New Title 1 (12 page)

‘I’m fine. What happened?’ Rachel hissed it before she could stop herself. Sarah sounded far less certain of herself when her voice came back.

‘Well, as I was saying, I was fairly drunk at the time. And, well, all I can say is… well. I mean God it sounds ridiculous but he was pretty cute you know. I thought, after I saw you and Mitch getting along so well. I thought I’d… well it’d had been a while for me too you know. I thought I’d see if there was any interest.’

You fucking bitch of a lying slut. You were all over him the whole time, don’t try and justify it now.

‘You seemed pretty into him for most of the night from where I was sitting.’ It came out sounding really bitchy this time but Rachel was beyond caring. At this moment, she was so pissed off; she could happily see herself ruining their friendship forever.
What did she fucking need her friends for anyway, they only fucking caused problems.

‘Did I?’ Sarah sounded offended now and the voice chirped up in Rachel’s head, laced with sarcasm.
Wow, good job. Mission accomplished
. ‘Are you pissed at me? I didn’t know you fancied him.’

‘I don’t. What happened?’ Rachel’s entire body was trembling now. She felt strangely light-headed despite her thumping headache.
Was she going to pass out? Have an aneurysm?

‘Well…’ Rachel could just see Sarah toying with the idea of being a bitch and hanging up. She restrained from growling into the receiver:
just fucking tell me
. ‘Well, I was feeling good to go by the time you walked out, you know, and when he up and left, I was a bit offended too. I thought we were getting on pretty well and stuff. So I followed him. Pretty much threw myself at him outside the pub and that was when it got a little weirder.’

Rachel felt like shrieking laughter when it occurred to her what her friend’s problem was.
He’d said no. Ha ha ha ha ha.

Come on be charitable
, the voice spoke up again but Rachel was in no mood to listen to it. Sarah was a pretty vain woman. The sort that spent a lot on her body: gym memberships, facials, waxing, solariums. What a blow that would have been to her ego.
Fucking bitch deserves it after how she was acting…
Even as she thought it though, it segued into a more disturbing one.
Why would he have said no?
It wasn’t like the money hadn’t been spent well. In fact, thinking back, Rachel struggled to remember a time when anyone had said no to Sarah.

‘I got no reaction. Like none at all. I was pushing up against him and everything. It was like kissing a marble statue. I even accidentally grazed his penis. I admit I’m not the most subtle person when I’m drunk and there was zero reaction there. So I got a little shitty and I must admit, I started making a bit of a scene, but while I berated him, he just stood there and took it. He didn’t seem to be at all bothered. Sort of stone-faced and dreamy. Fortunately Ana heard me and came and got me before I did anything really dumb but just before she did, this smile spread across his face and it was so friggin’ freaky and when he talked it was just this stilted monotone. Shit, I couldn’t even attempt an impersonation. He just said: sorry you’re not my type, you don’t look like her”,’ Sarah stopped talking and barked a nervous laugh.

‘Shit, it doesn’t even sound that bad repeating it but I swear there was just something about the way he said it. Freaked the shit out of me.’

‘Okay.’ Rachel’s voice sounded dry and crackly to her ears. A new thought was growing and as she listened, she slowly, with a somnambulistic step, began to walk back to the bedroom.

‘… But I thought I should ring and tell you, you know, as he seemed rather caught up with you. I’m telling you he’s a freak.’

‘I know. It’s the main reason I didn’t want you to call him over last night if you recall.’ Rachel stopped dead as she reached the bed; its sheets still rumpled, and studied the glass.

‘Well I didn’t know, I was trying to do you a favour…’ Sarah’s voice was carrying an edge of righteous indignation that Rachel just couldn’t swallow at the moment. As her eyes locked on the faint smears at the bottom of the window, Rachel knew she had to get off the phone or she’d take it out on her friend.

‘I’ll have to call you back,’ she hissed and hung up without waiting for a reply.

For the longest second, she just stood there, her body quivering with rage, the shooting pains of cramp infusing her whole left side now.

Well mission accomplished, you’ve successfully pissed off your friend,
the voice spoke up.
What’s next on the agenda…

Rachel roared aloud in frustration, stopping the voice dead in its tracks as the irritations of the last week began to pour into her: her fucking broken car, the fucking tram trips, the fucking missing underwear, fucking Sarah, fucking Mitch not leaving a fucking note, the fucking pervert next door and his fucking staring, ruining her fucking night out, fucking Maree giving her shit at work, the fucking broken hot water service that she still hadn’t called the landlord about and now fucking this. He’d been again. She was certain of it, he’d been out there watching. He’d cleaned up or at least tried to but she could still see a few smears and it just made her so fucking angry. What fucking right did he have? He was just like all the other ones: the fucking inconsiderate pricks.

The fucking old bitch
, ‘I don’t like to keep my babies locked up.’
Babies, they were fucking cats!

The fucking goth wanker
: ‘I’ve got an idea. Why don’t you show me your tits and then I might turn down the music.’

All of them. Fucking one after another. All she fucking wanted was to be left alone. Just some fucking peace but no…

Rachel roared again, a tense choking sound that did not relieve the snowballing rage one iota. It just kept building and building and building.

The phone shattered very satisfyingly as she hurled it into the wall.

* * * * *

Ben sat, slowly smoking as he rolled the bottle of pills absently in front of him. He really wished he’d bought another bottle of bourbon. Something to distract himself with but he didn’t dare go out now to rectify the oversight. He didn’t want to miss an opportunity if she went out.

That was if she did go out today.

Did she have work?
Ben had lost track of time. He had no idea how long had passed since the pub. He was a little hazy on the time before then as well but assumed it had been a Friday on the pub night.
But how long had passed since then?
Ben had been slipping in and out of the Red Room since his near-mishap outside Rachel’s window and it had been hard to keep track.

He pressed his eye to the crack between the blind again as he saw a shadow flit by. He didn’t recognise the chubby man in a matching green tracksuit set. He was probably from one of the flats up the other end of the block. Any of the tenants not immediately bordering him could have been in another world for all Ben saw of them.

He returned his attention to the pills, rolling them back and forward between his fingers, wondering how his mind-set could have changed so much in so little time. He’d been going to start a new life, all this stuff had been in the past, but as he tried to conjure up the man that had stood watching the agent struggling with the lock only a stranger appeared to him.

It was impossible for him to think of a new life when the images kept bubbling up in him like they were now. The anger and the humiliation still fresh each time, never fading. No, he needed his revenge. It was the only thing that helped.

The pills certainly hadn’t. Ben gave them a last roll across his fingers and placed them on the sill in front of him. It certainly looked like Slavia wouldn’t be getting his great success story now. He almost felt like writing the Doctor a letter.
Dear Slavia. Thanks for trying but sadly your pills don’t work. Just thought I’d drop you a line while I wait for my next victim to leave…

He wondered how many people like him the doctor had unleashed on the world with nothing but a vial of pills in their pockets.

He wondered and realised that he didn’t really care.

Maybe his note should be more of a thank you one.
Thank you Slavia for not reporting me to the cops when I confessed all. This one’s for you…

Ben smiled to himself and pushed his eye to the crack again. No one was stirring. He stood and stretched, his joints crackling, and his grin spread a little wider as he saw the glimmer of red, out of the corner of his eye.
Just a quick visit
, he thought and the red began to spread…

No, no, no
. He couldn’t afford it. What if she left while he was away? He shook his head but for a moment it looked like he wasn’t going to have any choice in the matter. The red kept spreading and spreading but then stopped and Ben breathed a sigh of relief. There’d be plenty of time for that when he was done. And by then he’d have a brand new plaything too. For what felt like the hundredth time that day, he patted his pocket and felt the comforting outline of the key.

The brief glimpse of red had stirred his penis to life again and for a moment Ben stood rubbing it through his pants until his eyes fell on the khaki duffel bag, propped against the wall and it swelled to a full erection.

He walked over and picked up the bag. It made such a satisfying clink as he carried it back to the front window. He freed his cock from his pants and crouched down in front of it, pressing his eyes to the crack for one last look before he unknotted the drawstring.

With gentle strokes he began to wank as he removed item after item and laid them on the sill next to the pills. The thick roll of silver duct tape came first and he pictured tearing off a strip and twining it around her mouth. Then came the plastic ties and he saw himself securing her to the bed. Next he removed the large hunting knife in its sheath, slipping the buckle so an inch of the glittering blade slid free. It was pristinely clean. He only ever used it for the fear it evoked and to remove the clothes.

Ben sped up the rhythm of his hand as he removed the canvas knife roll and laid it on the sill. He slowly pulled the bow, his fist turning to a blur as the string dropped free and the canvas slowly unfurled. He glimpsed the first of the stained blades, the old blood crusted black across it and he began to cum, grunting with each spurt as they flashed before him. Each incision he’d made with every blade played over his mind as one by one they were revealed.

The large paring knife that he’d used on number four in St Kilda.

The strips that he’d cut had been so thin they were almost translucent.

The serrated steak knife.

The pooling blood as he scooped out the eyes of number seven in Preston.

The bloody razor blade and the intricate patterns it had sliced over number ten in Glenroy.

They were endless: the images. And the appearance of each knife was accompanied by fresh gouts of jism as wave after wave of excitement washed over Ben’s body. When it was finally over, he was spent, gasping and staring in disbelief at the sheer quantity of his cum on the wall.

The unfurled roll left them all laid out before him and he ran his finger over each of them as he pressed his eye to the gap again.

* * * * *

Although it was close to the last thing she felt like doing, Rachel had to get out of the flat. Her hangover only seemed to be increasing the longer she was awake and she knew she had to go for a walk or just do something. Burn off some of the anger before she did something stupid. Before she used it again; she’d sworn she wouldn’t use it again.

Staring at the remains of the phone on the bedroom floor and the dent its impact had made in the wall only fuelled her anger as she yanked on some clothes and stormed to the door.

And to top it all off the fucker had made her ruin her phone.
Rachel hadn’t tried to fix it yet but the shattered circuit board visible suggested it was pretty much a write-off.
Just another little irritation to add to the list
, she fumed as she slammed the door behind her and stalked off down the driveway. Rachel forced herself not to look back at the pervert’s flat. She didn’t dare. It would be too easy to turn back if she did. Just turn back, march up to his door and start pounding. And when he answered she’d…

And then you’d do what?
The voice broke through her fuming as she turned and walked blindly down the street, almost bowling over Theo who was just turning into the driveway.
Three in a row, that won’t look half suspicious…
The voice continued but was cut off.

‘Hey, watch where you’re going,’ Theo grumbled.

Watch where you’re going you fucking nosy old cunt
, she felt like screaming but just kept walking.

‘Geez, you’re just as fucking rude as your boyfriend,’ Theo grumbled.

Rachel stopped dead in her tracks.

‘What?’

Theo kept walking, muttering away to himself.

‘What did you just say?’ Rachel called after him, her voice unbelievably hostile to her own ears. She realised she was losing it; that it was pointless to scream and rave at Theo. He was a man who thrived on that sort of thing.