Sociopaths In Love (13 page)

She dried off, put on the woman's robe, and
went out onto the balcony to smoke a cigarette.

Night had fallen and a fog was lowering
itself over the city. The only things visible from the buildings a
block over were their glowing signs. Across the intersection to her
left was a brightly lighted parking garage. The light mixed with
the fog and produced a soft, milky glow. A man stood at the very
edge of the top level of the parking garage. The first person she
thought of was Walt but she doubted it was him. She didn't know if
she'd ever seen him be this still, for one thing. Whoever it was
was completely indiscernible. Erica thought of the shape as
masculine, although she supposed it could just as easily have been
a woman. As she smoked, she didn't take her eyes off the figure.
She didn't think it was going to jump. She was waiting to see if it
would move at all. It didn't. Erica felt like it was a contest now.
The fog continued to thicken and, as it did, she had almost
convinced herself it wasn't a person at all.

She smoked a couple more cigarettes. It took
her a second to pick out the figure after lighting each one, her
eyes needing to readjust. There were a lot of things she could be
thinking about and she wondered if this was her way of not thinking
about those things, her distraction. If there was one thing she
had, it was plenty of time. She told herself that, tomorrow, she
would come up with some kind of plan. Not like a life goal or
anything. Just . . . something to do. If she could do
whatever she wanted to, she felt like she should make the most of
it. Otherwise, she saw how easy it would be to just laze around the
apartment and be Walt's slave. That might be okay for a while but
she knew, eventually, she'd get sick of it and then probably grow
to resent Walt.

He still hadn't come back. She wondered if
he was planning on staying out all night and, if he did, what
someone like him did with his time.

She crushed out her last cigarette of the
night, went back into the apartment, rolled up the rug in the
living room that she hated, and threw it off the balcony.

She did a quick scan for the figure but
couldn't make it out. She looked at the sidewalk below the parking
garage to make sure he hadn't jumped while she wasn't looking. She
didn't see anything.

She went to bed and didn't wake up until
Walt brought the crying girl into the bedroom.

Guest

Both bedside lamps were turned on and the
room seemed too bright. She was sure she'd turned them off before
she went to sleep. The girl lay on the floor, her mouth, wrists,
and ankles duct taped. Her eyes were open wide and streaming
tears.

"I brought you something," Walt said. He
looked agitated. A bright red scratch ran across his left cheek.
His eyes danced. The vision Erica had was of him leaving the
apartment, feeling pissed off and out of control, stopping at the
first place he came to, abducting this girl and spending the last
few hours doing God knew what with her.

"Walt," she said. Nothing else. Just his
name.

He waited for her to say something else.
"What?"

"What would make you think this is something
I want?"

"It's kind of for you and kind of for me. I
won't lie."

"How is this
remotely
for
me?"

"Remember how you said you owed me one?"

"I said I wasn't going to eat the people you
cooked. I then ate the people you cooked so I no longer 'owe you
one.'"

He stalked across the room, coming over to
where she sat in the bed, wrapping a big hand around her wrist and
shaking it. The girl writhed around on the floor, trying to make it
to the door like that was going to help.

"Why are you always trying to beat me? This
isn't a contest."

"I'm not trying to beat you. I'm just saying
that I no longer owe you anything. That's how that works."

He squeezed her wrist
harder. "It
is
valid. I had to pressure you to do it. You still said 'no'
originally. You didn't eat it when I wanted you to eat it. A trade
is a trade. Winning an argument is something else. Like, really
successful debate skills or something. Apart from that, there are
so many other reasons for you to owe me. I've fucking liberated
you."

"I think the jury's still out on that."

He let go of her wrist, throwing her hand
back at her. It slapped against her chest. He took a couple of
steps back from her, like if he stayed close to her he was going to
end up hurting her. He grabbed his head. "I took you away so
easily. You didn't have to come. I thought you accepted a certain
amount of things by coming with me. You could have ended up like
her." Walt nudged the girl on the floor with his foot. "I've tried
to be nice with you. I've tried to give you a choice. I'm not
giving you a choice this time. You said you owed me one – anything
– and I'm calling you on that. After this, we can say things are
even. After this, you stay if you want to or go if you want to. If
you stay, you do everything I ask you to do. If you go, I never
want to see you again. But if you don't do what I ask you to do
right now I'm going to kill you and then I'm going to eat you pussy
first."

She knew he wasn't kidding. She had already
seen him do a number of bad things and knew there were probably
even worse things rattling around in his head. Probably way worse
things buried in his past. She pulled herself up to rest against
the headboard.

"What is it you want me to do?"

He stared at her like she wasn't getting
it.

The girl on the floor let out a muffled
moan.

"Why do you even need to ask if you're going
to do it? Seriously, if there's any doubt in your mind just tell me
now so I can kill you and get it over with."

Erica let out a short "hmpf" and threw the
covers to the side.

She was going to do what he
asked her to do but not because she was afraid of dying. It was
actually her lack of fear about death that made her realize she
needed to stay alive. It seemed somehow wrong to know she could be
only minutes away from dying and to not really be that worried
about it. If she were to die momentarily, it felt like there should
be things she missed doing, people she missed seeing. She didn't
think she would feel any of that loss. Maybe Walt was right. Maybe
what he was getting at was that she didn't really have anything but
him. She was a resourceful girl. She would take what she was given.
Maybe that was why she'd stayed around Granny longer than she
probably should have. She knew enough about herself to know that
she needed
some
body around just to feel like getting up in the morning. At
the moment, Walt was all she really had. That depressed her. She
wasn't aware of exactly how sad that was until this grim
realization. She needed something else. She
would need
something else. She could
say she didn't want to do what he was going to ask her to do
because of ethics or morals but that would have ultimately been
bullshit. If she did have those things, they were undefined and
used to suit her when it was most convenient.

It felt like something left
her at that point. She thought she could actually feel it leave her
body. Then, almost as though Walt could
see
it leave her body, he came closer
to her and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.

"The world is exactly what we make of it. If
you want to talk I'm here to listen but you have to know what it is
you want before you can experience the joy and happiness you want
to feel. Everyone wants to experience those things. Some people
need to redefine those things. If you just keep telling yourself
certain things make you happy, eventually they will. I was empty
just like you once. Now every day feels like the greatest day of my
life. Every day is the best day ever. I do things until I get tired
of them and then I move on. What have you done? What. Have. You.
Done."

Erica looked at the girl who maybe didn't
actually know where the door was, mashed up against the wooden
closet doors. Her eyes were still crazy but now she made eye
contact with Erica and Erica wondered if she was supposed to feel
sympathy for her.

"Nothing," Erica finally said.

"That's exactly right. So you do what I'm
going to ask you to do and see that as the start. I won't question
what you want to do. We can go our separate ways if that's what you
want, but you're going to do this."

"What is it you want me to do?"

"It's not open for debate. I already told
you that's a pointless question."

She placed a hand on his warm face and
stared deeply into his eyes, smiling slightly, and tried not to
sound patronizing. "Love . . . baby . . . It
isn't a pointless question. I have to know what it is you want me
to do before I can do it."

She saw his eyes light up and didn't know if
seeing him happy made her happy or if she felt like she'd gained
some small victory since he was now definitely going to tell her
what he'd refused to moments before.

"I want you to kill that girl."

Erica's heartbeat picked up. She really was
all set to do what he was going to ask but she was almost certain
it would be something creepy and sexual. "Why?"

His eyes clouded over again. "Because you
want to."

"But I
don't
want to."

"You have to tell yourself you want to. You
want to make me happy."

"Why does it have to be a girl? Is it always
going to be a girl? Violence against women is cliché."

"Fuck
me
." Walt sounded exasperated. "You
want to turn this into philosophy or, what, gender studies or
something?"

"I just don't see why it has to be a girl,
that's all. First it was the waitress. I mean, you killed the man
of the apartment, but that was only because it was necessary. I'm
sure you would have rather it just been the woman, who you fucked
after you killed. I just think you need to look at what's driving
you to do this, is all."

"Okay. So suppose I'd brought a man back
instead of this girl. And suppose you were fighting the man but he
got the best of you. Maybe he even decides to rape you before
killing you. Then I'd be guilty of trying to create my own violent
pornography. With your dying breaths you would have thought things
went exactly how I wanted them to go and that it was just as sick
and wrong and misogynistic as you think it is now."

"So you think I'd be weaker than a man? You
think if you brought a man back then there isn't any way I could
possibly take him?"

"I didn't say that. It was a scenario. I'm
mainly saying that whatever I did, whatever sex I chose, would have
been the wrong choice. Do you honestly think I think about any of
that shit?"

"No."

"Good. Because I don't."

"Are you going to watch?"

"Of course I'm going to watch. You're doing
this for me, remember? It's the last thing I'll ever ask you to do
for me."

"Do you love me, Walt?"

"Of course, baby. Do you love me?"

"More than ever." But she also thought she
hated him more than ever and wondered if she was actually capable
of feeling either of those things.

"Sounds like we might be perfect for each
other then."

"There's no such thing as perfection. We do
what we can with the shit we're handed. I want you to undo her
hands and feet. I don't want any more of an advantage than I
already have. And you have to promise not to interfere. No matter
what happens."

"I won't interfere but I think I should warn
you: if she gets out of this apartment, I'm going to kill you. It
will be something I have to do. I won't want to do it. Just so you
know."

"And if I kill her, we don't eat her. We
take her out somewhere tomorrow and bury her or throw her in a
river or something. That's what I'm asking of you."

"I still have plenty of meat in the
fridge."

"Okay then."

Erica slid out of bed, still wearing the
stained t-shirt and yoga pants. The wood floor was cold on her
feet. She arched her back, rolled her head around on her shoulders,
bent over and touched her toes, stretching out her hamstrings. Walt
stood the girl up on her feet. Erica moved in front of the door,
figuring that would be the first place the girl would try. Walt
stripped the tape off her wrists and she immediately went at him
until becoming unbalanced and landing on her knees. She scrabbled
toward Erica, locked her hands on her legs. Walt stripped the tape
from her ankles and the girl sprang up, drilling Erica in the
stomach and knocking her back into the hall. Walt reached around
the girl's head and removed the tape from her mouth. The girl began
screaming and running toward the living room.

Erica felt something inside of her break. If
what she felt before was some essential part of herself leaking
out, this was its replacement, crashing into her like a waterfall.
If the girl made it to the door and beyond that meant she was left
here with Walt. And that meant Walt would kill her and probably eat
her.

She understood what he wanted. He wanted to
see her fight for something. If she fought for this one thing,
maybe it would bring some sense of meaning to what came after
it.

Erica moved faster than she had ever moved
going after the girl.

But the girl had crazy fear and panic stored
up and it gave her a wild energy. Something that Erica, being
roused from sleep to fight this absurd battle, didn't quite have.
She quickly reasoned with herself that the girl had probably been
in this state for the last hour or so and would soon tire, if she
wasn't already. Panic-fueled or not, human muscles were only
capable of so much and she doubted this girl ran marathons in her
free time. And God only knew what Walt had done to her before
bringing her here.