Spider

30

Marine Park, Brooklyn, New York Spider holds the bone saw in his hand and looks along the blade towards Lu Zagalsky as she thrashes about on the bondage table, desperately trying to break free of her chains. In his hand he holds sixteen inches of brutal steel that had once belonged to his father and for years had been used to butcher sides of beef and pork that the family bought wholesale. In later years, Spider had found more dramatic uses for it. And right now, he's thinking how fitting it would be to repay Lu's violence towards him, by cutting her up, limb by limb – while she's still alive.

But that's not the plan, Spider. Stick to the plan. You have great things in mind for her; don't ruin the bigger picture all because of one small setback.

Spider looks down at his bandaged hand, blood still weeping from where she'd sunk her teeth into the soft flesh. The bones around the thumb still throbbing painfully.

Lu Zagalsky can't hide the fear in her eyes. She tries to mouth words at him, to plead for her life, but nothing comes.

Her vocal cords have been bleached into silence.

'Whorebitch!' he shrieks and smashes the butt of the hardwood saw handle on to the bridge of her nose. 'You think you can hurt me, and get away with it?' he snarls. 'You fucking, arrogant little whorebitch!'

He hits her again with the butt of the saw and the pain from the second blow is so excruciating that she's sure he's broken her nose. Tears sting her eyes but her focus never leaves the blade.

'Look at you!' says Spider disgustedly. 'Look at how filthy and unworthy you are.' He stands back and laughs at her.

It's a spiteful, bullying, degrading laugh and in that split second Lu Zagalsky realizes that she's soiled herself. Something she would never, not even in her darkest nightmares, have dreamt could happen to her. He's right. This fucking crazy lunatic is right, sometime in the last five minutes, at the height of their struggle, she had failed to control herself.

Spider sneers at her. 'You're disgusting. You're no better than the others.'

Lu tries to look away from him and bury her illogical feelings of shame by reminding herself of what this animal has done to her, and to the other tortured and murdered women who have preceded her.

Spider's lips flatten into a thin smile. 'They've all done that. Sooner or later, all you dirty bitches shit and piss yourselves like that. Why did you think I stripped you naked?'

Lu feels like sobbing. Was even this planned? Is everything now so hopeless. She turns her head away from him and tries again to tell herself that it is stupid to feel so childishly humiliated. Forget your stupid pride and dignity – this man is going to gut you like a fish; that saw in his hand is not there for fun, any second now he's going to cut your throat and go slash-crazy over all your sorry little ass.

Spider is feeling calm now. Everything is under control again. Nothing bad is going to happen. It feels good to have restored the balance of power.

He walks behind her tethered body, kneels down and tightens the loose chain around her right wrist.

Lu's heart starts to pound hard. He's doing something – he's tightening the chains – why? Is he now going to kill me?

Spider seems to read her fear. 'I am going to kill you, Sugar.' He holds the bone saw blade against her throat, the jagged teeth pressing painfully into her flesh. 'But not with this, and not right now.' He drags the saw blade lightly across her throat, enough to scrape the skin but not cut it. 'Oh no, I'm going to kill you with something much more amusing than this.'