Wait.Shewastalking about Scripture.Christ, he was nervous.
“Listen, Caroline—”
“It’s as the Lawgiver says.The wages of sin is death.If a man commits adultery with the wife of his neighbor, both the adulterer and the adulteress shall be put to death.”
“Hey, I didn’t make Greg cheat, all right?”Kyle laughed shrilly.“Don’t take this the wrong way, Caroline, but if I had you inmybed, I’d never kick you out.Definitely not for that thin-lipped, flat-chested—”
“Howdareyou!”Caroline screamed.
Her face had contorted like a harpy.Kyle wanted to run for his phone, but his feet were rooted to the spot as though they’d been glued there.
“How dare you disrespect Francine like that?”she demanded.
He blinked.“Francine?My first wife?What the hell does she have to do with this?”
“May you rejoice with the wife of your youth,” Caroline quoted.“May her breasts satisfy you always.May you ever be intoxicated with her love.”
Kyle swallowed.He thought of telling Caroline that Francine was more the lay there stiff as a board and wait for it to be over type than the satisfy you with her breasts type, but he had a feeling that wouldn’t go over well.
Her face hardened, no longer enraged but cold.Stony.“But whoever causes one of these little ones who trust in me to fall into sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone hung around his neck, and to be submerged in the depths of the sea.”
Kyle swallowed again.“Listen.I don’t know what—”
She took a step toward him.His paralysis finally broke.He turned toward the counter and lunged for his phone.Fire exploded in his back.He gasped and stared in amazement at the thin tip of the stiletto poking from the front of his chest.The knife withdrew, then appeared again just below his belly button.He dropped to the ground, his legs unable to work.
Maybe I won’t feel it,he thought.Maybe because she paralyzed me, I won’t feel it when she cuts it off.
A foot worked under his shoulder and rolled him onto his back.He tried to reach for her only to find that her first strike had paralyzed his arms.He could only watch helplessly as she unbuckled his belt, unbuttoned and unzipped his shorts and carefully pulled them down to his ankles.A moment later, she became the last person to touch him in the place all men craved to be touched.
And he felt pain.Oh yes, he felt pain.
