Student riots? Not in Hong Kong, surely. But there were men in threadbare clothes howling in the streets and sporadic gunfire from somewhere. Two men in uniforms that looked old-fashioned stood at the foot of the bed in what looked like the Grand Baroque House in Berlin, but with elements of other Faversham hotels mixed with it. They spoke eagerly, apparently preparing for a night of pleasure, for one of the men removed his tunic while the other took a silver cigarette case from somewhere and lit up, willing to wait his turn. On the bed, a woman reclined, her eyes half closed and smoky. Bright had the dismaying sensation of being permeated by the woman, so that he and she were transfixed by this partial dream. He tried to twist free, but her presence held him where he was as the men at the end of the bed prepared to have sex with her. Bright felt drugged and realized that the woman was high on something. Again he attempted to break free of her, and again he failed.
“âwith the German chancellor saying that he would oppose funding for such a wasteful projectâ”
One of the men was naked now and caressing the woman on the bed in a perfunctory way before he climbed onto her and shoved between her thighs. Bright squirmed in disgust and sternly told himself to wake up. The men faded, and he seemed to be in Miss Faversham's room in Los Angeles at the Spanish House; he recognized the exposed black beams and adobefinished walls. A slow wind flapped the draperies on the far wall, and the noise of traffic was loud in the room. Bright strove to wake up but was left to flounder on the bed while a tall, lean man with a pistol in his hand approached the bed, the barrel leveled at the occupant, who Bright realized was a middle-aged woman in a lavish peignoir. He felt more than heard her say, “You don't want to do anything so stupid, Ronald, now do you?” and then she extended her arm toward the man. “You don't have to be a fool.” The decor, Bright realized, was at least one renovation ago, and the clothes were those of the 1950s; the man looked like something out of a gangster movie. Bright squirmed, but only mentally, as the woman reached out for the gun. “You can put it down, Ronald. And put something better up.” No matter how corny this sounded to Bright, the man hesitated, and the woman smiled.
“âthe penalty phase of the trial. Since Hammond was convicted on eleven counts of first-degree murder, it's likely the jury won't need much time to decide on the most severeâ”
Now it was the Geneva hotel, probably in the eighties, Bright supposed. The room was dark and smelled of scented oil. He felt the woman, now noticeably older, stretched out through him, in spite of aching shoulders and hips. She was stroking her thighs and belly, murmuring, “Too bad about Ronald. Poor man. Too bad about Paul and Ernst, too bad about Demetrios, too bad about Jaime, too bad about Trevor, too bad about Papa, too bad about Claude, too bad about Sergei, too bad about Tazuki, too bad about ...” The names went on in a dreamy litany as Bright began to share the old lady's arousal. He shuddered and tried to break free of the hold she had on him, but to no avail; her need possessed him, and he was inextricably bound to her presence. He shivered, unable to banish the cold that engulfed him even as the old woman suborned his body. He could share her memories, the faces and locations for each of the men. “One for each hotel,” she crooned as she shook in ecstasy, and Bright was seized by his own orgasm. “Each hotel a shrine, and a tomb.” She swallowed a pill and drifted into profound sleep, still reciting the names of men she hadâhad what? Had killed? Had seduced? HadâBright moaned even as he lapsed into sleep.
“Before the dam collapsed, mandatory evacuations saved more than six thousand residents from drowning. Present damage estimates are at sixty million dollars and climbing. The premier of Alberta has already dispatched four hundred aid workers to the area most damaged by the dam failure, has ordered an investigation of the explosion that caused it, and has set up an identification and relocation office in West Frazierâ”
Bright sat up with a cry, his eyes wild as he stared around the room, and saw only the television set, still turned to International CNN; the first pallid, pre-dawn light filled the room and made everything look slightly unreal. He lunged out of bed and staggered toward the bathroom, wanting nothing so much as to wash himself. As he stumbled through the door, he felt the draft again and noticed the outer bathroom door was once again ajar. “What the fuckâ?” he muttered and went to lock the door again. He was about to fill the tub when he hesitated. So much of this bathroom was
hers
that he could not bring himself to expose himself to her again.
“That's just silly,” he told his reflection and said, more forcefully, “You've been immersed in this story. You're saturated with it. You were worn out. You fell asleep with the news on, and you made up things about Miss Faversham from what the TV said. Come on. You've got an assignment to finish.” He stared at himself, doing his best to ignore the breeze that went through the bathroom, and the old, old eyes that looked back at him from his reflection in the mirror.
Axis
Gary Lovisi
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“T
he blood spatter spoke to me of love and obsession and was born in violent sexual release.”
I turned off my mini-recorder, put down my notes on the case, and thought again about what I had just discovered about the latest victim. That was Jennifer Kelly, murdered in a similar manner to the first victim, Wanda-June Esposito. But the Kelly murder scene showed some differences. The blood spatter was markedly different. I had to think over what that meant.
That was all before Ron was with me. He'd insisted on coming up.
“Julie,” he'd called so forcefully. “I have to see you.”
“Can't it wait? I'm in the middle of a new case, a second homicide that appears to be connected to the Esposito murder. That may mean a serial murderer... .” I tried to keep the excitement out of my voice, not really appropriate under the circumstances. However, that excitement was because I was a too-young, too-pretty, and too-new bloodstain analyst working for the police on a contract basis. I hoped this could be the case that made my career; you know, got it going to the big time. Maybe even TV spots with Greta and Geraldo. Ron's insistence and nega-tivity about my chosen profession only complicated an already complicated relationship. He was a hotshot Wall Street trader on the way up, and he didn't like what I was involved in.
“No, it can't wait, Julie. I haven't seen you all week... .”
“But I'm on this case ...”
“I know. You're always on some kind of case. Look, I'm coming over.” Ron was like that; he never took no for an answer. Sometimes I really liked that about him, but tonight I didn't.
I sighed, collected my paperwork, and prepared to put it away for the night. I tidied up the place, and then I took a shower and waited for Ron. I knew he could be possessive and obsessive, but the sex was totally incredible. Wild animal sex!
I waited in anticipation, wondering just what Ron had in store for me this time. Our first bout with rough sex had gone far over the limit. Ron had slapped my buttocks raw, calling me a mean, bad bitch, punishing me, humiliating me. However, instead of making me angry, it just got me excited, building me to a frenzy I'd never known before. Ron and I went on from there. He never slapped my face, and he always told me he loved me as he hit me. As long as he told me he loved me when he hit me, I figured that was okay. I know it was
out there,
but we liked being
out there.
When he got to my place, he attacked me like a rabid beast whose lust hadn't been sated in months. I loved the attention, perhaps even required it. I melted under his power and let him take me hard and often. We both liked it rough. We often did it like this, so fast and furious. I realized that all the pent-up emotion these last two cases had brought out in me was coming out in our sexual bouts. If anything, once Ron initiated our rough foreplay, I continued it and even brought it into even more intense areas we'd never explored before.
Ron was surprised by my unleashed passion, and it brought us both off like we'd never experienced with any of our previous lovers.
After our bout of animal sex, lying in bed exhausted, I massaged my welts. My only hope was that they wouldn't show or become black and blue. I got an antiseptic from the medicine cabinet for the scratches I'd dug with my nails into Ron's back. Many of those cuts were still bleeding, and, as I wiped up the blood, I noticed the small drippings and spatters that ran down his back, onto my pillows and sheets. He was pretty badly torn up, and I gasped, then smiled, hardly believing I had done that to him.
Ron didn't mind though. He never complained about anything I did to him; he said he liked it all. He said he enjoyed the pain. He liked to get it, and he liked to give it. Ron told me he wanted us to go further in our sexual adventures, and I was intrigued. I didn't know what that meant, but he left it purposefully vague, a delicious and erotic surprise that I could fantasize about when I was alone and missing him.
When I awoke later, I discovered that Ron was gone from my bed and noticed that the light in the living room was on. I figured he was watching TV, but I heard no sound. Instead, I walked in on him sitting on the sofa looking over the Esposito and Kelly crime-scene photos.
“What are you doing?” I asked, more than a bit perturbed that he was looking over my private notes and personal papers on a case.
“Couldn't sleep; found these and figured they'd be more interesting than TV, so I took a look. Hope you don't mind.”
“Well, no, of course not, but ...”
“Interesting case,” Ron commented quickly. “So you interpret the blood spatter at crime scenes. What does it tell you, Julie?”
“A lot of things, sometimes,” I said.
“These crime-scene photos, they're”âhe looked up at me, smiled wickedlyâ“very graphic. Very bloody. Are they always like this? The woman naked, so vulnerable, so much blood all over ...”
“Look, Ron.” I knew he wasn't used to such things in his day-to-day Wall Street world, and his prurient mind could turn anything onto a sexual angle. But this? “These women were murdered, bludgeoned to death. I don't think you should be looking at the photos in
that
way. It's not pornography, Ron.”
Ron smiled. “Of course, Julie, I didn't mean anything by it.” He put the crime-scene photos down, looked up at me, and said, “Come over here, you.”
Then he took me again on the couch, then on the floor. It was harder than previously, more brutal. It hurt me a little, but I actually enjoyed it. When it was over, Ron left and I went to sleep, exhausted.
The third murdered woman showed up next morning. Clarissa Roberts. She'd been murdered the same way as the other two.
I was busy for the next few days and didn't see or hear from Ron until the murder was written up in the papers in a new article that used leaked information to connect the Roberts murder with the previous two. A task force was now formed, and it took most of my time. I ended up having to do more extra work when I discovered I'd somehow lost or misplaced some of the photos of the two previous murders. That really annoyed me.
I was dog-tired and ready for bed when Ron called that evening and said he had to come over. As tired as I was, I became wet with lust for him, anticipating our games. I told him to come up, but just for a little while, as I had an early day at work the next morning.
Ron and I went right to it as soon as he entered my apartment. This time he brought handcuffs, and he was wearing a mask. I didn't like it at first, but I was too excited to worry about it, and right away we were ontoâand intoâeach other with a frenzy I'd never known before.
The problem was, I could see where, sometimes, Ron seemed to get carried away with things. The cuffs were too tight on me, but his wearing of the mask seemed to bring out a hidden part of him I'd never seen before. Some of it I liked; it was beyond kinky. But some of it was weird ... scary. But I guess I liked that part too. And Ron wasn't the only one, because I got carried away with these new games. I wondered if either if us knew how far to take things before we stopped, how much pain was acceptable or not, and
if
we could stop.
Ron's newest kink was posing me. He'd force me down into various positions, bind me, then, when I was helpless and scared, he'd penetrate me in all three orifices. It was rough, even brutal, but I liked it most of the time. The last time, when I'd yelled at him to stop, I had to tell him to leave.
“What?” he shouted, annoyed I was breaking the fantasy. “The magic,” as he called it. “Come on, you like this just as much as I do!”
“No! Stop! No more!” I shouted, angry now.
I was nervous, fearful of the look I'd seen in his eyes just then, a lust I saw that was not sexual any longer; it was only violent. You see, I had the strange feeling that Ron was posing me in scenes from the Kelly and Esposito murders. Some of the positions were eerily familiar from my crime-scene photos. That was just too much for me.
“I don't think I like this,” I said, but when he asked me and I told him what I thought he was doing, he just laughed.
“Julie, what's the problem? It gets me off, I find those photos ... interesting.”
“I think they arouse you!”
“All right, so what if they do? It's nothing any different from some of the S&M porno we watch, stuff we both enjoy sometimes doing.”
“Those are movies, fantasies. You're posing me like the killer posed Jennifer Kelly's body at my crime scene. She was a real person, a murdered woman. How could you? That's ... disgusting!”
“Oh, come on now! You do the same thing. You tell me to do you this way, that way, stand or sit in a certain position ... like you don't pose me! You don't hear me complaining, Julie. It's no big deal.”
“Well, I don't think I like it,” I said softly, thinking that maybe I'd been too severe with him. After all, Ron wasn't in law enforcement, or a victim, so he couldn't really understand.
Ron huffed about it. He looked angry, even hurt, but I think he was secretly pleased. I asked him to leave again, but mostly because I had a big day tomorrow. I had to give my presentation to the new serial-killer task force. I had more evidence connecting the third murder victim to the previous two. Ron left, and I prepared for bed.
Lying in bed alone that night, I thought about Ron and our relationship. It wasn't exactly right, I knew that, but I liked a lot of it. I don't know why I bothered with Ron sometimes. I'm sure really, down deep, he didn't like womenâmaybe not even me. But in spite of myself, I couldn't resist our games. I liked them too much. In a way, I may have been too much like Ron for my own good. Anyway, it was just too deep and complicated to try to figure out that night, so I just decided to go to sleep and allow myself to enjoy it as long as it lasted. After all, it was just sex and games, and that was just too much incredible fun for me to pass up.
The next morning I looked over my notes before my presentation like I always did. I noticed that some of the crime-scene photos for the third victim, Clarissa Roberts, seemed to be missing. I thought I'd had twelve 10 x 12 glossies in the file, but there were now only ten. I looked through all my files and papers, and the more I looked the more frantic I became. These were two of the most graphic photos of the lot. I never found them, and a cold chill struck me, so I called Ron. There was no answer at his office. I left a message and then left for work and gave my presentation to the police with the information I had on hand.
“The blood spatter on the first victim, Esposito,” I told the detectives, “was projectedâit was gushing blood, mostly in arterial spurts from a blow or blunt-force trauma. The blood spatter in victim number two, Kelly, created high-velocity bloodstains. The pointed end of the bloodstain, the tail, indicates the directionality of the force. This victim was attacked from behind.”
There were questions from the detectives, and I answered them as best I could.
“And that brings us to victim number three, the latest one, Clarissa Roberts. Again, we have projected blood. Most of it is as I have already described in the previous victims, but I also found something else. Something totally different. With this victim we have projected blood spatter, but of a unique pattern in one area of the murder scene: the wall behind the corpse. This blood was projected through a syringe.”
That created an uproar, and the cops wanted to know what the hell that meant. So did I.
“I'm waiting for the DNA report on this blood sample, but I am sure it will indicate this particular syringe blood is notâcan not beâfrom victim number three. I assume it will be found to be blood from victim number one or number two. If that proves to be the case, then we are not only faced with a very devious and brutal serial killer, but one who is apparently taunting us with his crimes.”
The DNA report confirmed my findings. The detectives were not pleased. The press had to be notified, and more manpower was authorized for the task force.
I went home exhausted. When I got to my apartment, Ron was there waiting for me. Inside.
“Hope you don't mind. I let myself in,” he said matterof-factly, the usual charming Ron.
“I wasn't aware you still had a key,” I replied testily but too dog-tired to argue. He'd obviously made a copy of the key I'd asked for him to give back to me. “What do you want?”
“Just to be with you, Julie. This case, your work, is building a wall between us. I don't want that. You may not believe this, but you're very special to me. And I know I'm special to you too.”
He came over to me and caressed me with a softness I'd never seen from him before. Then he smiled his winning smile and added, “And besides, the sex is great.”
“Yeah,” I muttered quietly.
“Oh, come on. You like our little games as much as I do. I don't hear you complaining. Sometimes you even egg me on with your own ideas. Maybe I went a little overboard the other night. Can't we put that behind us? I have some new ideas, something I think you'll really like.”