Invisible Women

Women & Desire 5

An Introduction

There’s a woman sleeping down the hall. Her hair isn’t golden or flaxen or any of those perfectly descriptive words. Her nose isn’t slight or bold. Her lips aren’t full, but they are also not lacking. Her cheekbones are not defined or flat, but her eyes. Her eyes are full of gray.

She isn’t particularly striking in any way. Which is why she doesn’t threaten me. She doesn’t frighten me. I am not scared.

This woman sleeping down the hall from me, from us, she has slept for days and days and still will not emerge. She has snored and ground her teeth, and this disrupts our nights. They even manage to disrupt our days, and it is for this reason that I need to kill her.

Now.

While she is sleeping.

Because lord only knows how long this woman can sleep.

She must have little more than blistered gums by now. It’s that sound of bone scraping against bone. It’s not just a sound, but it’s really happening. This woman sleeping, she must have a burden that nestles like a bird, and hungry, it scrapes and scrapes and she must have nothing left in her mouth but the bloody remnants of that secret, whatever that secret may be.

I have never killed a woman, but I have often wondered how I would do it. Now, I wonder if her neck, which is not slender or thick, would be easy to grasp or if my large hands would simply slip from smooth skin. But of course I imagine that her skin would not be particularly smooth or rough. It is simply her way.

But I am not sympathetic. She disturbs me, and this is something I do not allow.