A Week of June: Friday
I awoke Friday morning to a pervasive sense of well-being I had not enjoyed for many days. I luxuriated in bed, stretching. The morning sun cast a window-shaped slash of warmth across the sheets. For the first time since Monday, cool air swirled through the room, a breeze of refreshing air powered by the brand-new air conditioner installed in my living room yesterday afternoon while June and I had been out.
In addition, my sleep had been thankfully free of the disturbing dreams of the previous nights. No images born of guilt, frustration, shame at my actions, or lack of action. Rather, I had slept deeply, thoroughly, dredging every last bit of rest from the hours granted to me.
I turned over, and there was June, lying next to me, still lost in her own sleep. In repose, her perfect face regained the innocence that had been untimely ripped from her by her mother. A lock of blonde hair lay across her cheek, and I gently tucked it behind her ear. The sheet, silkily molded to her curves, hid the objects of my lust and revealed only my daughter. I felt such tenderness towards her, and finally, a newly awakened responsibility to redirect her towards normalcy.
The night before, she had not pushed any advantage she might have gained from our adventures in the Village. No doubt compounded by any discomfort she had from the tattoo, she had seemed reticent with me for perhaps the first time in the whole week. I myself was too tired from our exploits to wonder whether her attitude was a new ploy in her ongoing battle to win me over to her view of our future together. We undressed and collapsed into bed together, and I spooned her, manfully ignoring the rounded contours of her ass against my groin, until we both lost consciousness.
Coffee called me, and I answered, gently disengaging myself from the sheets so as not to disturb June or my newly rediscovered image of her as a child. I padded round the kitchen, preparing breakfast; coffee, bagels, cream cheese, lox. A classic New York City morning repast. A few minutes later, June appeared in the bedroom door, her eyes still dreamy with sleep, her hair mussed becomingly around her face. She had on an old sweatshirt of mine, which reached down to mid-thigh on her.
“‘Morning, sweetheart.”
“Mmmm…” she replied as she made a beeline for the coffeepot. She poured herself a mug, and walked with it to the couch. She sat down on it, curling her legs up under her like a kitten, and focused her attention on the steaming cup. I felt an overwhelming sense of gratitude. This morning had a feeling of domesticity that bordered on normal. I felt no urge to ravish her, no compulsion to indulge my lust. Instead, a joy unknown to me in so long began to rekindle itself within my heart.
“June, honey, I need to work today. Those pictures need to be finished and sent out to Flirty Girl.”
June suppressed a giggle.
“What a name. Where do they come up with these things?”
“Considering the clothing they’re selling, it seems only appropriate,” I replied, assuming an air of mock sternness.
“Well, you better work fast, ’cause I’ve got plans for us this afternoon,” she said, winking at me.
“Good God,” I groaned, “don’t you ever rest?”
“Not when I’ve got so much on the line.”
“How are you feeling, by the way?” I asked, trying to change the subject. “I mean, down there.”
“Really great, surprisingly! The stuff she sold me to speed up the healing process must be some kind of wonder drug. Look!”
And she lifted up the sweatshirt. Her sex was coyly hidden between her thighs, but the junction of her legs framed her lower belly and the work of art Joy had inscribed into my daughter’s skin. There was no sign of scab or wound, and the red and black stood out brilliantly against her golden tan. The lines were etched with incomparable care, the peony alive with health. I gasped.
“I thought it was supposed to take several weeks to heal,” I murmured.
“I know! Now my style won’t be cramped at all. Thank goodness!” And she bounded off the bed and skipped into the bedroom. I sighed. No relief in sight.
****
The morning passed in the blink of an eye. The pictures I had taken of June were some of the finest I had ever undertaken. The light, the shadows, the stark lines of the rooftop contrasted with the gentle curves of June’s outrageously sexy body. She was sex embodied, the avatar of lust, desire personified as an 18-year girl. I carefully selected shots that emphasized this aspect of my daughter, without revealing anything that would be considered inappropriate for a swimsuit catalog. I put the contact sheets and the finished pictures in a large padded envelope, and came out into the bright daylight of my apartment.
June was nowhere to be found. I thought I had heard her step out of the apartment at some point in the morning. I quickly typed up a cover letter on my PC and printed it out. I sealed and addressed the envelope and went out to mail it.
When I got home, there was a message on the answering machine. It was June, telling me to meet her downtown, in the offices of Kramer & Finzi. What the hell? I thought. What’s this about? The express took me downtown quickly, and I found the building that was the home for the law firm of Kramer & Finzi. The elevator took me up to the forty-sixth floor, and I came out into a large waiting room, decorated in the standard style for such places. Behind a large desk, an attractive but very professional woman was answering the phone. I stood, waiting, until she finished. She flashed me a bright smile.
“How can I help you?”
“Um, Hi. I’m Ray Carlson. My daughter, June, asked me to meet her here.”
“Of course. Please go on in. Take your first right, and go to the office at the end of the hall. Ms. Carlson is waiting for you in Ms. Martinez’ office.”
My curiosity was definitely piqued. I found my way to the office in question, and knocked on the door.
“Come in,” said a female voice from within. I opened the door, and walked into a sunny office with large windows. Behind the desk sat a stunning young woman, who arose as I entered. She was dressed in a very professional and highly tailored pants-suit in navy blue. The jacket had one button, at around the navel, and she wore a sheer blouse underneath, through which I could make out the shadows of her modest cleavage. Her navy skirt, likewise superficially professional, was cut a shade higher than one would expect, coming about one-third of the way down her thighs. She smoothed it down, as she stood, and I noted that there was a slit on the side that showed an additional five inches of skin.
And that skin! The deep olive color of it, that rich deep tan that I associate with the best oil. I looked up at her face. Her hair, deep brown, straight, was gathered behind her head in a simple ponytail. Her pretty eyes, the white of them startling against the hue of her skin, flashed greenly at me.
“Mr. Carlson, I presume. Thank you for coming here so quickly. Your daughter will be joining us in a moment. Please, sit down.” She indicated one of the chairs facing the desk. I sat down, sinking into the deep upholstery. She came around the desk, and perched on the edge of it, facing me. The action caused her skirt to rise up on her legs a little. I tried not to stare at her legs, at how the skirt, stressed by her position, was now only covering a few inches of her thighs.
“Ms. Martinez? Can you explain to me why I’m here?”
“Don’t worry, Mr. Carlson. It will all become clear before too long,” she said with a smile. She picked up a folder of papers, and began to page through them. With her attention occupied, I glanced down at her legs again. Now the material of her skirt was stretched tight across her slender thighs, and the slit on the side had somehow managed to shift towards the front. Pulled tight, the material gaped across the top of her leg, and I realized that the top corner of the slit was right at her panty line. The lacy cotton that peeked from the gap caused my throat to go dry.
“Would you care for some water?”
Her sudden question snapped my eyes back to her face. She seemed unconcerned, perhaps unaware of what I had been looking at.
“Um, yeah, sure.”
She stood up, the skirt still rucked up around her waist.
“Oops! I tell you, these modern suits are very inconvenient,” she exclaimed, appearing to notice her exposure. She tugged on the sides of the skirt to bring it back down to a more decent level. Then she walked over to a side table, where a pitcher of water and some glasses stood. She poured me a glass, bending over from the hips. She must not have pulled the skirt all the way down, because the motion of bending forward caused the skirt to rise up, and I got another flash of lacy panties. I was starting to experience discomfort of my own, sitting in the deep armchair, with an incipient erection.
She turned, the skirt once only an inch or so below her crotch, and brought me the glass. She bent forward, once again, to hand me the glass. Now her jacket fell slightly away from her chest, and I saw the outline of her right breast through the sheer blouse. It was only a quick glimpse, but enough to tell that the minx was braless, and that her nipple was hard and pushing against her blouse. Damned if she wasn’t turned on also! What was going on here?
She sat back down again on the edge of the desk, the skirt dangerously flirting with exposing the crotch of her underwear. The telephone rang, and she leaned back over the desk to pick it up. Now I could see her panties well and truly. She held the awkward position as she carried on a brief conversation with the person on the other end of the line. Her stance meant that I could examine her body without fear of being caught.
The panties were french cut, I could see. The bottom half of her ass cheeks, happily freed from cover, were lovingly encased in the lacy nothing. She shifted her legs, now slightly parting them. The gusset of the panties was now in view, with several soft brown hairs escaping from around the sides. The gentle swell of her mound pushed out the material, with a subtle cleft just discernible running down the middle.
Suddenly, she said goodbye, and swung around to face me once more. Unfortunately, the button of her jacket got caught on the desk organizer and popped off.
“Shit! My jacket’s ruined!” She yelled, hopping off of the desk, and holding the sides of the jacket apart to examine the damage done. Her sheer blouse, now fully exposed, did nothing to conceal her breasts. Like twin headlights, her nipples shone out at me, dark brown on the chocolate aureolas. Her breasts were small but perfectly rounded, not a hint of asymmetry or sag to their contour. To add to her predicament, her skirt was still up around her waist, her panties all that remained to disguise her nakedness.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Carlson, I’m so embarrassed. Would you mind if I took this jacket off?”
I barely suppressed my astonishment, but nodded to her to go ahead. She removed the offending garment, then appeared to notice what she was wearing underneath.
“Oh, Good God. This really isn’t my day. I didn’t even remember I was wearing this blouse. Now you can see all of my titties. Will you promise not to look?”
This escapade had my daughter’s name all over it, but then where was she, anyway? In any case, the game was too much fun to bring to a halt now. I had to see how far this crazy brunette would take it.
“Of course, Ms. Martinez. I’m a gentleman. I can understand a lady’s dilemma, and I promise not to take advantage of it.”
She seemed satisfied with my pronouncement, and then noticed that her skirt was once again up around her waist.
“My goodness, what you must think of me. I’m really not trying to flaunt myself at you, but this skirt has always been a problem for me.” She tugged at the sides, struggling to pull it back down over her hips. The movement made her breasts sway enticingly. All at once, we heard a definite tearing noise. She stopped moving at once, and a becoming flush rose over her cheeks.
“Oh, dear. Now I’ve done it.” And she straightened up, holding her skirt in her hands. It had ripped right along the seam, and was now useless as a garment. She stood before me, in high heels, panties, and a see-through blouse. The situation was surreal.
“Mr. Carlson, how can you ever forgive me? Really, I’m very professional usually. I can’t imagine how I’ve managed to get myself into this bind. I do hope your daughter will be here soon, so we can conduct our business, and I can go find something more appropriate to wear.”
“It’s quite allright, Ms. Martinez. I’m sure this happens to people all the time. We’ll just make the best of a difficult situation, all right?”
She nodded shyly, still blushing furiously.
“Ok then. I’ll just do some work that I have to get to while we’re waiting.”
She picked up a large pile of papers and moved to a filing cabinet against the wall. She opened a middle drawer and started to file the papers, bending over from the waist to do so. Her panties pulled against her ass, the bottom part starting to slip between the cheeks. From where I was sitting, she made a delicious picture, her long legs together, the slight gap at the top framing her panty-clad pussy, her ass cheeks bisected by the back of her underwear. She reached behind her and inserted a finger into the side of the panties and pulled them out of the crack, momentarily showing me the shadow of the cleft underneath. It was a heartbreakingly endearing motion.
She finished her job, and turned to go back to her desk, but somehow, the panties got snagged on the file cabinet drawer, and as it closed, it ripped them right off of her body. A little shriek emanated from this remarkable woman.
“Oh, no! Whatever am I going to do now?” She vainly pulled at the shredded underwear, making no effort to cover her bush, a luxuriant brown growth that topped her sex.
“Ms. Martinez, please, calm down. Let me see what I can do,” I said, standing up and coming over to where she stood. I took the fragments of lace from her unresisting hands, and we stood next to each other, looking at the useless thing. The fact of this half-nude beauty next to me in the deep interior of a respectable law-firm was as exciting to me as anything I had ever done in the past.
“I’m afraid there’s nothing to be done,” she said, her head hung low. I put my finger under her chin and lifted it up to look at me.
“Nonsense. You’ve shown remarkable grace under fire. A series of unfortunate mishaps could reduce the most powerful CEO to a snivelling wreck, but you’ve maintained your composure, despite everything.”
“Thank you, Mr. Carlson, that means so much to me. But I can’t meet with you and your daughter showing my pussy out in the open like this.”
“June is a very understanding girl, and I’m sure she won’t be upset by this turn of events. But if it would make you more comfortable, I could give you company. Perhaps you wouldn’t feel so out of place with another person partly naked.”
“Oh, Mr. Carlson! Would you? I can’t tell you how grateful I would be.”
“Anything to make a lady feel better,” I said, unzipping my pants, and dropping them to the floor. My erection stood out at full mast, the eye weeping slightly from the exhilarating turn of events. I leaned back against the desk, making no effort to hide my massive organ. Ms. Martinez smiled at me.
“Yes, that’s much better, thank you.” She started to step back to her side of the desk, but managed to get her heel caught on the edge of the rug. She fell towards me, and I reflexively caught her under the arms. Her face came to a rest right against my rigid dick.
“Oh, my goodness, how clumsy of me,” she exclaimed, pulling her face away from my cock. A string of pre-cum stretched from her cheek to the end of my rod.
“Please,” I said, helping her to stand up, one hand on her hip, the other on her back, “it’s nothing. But you’ve got a little something wet on your cheek.” I held her close with my hand on the small of her back, feeling the outsweep of her ass under my fingertips. The other hand gently stroked her waist, feeling the warm smooth skin under her blouse.
“I do?” She reached up with a finger, her back arched slightly away from me, her hips still in close. The tip of my dick made contact with her flat belly, rubbing so gently across the brown skin. She wiped some of the pre-cum onto her finger, and looked at it curiously.
“Hmmm…” She brought the moisture to her deep red lips and gently sucked the fluid off her fingertip. My dick throbbed against her at the sight of the lewd gesture.
“Ooh! It’s tasty. I wonder where it came from. Is there any more on my face?”
“Yes! Come to the mirror and I’ll show you,” I replied. She led the way over to the mirror over the table where the pitcher of water was. I stood behind her, one hand casually resting on her hip. I pushed forward against her, my cock making thrilling contact with the cleft between her ass cheeks.
“See?” I pointed over her shoulder at the mirror. She leaned forward.
“Oh! You’re right.” She leaned towards the mirror, pushing her ass out against me, my cock now enveloped by her glorious ass. She stood up on tiptoes, as if to get a closer look, and the bulbous head of my cock slipped between her legs, gliding along the wet lips of her pussy. She wiped the remaining pre-cum from her cheek and once again savored the flavor. I now held her hips with both hands, and she settled back on my cock. With a sweet glide, I felt myself enter her canal.
“I just need to… oh! To straighten up here, Mr., uh, oh! Mr. Carlson,” she gasped, aimlessly moving objects around on the table.
“Of course, Ms. Martinez.” I started plowing her pussy, back and forth, the astonishing heat and lubrication creating a delightful haven for my organ. My hands went up her torso to cup her tits through the blouse.
“Just - Oh! Just need - Ooh! To straighten - Ahhhh!!” The sexy moans emanating from her brought me closer and closer to my climax. I snaked one hand down and started to rub her clit.
“Oh!! God!! Yes, yes, YES!!!”
With a shattering scream, she came, exploding, her walls spasmodically gripping and releasing my cock. In its turn, it released its sweet load deep into her velvety tunnel.
“I’m not sure who was helping who ’straighten up’,” came a sardonic response from behind us. I pulled away from my seductress, my steaming cock still dripping from our combined love juices. June was standing there, a playful smile on her face.
“You dirty old man, you.” Then, without warning, both she and Ms. Martinez burst out laughing, wildly.
“Thank you, Mr. Carlson,” gasped Ms. Martinez, “That was truly lovely.”
I looked wildly from one girl to the other.
“Would one of you mind explaining what’s going on here?”
June managed to get her giggling under control.
“Esme here really wanted to try a new idea. Plus, she’s been hot for you ever since she saw your picture in my locker at high school.”
“Please, don’t be mad, Mr. Carlson. I’m not a lawyer, I’m an executive assistant to Ms. Finzi. There’s no business here other than the one we just transacted.”
I fixed June with a stern eye, while I went over to retrieve my pants.
“You’re going to get yourself in trouble one of these days. Of course,” I admitted, “I don’t think I had much of a chance against young Ms. Martinez here. Still, you have to take some pity on an old man. I don’t know how much of this I can take.”
“That’s the point, Dad. When you finally admit that you need me as much as I know you do, we can take a break. Until then, you’ve got to live up to your promise.”
“Does Ms. Martinez (’Esme, please,’ she murmured) - OK, Esme, does she know about us?”
“Of course she does, silly,” snorted June. “If I can’t talk about you with my best high school friend, who can I talk about you with?”
“What?” Whispered the man, confused. The lights flickered off and on three times in a rapid succession. “What the fuck?” Asked the man quietly and suddenly realized that this might have been a request for him to turn his own lights on. With his gaze glued on the makeshift lightshow, he took a step to the right and blindly searched for a switch. A moment later his studio was bathed in the soft light of the nightstand lamp.
Kevin gave him thumbs up and the man swallowed hard. He didn’t like the idea of someone else observing him or even being aware of his existence. Thumbs up were replaced by a single index finger in the air, as if to say Hold on. Kevin stepped back and with an elegant movement like the one usually reserved for the beautiful girl advertising a flashy car gestured to the bed, where the woman lay, obviously passed out or sleeping.
“What the fuck, man? What?” The man was now getting frustratingly annoyed and slightly frightened. He put his hands on his hips, displaying a welcoming, yet stand-offish pose. Nothing similar has ever happened before and for all the obvious reasons people jealously guarded their privacy, not displayed their actions to the world of peeping Toms.
“What? Is she hurt? Do you need help?” The man thought of opening the window and shouting out to inquire whether there was something he was asked to do. Instead, he simply waved his arm in the air as if to show the other man that he was annoyed with this unwelcome intrusion into his privacy. His mind and heart raced in synchronicity of panic. Yet again, the notion of knowing what was to follow struck him and he dismissed it. His vivid imagination had always gotten the better of him, or so he had been told since he was a child. It certainly served him well when painting and sculpting, but in other instances, it could make him paranoid and unbearably agitated, even to his own self.
Still looking at the man, Kevin walked towards the bed, grabbed the woman’s arm, raised it high and then allowed it to fall. “She’s obviously unconscious, or she would have stirred”, thought the man. He fidgeted in the window, his feet now blocks of ice.
Kevin sat on the bed and reached for the hem of the woman’s short black skirt. Very slowly, he began pulling it higher up her legs, disclosing the little skin that was hidden to the world. The man in the window frowned and cursed quietly. The hand, which held onto the skirt, now reached the woman’s crotch, it pulled at the flimsy cloth with a firm tug and revealed a white pair of panties.
“Oh man!” He whispered. Despite the cold inside the studio he felt a twinge of heat in his face. “What are you doing?” He asked loudly as if he could be heard, fidgeting. He felt the first stirring in his loins, uncomfortable and yet welcome. “You’re wrong for that!” He said quietly, uncertain whether he was talking to the man in the other building or chastising himself.
The man’s object of vigilant observation was obviously becoming more excited by the second. The mini skirt safely pulled all the way up onto the woman’s stomach and her panties clearly exposed, he turned his attention to the top, a short black turtleneck, woolen and thick, definitely out of place in comparison to the flimsy little skirt. She was wearing high boots that reached over the knees, clearly a tool of provocation. “It would have been sexy if she wasn’t unconscious,” ran through the man’s mind.
Instead of struggling with the top, Kevin now reached inside the antique-looking nightstand next to the bed and brought out a huge pair of scissors; quite like the ones the man remembered his tailor would use when cutting the cloth for his utterly despicable suits when he was a child.
“If you cut that thing up, you’ll be in trouble, buddy!”
Kevin held the scissors high up in the air as if to add to the already dramatic atmosphere and snipped them a few times, clearly showing them off and then turned back to his sleeping victim. The man in the window could almost hear the unmistakable husk husk of the material being cut. The thought of the dryness of the wool against which the scissors worked made the man shiver. It would be the same if he had put a homemade woolen sweater between his teeth, or touched nylon stockings, or peach skin dress. The feel of some would leave him shuddering uncontrollably, swearing to himself he’d never touch them again.
The sweater was now ruined. Halved from the bottom hem all the way up through the collar. Kevin carefully spread what was left of the it as if opening a present, his smile appearance of smugness to the man in the window, who took a step backwards as he noticed that he was being grinned at.
Kevin’s hand let go of the sweater and slipped inside the white bra that obviously matched the panties, cupping the breast and in the man’s mind squeezing it, with more force than something so delicate should be handled.
The man felt the stirring in his pants hardening, the discomfort of the first arousal becoming entrapped inside his tight jeans. He waited for Kevin to look away and what he hoped was discreetly, undid his zipper and a stud button, sighing in relief. He told himself it would only be to give himself some space, it wouldn’t be the beginning of the perverse pleasure over the woman’s obvious misfortune.
He closed his eyes and shook his head in denial as the scissors continued their destructive deed, cutting through the narrow strip connecting the bra cups, which jumped apart as if in fear and one fell off the woman’s breast, revealing milky white mound, with a dark circle in the center of it, its nipple brown and erect, saluting the prying eyes.
The scissors snipped the empty air again and Kevin looked towards the man, then back to the woman and positioned the wide open blades against her breast, slowly bringing them together, his face turning away from her again, and his eyes seeking the man in the window.
“No!” The man ran his hands over his face, noticing the sweat on his forehead despite the cold. “Stop. Stop!” He said but that was all he could do. He stood watching. His mind raced, keeping the pace with his heart. “Stop it, man!”
The blades were coming together, slowly but without a pause. They caught the nipple in their grip and began to squeeze. The woman hasn’t stirred since the moment the shades went up to reveal the interior of someone’s perversion.
The man knew he wasn’t really seeing everything in as great of a detail as he thought he was. He knew what was going on, the rest was his imagination. He looked around, his arms waving in the air as if he was getting ready to take off.
“Binoculars!” He had an ancient pair that his father had given him years ago for bird watching and he used it when traveling Europe, closely inspecting the friezes of the highest of church towers and cathedrals, which the farthest from one’s eye seemed to be the most breathtaking. It was as if the artists were jealously hiding the beauty, and to see it, one had to apply oneself and search for it.
With his eye still on the window of the other building, he browsed through the nightstand, furiously dragging the books out of the drawer and throwing them in a pile on the floor. He bent down for a quick and more diligent search, now wildly digging through the small cabinet, which seemed to hold more junk than physically possible, at the same time losing the sight of his alarming fascination.
He couldn’t have been out of his visible spot in the window for more then ten, perhaps fifteen seconds when, frustratingly unable to find the binoculars he straightened and to his surprise and great disappointment the shades in the other apartment were drawn shut. It appeared some of the lights in the apartment were off, but there was still enough illumination that he could tell Kevin was not done for the night, whatever he was doing.
With the woman out of his sight, panic struck him and he fidgeted nervously, unable to understand why he had stood in the window observing for as long as he did. He was completely transfixed with the man’s boldness and his own anticipation of the ultimate conquest or betrayal. The reality seemed to explode into his consciousness and he felt as if he had been dropped into a barrel of cold water, having slowly roasted his mind on the fatal heat of obscenity. He felt his erection soften and a pang of guilt jerked him out of the state of fascination.
“I should call the cops!” And tell them what? Someone in the other building is getting ready to cut off a woman’s nipple? They would laugh at him. Probably call him a nut. Maybe not, but the fact that he stood in the window for a while without calling for help now scared him off correcting his own mistake. Besides, for all he knew the guy in the other apartment was playing a trick on him. The woman might have been in on it, too. People were twisted like that. A sick sense of humor in the big city where everyone is anonymous to everyone else, no matter how familiar and acquainted they had become and they play on the gullibility of lonely souls who have nothing better to do but spy on the little privacy that’s left.
He loved the horror and the gruesome. The movies - good and bad - made for a huge selection in his private library, so did the books. He owned painted and sketched works of other artists, as well as produced his own. His computer hard drive held thousands of autopsy, suicide, accident and murder photos from the police files, leaked to the public and internet by some sick and conscience free weirdo trying to earn a quick buck. He was looking for the creepy, odd and nauseously disgusting. Whenever he encountered it in real life however, he became frightened by it. Fascinated, yes… also terrified of the possibility that it might extend its bony fingers and caress his face, leaving a mark that would never go away. He hoped he’d be one of those lucky people who die peacefully in their sleep. He didn’t want to make just another statistic in the crime files.
The man remained in the window for a few minutes longer, hoping against hope that the blinds would pop back up again and he could either puzzle out what was really taking place, or as he didn’t even want to admit to himself, continue with the morbid fascination over the cat and mouse game. He thought of raising the window and shouting out, attracting the attention of the other guy, but changed his mind. For one, it was an icy cold April night. The winter was reluctant to let go, a certain sign that the summer will take its vengeance afterwards. Somebody would have probably called the cops on him if he were to yell out into the night like a madman.
His feet were freezing cold and he needed to piss, but was reluctant to leave the window and the opportunity of catching another glimpse of the woman, of whom he was certain, was in trouble and yet he was not convinced enough to do anything about it.
And so, he did nothing. He put on an old pair of woolen socks and went to the bathroom. He took a leak in the dark, the maddening familiarity of the place enabling him to move about the blackness like a blind man without bumping into things, not missing his target. When finished, he paused as if having a second thought and flipped on the light switch. The radiance of the dying bulb bathed the small bathroom in shimmering light and he returned to the sink, placed his heavy hands on the white, spidery-cracked ceramic and leaned towards the mirror.
The face that looked back at him was not what he had hoped for. Months of realization that he would have to pull his act together and start taking care of himself financially instead of letting it all be handled by Isabella have ground worry lines into his somewhat goofy-looking visage, as he had called it playfully. Now that she had finally left, he had only days before the bills began piling up and the money was painfully scarce. Two weeks of relief that he was on his own again had obviously not done him much good as he had thought it would have. He worried about her, she hadn’t called since the day she had left and he had no idea where she went. He hated the realization that he cared for her more than he was willing to admit. Sleepless nights and broken daytime naps took a toll on him.
The little scene that had just played out in front of his eyes seemed to have added to his already restless mind. The possibilities of it were numerous and he was torn between the conclusion of fatality and practical joke. He hated being made a fool of, and yet he feared that was not what the other man’s intent was. If he didn’t call the police this very instant, he would become an accomplice should something tragic truly take place. He opened the faucet and splashed some cold water on his face, his skin seemingly paper dry. His greasy hair was a too long, strand of it hanging over his eyes, which bloodshot appeared haunted.
“Fuck me,” he whispered, his eyes searching the bathroom behind him through the mirror. “Fuck me for being such an idiot.” He said again. “And a coward.”
He turned the water off, killed the light and with a gait that might have belonged to a much older man shuffled his way to bed. Before crawling inside the cold covers he glimpsed through the window one more time, satisfied and disappointed that no further development in the other building was visible.
*
That was months ago, the man remembered, still waiting for the blinds to be raised and the performance to begin. He was on his last cigarette and the heat was becoming unbearable. He wondered who the woman Kevin was entertaining tonight was. That first girl introduced to him was the most important of all. At least on the social ladder, which seemed to be so very essential to certain people. Media fed off the nerve-wracking uncertainty and the possibility of the ultimate conclusion with an appetite of a starving dog.
As he woke up late that morning a few months ago, it was almost midday and the first thing he did was step to the window and look out, only to disappointingly realize that the blinds were still drawn. The blue mustang was nowhere in sight. He slept tight that night, better than he had in months.
Throughout the day, while he attempted to work on his painting, he kept looking out the window, and listening for the sounds of slamming car doors, hoping the other man would return. The first inclination that something went horribly wrong after all came a few days later, when for whatever reason he lifted his head and looked at the television. It was tuned to one of the local news channels with the sound down. The full screen picture of the blonde woman caught his attention. She seemed familiar somehow. The realization that she resembled the woman from the night of his unsettling encounter with the neighbor, even though it had happened too far for him to be certain of anything unnerved him. His stomach contracted and with a trembling hand he reached for the remote and pressed the mute button, allowing the words of the anchorwoman to dance inside his studio.
“If you have any information on whereabouts of Miss Ludlow, please call the number on the screen or the nearest police station.”
The news switched to another topic and in panic the man pressed the buttons on the remote, accidentally turning the television set off. “Fuck!” He cursed loudly and searched for the button with which to correct his mistake. He browsed through the channels, finally spotting the familiar picture of the blonde again.
She was not quite beautiful, her nose was slightly too big and her eyes too far apart. She had long, silky, probably bleached hair, falling over her shoulders and covering most of her back. The picture was of her sideways, having turned her head to look into the camera, holding a litter of puppies in her arms, smiling. She looked athletic and attractive and oh, so very young. She couldn’t have been more than nineteen, the painter estimated. Kelly Ludlow, according to the disembodied voice of the anchorwoman, was the youngest daughter of a high-profile heart surgeon, missing since Saturday night, and the fact that the police was searching for her frantically proved that they were taking her disappearance very seriously.
The man wondered to the window and looked out. The blinds in the other apartment were down. There was no sign of life there since the night almost a week ago. He wondered if the woman was still inside the building. Maybe unconscious, or awake and tied down to the bed, desperately hoping someone would come to her rescue. The thought that he might still save her if she truly was in the apartment never entered his mind.
His attention was again drawn to the television screen with the picture of the woman still prominent. As if in a haze, he sensed more than heard the rest of the report. “This is the fourth disappearance of a young woman on the North Side of Chicago since March. Last week, the police had made a gruesome discovery of a mutilated woman’s body, which after the forensic examination was proven to be that of the first missing victim, Elizabeth Lopez and the police fears the disappearances are connected. A warning is issued to all…”
Pieces began falling into place now. The man realized this was not Kevin’s first victim. That must have been the reason why he looked so smooth and comfortable in his performance. He had done it before, probably in the very apartment across the street. The concern over a woman turned into fear for himself. Why would he want an audience? A witness, no less.
The photographs of three other women flashed on the screen; all were young, two of them beautiful, the third one a plain looking girl-next-door. The man pictured Kevin as a collector of aesthetical beauty, whether it was regarding women or anything else. His clothes were impeccable, his apartment from what the man could observe through the window was tastily furnished, and everything in it seemed to be ship shape. Yet, he could imagine Kevin’s sense of triumph when he showed interest in the ugly duckling and her disbelief over the handsome man’s interest. She might have been the easiest prey of them all.
About a week later, the body of Kelly Ludlow was found and described as mutilated and despite the bitter cold severely decomposed. It was found by a dog walker in one of the Forest Preserves on the northwest edge of the city. Dental records were used for identification. Of course, no details on mutilations were disclosed to the public, feeding the insatiable speculations, gruesome stories popping up in the newspapers, one more unbelievable than another. He ignored most of them.
An unsettling calm came over the man. The girl was dead. Obviously killed by the hand of his neighbor, so close to him, practically in front of his eyes. He might have even breathed in the alcoholic sourness of her last exhale as he observed what turned out to be the last hours if not minutes of her life. And yet, no police cars came bailing down the narrow street with their sirens howling. No detectives were knocking on people’s doors and making inquires. Most importantly, nobody suspected that he was involved, no matter how trivially. He certainly felt responsible in a way.
The day after the body was discovered, the man was startled from his work by the swishing sound of paper scraping against the wooden floor and to his astonishment found an envelope had been pushed under his front door. Carefully as if expecting a blow on the head he peeped into the dark corridor beyond his studio and found it deserted. He hurried to the window and saw Kevin had just exited his building, crossed the street and drove off in his car without as much as another glance back.
With trembling hands, the man picked up the envelope. His name, John, was written in bold, beautiful writing in red ink, or at least he hoped to God that it really was ink. With his heart racing he tore the envelope and pulled out a carefully folded sheet of cream-colored stationary. Knowing his name wasn’t that much of a surprise; after all, it was on a mailbox.
“John!
Saturday night I will be entertaining again. I suspect you enjoyed my little presentation the other day and would not mind some more of the same. We are both artists, I believe. I a performer, you a painter. I want you to capture what you see. Consider it a commission work. I will make it worth while.
K
P.S. Alerting the authorities at this point would be a bad idea.”
John remembered how on the Saturday evening that followed he stood by the window, much like this particular night, and waited. A sketchbook and pencils carefully placed on the nightstand next to him in the company of binoculars, which he finally managed to dig out of the closet and a bottle of beer. He waited for hours, almost giving up when, finally, Kevin pulled up and presented him with yet another victim. A pretty, petite Hispanic girl, by John’s assessment possibly Puerto Rican. Her short hair and baggy clothing almost made him think that he was mistaken and another man was Kevin’s company. But when she began walking towards the building, he could see her hips swaying in an effortless rhythm of femininity.
Once the performance began, he remained standing by the window and sketched. He drew as fast as he could, consciously pushing the horror and disbelief away from his mind, concentrating on the artistic rather than shocking realism. He worked hard; he broke a pencil, knocked the half-full bottle of beer off the nightstand and began sweating, despite the fact that the late April night was unusually cold, just above freezing.
He sketched the woman’s clothing shredded into pieces, her short hair cut off, almost sheared with a pair of heavy scissors. Her finger and toenails cut, her pubic hair shorn, as well. He continued to work without a pause when Kevin made the first incision, cutting straight down the woman’s torso, starting at the throat, between the breasts, through the belly button and into the crotch. The scissors seemed to have been sharp as a scalpel, John didn’t see Kevin struggling as one would have thought cutting of flesh would require. The woman bled more than a corpse should have and John tried hard to block out the fact that there was still breath left in her. However, he decided a while ago that simple drunkenness couldn’t be the cause of her unconsciousness. Pushing those thoughts aside, he continued sketching.
Kevin disappeared into another room for a few seconds, only to return holding a huge butcher knife. By this time, John was beyond horror and disgust. All he did was sketch and capture the images that were presented to him. He didn’t flinch when the knife’s point dug inside the incision and slid sideways into the body as if making a filet. Kevin labored at separating skin from the tissue and within half an hour, the woman’s upper body was bare of its natural cover, muscles and veins exposed to the air. John kept sketching.
The woman never stirred. The original skinning deed complete, Kevin now began to separate the organs. Out came the liver, kidneys and stomach, and finally the heart. It was at this point that John finally jerked himself out of a trans-like state and shuddered. The veins and aortas of the heart were sliced through and Kevin held the heart up high, showing it to John, who carefully observed through the binoculars while still sketching. Finally, he gasped and staggered away from the window. He would have sworn the heart was still alive, even if the woman was obviously dead. It gave off a few rapid beats, spurting little streaks of blood through the holes where the veins and aortas had been, splashing Kevin’s shirt, floor and walls.
John had found himself utterly exhausted. He glanced at the clock and although he couldn’t tell the exact time when Kevin returned home with the woman, he estimated he had been observing and sketching for good two hours. His breathing was hard and when free of pencils and the sketchbook, his hands trembled almost uncontrollably.
“Good God!” Whispered John. He wiped the back of his hand across the forehead and it came off wet with perspiration. His hair was damp as if he had just stepped out of the shower and he didn’t feel the cold that was enveloping the city and stubbornly lingering inside his studio despite the radiators working hard. In fact, he shivered as if he was struck by a bout of high fever. As if to make sure that none of the woman’s blood somehow transferred to his own hands, he examined them carefully and rubbed them together.
He closed his eyes, and the images of a skinned woman danced in front of him. He saw the light and dark red, purple, blue and brown of the intestines, organs and tissue. As he looked around him, he found dozens of pages of his own sketches scattered about the floor. He knew he had drawn quite a few, but it seemed to him, that he had used up the entire sketchbook of paper. He had enough material for an entire exhibition on the topic.
His body seemed to have held only a few small drops of energy, not enough to allow him to pick up or even look at the sketches properly, let alone put them away. He dragged himself to the bed, crawled under the covers and fell asleep almost instantly. He slept better than he had since Isabella left. He didn’t stir or awake until late in the morning, feeling re-energized. The days following, he painted with a renewed vigor that he hadn’t felt in months. He barely ate or washed, slept little and dreamed of nothing.
After the initial time, he didn’t chicken out anymore. When the still beating heart was bleeding in Kevin’s hands John simply snickered and continued with the sketching. The brains, wombs, and lungs didn’t move him beyond an initial hm. He did wince the first time when Kevin separated the skin from the body and cut it off at the sides, lifting it up high to give John a better look. Then he flapped it like a towel and blood spattered everywhere, on Kevin’s face and clothes, even the window. John flinched but forced his mind to remain calm. He promised himself he would not show weakness again.
He placed all his paintings in different settings than the original inspiration. Some were in the dark cobbled streets of Victorian era, which might have easily been the scene of the Ripper murders; others were situated in sadomasochistic dungeons with tools of torture visible in the background. One was sited in a small clearing in the woods, surrounded by mushrooms and small purple flowers, much like the place he used to play in when a child. The mutilator’s face was never seen; the victims looked different from the women he had seen in Kevin’s apartment. It was partially due to his expectations of being found out and entrapping himself into the as of yet unsolved cases of murdered Chicago women. On the other hand he had made women look like he wanted them to look. All brunettes, tall and slim, yet curvaceous. If he had enough presence of mind to step out of the situation, he would have realized that they all resembled Isabella in some way. But he didn’t think and he didn’t want to think beyond the art. If he began dwelling upon the things that had become a part of his already cacophonous life, he might not be able to stand it. Somewhere deep down in his heart he was aware of that. And so, he thought of nothing more than colors, painting, and the next time Kevin would stage a performance for him.
It had taken a while to catch up with the schedule of his neighbor’s madness, but eventually he figured out it usually happened in two-week intervals. He had always been an industrious artist, but never this prolific. Art seemed to ooze out of every pore of his body. His fingers trembled with excitement, his heart raced to the point of overdrive and sometimes he had to will himself to pause for a minute and catch his breath.
The archive of the new art grew daily. He knew this was his best work ever created and unlike other times, he couldn’t get enough of it. He didn’t get bored, just like he didn’t simply vary the scenes. They all seemed completely original and although a series of sorts, unrelated to one another. He was proud of himself and he wished to show it to the world. The time would come, but it wasn’t quite right yet.
*
Like so many times since that initial April encounter, this particular night he stood by the window and waited for Kevin to pull up the blinds, yet nothing happened. This time there was no performance. No satisfaction of the gruesome. Five o’clock in the morning found him waiting still, long after the lights in the apartment across the street went out and the first flicker of dawn appeared beyond the tops of the trees lining his small street. He pulled up a chair and sat down, still by the window, still faithfully waiting. And yet, nothing happened. He dozed off and woke up just in time to see the woman that came with Kevin leave the house and walk down the street, carefully looking about her and finally raising her eyes to meet his gaze.
John froze on the spot and almost screamed. The familiarity that he felt about the woman became clear. It was Isabella. His Isabella. She was alive and well. He tried to look closer and make certain it really was her. The long, brown hair that was so dear to him was now shorn off in a fashionable bob and dyed raven black. That’s why the night before he couldn’t tell it was her, even thought she looked like someone he knew. He wanted to jump up, scream and wave, but he did none of it. He simply sat there, tears stinging his eyes, his heart breaking with fear.
“The bastard!” He was angry with Kevin; for putting her in danger and strangely he was even angrier for letting her off like he did. “Fucking freak!” He whispered, unable to tell whether the insult was meant for Kevin or himself.
*
Later in the morning he began questioning his own sanity. Quietly resting in bed and unable to sleep, he wondered if he should destroy all he had created in the last few months. His heart bled to think of the act of obliteration, but he believed it might have been better if he simply stopped thinking - like he had done so far - and put an end to it all. “Make a fucking bonfire,” he said to himself quietly. “Right here in the fucking studio.”
Yet, he felt like paralyzed. Each time he told himself to get up and do what he had been thinking of, he couldn’t move. It was like a force deep inside prevented him from the demolition. It was like when one is afraid to stand too close to the underground train tracks, worried that the oncoming train will hypnotize them into leaping off the platform to their certain death. One thinks about it more often than one is able to consciously admit it to oneself, but of course, one doesn’t go through with it. This was the same kind of situation. Standing up in class and screaming off the top of one’s lungs, drawing horrified and amused glances from all present - but only in one’s mind.
As John lay in bed dwelling upon things he could never do - not now, not ever - a scraping sound of paper being pushed under the door jerked him out of his thoughts. He turned his head towards the noise, but didn’t move immediately. Carefully listening for the sound of footsteps, as if in a dream, he thought about what to do next. He felt half awoke or stoned. His actions were not clear and it had taken him minutes if not longer to decide upon each following step.
After what seemed like an hour John finally dragged himself out of bed and picked up the small envelope off the floor. His name was displayed with the same careful handwriting in red ink as it had been on the first one. He tore the envelope open without care of preserving it.
“I am ready to see my commissioned work. Drop by tomorrow around seven. I’ll be waiting. I hope you appreciate my thoughtfulness last night.
K”
John looked around the familiarity of his studio apartment, his eyes scanning dozens of paintings that he had created in the last few months. He found it hard to part with any of them. They were like his children - a phrase he had always snickered at when listening to artists describe their work. Now, after all this time he had finally understood what they meant.
*
The following day the time dragged more then ever. John took a shower, mentally scolding himself for neglecting his personal hygiene as of late. He shaved and even walked into the basement of the building to launder his clothes in the washing machines available to the residents. He cleaned the studio, washed the dishes and carried several big black bags of garbage into the dumpster in the alley. He felt like a revived man. He was ready to show off his art. He knew it was good and he was proud of it more than of anything he had ever created.
Happiness was something he hadn’t felt much in the last few months and now, it filled his heart to the point of bursting. If only he could find the right patron to sponsor him, he believed he could create a display that would stun the masses and carry his name throughout the artistic world, right to the top where he had always wanted to be but somehow doubted he’d ever land. This was his time, however, he was certain he had it as good as made. This was his opportunity and the collection of paintings in front of him was what would make him a household name.
Five o’clock came and then six, but there was no sign of the blue Mustang in the street below. John had almost decided not to keep the appointment when the blinds in the apartment, which was so familiar to him now had sprang up, and there was Kevin, waving and smiling at him, gesturing John to come over. John swallowed hard and waved back. It was now or never. If Kevin liked what he saw, John’s confidence would know no limits.
He grabbed four of the canvasses that he had prepared earlier, carefully wrapped in the brown paper and carried them with him. He tried the door of Kevin’s building but it was locked and just as he was ready to turn around, the sound of a buzzer and an electronic click let him know that Kevin was aware he was downstairs.
He entered the building and was astonished to find the entrance hall and the staircase made of pure marble. The walls were a colorful, if somewhat faded mosaic of what looked like an old Arabic art with lions and palm trees rising from the ground to the ceiling. They looked like the remnants of the walls surrounding the hanging gardens of Babylon. The sight was quite overwhelming. John thought of his own gray and drab building and for a moment he regretted that the decision of destroying something as lovely as the hall he was standing in.
Slowly, he ascended the staircase, his heart beating wildly and blood booming inside his ears. The sound of it was so loud that at first he thought he imagined his name being called from somewhere above. He looked upwards over the railing and there was Kevin, waving and smiling.
“Come on.” He said cheerfully.
The canvasses were huge and awkward to carry and John was quietly cursing himself to have chosen the stairs over the comfortable ride of an elevator. When he thought carefully, however, he couldn’t remember seeing an elevator door in the hall. “Doesn’t matter.” He said to himself. “I’m here now.”
When he reached Kevin’s floor, he found one of the doors open and decided it must have been the apartment he’d been looking for. He walked over and knocked, carefully poking his head inside.
“Come in! Come in!” Came a reply, mixed with soft music of jazz in the background, much like the kind John frequently listened to.
Interesting. Thought John. He wouldn’t have figured Kevin to be a jazz guy. He entered and closed the door behind him. Somewhere deep inside his stomach he could feel a knot of hunger. His bout of regeneration since this morning had awoken the primal senses that he had not felt in a long time - hunger, cleanliness, probably need for sex, too.
He walked through the apartment and found it to be meticulously clean, almost to the point of clinically tidy showrooms, which he always admired but knew that no normal person could keep up in real life. This time, however, he had found one. There was not a speck of blood to be seen anywhere, which seemed more than strange. Each performance of Kevin’s was the peak of horror and grotesque, full of blood and guts, severed limbs and digits, extracted organs and dissected veins. One would have thought there’d be a macabre scene of the crime. Yet there was nothing to testify to the horrors committed and endured. Even the air smelled fresh and clean. John was more than astonished, although over the months of his makeshift dealings with Kevin, he got used to the unusual, so he didn’t dwell upon it long.
John entered the kitchen where Kevin was waiting, pouring glasses of white wine and clearing the table.
“I hope you don’t mind.” He said and smiled. “I like white and so I simply picked it without asking.”
John shook his head. It seemed so easy. No introductions, no false civilities. They knew each other beyond the handshake and polite inquires of matters they didn’t really care about. He found his neighbor truly a handsome man. Unlike so many men he had known, he had his art to present as a shield when admiring another man’s beautiful physique. Most of his friends, or what was left of them would never have the courage to admit they had thought another man attractive. With Kevin, there was no doubt about that fact and John admired his long, strong jawed if somewhat gaunt face, electric blue eyes and dark brown, almost black hair, which created a contrast many desired. On Kevin it seemed genuine. He didn’t believe the man wore color contacts or dyed his hair. He was one of the ‘beautiful people’, someone who triggers envy by simple appearance in the room. Tall and athletic, the rest of his body seemed to match his face. He could have been a ragamuffin, a punk or as he appeared now, an elegantly clothed man in his late twenties, and the fact that his beauty was nothing but perfection could not be overlooked. If circumstances were different, John would have loved to paint him. Not now. Like with Dorian Gray, Kevin’s beauty was skin deep, behind which the monstrosity of apocalyptic proportions was hiding.
“I’m not much of a wine drinker.” John said finally, feeling obligated to say something, no matter how trivial.
“Ah yes,” replied Kevin and offered a glass full of champagne-colored contents. “You’re a beer man, right?” He nodded as if John had replied. “And maybe a shot of whiskey or something?”
Despite the heat John shivered. There was a gnawing fear inside his heart and the feeling of hunger that he thought he had become aware of before must have been the first sign of terror that he felt when in the vicinity of a sadistic murdered. No matter how much he appreciated Kevin’s willingness to share, he didn’t attempt to fool himself into believing his neighbor was anything but a common criminal, a monster.
“John, my man,” he talked to himself while carefully observing the handsome man with whom he was sharing a drink. “You ought to take your ass out of here right now.”
Yet, he stayed. He finished the wine in a few swift gulps, finding it sour and dry, much to his distaste.
“May I?” asked Kevin and reached for the canvasses, which were now set on the floor and leaning against John’s leg. Not waiting for the reply he reached for the wrapped paintings delicately, as if afraid he might damage them and spread them against the kitchen cabinets and one by one, carefully tore off the brown paper.
John’s stomach turned again, this time, however, it had been in different fear. It was a familiar feeling of anticipation and angst. The first glance of a critic at what had been his life for a few months. His work, his art, himself really. It was like being naked on the catwalk, trying to ignore the watchful eyes of the crowd, all the while shyly peeking into the darkness and hoping for the best.
