epitaph on the tomb of humanity.
I hear the beaded curtain rattle behind me and my heightened senses pick up that unmistakable scent of Polly’s body. That tantalizing combination of sweat and powder and skin and perfume, so heady that I could get drunk just by breathing it in.
“Richard… where’s Cody? Whose blood is that out in the hall?”
Her voice sounds hopeful and frightened all at the same time and my stomach flutters a little. How long have I wanted this woman? How many years did I deny myself the pleasure of even admitting that I wanted her? All that wasted time….
“Yeah, Cody. I’m afraid he didn’t make it, honey. Didn’t make the cut, you might say.”
Silence.
I fold the towel carefully and place it back on its little rod.
I feel power surging through my veins like I’ve never known. When you have the ability to decide who live or dies, you become almost like a god. You see the entire world spreading out before you like a veritable buffet where you’re free to pick and choose only the things which most please you.
“Oh my God, Richard, you’re bleeding! There’s blood all over you!”
I hear her feet pattering across the tile and finally turn to face her. She’s more beautiful now than I have ever seen her; her skin so radiant that it almost seems to glow, her hair shiny and flaxen, her breasts jiggling slightly as she runs to me, the hem of her skirt swishing slightly around her ankles. And her shirt. The one she’s wearing now let’s me know it wasn’t all in my imagination. There’s a message there after all.
I smile and take her hand. So soft. So delicate and warm.
“The blood’s not mine.” I whisper. “It’s okay.”
I kiss her hand and breathe in the scent of her skin and then kiss again. I feel her arm stiffen and her words become clipped.
“Richard. What are you doing?”
I tighten my grip on her wrist and kiss a little higher up her arm, enjoying the tickle of the almost transparent hairs against my lips.
“It’s okay.” I assure her. “Cody’s out of the way. Jane doesn’t matter. It’s just you and me now, Polly. Just you and me.”
She tries to pull away and I feel her skin twist beneath my grip almost as if I were giving her an Indian burn.
“You’re hurting me! Let go!”
“Sshhhh. Sshhh. Be still pretty, pretty Polly. I’m here now.”
I yank her to me and I see fear reflected in her wide eyes. Or is that excitement?
She begins pummeling my chest with her free hand, scratching at my face, digging deep furrows into my skin.
“
So that’s how it is. That little fucking tease. Leading me on. Showing me just enough of her body to arouse my interest. Mocking me. Well, it’s a new world now. A world where I’m free to just take whatever the hell I want. Whenever the hell I want it.
I throw her backward against the kitchen table, forcing her down upon its surface. She’s kicking and squirming and trying to bite at me with her teeth, but this only excites me further and I laugh like a king returning from the royal hunt.
“Richard, no! No,
“Richard’s dead, baby. Call me Rick. Or Dick. You like Dick, don’t you, Polly? Sure you do.”
Her screams echo through the kitchen, so shrill and desperate.
But it makes no difference.
It’s time to claim what has always been rightfully mine.
CHAPTER SEVEN
I’m trying to bunch up her skirt with my free hand while holding her down with the other. Which is a lot harder than I thought it would be. She’s writhing and kicking and squirming like a woman possessed by demons and my right forearm has bloody little teeth prints embedded into the flesh.
“Damn it, lay fucking still!”
I’m trying to twist my arm away from the vicinity of her mouth, trying to make sure she doesn’t get another chunk of my skin clamped between those pearly whites. But she’s wily, this one. She improvises a new strategy and throws her head forward with all her might. Her forehead cracks into my left temple and little flash-bursts of light explode in my vision.
Both hands are free now and she’s got her fingers hooked into claws, going for my eyes as she struggles to get away.
The table creaks and wobbles beneath our bodies and I pull my head back just in time to avoid the gouge she was going for.
With both my hands available however, the skirt becomes less of a problem and it’s quickly pulled up to her waist.
I’ve got to take some of the fight out of this feisty bitch. There’s no other choice. I ball my hand into a fist and pull back even with my jaw. A shame to bloody such a pretty face. But she really brought this on herself, didn’t she?
“Get the hell off her you degenerate son of a bitch!”
The voice is shrill and cuts through the struggle so sharply that for a minute I’m not entirely positive where I am. I hear footsteps running toward me and then my leg flares in pain as I roll off the table and fall to the floor. Sticking out of my thigh, I see a familiar black handle and just a hint of metal buried into the meat of my leg. I yank the chef’s knife free and it clangs to the floor as I press my hands against the wound. It feels like it’s throbbing in agony and spurts of blood ooze out in perfect rhythm with my heart.
“You think it’s fun to…”
I roll over onto my side and my assailant is mentally thrown off balance for a second.
“R-Richard? What… what the hell is going on?”
There’s no sign of Polly. She must have cut and run the moment I no longer had her pinned to the table. I stagger to my feet and the pain feels like the muscle is being pulled from my leg fiber by fiber.
Jane stands mere feet away from me, her forehead knotted with confusion as I drag my injured leg across the floor.
Step-scrape.
Step-scrape.
I see uncertainty in her eyes. It’s almost like she’s silently begging for answers, pleading for the world to make sense again.
“I don’t… I don’t understand.”
Step-scrape.
“I know, Janey. Everything’s real confusing right now, darling. It’s probably a lot like the dinosaurs felt when that big ’ole asteroid first pounded into the earth, isn’t it?”
She looks like she’s on the verge of tears, her blue eyes as watery as two pools. This poor woman. She was never cut out for this new world. She could never understand exactly what it will take to survive.
I place my hands on either side of her head, holding her face as if I’m about to lean in for a kiss.
“Was… was that…
She’s in shock, I think. Probably never expected in a million years to see me. Judging by the pool of blood she picked the knife up from, she probably thought I was dead. Poor, naive thing.
“Yeah, that was Polly.”
I massage her temples with the tips of my fingers, rubbing in slow circles. Her body tenses for a moment,
