It was the brightest part of the day. She was hurrying home to read the brochures from the universities she considered applying to. She had to earn tuition money and was making a mental list of the jobs she was qualified for when he attacked. He pounced like a long treed jungle cat. He wore a stocking mask and woolen gloves. He reeked of camphor. She screamed for help and then remembered the public service announcement urging women to shout “fire ” when being accosted and shout “fire” she did, on the top of her lungs. He covered her mouth and beat her with such ferocity she passed out. The last thing she remembered was inhaling a deep breath of his camphor scented glove. She knew who he was.
When she came to it was the widow who lived at the edge of town who was patting her hand and gently “shushing” her while applying a compress to her forehead. Her clothes were torn and bloodied and her underpants were gone. She was bruised purple and everything hurt when she tried to sit up. She started to cry and only stopped because her tears stung her split lips.
She had to get home.
The widow helped her home. Her father shouted, “You asked for it dressed like that.” She was dressed like any other conservative teenaged girl more interested in her academics than in boys and the latest pop stars. He called her “damaged goods” and told her to pack her things and get out of his house. She ran from the house as her mother wailed. The widow stepped out from behind a tree in the front yard and grabbed her by the shoulders, “Go back. Get your belongings. I’ll drive you to a hospital and then help you figure out what to do. Now go. I’ll wait here.” She did as she was told.
She refused the widow’s offer of a ride to the hospital emergency room. She wasn’t worried about an unwanted pregnancy; attacks on females had become so prevalent they now dispensed ‘next morning’ pills at her school. She carried several in her book bag, never thinking she’d actually ever need to take one. She scoffed at the thought of going to report the incident to the police. They were of the same mind as her father.
“No,” she thanked the widow and told her she just wanted to sleep.
The next morning over tea she told the widow she was leaving town, going south to the thriving port city where she was confident she could find work and continue her studies. She would sell her gold jewelry and use the money for a fresh start; a clean start. She offered the kind widow a generous sum if she would drive her to the train station.
“Nonsense! I will drive you the entire distance, no charge. I will stay with you until you are sorted and settled. I’ve been looking for an opportunity to get out of this town for a long while now. I won’t take “no” for an answer. Let us finish our tea and pack. We can arrive before dark if we hurry.”
On the ride south they agreed that she would present herself as a distant relative of the widow who promised her that they would be welcomed like royalty by her favorite nephew who lived in an exclusive suburb of the big city. She claimed that he was the top realtor in town and would find them suitable living quarters. For the remainder of the journey her young traveling companion sat quietly conjuring up various punishments she would one day visit upon her attacker.
The widow’s nephew and his wife couldn’t have been any nicer. Her nephew swore that their surprise arrival was the answer to his prayers. He needed someone trustworthy to house sit an apartment and a cat for a wealthy client in one of the premier buildings in the most desirable area of the city and felt the two of them would be perfect for the task. His wife agreed and added that she would accompany her young guest when she went to register for school; she knew the Dean of Admissions. She suggested that the prospective student should first take another week or two to heal from her ‘scooter accident’.
The building was spectacular, ten stories high with a twenty-four hour doorman and security cameras in the elevator. The ninth floor apartment was divine ! It was the most luxurious accommodation she’d ever set foot in; two balconies, two huge bedrooms with en suite bathrooms and a state of the art kitchen. The living and dining rooms had floor to ceiling tinted windows and cool to the touch marble floors. The entire residence was just too grand for words and the cat, an orange and white tabby was sweet tempered, if a bit thin.
She and the widow ventured into the city center to shop for food and sundries. The throngs overwhelmed her: locals and tourists, beggars and businessmen melded together all going about their day. She marveled at the same day laundry service on the bank of the river and the curb side dentist; why, there was even a merchant willing to extract the wax from your ears for a nominal fee. The food vendors prepared their offerings in front of their customers using the freshest ingredients and the most exotic spices with hypnotic aromas. The booksellers and tea cup potters and performing monkeys secured by colorful silken harnesses created a visual wonderment she’d never witnessed before.
The widow knew her way around the marketplace and skillfully bargained for the best products at the best prices. She urged her young friend to pay attention as she volleyed with the onion vendor, but her charge was more interested in a boy not much older than herself who seemed to magically slash open the onion sacks with a downward stroke of his arm, the repetitive movement reminiscent of an orchestra maestro.
“How do you do that?” she asked.
“With this! He held up his silvery box cutter, “Best tool ever. As sharp as a surgeon’s scalpel.”
“That would be a wonderful tool for my school projects. We cut intricate geometric shapes from single sheets of paper. Scissors just aren’t sharp enough. Where can I buy one?”
“If you promise to make me one of your cutouts I’ll give you a brand new box cutter for free. No strings attached.”
She agreed and once he showed her how to operate the safety latch she dropped the box cutter into her pocket and caressed it the entire way home.
She helped the widow to prepare dinner. She used her new box cutter to remove the pebbly skin from an avocado and then extracted the slimy pit without bruising the ripe flesh. Her new tool worked like a dream. She kept her end of the bargain and delivered a geometric cutout to the young man on her next visit to the onion vendor, then took all sorts of precautions to avoid him on all of her subsequent visits to the market.
A few months in and she and the widow were becoming quite settled. She was doing well at her new school and found work tutoring the children of wealthy locals and ex-pats in the neighborhood. All of her students were weak in the higher maths. She was paid a generous hourly rate to bring them up to par. Only one of her students wasn’t making any progress, a local girl of eleven who was quite tiny for her age. She inquired what the problem was and the child broke down, gasping for air in between her sobs.
She comforted the child, rocking her back and forth as the innocent reported that her uncle had been molesting her. The child claimed she couldn’t tell her mother because he was the younger, adored only brother; the prince of her mother’s family. He also threatened to kill her if she told anyone. The young tutor promised to help her, but only if she gave her solemn promise to never tell a soul. The child agreed.
The widow thrived. She relished being included in the daily tasks of life and looked forward to what most others considered everyday ordinary. She loved cooking all of their meals, cleaning up, shopping and doting on the cat, so it came as no surprise to her young roommate when without a bit of hesitation she offered herself up as wingman to help solve the child’s problem. Simply put, she loved being in the thick of things.
The predatory uncle had a routine: work, a visit to an upscale strip club, too many cocktails, a cab ride home and a stumble up his hedge lined driveway. That’s where they hid, crouched behind the hedges. As he approached, the widow jumped up and yanked his hair causing his head to snap back exposing his windpipe. His niece’s tutor whacked him with a lead baton right in the Adam’s apple. He went down, out cold.
She unzipped his trousers and gave his scrotum a hoist and she used the seam Mother Nature provided as a guide when she sliced his sac open with her box cutter. Her wrist flicked with symphonic precision as she severed the spermatic cord along with every other vein and artery in his nether region. She gripped each slimy testicle firmly as she plucked them from between his legs. They surrendered as easily as that avocado pit the first time she used her box cutter. Then with hardly any effort at all she julienned his penis; reminded her of upholstery fringe.
For insurance she nicked his carotid artery guaranteeing he’d bleed out before sun up. She plopped his bluish grey testes into a small plastic container that the widow then stored in her purse. The two rinsed their bloodied gloved hands in the uncle’s birdbath as they left the property. They tossed the gloves into a drum barrel fire tended by a homeless couple. The cab ride home was uneventful. She went to her room and studied for her physiology exam. The widow tended to the cat.
The following day every media outlet reported the uncle’s death as a murder. They did not, however, divulge any of the gory details other than he was found in a pool of his congealed blood on his paved driveway. She and the widow caught the giggles when the reporter interviewed the trash man who found the body, “Looked like he was floatin’ in a big bowl of blood puddin’,” he commented.
By the end of the final semester her tiny student was earning A’s in all of her maths. Before the child left for her summer holiday she introduced her tutor to her teenaged cousin who was suffering at the hands of a trusted family friend. Could she, would she, help her?
She and the widow employed the same method to stave off the trusted family friend as they used for the uncle: hoist, slice, sever and pluck. His demise was also reported as a murder and once again the authorities withheld the specific details. At the close of that summer the teenaged girl sent a thank you card to her and the widow claiming, “It was the most carefree, wonderful holiday I’ve had in a very long time!”
She and the widow grew very content with their life in the port city and wanted to stay put. The widow decided to sell her house in the town they left almost a year ago, since the gentleman who owned the apartment where they’d been house sitting was retiring and would soon be returning. The widow would use the money from the sale of the house to buy an identical apartment in the same building on the same floor allowing her to continue to spoil the cat she’d grown to love.
They arrived in their hometown about noon, when the sun was high and blazing and the streets were deserted. When the widow completed the house sale transaction in less than an hour
they skedaddled to the edge of town and hid the car, then back tracked on the empty jogging path to the storage locker warehouse. The camphor stench assaulted their nasal passages before they opened the door. Her attacker was dozing in a chair with his feet propped up on his desk. She locked the door and smashed him in the temple with the lead baton. The widow bound his hands and ankles. She jammed a woolen sock crusty with camphor flakes into his mouth.
She found a thermos of cold water in his lunch pail and poured it over his head. He came to. He saw her. His eyes begged. She went to work; hoist, slice, sever and pluck. She and the widow rinsed their bloodied gloved hands at the office water fountain and flushed their gloves away in the restroom before they locked the door and left. On the drive back they stopped and had dinner in a seaside cafe. Once home, she took a hot shower and the widow fed the cat.
Their new apartment was as lovely as the one they’d been house sitting. The just returned retiree was a member of the diplomatic corps; quite the big shot. He invited them to a home cooked meal as way of a ‘thank you’. The dinner was wonderful, the diplomat knew his way around the kitchen. The women helped to clear the dishes and wash up. That’s when they saw the travel pamphlets offering junkets to destinations catering to pedophiles. When he saw that they saw, he chuckled, “A peccadillo of mine.”
They waited a month. The former diplomat never changed the locks so they used their old key to let themselves in. She beat him about the head with the lead baton, then with the widow’s help, shifted him to the bathtub. She made quick work of it; hoist, slice, sever and pluck. the widow scooped up the cat and they returned to their apartment.
Three days later the building was surrounded by police cars and news trucks. They released all of the horrific details, after all, he was an important international figure. The widow offered the Chief of Police another cup of tea.
“No thank you, ma’am. I have more interviews to conduct. Thank you for your help, ladies.”
He bent down to give the cat a pet on the head, “What do you feed him? He’s enormous!”
The widow smiled, “Oysters.”
-Coreen Falco
© 2009 Coreen Falco
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