Getting Off

TWENTY-NINE

Something had changed.

She sensed it the moment she entered the bedroom. She could feel it in the air, as unmistakably as she’d felt Brady’s presence behind the Japanese screen. No one had entered or left. They were both there, Brady and Angelica, both of them in bed, both of them naked. They were just as she’d left them, but something was different.

Whatever it was, she had the feeling that it would be a mistake to wait.

She’d put on a gingham apron, and she was carrying a round tray she’d found downstairs, a flat disk of polished walnut with an inch-high rim to keep drinks from sliding off. The tray held two glasses, small crystal tumblers each filled halfway with orange juice.

“Sorry I took so long,” she said, and curtseyed elaborately, then giggled. “Does the apron make me look like a French maid?”

“It makes you look hot,” Angelica said. “What have you got there?”

“Something you’ll both like.”

“I don’t want a drink,” Brady said. “I don’t think we need them.”

“It’s just orange juice,” she said, “from the fridge. Plus a miracle ingredient.”

“Oh?”

“It’s this herbal tonic somebody turned me on to. It’s pretty amazing. I mean, it’s all natural and organic, and it’s actually good for you, but what it does right away is give you energy like you wouldn’t believe.”

“Energy?”

“For sex,” she said. “I put some in my Orange Blossom at the bar, that’s why I made sure I finished it. And that’s why I got so hot so fast, and was as bold as I was. I had some more just now, while I was downstairs. And I divided the rest of it in two, and as soon as you both drink it, the night’s going to be even more amazing than it’s already been.”

“What does it do?”

“It sort of makes everything moreso,” she said, “plus it gives you energy so you can just keep doing stuff. Just drink it, I promise you you’ll be glad you did. You’ll thank me for it, you’ll want to know where you can get more. And it can’t hurt you, it’s genuinely good for you, so please drink it, okay? For me?”

The first sense to awaken was touch. Angelica’s eyes were closed, her limbs heavy, and she was being touched. Her thighs were spread and a hand had reached under her and one finger was moving slowly, ever so slowly, up and down. She felt herself begin to respond, and then, tantalizingly, the finger stopped. And then it started again, and stopped, and started.

Her hips began to move in response. And, as the finger did its work, the rest of her senses began to come awake.

She was lying face down. There was something beneath her, not smooth and even like a mattress, and it took her a moment to realize that it was in fact a person. She was lying on top of another human being.

It was not until she tried to move her arms and legs that she discovered she was unable to do so. Her arms and legs were fastened in place. The person under her was spread-eagled on the bed, and her wrists and ankles were somehow fastened to his wrists and ankles.

His, because she knew that it was Brady upon whom she was lying. Brady lying on his back and herself lying on her stomach, on top of him, and fastened there. And someone — it could only be Missy — was fingering her.

But why had she lost consciousness? Had the sex been so intense that she blacked out?

She remembered Brady’s remarkable announcement, and her own astonishing reaction to it. One moment they’d agreed that Missy would never leave their house alive, and the next moment she herself was lying on top of her husband, unable to move. How had that happened?

Missy: “What’s the last thing you remember?”

“Orange juice.”

Her own words surprised her. But even as she spoke them she remembered — Missy had brought two glasses of orange juice. She and Brady had each taken a glass, but she didn’t remember actually drinking anything.

But she must have, and there must have been something in the orange juice. Not the energizing substance they’d been promised — she remembered the promise now, remembered the skimpy apron that revealed more than it concealed. Not something to let them make love for hours but something to put them to sleep.

A drug. She’d been drugged.

Only to wake up to a finger wave from the girl who’d drugged her. But Missy had withdrawn her hand now, and it rested lightly on Angelica’s hip.

Should she open her eyes?

If she kept them closed, it might all remain a little unreal. If she opened them—

She opened them.

Her face was resting on Brady’s, their cheeks together like a pair of romantic ballroom dancers. She moved so that she could see his face. His eyes were open, and she looked into them, barely able to focus at such close range, and their sightless stare confirmed what she must have known all along.

She gasped.

“I’m afraid so,” Missy said. “He never really felt it, if that’s any consolation. You were both out cold, and I got the icepick from my purse and took care of him right away. Slipped it between his ribs and right into his heart, and he gave this little twitch, and just like that I could feel the life go out of him and into me. Then I took out the icepick, and I didn’t even have to wipe it off because it came out clean as a whistle. No blood on it and none where it went in. I could show you, and you’d have trouble finding the spot. You could find it, but you’d really have to look for it.”

“Why?”

“Because dead bodies don’t bleed. The heart stops so there’s no circulation, and when the wound’s tiny there’s no room for anything to leak out. But that’s not what you meant, is it? You meant why kill him.”

There was a pause. Then Missy said, “Well, see, it’s what I do. With, uh, men. Not always with an icepick, although I did use this one once before. I don’t remember how it got into my purse, but I guess I must have bought it somewhere along the way, or just took it from someplace. But I was hitching, and I got a ride from Uncle Ben. Calling him that makes him sound African-American, like the brand of rice, but his name was Ben and he was real avuncular, so there you go. He was nice, and I was hoping he wouldn’t want to do anything, but no, he wanted to stop at a motel, and I wasn’t going to say no to him. And then he wanted to fuck me, and I wasn’t going to say no to that, either, so we went to bed, and he drank most of a pint of whiskey and got all teary and emotional about his dead wife, and I finally blew him and he passed out. And I thought, well, I could just leave him like that, but rules are rules, and where would we be without them? And anyway I’d been wondering how it would be with the icepick. And it turned out to be pretty much the same as it was just now, with Brady.”

And I must have liked it, she thought, or I wouldn’t have kept the icepick.

“What’s funny,” she said, “is I went to that bar tonight because I figured it was my shot at having sex without killing anybody. There’s not a man alive who can tell his friends what I’m like in bed, or even warm himself with the memory. Well, there’s one, the only one I haven’t been able to find. I tracked down all the others. But, see, I thought I’d be all right with a woman. Only I didn’t know if I’d like it. See, you’re my first.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“Well, I guess that’s a compliment, huh? But it’s true. There’s a woman I’ve been thinking about a lot, and we’ve become very close. And there was one night when we sat across from each other in her living room and had phoneless telephone sex, telling stories and watching each other masturbate. And I want to go to bed with her, but not if I’m gonna kill her afterward, you know?”

“I don’t—”

“Shut up, let me finish. Her name is Rita and she’s beautiful and she’s really hot. She got her hairdresser to teach her how to suck cock, can you believe it? And a few weeks ago she went to bed with a hundred and fifty-two men rolled into one, and — oh, wow!”

“What?”

“Never mind. I just thought of something, but never mind. Anyway, where was I? Back at Eve’s Rib, I guess. See, I knew all along about Brady, I saw you with him in the bar, and I was pretty sure he was part of the deal. And the minute you told me about your out-of-town husband I knew it for certain, and then the hood of the car was warm, so by the time you and I were in bed I knew he’d be joining us, which meant I’d wind up using the icepick.”

Idly, she stroked Angelica’s bottom, listened to the woman’s measured breathing. There was a question on the way, she could feel it, but still it came as a surprise.

“What’s it like?”

“What’s what like?”

“Killing somebody.”

“Wow,” she said. “Nobody ever asked me that before, but then how could they? What’s it like? I don’t come from doing it or anything like that. But it’s, oh, satisfying. I mean, the sex is always okay, even if it’s nothing much, but no matter how good it is or how many times I get off, it’s never over. Not until the life goes out of him and into me. Not literally, I mean I’m not sucking up anybody’s soul, but it feels like it’s a zero-sum game, and I get stronger every time I do it.”

Another long silence. Then, “Please don’t kill me.”

“Silly. I only kill guys.”

“Could you take the tape off? It’s uncomfortable, lying like this.”

“Not just yet,” she said. “You have to tell me about the money.”

“Money?”

“I got what was in your purse, and I found his pants in the other room and emptied his wallet. See, I’m traveling all the time, and I constantly wind up having to buy new clothes because I sometimes leave places in a hurry. And I don’t have a job. So this is how I support myself, and I know you’ve got money in the house. So you’ll tell me where it is, and then I’ll cut you loose.”

Angelica was silent. Thinking, she figured. She extended her forefinger, poked Angelica’s back. “Otherwise,” she said, “I’ll do this—” she poked harder “—with the icepick. In the kidney, which is supposed to be very painful. So you’ll wind up telling me anyway, and at that point I’ll have no choice, and I’ll kill you. But I don’t want to, because I’ve never killed a woman, so—”

“God, I don’t care about the money! You’re welcome to all of it. I was just trying to think where it is.”

She gave her a minute.

“The top drawer of my dresser. The high chest is his, the wide low one is mine, and the top left-hand drawer—”

“Three hundred dollars,” Missy said. “I already found it, I wanted to see if you’d tell me about it. Now the second half of the test. Pass this part and you won’t have the icepick to worry about, and that’s a promise. There’s more money here somewhere, money your husband would want to keep handy. Now where do you suppose that might be?”

There was a locked drawer in the kneehole desk downstairs in the living room. He’d never let Angelica see what was inside it, but if he had money stashed anywhere, that was where she thought it might be.

Angelica didn’t know where he kept the key, and she didn’t waste time looking for it. She figured a desk drawer wasn’t exactly Fort Knox, and a hammer and a screwdriver got her into it in hardly any time at all.

The drawer held a revolver and a box of shells, along with various legal documents; she left all of that untouched and went straight for the cash. There was a stack of it, all hundreds, and she took her time and counted it. It came to $3,800, a huge score, enough to keep her going for a long time.

Back upstairs she said, “Can you believe he kept his gun in a locked drawer? Real handy if somebody breaks in. But you were right, that’s where he kept his cash.”

Angelica was saying something about jewelry, but she didn’t want to hear it. She had the money and that was all she wanted. And she didn’t want to hear anything else the woman might say, didn’t want her begging to be let loose. She’d prepared a square patch of duct tape earlier, when she’d bonded the woman to her husband, wrist to wrist and ankle to ankle, and now she slapped the gag over Angelica’s mouth, cutting her off in mid-sentence.

“Sorry,” she said, “but I want to talk now, and I don’t want you interrupting. I lied to you before. Well, lots of times, but when I told you and Brady about being an orphan. Which I am, but I lied about how I got that way. See, that’s what the cops thought happened, and how they explained it to me, but what they didn’t know is I shot my mother, and then I called my father at the office and told him to come home, and when he did I shot him, too. And then I went to my girlfriend’s house, and got myself invited to spend the night, and went home in the morning and discovered the bodies and called the cops, di dah di dah di dah. So it’s not really true that I never killed a woman.”

She went to the nightstand, took out a silk scarf.

“And I’ll keep my promise,” she said, “and not do you with the icepick, but how could I let you live? Not because we had sex, but because, duh, you know what I am and what I do.”

Angelica was struggling, trying to free herself. No way that was going to happen. Missy slipped the scarf around her neck.

“This is Hermés, isn’t it? Very nice. It’s what you were going to use to tie me up, right?” She took a breath, tried to focus on what she wanted to say. “You’re really beautiful,” she told Angelica, “and I had a wonderful time with you, both before and after Brady joined the party. And I wish I could get the name of your waxing person, but I’ll be leaving town as soon as I’m done here, so I wouldn’t have time anyway. But I’ll find somebody else, somewhere, and get it done, so I guess I’ll have plenty of occasions to remember you.”

She told herself, Do it, for God’s sake. Don’t draw it out.

“This ought to work,” she said. “It’s supposed to be pretty easy to strangle somebody this way. But you’ll have to bear with me. I’ve never done this before.”