Slippin' into Darkness

3:26 A.M.

Doug Douglas was certain of one thing: he was hungry. He’d had a quick bite at Mickey D’s around seven, but he’d been too nervous to have his usual order. No way he could confront Amy with four Big Macs, three orders of fries, two apple turnovers, and a chocolate shake (cut with a cup of double-sweet coffee to provide a little caffeine kick) stewing in his guts. The flat little cheeseburger he’d settled on was now a blob of mush that had given up residence in his stomach for a one way trip through his intestines. The meal, if it could be thought of as such, was little more than a distant memory.

Worse than that, there wasn’t anything appetizing in the kid’s refrigerator-no ice cream in the freezer, nothing but fruits and vegetables and whole wheat bread in the regular fridge. Doug couldn’t make anything out of that. He couldn’t even make a mayonnaise sandwich because the kid didn’t own a jar of mayonnaise. And the kitchen cupboards made Mother Hubbard look like a survivalist stocked up for Armageddon. The kid didn’t have any potato chips. No microwave popcorn, no pretzels, no peanuts, no cookies. There wasn’t even any of that healthy crap, like granola bars or trail mix. The only snack food Doug could find was a bag of those awful rice cake things that tasted like Styrofoam.

The pale little cakes looked kind of like flat marshmallows. Doug tried to get used to the idea, because his gut was complaining like a monster truck with a bad muffler. But then he spotted that despised word on the wrapper. “Unsalted,” he whispered, shoving the package back into the cupboard. “I’m not eating unsalted Styrofoam.”

It was probably better that he didn’t eat anything, anyway. Fear had a way of flushing his system, and he couldn’t stand to spend valuable time malingering on the porcelain throne tonight. Not until it was over with Amy. Not until he could forget about her trying to cross him up.

But the kid didn’t have to know that. “No wonder you’re so skinny,” Doug said. “There isn’t enough in this kitchen to keep an anorexic rat alive.”

The kid wasn’t skinny, though. There was muscle on him, muscle that reminded Doug of the days when he was a one hundred and seventy-five pound gung-ho high school jock who practically lived on the baseball field. Doug had been something to see, back then.

Amy’s lover was something to see, now. He looked pretty funny even with the muscles-naked, dripping wet, tied to a chair and all.

After pulling the kid out of the shower and punching him a few times so he’d stop screaming, Doug had tied him to an armchair in the living room using a bunch of neckties that he found in a briefcase by the front door.

Doug had wondered what the kid did with all those ties. He had imagined all kinds of things. The kid tying up Amy. Amy tying up the kid. He began to think that maybe he’d missed photographing something really interesting.

But then he’d found the kid’s business card in the briefcase. Ethan Russell was the kid’s name. He was a tie salesman at a department store. Kind of a stupid job. But, hey, Doug was a bricklayer. That wasn’t much better. And right now he was a bricklayer on workman’s comp.

The kid grunted, trying to say something through a wadded Armani that was held in his mouth by a wide Serica knotted behind his neck. His arms were tied to the arms of the chair with a couple psychedelic paisley numbers that might have been cut from a dead hippie’s miniskirt. His legs were secured by gray ties shot through with little dribbles of metal-flake orange. Doug thought the latter combination of colors was particularly revolting. He had pissed that same bright orange just weeks ago, when he’d been gobbling antibiotics for a kidney infection.

The kid strained against the ties. Doug wished he wouldn’t do that. The knots were plenty tight, probably cutting off the kid’s circulation. Sure it was uncomfortable. But if the kid kept on struggling, it would mean that he wanted to put up a fight.

“I never learned to tie a tie,” Doug said. “Sorry about my knots-they’re not very good either. Anyway, with ties I always use those clip-on things. Amy used to give me a hard time about it. I remember at the senior prom…”

Doug let it go at that. He didn’t like the disgusted look that had bloomed on the kid’s face at the mention of Amy’s name. Doug knew the kid couldn’t imagine Amy with a fat slob, and he didn’t want to tell the kid his life story.

He didn’t have the time. His life story wasn’t worth the time, anyway.

And it was all Amy’s fault. Not just his life, but the damn kid. April had figured that a richy like Amy would crumble at the very mention of blackmail, but Doug had known better. Amy wasn’t like that. She wouldn’t give up without a fight. Just like in the old days, she would go along, buying time, looking to weasel her way out of trouble.

Like she was doing now. Threatening to walk out on the whole thing. Pulling little tricks. Doug wondered if the lot manager at April’s place had really bothered Amy, or if she’d made the whole thing up. April had one of those portable phones. He could imagine Amy leaning through the doorway with the phone in her hand, pressing the doorbell so he’d hear it. He could imagine that very easily.

Doug’s stomach complained. He pulled open a couple of drawers. Nothing. Herb tea and vitamins and silverware. An ice-cream scoop and a pie cutter. Jesus. What did the kid need with an ice-cream scoop when he didn’t have any ice cream? Why did he have a pie cutter when he probably never ate any pie?

Ethan Russell grunted. The necktie that secured his right wrist started to give. The chair rocked back and forth.

The bricks in the kid’s belly were flexed for serious business. Bulging veins road-mapped his arms. Doug Douglas had once had arms like that. Once upon a time, he’d had bricks in his belly, too.

“It’s not that I hate you or anything,” Doug said. “It’s just Amy. I know she’s not going to do what I tell her. I know she’s going to try to screw it up. I’m really sorry, but I can’t let that happen. I can’t let her walk all over me like that.” He laughed, short and hard. “You understand. I bet you know how she is. You tell her to do something, she does something else.” He shook his head. “I mean, she’s not going to do what I want her to do, so why should I do what she wants me to do?”

Doug felt funny with the pie cutter in his hands. It was silver and had little roses on the handle. It kind of reminded him of the trowel he used when laying bricks, except the edges were very dull and it was way too small. And there were those faggy roses, too.

The kid struggled.

Doug’s stomach rumbled. He wasn’t happy. He was hungry, and his belly was a beach ball that had been scarred by a couple of hernia operations, and he hadn’t been one hundred and seventy-five pounds of base-running muscle in a long, long time.

The bricks in Ethan Russell’s belly heaved.

The pie cutter caught the light. The silver roses gleamed between Doug’s big fingers.

Doug blushed, making a tight fist around the roses.

He found a whetstone in the silverware drawer.

Metal whispered against stone in the quiet apartment.

Doug’s stomach growled. He went to work.