccid body covered from the chest down only by a sheet soggy from his sweat. It was the hottest August on record in southeastern Utah, a bad time to come to the vacation house from the marginally cooler Provo. But since in all things he was master, they had come to recharge his batteries, drained by the responsibilities and demands of his world. Only she was leaving now. The problem was, would she leave before or after the orgiastic thrill of watching him thrash about on the bed, skewered through the head? If it was before, of course, then she could only imagine how gratifying a sight it would have been. As if in some way he could hear her thoughts and see the lurid pictures flashing in her mind, he groaned and shifted his fleshy body flat on its back. One meaty arm thudded into her thigh as she stood beside his bed; she grimaced in distaste, moving away. The sharpened twelve-inch screw-driver was within millimeters of his face, gripped in two clenched hands, restrained from its plunge by the shakiest of will. He did not awaken; pity -- he would live a little longer. As she watched and listened, he mumbled a sort of -- a chuckle? The sheet began to rise apparently of its own volition, and never would a sleeping man be any closer to deserved oblivion than he was now. If she could have made the decision which eye she loathed the most, it would have been over. But hesitation saved him this night, and after a moment more, she stood erect, silently mouthed all the repressed curses that festered in her heart for this despised, filthy, disgusting monster; and still without a sound, she vanished from his room, his house, his life. |