"The rage was today...."

 The Sweet Spot © 2008 by David Byron

 

The water pressure at the condo made the hospital showers feel like insipid watering cans for delicate flowers. This shower subverted them; it pressure-washed her shoulders and even drowned-out the Jimmy Buffet CD playing in the other room.

Steam rolled against the ceiling above the stall. Janie didn’t turn on the exhaust fan, though, as she was supposed to, like he always said to.

Mold and mildew, dumb-ass, Richard would say. Richard said a lot of things. For eight years he addressed her with gems like:

Hey, how about getting your stupid shoes off the floor? You want me to break my fucking ankle? I like my shirts folded top to bottom. Not side to side.

Great, dumb-ass! You ruined another perfectly good piece of steak with one of your goddamned new recipes. Do you think I’m your personal, fucking money-fountain? And then the classic: Did you take your stupidity pills again today and miss the fact that there’s no toilet paper in the house?

The words made her cringe like a cornered mouse. They caused her to put her hand over the mouthpiece of the phone, hoping that the person on the other end didn’t hear how he treated her—or worse, that she tolerated it. Richard’s a real charmer. That’s what Janie’s mother would have said. Janie had heard enough.

Water trickled off the tip of her nose, and she smirked. It doesn’t mean a goddamned thing now . . . all things considered, does it? Janie turned her back toward the faucet and lowered her head so the hot tendrils of water massaged her neck and shoulders. A clear, plastic knob stuck out from the center of the vinyl wall. It was one of the pull for “on,” and push for “off” knobs, cut into facets like an absurdly enormous diamond, as if to suggest that a shower is a priceless privilege.

It really is priceless, she thought. But she relished the privacy more than she did the hot shower. In the hospital you didn’t get genuine alone-time in the shower. You’d be lucky to get a partitioned stall let alone privacy. Even those pretend jails for rich people probably have individual shower stalls. I’ll bet Martha fucking Stewart had a shower stall, she mused. But it still wouldn’t be real alone time because there was always someone there. There was always a monitor standing nearby, some asshole leaning against the wall thinking about their next smoke-break saying, “Turn the fan on, dumb-ass! Mold and mildew, you know?” Whether it was that burly bull dyke in nurse’s scrubs named Phyllis (that everyone called Phyl, of course) or some undiagnosed obsessive compulsive cock-slinger that shared your bed for fifteen years.

Not anymore, though.

She watched a line of pink suds slither down her inner leg and curl into the drain, imagining a frothy snake exploring a mouse’s tunnel. The sweet, coconut-scented steam of the shower soothed her. She missed the smell of her own body-wash; but they didn’t have that kind of stuff in the hospital. There, she got worn-down bars of Ivory soap and some generic shampoo that came in a big white bottle with no label. It was a medicine-smelling liquid—real scalp raping shit--probably for dandruff and lice that the hospital, no doubt, purchased in bulk and distributed in generic bottles to its generic residents. They don’t say “patients” anymore, either; too degrading. Now everyone is a “resident.” It was all ridiculously p-c. Whether you shit yourself every five minutes because you like the smell, or whether you feel the need to stick your fingers in everyone else’s noses because you’re dead-sure that aliens camp-out in them, you’re still a respected “resident.” But Jesus, don’t say “patient” or you’ll make someone feel like an outcast.

Finding the coconut body-gel stowed away in the cabinet under the vanity would have been a pleasant surprise, except it wasn’t hers. She chewed at her upper lip and considered how Richard ended up with a woman’s body cleanser in his cabinet. It’s obvious, isn’t it? Must be a leftover from one of his whores. The shower water tasted a little like her fingers did when she’d bite her nails after fishing coins from her purse. She had never noticed a metallic tint to the tap water before.

Is it the water? Or is it the blood?

It occurred to her that she hadn’t actually tasted anything for months. Since she was put on the medication at the hospital, she didn’t even think about the foods she loved, as long as she was provided with her paper cup of colorful little appetizers before each meal. It made her cringe to realize she hadn’t had an orgasm in the same amount of time, either. And even those were self-induced, at best, for the past eight years since moving to California. Being on the medication left her empty, passive. She felt as though she observed her world through a blurry window and traveled more like an unwitting passenger in a car rather than as the driver.

But not today.  She felt like the driver today. A driver with road rage. She turned her chin toward the shower-head and rubbed her face with the washcloth.

***

The house showed no indication of her having lived there. All representations of her presence had vanished, and it had become decidedly bachelor-esque. So quick. It was difficult not to think of it still as her house. Only six months now she’d been gone, but the condo spoke nothing of her eight year decorating investment. All those little feminine touches that made that cookie-cutter condominium their home were gone. Even the curtains.

Why the hell didn’t he keep the curtains? Was it because he didn’t like them? He chose them, for Christ’s sake. Or was it because we picked them out together? That’s it. It was spite. Nothing more. Because he wouldn’t budge on the one’s he wanted since he felt he was going out of his way to humor me with buying the curtains in the first place.           

“With all that home-makeover shit you watch all day, you’d think you could make some frigging curtains by now,” he would say while flipping through the mail.

“What an ass,” she said aloud in the shower stall. Her voice sounded intrusive within her wet, vinyl cocoon. She squeezed more body-gel onto the black washcloth—not one of her washcloths—and scrubbed her arms a third time. That meticulous son-of-a-bitch got rid of it all; he didn’t miss a thing. And he certainly didn’t miss me, either. How could he? With so many “business” trips overseas and around the country—a woman in every 
port . . .? How would he have time to miss me? He was far too fucking busy after all!

The water felt cooler upon her back. She adjusted the diamond knob so the arrow on the edge fell toward the ‘H’ on the wall plate. She leaned forward and soaked her graham-cracker-blonde hair, warming her scalp again. The heat seeped into her skin, down her neck, into her spine, and soothed her spent muscles. It recharged her.

 

She no longer cared about those “business trip” images in her head. At least she told herself she didn’t care. Her mind conjured lurid scenes of faceless female bodies straddling her husband on some International Inn bed upon sheets held together more by the glue of bodily fluids than by fibers of cotton. The visions only annoyed her before, in the same way those indiscriminate phantom itches do that you can never seem to scratch. She used to believe, used to wholeheartedly trust that all of it was impossible. A voice in her head would say, He may be a miserable bastard but he wouldn’t do that! She had to believe it. To question his fidelity would be to suffer his answer, and Richard Strictland was more of a doer than a sayer—a man more of actions than words.

 How naïve, her new inner voice snapped.

 

A phone call one evening made it real to her with merely two words: I’m sorry. That’s all Janie heard on Richard’s cell phone, an intrusive voice that came out of nowhere like her own voice in the shower. She remembered he was already deeply invested in sleeping that night, exhausted after returning from Spain. Jet-lag, he’d said. When his cell phone rang from the pocket of his jacket slung over the kitchen chair, Janie was Googling recipes in the next room. In retrospect she realized she had been making an attempt to make things better, to add some spice to both the table and the marriage by trying new things. She thought nothing of the fact that his phone was ringing at eleven-thirty on a Tuesday night, either. His phone rang all the time, as demanding as a needy newborn. She even pleaded with him to turn off the electronic leash on the rare occasion that they went out to dinner, or when they rented a movie on the weekends. He usually did, but he was always reluctant. Now she understood why.

Then his bitches couldn’t call because I was making him spend time with me. Fur Elise was the ring-tone he chose. She thought the electronic rendition sounded cheesy—whiney like a robot with a sinus infection; a real friggin’ tribute to Beethoven!--but she would never say that to Richard. She remembered shuffling to the kitchen that night and fishing through his pockets so she could answer the phone and not disturb his hard-earned rest. Poor baby. Poor big infantile son-of-a-whore’s-bitch, she thought and gritted her teeth while rinsing conditioner from her hair.

She found the phone, flipped the cover back and said, “hello?” She had expected to hear Jerry’s voice--Richard’s work partner—respond: “Hey, Janie; it’s Jer. Is the old man right there?” he would say. But this voice, a woman’s voice she didn’t recognize, chilled her skin and burned her insides with those two words: I’m sorry. It was such a sweet, lilting Spanish accent that it made her stomach heave, then the connection vanished. That’s when something heavy dropped off the top shelf in her mind, way in the back behind boxes full of all those feminine touches, and crashed to the floor in her heart. The shrapnel of humiliation, disbelief, and panic imbedded her soul. The rage would come later.

The rage was today.

As soon as the woman with the lovely accent hung up the phone, Janie’s mind indulged itself with a peculiar placement of faces to supplement those flawless naked legs and that perky, plump-melon backside she’d envisioned, riding her husband at the International Inn. She didn’t picture the face of the girl on the phone, of course--unless Richard was banging J-LO or Eva Longoria. They were simply the first familiar Latina faces that came to her in the moment that it all clicked together. They also happened to be figures that most men worshipped but most women despised for being so categorically beautiful. They were more perfect than she would ever be, and her mind needed something--a catalyst--to bring together the fact that her husband had a very dark and secret life. The face finally completed the puzzle, like a missing jigsaw piece discovered deep inside a floor heating-vent. Eva or J-LO would fit just fine for now. At least the woman on the phone was real, and Janie knew that. The rest was cosmetic.

***

Janie stopped scrubbing for a second and placed her hand on her own buttocks. She pressed a little, as if testing a tomato’s ripeness, her eyes closed against the raining tap-water. She made a mild grunt of satisfaction. It’s not that bad, she told herself.

The water felt cool again. She turned the diamond more so the little arrow barely tapped the ‘H’ on the head now, rubbing her eyes and pushing the water back over her face and hair. It was so nice to smell like a girl again. She didn’t find her apricot shampoo, though-- she was certain he’d long gotten rid of that. He hated that smell. Too sickly-sweet, he would say with a disgusted wrinkle in his nose when she’d walk by him. Now she smelled of Aveda cloves--apparently Richard’s new shampoo preference--but far better than the caustic-smelling dandruff and lice crap. Yet the aromatherapy and the warm, soothing water weren’t really the purposes of the shower. They were only fringe benefits.

Getting clean was the point. Rinsing him out.

Still, it was a hard-earned reprieve. For the short time she had before they would come, this shower was a warm cozy womb safe from anyone, disconnected from the world. It was ecstasy to finally be alone. Well, possibly. She wondered if she was truly alone yet.

The last of the pink suds slithered away. She held out her hands and scrutinized. They were clean now, but still trembling of residual adrenaline. The hot water caused her two wounded fingers to continue bleeding through the bandages. But that was a trivial thing now--as diluted as the blood being washed away. She rubbed at a pale band at the base of her finger below one of the wounds, a haunting tattoo leftover from an absent wedding ring. Janie tried to massage the stubborn stain out, but the phantom band crept back. Anyone else would have to study her finger to find it, but she could still see it.

Janie noticed some crusted blood caked under her nails, picking at it. They were short these days, too. Long nails didn’t serve much useful purpose in the henhouse, and she never liked them, anyway. But he did. Richard liked the way they looked because, “women should have long, sexy nails,” he said. He didn’t say she should have long, sexy nails—but women. Really, she knew he liked the way they felt on his back while he was driving himself into her. As far as Janie was concerned, they were a hindrance that instigated nothing but displeasure. Besides, they would usually break so far down into her nail-beds that it hurt more than it was worth.

But now, her concerns are all that matter.

 

She finally escaped from him, but not like she’d tried to with the pills. She now regarded her attempted suicide as pathetic. That was a cop-out move like a frightened animal playing dead, or an abused dog running away. Janie felt that this endeavor was entirely more effective, and as for the sadistically disturbing satisfaction of it all . . . she could live with that. She no longer possessed the tether of emotional obligation. He possessed no leverage on her soul. She had escaped him just like she’d escaped from the hospital. She considered the irony in the similarity as she rubbed the stubble on her legs. It was an irony in method as well as in madness.

She considered shaving but thought better of it. Who cares if her legs are as hairy as a baboon’s now, anyway? They served her purpose today, even went above and beyond to get done what needed to be done. Now they are strictly utilitarian, for transportation and for reaching the television set at the hospital. So who gives a shit?

At least now my socks will stay up, she thought.

 

It was easy to leave the hospital because it was just like Patty said: “A man could go out in public and whip-out his tool, just about any woman would scream ‘rape’ and leave him eating dust. But, if a woman went out and lifted her skirt,” Patty would nod in a very matter-of-fact way here, “ . . . she has power. It may be a man’s society, girls, but it’s a goddamned woman’s world. Any man’s a sucker for a nice piece of ass.”

 The cigarette in Patty’s mouth would bounce like a little diving board when she laughed. She always had a cigarette, too. Janie realized she couldn’t picture Patty at all without seeing that skinny white phallus hanging out of her mouth and her stringy, bottle-blond hair draped down like twisted tree roots. “Hell, men are goddamned infantile pigs!” Then, she’d laugh that hoarse smoker’s laugh, cigarette diving board bouncing away.

 

Janie put Patty’s theory to the test today—twice. The proof of the pudding is in the eating, after all. Her mother would have said that, too.

 

Brielson-Tave Psychiatric didn’t have any maximum security, nothing that severe. The staff consisted of orderlies and nurses. But even under the little name badges there was skin, and under some of those orderlies’ trousers, there were penises. Alarmingly easy, she thought, impressed with herself.

Patty wasn’t a lesbian--she loved to screw men--she just hated them as a faction of the species. She was Janie’s inspiration, a mentor. Her own frumpy personal-trainer groomed and polished at some local trailer park or two. Patty preached about being in control, never letting anyone walk all over you or treat you like shit. She was all about grabbing a bull by the horns or a man by the balls and letting him know that she could keep her pants on just as long as she needed to, even though she probably couldn’t. But they didn’t know that, and it was only important that they believed she could. She was good at making people believe things. That was, at least, one of her talents anyway. Maybe that’s part of why she landed at Brielson-Tave Psychiatric instead of Darlington Penitentiary. Thanks to the devilishly persuasive charisma of Carlton Bloom, Esq., an attorney with a tongue as slick as the rear of a southern, backwoods pig, Patty had beaten a murder conviction with a Temporary Insanity plea. And she certainly didn’t give anyone else a reason to believe it was a bogus plea.

Patty buddied-up to Janie pretty quickly for reasons that Janie didn’t comprehend. She didn’t much care either. Patty was, at least, entertaining if not infectious with enthusiasm. She had been in the hospital for two months before Janie arrived and took her under the proverbial wing. Maybe she saw something familiar in Janie. But Patty and Janie came from different worlds, different walks of life, and Janie hoped that it wasn’t true. But when she considered the crusted blood under her nails, she had to admit that it probably was.

Janie’s introduction to Brielson-Tave followed the bottle of pills that she had downed like a neat Scotch at a bad Christmas party. But now she was back at home taking that bull by the horns, the man by the balls, and showing him that she didn’t take any shit. Although this really wasn’t home anymore. Come to think of it, home was nowhere—unless you count the hospital. But she wouldn’t stay there forever, would she? Home used to be her parents’ farm in New Hampshire, where fields of corn comprised her yard, and her mother and sister were forever at yard sales, while she and her father would go fishing on the weekends. But she hadn’t even spoken to any of them since her mother died. Richard wouldn’t have it. He felt she needed to cut those apron strings and act like a proper woman; not like some hick, redneck girl who’d never been more than a mile from cow-shit. Then she found herself whisked to California. She’d called Jessica once, but her sister wouldn’t speak to her.

Janie rubbed the water from her eyes and hung the black washcloth on the shower-caddy. Poor Jessica, still angry, always able to hold on to a good grudge. She wished she could talk to her father right now, though. More than anything she wished she could go home and vanish into those rows of corn as she and Jessica used to do when they were little girls. But Frank Trupper was a proud man and probably wouldn’t have anything to do with this heathen disappointment of a little girl ever again.

 

Pushing the bulbous plastic diamond on the wall and stopping the shower nearly broke her heart, but she had to get ready. It couldn’t last forever, she knew that. Nothing could, “not even the Earth, stars, or sun,” her father would say. She accepted that. If she’d learned anything over the past six months it was how to be realistic. She’d spent, no, wasted too much time being naïve. Not anymore, and they would be coming soon, anyway.

She twisted her hair and wrung it of water. Tears that she had anticipated but no longer expected went to the drain, lost in the slurry. Janie slid open the shower door, and clouds of steam tumbled out around her. She’d wanted a bath--that would have been ideal--but it wouldn’t have accomplished the same thing as the shower had. A bath would mean stewing in the blood, not washing it away. The shower suited her needs. It was still a good escape.

***

Now she could hear a muffled Jimmy Buffet singing “Why Don’t we Get Drunk” on the other side of the bathroom door. She was never a huge fan; not a parrot-head so much. But even William Hung would have sounded good right now. They didn’t play pop music at the hospital. Not real pop music. It was always that watered down Muzak. They didn’t want any residents getting riled-up with The Stone Temple Pilots or The Dixie Chicks, after all. Even at Christmas time they played Christmas songs, but it was still the androgynous sort you heard in elevators.

She pulled a brown towel from the bar on the wall over the toilet. The light blue towels she had hung there, when it was still her house, were gone. Hers were softer. Pressing this one to her face, she grimaced at it how abrasive it was. Drying and wrapping the towel around her body, Janie went to the vanity. A corporeal suggestion of Janie Trupper Strictland hid behind the fog in the mirror. A ghost.

It’s probably what he thought when he saw me here.

She wiped her hand across the mirror. There I am, she mused. Jane Trupper--lioness. The image in the cloudy glass seemed surreal, as did the bloody knife in the sink.

She knew he’d be surprised to see her, especially in the house. It would have been strange enough bumping into her in a convenience store, but finding her standing in the bedroom, naked . . . For whatever it was worth, though, she got the response she needed. It was worth a lot. Hell, it was worth everything.

Janie opened the bathroom door, her eyes taking a moment to adjust to the darkness. The cooler air in the bedroom gave her goose-bumps. Jimmy sang as if the whole world was one big, drunken beach party. She went to the bed, stepping over the body on the floor. Her towel nearly came apart and dropped when she twisted to avoid the blood that soaked the carpet. The burgundy stain was much bigger now in the ecru berber since she’d gone into the bathroom to wash.

She didn’t hear Richard make a sound, wondering if he had finally bled out. She still couldn’t bring herself to look at his face. Familiarity was a risk; at least, for a little longer. The light from the bathroom shined upon his back, but his face was enveloped in shadow. She didn’t see that his eyes had frozen into a vacant stare at something across the floor only he could see. Janie did notice that his shoulders quivered, just a little. She scrutinized and saw that his ribcage expanded slightly.

He’s still breathing!

But it won’t be for long. It can’t be. They’ll be here soon. That would be a problem. She was ready for it to be over. It was now a matter of letting the universe unfold as it should. She hoped that Richard would be dead by the time they arrived.

Janie placed the towel on the bed, shivering now as she’d expected to when standing in the same spot earlier -naked then, as well and waiting for him to come home. But she didn’t even quiver then. In fact, she’d felt surprisingly comfortable, as if she’d never left and still belonged in that bed. Even when she had taken the knife from the kitchen drawer and tucked it between the mattresses at the foot of the bed, she didn’t so much as tremble. She was scared, of course, but an invisible muse of determined rage inspired her. Her severe purpose did not allow her to settle with letting Richard treat her like a piece of crumpled toilet paper.

Any man’s a sucker, she repeated to herself. She lay there until the sun fell behind the trees, and then she heard that same venue of sounds Richard made when he returned home every day: Door opens; shoes clop into foyer; door closes, and keys go into the glass bowl on the console table; briefcase on the floor. Shoes clop, clop up stairs, and he’ll loosen his tie then, looking forward to putting on his khaki shorts and an old, but tidy, polo shirt.

She had gone to the foot of the bed and turned her back to the door. Janie placed her hands on the bedspread and stood up on her toes, trying to get her backside as high in the air as she could. It was Richard’s favorite position. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the door open and Richard’s feet halt suddenly like a dog reaching an abrupt end to its leash.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he seethed. His voice didn’t echo in the room the way it used to. She didn’t know if he was angry or just surprised, or both, but she noticed something disturbing: her body began to tremble. She hadn’t expected his response, and it threw off her groove. She hadn’t considered any other reactions at all, and this, she realized, was not good planning. All she had to keep her going played in an endless loop in her mind: Any man’s a sucker for a piece of ass! It was her mantra. It was her safety-chute. If Patty’s crucial theory failed here, Janie would have to resort to sheer strength, something with which Richard easily had the advantage.

Janie could only stare at the bedspread, fighting to stay in character and praying for the desired response. This was after all, only an act. She stared at Richard’s shoes, “I’m doing you here, that’s what the fuck,” she said, tilting her backside toward him, trying to sound submissive and seductive, but adamant and decisive. And it wasn’t all-out lying, was it? Her intention after all really was to do him here, just not quite the way he thought. But that didn’t matter, because what he thought then and there was all that counted. And he proved the theory; Patty was right.

Richard dropped his jacket to the floor and paused. Janie froze.

 “Oh, I get it,” he said, “I know what this is all about: one last fling, right?” He slipped his belt free from around his waste and moved toward her. “Okay. I’ll play along. You want to be my little whore, huh?”

She braced herself, familiar with his violently pragmatic uses for the strip of thick leather. But she never released the naughty smile, and she found herself uttering a tiny silent prayer behind the façade. Please not the belt, not again. Let him drop the belt. God, let him drop it.

 

Her arms shuddered more, in spite of herself. She tried to focus upon subduing his mean streak by appealing to what was in his pants. Janie could picture his face breaking into a devilish grin. Her mind wanted to attach shark’s teeth dripping with fetid saliva to his expression, but Janie forced the image away. She already feared foundering if she strayed from the glimmer of success she noticed pushing against the inside of his fly.

The belt dropped to the floor, a snake strangled and blackened by his touch. Oh, thank you, God . . . but whatever relief she felt was short lived at best. He ripped his pants open and kicked-off his shoes. She gasped as his voice broke her thoughts, but quickly disguised it with what she hoped was a seductive moan.

“You’re quite the ballsy bitch, aren’t you?” he continued, pants off now. He kept his shirt and socks on. She found his lust palpable before he even touched her. No distinction existed between which was stronger: her wanting to wretch or to cry. She held fast, now gripping the bedspread and kneading, trying to appear like a cat having her back scratched. He slapped his hand on her buttocks so that it stung. He grabbed her hips and leaned over her back, his face near her shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, baby. I’ll be done before you know it, and then you can get out of here before anyone finds out.” His breath was hot on her skin. She grunted but pretended to enjoy, using the pain to fuel her ambition. “I’ve been needing this for a long time,” she whispered, deceiving him with her own truth. Then she let him play.

For a few seconds she tried to reproduce the ridiculous faces and sounds from the one or two porn movies he forced her to enjoy with him.

 

She felt disgusting. Even letting the orderly have her was a mere inconvenience, a minor obstacle at best, compared to this. At least it got her out of the hospital’s back door. But now, she felt a subtle animosity toward herself. She didn’t even know the orderly, but she loathed Richard. He was vile. And all she could do was keep telling herself that it was all for a purpose; it was almost time. Janie pulled herself from him slowly, seductively indicating a change, flipping to the next page but not closing the book.

Nearly looking at his eyes, she averted her focus and looked only at his obvious point of interest. She couldn’t look at his face. The last thing she wanted was to see something in him, some flicker of the man she remembered and loved that might make her hesitate, or even break down. She knew that if she let herself quit, she really would be nothing more than a worthless, filthy slut—a crumpled bit of shit-ticket, used and flushed. She was afraid she may have appeared awkward, suspicious. He was a bastard, but he wasn’t stupid. She regurgitated that smile, prodding herself; I can do this. I’m different now, stronger—realistic.

She recovered her missed beat by feigning intense interest, and she sank to her knees, sexy, seductive, and grabbed on to the convenient handle that he offered. It doesn’t matter anyway. I don’t need to look; I know what I’d see. I’d see emptiness and no sign of the man I thought I knew and devoted myself to for more than eight years. There’d be the eyes of a creepy, life-like doll that I wouldn’t want in my bedroom at night—no emotion, no compassion. There’s been no love for me in his eyes for years.

Richard’s hands dangled at his sides. She noticed his wedding ring was gone. He couldn’t get rid of me fast enough, could he? I’ll bet he had some new slut in my bed before I even had a room at the hospital. But instead of feeling thwarted, she felt empowered. She turned her rage into strength and she listened to his sounds of savoring as she teased and played. This time she was the cat, toying with its prey. And she grinned when his head lolled back, and he let her play-act to her hearts desire. He wouldn’t have cared if they were in a Broadway play or at an office board-meeting as long as she kept doing what she was doing. But while she stroked with one hand the other reached behind her and between the mattresses.

“Just the perfect way to top it all off, huh, baby?” he said, holding no inclination of her intentions, head still back, interest still pointing. When she got a firm grip on the knife, she mirrored with a firm grip of his penis. She pulled him upward with a quick yank that put him on his toes. He gasped out of his reverie, but too late to react. Janie jammed the knife into his groin. It speared with little resistance, exactly as Patty had described. “That’s the sweet-spot,” Patty directed, emphasizing with a stubby finger jabbed into the air like dotting an invisible exclamation point, “below the hot-dog and between the beans. Anything else is pretty much bone.”

Janie knew that she’d only get one very lucky shot at this. If she missed, he would be on top of her, beating her before she could scream. But she was hot to gamble today, and it did work. She had Richard right where she wanted him, and it was easy enough to aim while he wasn’t looking.

His hands shot to his groin. The veins throughout his body seared, and he lost his breath. His eyes blew open, and he finally managed to scream, still pitched high-up on his toes and prancing as if the carpet had become a bed of coals. Her grasp did not relent but tightened instead with the urgency of survival. He grabbed at her, getting handfuls of her hair. He growled what she thought might have been an attempt at, “Bitch”.  Richard pulled and twisted, tearing strands from her scalp, making her screech and jarring her neck. Janie maintained that she had a distinct advantage. Her only focus--her drive--was upon his tool of betrayal that she squeezed in her hand, his lascivious implement that had made her a fool. She twisted the knife’s handle and threw her shoulder into his abdomen knocking Richard onto his back. He continued screaming in a culmination of shock, rage, and pain. His head bounced hard upon the floor, thumping like a bowling ball slipping from a child’s hands. But she knew that on the carpet it wouldn’t have been enough to knock him out. He sat upright and grabbed for her again, his legs thrashing, the knife protruding like a second, bloody appendage. Before he could reach her she leaned back, withdrew the knife, and sliced it upward underneath his scrotum. The blade angled upward and bit into her white, gripping fingers. She flinched and pulled his shaft downward to take the blade as she delivered another quick stroke. And these were the kinds of strokes she’d dreamed about giving Richard for several festering months.

He screamed in a mind-splitting way that would have landed him a B-movie audition as his whole package -jewels within- flopped to the floor. Her husband squirmed and tried to roll away, clawing at the floor like a wounded crocodile, but Janie didn’t let go. “Taking the bull by the horn”, she grunted and yanked him upward again, as if rip-starting a stubborn lawnmower. She wasn’t a mere cat now, but a lioness.

She found herself savoring the experience of twisting and pulling, as well as sporting a slightly sadistic smile. His hands flexed and slapped down on the floor at his sides as he tried to stabilize himself and regain some kind of foundation to push away. Janie stomped on his chest as if she were killing a cockroach and leaned into him. Then she continued to slice further at the underside of his beloved manhood and nearly severed it. She ripped upward again, and she could feel his flesh releasing. The ligament remaining at the topside of his shaft was difficult to free, but she managed with a gloriously bestial roar that erupted from the pit of her belly. With a final swipe she stood upright, panting, holding his disembodied penis. She waited for the possibility that he might spring from the floor in a final burst of rage and attack her, ripping her to shreds as she had done to him.

 

She watched Richard’s loins bleed and listened to him gurgle and sputter on the floor, like a waterless fish. His hands grasped blindly at his vacant groin, and blood streamed from beneath his fingers over his legs and onto the carpet. Janie moved away from him now, her eyes wildly glassy and watched him convulse. She couldn’t bring herself to look at his face, which bloated and turned purple with tension, tears trickling from bloodshot eyes as shock saturated him.

 Twenty minutes passed, but it felt like seconds as she was so stoked with adrenaline. When he stopped moving, and she knew he was beyond dragging himself to a phone, Janie deposited the knife in the bathroom sink. She was observing how he drying blood made it stick to her hand when she realized that she was still squeezing his dismembered penis her other. She tossed it on the floor beside him, turning to speak at her reflection in the mirror, “I did you a favor, Richard. Those things are nothing but trouble anyway.”

 

It was finished. She accomplished her task, conquered the mouse within and became the predator that devoured its prey. Janie could do whatever she wanted now. She was liberated and wanted music.

She went to the CD cabinet near the closet, which wasn’t one she recognized. It had a glass front with a recessed display box in the door. The theme was a vignette of Tuscan flavor, with little wine bottles and wedges of plastic cheese on tiny shelves.

Tacky.

She opened the cabinet and left blood on the glass. Scanning the CD collection, many of which she could have sworn were hers—bastard!—she found Jimmy Buffet’s Songs You Know by Heart and put it into the CD player on the dresser. She had been craving something from her Billy Joel CD, but it seemed Richard had gotten rid of that, as well. This will do. She turned the volume way up, not hearing Richard at all.

Janie laid the damp towel on the bed, about which he surely would have bitched. But she didn’t have to worry about that anymore, did she? She collected her folded-up hospital clothes and put them back on her freshly showered body. No identity in those clothes; only a generic resident. She sat on the edge of the bed and studied the man on the floor. Not really a man anymore, is he? The small bag of skin sat on the floor between his knees with its two tiny lumps inside. His small penis lay distorted and useless nearby. She chuckled to herself.

Janie settled back into her old spot on the bed and let the final dregs of adrenaline dissipate. She relaxed, feeling as though she’d just taken one of her cups of colorful little pills at the hospital. Her heart slowed and her mind eased into a peaceful satisfaction that it was over. She knew that she’d finally won. She’d finally released herself from the oppressive chill that lingered perpetually at her back and disturbed her sleep no matter how far away from him she could ever be. Richard would never hurt her again. She knew it, but she didn’t feel it. There was still something there, something inhibiting the long awaited closure she desired.

Maybe it all just hasn’t hit me yet.

Janie turned toward the phone on Richard’s nightstand. She leaned across the bed and reached for the sleek silver receiver. She pressed a series of digits she’d memorized for just this occasion. A woman answered. Janie said, “Attorney Bloom, please.” She was asked to hold.

Janie noticed that Richard kept a picture on his nightstand now. It was a shot of a young red-haired woman, probably late twenties; guys must think she’s a knockout. The girl sat on Richard’s lap and she held her hand out toward the camera, obviously flaunting her engagement ring. The diamond cast a substantial reflection of the camera’s flash. The girl was smiling, and she had her other arm around Richard’s neck. They looked happy. But all Janie could offer to the precious moment was, “Bitch.” She looked at Richard in the photo, expecting to see that smug son-of-a-bitch pretending to be happy and charming for the camera  -just like he’d done for their own engagement party. She looked at his face, her mind already stocked with bitter emotion and scathing cynicism, but what she saw made her blood seem to run dry and instead snuffed any emotion in her soul.

It wasn’t Richard. Janie didn’t recognize the man in the photo at all.

An overwhelming sense of urgency forced her reluctant mind to accept that she needed to look at his face now. She needed to look at the man on the floor, really look at him. But now the fear she couldn’t stave away was not that she might recognize something familiar, it was that she wouldn’t.

Janie dropped the receiver onto the pillow, unable to see him over the foot of the bed. She slid her feet to the floor, looking at the man on the carpet. His hands still cupped between his knees, not moving at all now. She dragged her eyes up his torso, finding his chest still. And then his face; Richard’s face was next. But it wasn’t Richard at all. It was the man in the picture with the red-haired woman—his fiancé. He looked like Richard, Oh, god does he look like Richard . . . but it wasn’t her husband. She scrambled for his trousers and found a billfold in a pocket. The man on the floor smiled at her from his driver’s license photo. Alex Messier; 2447 Tamarack Heights.

Janie crumpled onto the floor, burying her face in her hands. She waited for the heaving sobs to come, but she didn’t feel the slightest urge to shed a tear. Still, her chest did heave, but she found herself laughing. Somewhere inside, not even in the passenger’s seat now, but way back in the trunk of her mind, Janie was appalled. But she wasn’t driving today like she’d believed. Janie laughed and tears did come to her eyes.

You killed the wrong man. You’re in the wrong fucking house, and you killed the wrong fucking man! But he was still a man, Janie. He still had a penis, and he was really no different from Richard, was he? You saved that woman, Janie; you did her a goddamned favor. Hell, you did all women a favor, girl. Men are pigs…