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“What do you mean?” Kevin gripped his arm. “What are you going to do?”
“Kev, we’re in this together. Planning and execution. When we started we considered this a bit of recreation, a kind of interlude where we’d expand our sexual experiences. And at a dollar a point, a kind of casual competition to keep us entertained.”
“No one was supposed to be hurt.”
“And you’re not,” Lucias pointed out. “Who else matters? It’s our game.”
“Yes.” It was unarguable logic, and calmed him again. “That’s true.”
“And now, think of it.” Lucias spun away, threw out his arms. “In a way it’s the most fascinating circle. Birth to death. Don’t you see the irony, the beauty of it? The very drugs that were used to help us come into existence are the ones you used to end someone else’s existence.”
“Yes . . .” Kevin could feel himself being pulled into the thrill of it. “Yes, but—”
“The stakes are higher, and so much more interesting.” Lucias turned back and gave Kevin’s arm a manly and congratulatory squeeze. “Kevin, you’re a murderer.”
He paled, but the gleam of respect in Lucias’s eyes ma
de him want to preen. “It was an accident.”
“You’re a murderer. How can I be less?”
“You mean to . . .” Excitement began to ball in his belly. “Deliberately?”
“Look at me. Tell me, and you know you can’t lie, not to me, if her death at your hands wasn’t part of the thrill. Wasn’t, in fact, the biggest part of it?”
“I. . .” Kevin grabbed his drink, gulped whiskey. “Yes. God, yes.”
“Would you deny me the same experience?” He draped an arm around Kevin’s shoulders, led him to the elevator. “After all, Kev, they’re only women.”
•••
Her name was Grace. Such a sweet, old-fashioned name. She worked as a page in the New York City library, delivering discs and precious books to patrons who settled into the reading rooms to study or research or simply pass the time with literature.
She loved poetry.
She was twenty-three, a pretty, delicate blonde with a shy nature and a generous heart. And she was already in love with the man who called himself Dorian and wooed her in the safe world of cyber-space.
She’d told no one about him. It made it more special, more romantic that no one knew. For their first date, she bought a new dress with a long, flowing skirt in blending pastels that made her think of rainbows.
When she left her little apartment to ride the subway uptown, she felt very daring, very adult. Imagine having drinks at the Starview Lounge with the man she was convinced she would marry.
She was certain he’d be handsome. He just had to be. She knew he was rich and articulate and a great traveler, a man who loved books and poetry as she did.
They were soul mates.
She was too happy to be nervous, too sure of the outcome of the evening to have a single doubt.
She would be dead before midnight.
Her name had been Grace, and she had been his first. Not just his first kill, but his first woman. Even Kevin didn’t know that he had never been able to complete the sexual act. Until tonight.
He had been a god in that narrow bed in the pathetic little apartment. A god who had made the woman beneath him cry out and weep and beg for more. She had babbled her love for him, had agreed to every demand. And her glassy, drugged eyes had clung adoringly to his face no matter what he’d done to her.
He’d been so surprised she’d been a virgin he’d come too quickly the first time. But she’d said it had been wonderful, she said she’d been waiting for him all her life. She had saved herself for him.
And his very disgust with her aroused him.
When he took the last vial out of his bag, he showed it to her so that the glass and liquid glinted in the candlelight. When he told her to open her mouth, she did so, like a little bird waiting for a worm.
