Invasion (8 page)

Weren’t man and woman created to be a cohesive unit? Isn’t that what we are all raised to believe? I feel it sometimes, especially now, in a place where if I walk into her bedroom I can smell her; when I open her closet and run a finger over the hangers like piano notes, releasing scents of a female instead of music. It is music though. It’s a symphony for a barren heart.

She is the deluge the arid soil of my being has been unknowingly longing for. I didn’t know it until I fell into her microcosm, and found that in all the universe this place feels like home – because she’s in it. Her presence and touch is everywhere, surrounding me with maternal warmth.

Glancing at the clock in the kitchen I take a last deep breath, leaving behind the creature comforts of the past weeks to hide downstairs after switching off all the room fresheners and resetting the windows, undoing the blackout.

I have a back up plan in place just in case things go south fast. I have no clue why, but Mark thought it would be fortuitous to leave his motorbike behind. Maybe the new wife doesn’t think it’s a suitable vehicle for a baby – I have a chuckle, imagining his shit life. Anyhow, it’s my escape. If I need to evacuate in a hurry it’s there. I used some of the money from my generous dead-donors to fill the gas tank. I checked the oil lines, brakes, and made sure it has the snow tires on. It’s got storage compartments which I stocked with emergency supplies, a survival blanket, and a medical kit.

It never hurts to be prepared.

If I had off-road wheels like that I sure as shit wouldn’t be leaving them in my ex’s garage – unless that was his plan. He wants her back so gave himself a reason to return. After hearing his multiple messages via the P.A system known as a fucking answering machine, I can see through this guy’s reasoning like rice paper. It’s just as flimsy. He’s a douche, a cunt, and a dipshit. I’d love to meet him just to put that dog down.

But I pray the night sweats and brutal dreams stay away. The last fucking thing I need is to have Carly calling the cops because she has a screaming stranger in her basement. I’m hoping that the floor between my den and her bedroom will be enough of a barrier to stop sound from traveling to her in the dark hours after midnight.

Trudging down the concrete steps now swept of evidence I consider my predicament. The only money I have comes from the two people I murdered while here. It’s not like they gave me a choice. I know killing doesn’t gnaw at my conscience, it seems it has zero effect on my wellbeing and state of mind, which makes me wonder just how much of a psychopath I am when I’m not on guard.

I didn’t mean to kill Madi Trenton, but she died because I had a moment of freedom to simply indulge my need for a woman. The more I live a celibate life the more I understand why so many women are trafficked for this express purpose. We need to get laid like we need to breathe. We wake up in first gear every fucking morning. The instinct is hardwired and I think I could easily be the kinda dude who takes what he needs and introduces himself after. I’m not a nice guy, and I don’t see why that’s an issue. Nice is fucking overrated.

Reading Carly’s work files on what these trafficking victims go through has given me so many ideas. I’m expecting her home in the next half hour, and at the first available opportunity I’m slipping her the sleeping pills because I don’t have roofies conveniently at hand.

I’m so excited my muscles are tense with anticipation.

Carly enters our home at 17h20, and does pretty much what I did. I keep as silent as a shadow in my den, not moving a muscle, tense as all hell, listening to the activity above me. High heels click from the front door to the guest loo. It flushes and it is weird to hear the water gushing through the pipes above my head.

Her Prius is parked in the garage so I know she got the shuttle from the airport. Her luggage has a squeaky wheel, and I didn’t hear it come inside further than what I surmise is the entrance foyer.

Then the basement door opens and I have the first ping of panic. Holding my breath I start counting to remain calm, muscles braced for action, my heartbeat gonging in my ears as high heels clop down to my level, moving to the opposite side of the basement from my location after she switched the strip lights on. No light penetrates my corner and I’m hoping she can’t smell me the way I can smell her.

The downstairs chest freezer releasing the suction of the lid reaches me and I wish so badly I could spy on her. We’re so close, so fucking close. The woman of my dreams is standing fifteen feet away from me and my groin is tingling with her proximity.

Time lapses in conjunction with my urge to peek, while she deliberates over lasagna or mac’ncheese, or any other of the squllion options she has in that frozen pantry, and I inch closer, to the incremental seam between the cardboard boxes, staring at my lady with her back to me. The pencil skirt is cute but businesslike, the high heels are stilts for midgets, the silk blouse is untucked and sheer, the jacket clearly discarded now that she’s in her safety zone.

Her zone isn’t safe at all, I witnessed it first hand when the dude in black came around. She’s safe from me though. Well … after I get to play with her pussy.

I’m ridiculously anxious and paradoxically thrilled that worn panties will be hitting the laundry basket.

Dressed in insipid cream from head to toe, pale legs turn, her instincts kicking in, and I halt all respiration, tensing up along with her. Her nails are short but painted pearlescent pink, and the lighting stains her eyes with shadows so harsh it hides the hue of her irises, but she shuts the lid after glancing around, creeped out by her basement, by the vibe of wrongness because there’s an invader in her space.

I’m a space invader. For some corny reason I’m tempted to laugh out loud, the pressure in my head building with the desire to breathe and chuckle.

Heels clomp with little legs back up the steps and I can just see the sexy calf muscles working with each elevation. The light dies and the door shuts, and I relax, sagging, bent over to inhale with exaggeration.

Something knocks against the door and I’m right back to assault mode, but when I don’t hear her movement I figure out what it is. She’s kicked her shoes off.

Hours are maddening, slowly driving me to insanity while I wait for opportunity. I’ve lived through many sounds, acclimating to having her home, trying to assimilate normal noise to abnormal, mapping her movements and attempting to glean routine.

Once she left me the microwave pinged after reheating, and the labored sound of the washing machine working was discernible. Other pipes gurgled over my head and I knew she was in the shower, so made a quick escape to see what she’s done.

A bottle of cabernet stands open on the kitchen counter next to a half full glass of red wine. The foil packaging which contained oxtail stew waits empty next to it, and I strain to listen for the shower, for activity. It’s faint but I can just hear the water running in a needle spray, creating the noise of a waterfall, knowing she won’t hear a fucking thing right now.

Bulleting like ammunition from the chamber I rush downstairs, grab the sleeping pills, then return just as fast to the bottle of red. Shaking three of them out I crush them together between my fingers, rubbing oblivion powder into her bottle and the powder of one more to her glass. Dissolving the granules is easy in the bottle, I cork it with my thumb and give the fucker a vigorous shake, but I can see it collecting in the bottom of her wineglass and need to rectify that asap.

Time is of the essence so I use my finger, swirling the vintage vino around and around until the pills are no longer detectable. Happy with my subterfuge I head back to my basement, moving her shoe so it doesn’t hit the door again when I reopen to emerge later, and hoof it to my hideout.

I’m so hyped my heart is thrashing, my breath quickening.

Sitting quietly I strain to read the information on the sleeping pill bottle, realizing I’ve given her enough to knock out a woman five times her size for the next twelve hours.

Well that’s awesome because it means I can grab dinner while she sleeps, and heat it up, steal a beer, be myself. She’ll chalk it up to a long flight and jet lag. I love the way folks rationalize the shit that should raise the alarm.

After showering and drinking half a bottle of wine, Carly falls asleep in front of the TV, wearing nothing more than a satin kimono.

Sneaking up on her I find her like that, with medication next to her wine. Anti depressants, muscle relaxants, and sleeping tablets. Shit. She just took all of that on top of what I gave her? She could OD!

Fuck Carly! A head’s up would’ve been swell. Put that in your diary, ditz.

Touching her wrist I take her pulse, blowing softly in her face, but she’s comatose. Bending over her I inhale, staring at the pixie princess, wondering why she has so much when I have so little. You live like a queen while I can’t even say I have a bed to call my own.

It’s second nature to do another quick recon around the pad, going up to her bedroom, seeing the chaos of clothes strewn everywhere, makeup bag emptied onto the dressing table, her wristwatch and jewelry discarded with it.

I hate to admit it but the mess annoys me. I’m forced to recognize that maybe David Hearse is a clean freak.

It’s all I know about me, my name, and yet when I say the name, or think it, it conjures up an alternate identity, someone I don’t know, a third person somehow separate from me. I’m not him. I’m not that name. I’m me.

I just don’t know who
me
is.

Snatching her used panties from the bathroom basket I sneak back down to the basement. I don’t know why I’m sneaking. I could play thrash metal at decibels that could crack the windows and she’d still not wake. Not now.

Returning to her I sit on the floor at her knees, examining the pink toenails, following the lines of her symmetry to her thighs, to the waxed nudity splayed before me. Careful not to touch her I lean in, inhaling nothing more than body wash and shampoo.

She’s fucking ruined it. No scent, no instantly identifiable smell which is her own unique chemistry. I double check her vitals again, concerned that she could go into a coma or cardiac arrest with all the shit in her system, but her pulse is there, in the limp arm which flops when I return it to her.

So I do the unspeakable, the outrageous, the abominable. I touch her. I open the kimono and appreciate the female form, the softly swollen breasts with flaccid nipples pinker than a princess bedroom.

Leaning in I cover her snatch with my hand, cupping the heat, fascinated with it. Slowly I insert a finger, enjoying the natural heat of her body, resting my arms on her thighs when I bury my face, licking the slit, agitating her clit back and forth and round, loving that it’s available to me, presented with a pretty zirconia stud holding the hood up like a theater’s curtains for the main performance.

The aroma of arousal filters into my awareness and I remove my finger to plunge my tongue between her folds, rimming her, suckling her pussy, then delving into it, tasting Carly.

God help me.

Every cell in my body wants to unzip and ride her for all the hours she’ll be passed out; but I can’t. I won’t.

I can’t plug my finger with her hood, and I’ve got big ass fingers so sticking it in her piss hole ain’t gonna happen, and now I feel robbed of the full experience with the stud pulling the hood away.

I’d bone her if I didn’t know my jizz will stay in there for up to 72 hours. If I’m discovered by then I don’t want my DNA in her. I’ve wiped down the whole house, I even wiped down her wine bottle; it seems I’m naturally paranoid.