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My hands cup her slender face as she takes a long drag from her cigarette. Before she gets the chance to exhale, I snap her neck.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Charlotte
The club is everything I expected. When you’ve seen one of its kind, you’ve pretty much seen them all. The decor is black velvet and gold trim, the synthesis of luxury and comfort evident in every detail. You can dance, drink, and—if your pockets are deep enough— have whatever suits your tastes. With its incredible interior, which combines antique furniture with modern atmosphere, every wall is decorated with mirrors, which make the club more interesting, especially when they distort the bodies of the people writhing on the dance floor.
It’s already the wee hours of the morning by the time I arrive. I only have a few hours until daylight when the vampires who frequent these sorts of places will grow tired and take the party elsewhere, retreating to their respective covens.
The hours are weighing on me. I have a long night ahead, and I’m jet-lagged as it is.
Already I’ve put in a full day’s work and then some. It takes a lot to get a dead body out of a hotel room. I don’t know what I was thinking. We really should have gone to her place.
In order to make her fit into my oversized luggage bag, I had to break both of her legs and one of her arms. I don’t know what I would have done if she hadn’t been tiny. It’s a small miracle she was fit and trim, even by Parisian standards.
I rolled her straight out through the lobby and into the night. As I walked along the Seine, I thought of her tongue dancing with mine, her slender fingers, her shallow smile, and I wondered who might miss her.
I called home and spoke to Michael and the girls. They were busy living their lives, bickering with each other, sending pointless instant messages. It is not enough to stop and talk to me. I am their mother, a wife—there will always be tomorrow. In their eyes I will always be a given. They have no idea this could be the last time they hear my voice. It makes me wonder who the woman in the suitcase last spoke to by phone. Was it important? Was it someone she loved? Did they make it count?
Pointless questions on my part. I tell the girls I love them and Michael too. Then I switch off the phone, and when I am sure no one is looking, I simply kick the suitcase into the murky, cold black water. No doubt the suitcase will surface in time. The autopsy will rule her death a murder, but by then, I’ll be long gone.
Geoffrey Dunsmore is not in attendance tonight, but there’s no shortage of other people to look at. There are bodies everywhere. Naked, the young and the beautiful and seemingly restless.
It takes speaking to six people before I have an address in hand.
As I finish off my glass of white wine, searching the address on my phone, I glance up every once in a while, pausing to watch the patrons partake in various forms of sex. So far as I can tell, there’s no rhyme or reason to why two or more people partner up, and given the right mood, it might turn me on. Might even make me a little homesick, all the writhing, sweaty, eager bodies. It’s too bad none of them are the one I want.
Listening for the click of the lock, my eyes take a second to adjust as soft light floods the room. I can just make out two shadows through the crack I have left, so I slide the door open just a little more. This time, it’s my turn to watch.
Dunsmore turns to the girl and drapes his arm over her shoulders. He kisses her once lightly on the mouth and runs his hand across her cheek. Then he pulls her closer and kisses her roughly.
Dunsmore pulls away and looks at her through heavy-lidded eyes. Pure desire, barely contained.
The girl is young, but not as young as the ones in the video. This one may even be of age, but not by much. My body tenses, a thousand nerves exposed. The feeling in my stomach is sick, rolling like the ocean during a storm.
Through the doors of the armoire, I watch as he shrugs his jacket to the floor and starts for the buttons on his shirt. I have been hidden, wedged in here for hours now, my bladder painfully full, my head dizzy from stale air and a lack of oxygen.
Leaning forward, I see the girl come into focus. She reaches behind her and unzips her dress, making it clear that this is not her first dance with Geoffrey Dunsmore. It is evident in her eyes. She is aware of her allure. She takes up the space she inhabits confidently. She has learned how to use her body; the question is whether or not she really wants to, how much of this is an act.
Freed of the dress, the girl plops backward onto the bed, propped by her elbows, naked except for a pair of panties. Dunsmore walks slowly toward her, takes her leg by the ankle, and pulls her to the edge of the bed. He pops her foot into his mouth and sucks on her big toe before slowly moving his lips over the rest of her foot, swirling his tongue along the arch, nestling his face in it.
This goes on forever, as my bladder screams at me, until finally, he places the girl’s bent leg on the bed with a pat, and slithers toward the headboard like the snake he is. He is eager, his mouth hard at work, until he reaches the utmost point of her inner thigh. I register the sound, the tearing of panties, the rhythmic sound of the mattress.
As the rocking grows louder, erratic, and less predictable, I know this is my chance. Moving in time with Dunsmore’s grunting, I push the armoire door forward and slowly climb out.
He is on top of the girl, pumping away. I tiptoe across the room. The huffing grows as he moves harder and faster. Apart from the pale yellow glow flickering across the room, the moaning and skin slapping, I am surprised that I feel calm and in control.
Dunsmore’s naked backside comes into focus as I wrap the wire tightly around my fists. I lunge forward onto the bed, cat-like, and, kneeling over him, I place the steel wire across his throat. It sounds like percussion as I draw it tight, cutting into his flesh. He bucks against my legs, flapping like a fish out of water as his hands scramble for his throat. I can feel him tugging, pulling at the wire, although he is unable to make any headway, because the more he struggles, the tighter I pull.
With a yank upward, the steel wire brushes his windpipe, and I feel a slight give in his flesh. My eyes meet the girl’s. She stares uncomprehendingly up at me, her mouth open.
His fingers move as though he is playing a frantic piano tune, desperately trying to get a fix on the wire. In time, his body begins to convulse, shaking violently like a puppy attempting to shake a lead.
The girl begins to push at his chest, writhing to break free, hopelessly trying to avoid the blood that is raining down on her. Blood from Dunsmore’s severed neck paints the girl’s face, chest, and hands. Even as the convulsing begins to ebb and wane, the gurgling continues.
I do not let up on the wire, allowing it to move through his flesh, through his windpipe, severing his neck to the extent that my upper body strength will allow.
&n
