Lust and Letters: The Handyman, Episode I by Vincent Zandri (1)

PRAISE FOR VINCENT ZANDRI

“Sensational . . . masterful . . . brilliant.”

—New York Post

“(A) chilling tale of obsessive love from Thriller Award–winner Zandri (Moonlight Weeps) . . . Riveting.”

—Publishers Weekly

“. . . Oh, what a story it is . . . Riveting . . . A terrific old school thriller.”

—Booklist “Starred Review”

“Zandri does a fantastic job with this story. Not only does he scare the reader, but the horror

show he presents also scares the man who is the definition of the word “tough.”

—Suspense Magazine

“I very highly recommend this book . . . It's a great crime drama that is full of action and intense suspense, along with some great twists . . . Vincent Zandri has become a huge name and just keeps pouring out one best seller after another.”

—Life in Review

“(The Innocent) is a thriller that has depth and substance, wickedness and compassion.”

—The Times-Union (Albany)

"The action never wanes."

—Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel

"Gritty, fast-paced, lyrical and haunting."

—Harlan Coben, New York Times bestselling author of Six Years

"Tough, stylish, heartbreaking."

—Don Winslow, New York Times bestselling author of Savages and Cartel.

“A tightly crafted, smart, disturbing, elegantly crafted complex thriller . . . I dare you to start it and not keep reading.”

—MJ Rose, New York Times bestselling author of Halo Effect and Closure

“A classic slice of raw pulp noir . . .”

—William Landay, New York Times bestselling author of Defending Jacob

“It gives me strength to have somebody to fight for; I can never fight for myself, but, for others, I can kill.”

― Emilie Autumn, The Asylum for Wayward Victorian Girls

Sex.

It was always on my mind back then. I was struggling hard to make it as a novelist. But all I managed to accomplish after nearly five years of constant effort, was a collection of one rejection letter after the other. Rejections from editors who seemed to take a special pride in informing me that my prose lacked emotion. That it was cold, stilted, and utterly devoid of feeling. What’s more, that it lacked experience or truth. Rather, what’s the million-dollar adjective they used for it?

Verisimilitude. It lacked verisimilitude.

After moving in with Stella, I’d gotten into the habit of taping the rejection letters to the walls of the garage just to punish myself. It also pissed me off having to look at them like that day in and day out. I transferred that energy into electricity, and that electricity fed my fingers and my brain, gave them the strength I needed to pump out new words every day no matter what. Negative capability, they call it. Writing for the sake of writing. Writing when there’s no hope that anyone will ever see it but me.

I guess you could also say the rejections made me horny.

Like there was some sort of strange connection between opening the mailbox for my daily dose of rejection and growing an erection. Fuck it. Let’s be real here: a hard-on . . . a hard-on that just would not quit.

If the mail arrived early and Stella was still home getting ready for work, I might take the occasion to slip into the shower with her. I’d create a lather with the soap, and spread it all over her shapely body, beginning with her breasts, foaming their plumpness, my slippery fingers running over her stiff nipples, then down her flat belly onto her trimmed patch of hair, and finally exploring her warm, wet sex.

I would bury my face into her long, thick, dark hair while I kissed her neck and felt my fingers surrounded by her soft flesh. That flesh would be warmer, wetter, hotter than the water spraying from the shower nozzle, and I wouldn’t stop until she came, her teeth biting into my shoulder. Then, and only then, would I slip my erection into her from behind, and when it came time for me to release, she would grab hold of my hands, pull me into her all the harder.

I lived for intense moments like those. I needed it, craved it, sometimes several times a day.

Why something as insignificant as a rejection letter or two would make me lust for Stella all the more, I had no idea. Maybe it had something to do with desiring something pleasant after the sting of refusal. Maybe it had to do with control. Rather, the lack of control I had over the New York publishers. But whenever the rejections came in, I wanted Stella more and more.

I wanted to devour her.

When we’d finished with our shower together, we’d dry one another off. We’d get dressed, sit down to coffee and eggs, sunny side up. Then Stella was off to work, and I was left alone with my typewriter and the existential agony of the blank page.  

Back to those rejections.

Since I tried my best to avoid email and the internet, most of them were impersonal form letters that had been Xeroxed and stuffed into the self-addressed stamped envelope along with the rejected story itself. Maybe only the first page or first paragraph of it had actually been read. Or maybe just the title. Or maybe none of it at all.

Some of the rejections contained hand written notes encouraging me to write more. That was always a good thing to see. Others, the ones that stuck out the most, were ones that told me it was evident I had no experience in the topics I was writing about. Some editors saw right through me, I guess.

If I were writing about a fireman, for instance, they could tell I’d never had contact with a fireman. If I were writing about a cowboy, they could tell I was making everything up. If I were writing about London, well, heck, I’d never been to London and I guess it showed on the page. If I were writing about a murder . . . well, I’d have to be out of my mind to murder someone just for the sake of a good story now, wouldn’t I?

Sure, my significant other, Stella, took care of me, but at this point, she also wanted to leave me. Rather, since I lived in her house, she wanted me to be the one to pick up and leave. She was like a tale of two women. The first woman was loving and sexy. The second woman was fed up with my lack of, how shall I put this . . . fiduciary responsibility.

But that didn’t matter to me. What mattered was getting those words on the page.

Now, don’t get me wrong. Stella was an all-around great dame. Tall, built like a brick shit-house with long dark hair and deep brown eyes, a heart-shaped ass and a half, and a set of perky tits that made me cry every time she slipped her bra off in front of me.

She wasn’t about to see thirty again, but she still had one of the tightest pussies I’d ever been in. It also tasted even better when, out of the blue, she’d set herself on the corner of the couch, pull up her black skirt, and spread her legs for me. She sometimes wore black stockings and garters with no panties. “I’ve been wet all day thinking about you going down on me,” she’d say, her eyes closed, her hips gyrating, her manicured fingers pinching her long erect nipples. “But that still doesn’t mean I don’t hate you.”

Stella was an expert at those dagger-like passive aggressive double negatives. But she could also be a real peach of a girl. Problem was, I wasn’t bringing home any dough, and I knew that sooner or later she was going to kick my sad ass to the curb. We weren’t bound legally, after all. When that happened, the most I could hope for was to hock my typewriter and maybe buy myself a week’s rent in some downtown rat trap.

Welcome to my world.

Wait, where the hell are my manners?

My name is Victor. Vic, for short. Just like that guy in the old movie pictures my folks used to watch incessantly when they weren’t battling one another, that is. What’s his name? Victor Mature. Only, I’m not sure how mature I am, and I don’t stand as tall as his six feet, nor is my waist as thin as his was.

But I’ve gotten into the habit of lifting barbells at the local boxing gym or down in my basement, and I’ve had my nose broken a few times in the ring so that it’s not exactly planted straight on my face. I have the same brown eyes, though. Now, when it comes to the hair, it used to be a hell of a lot thicker and blacker. The grays that have been showing up more and more are a stark reminder that my tenure as a full-time author . . . a mostly unpublished author . . . could be quickly coming to an end, and along with it, my love affair with Stella.

So, what’s a man to do?

Okay, before you say it, I’ll say it for you. Get a job, for Christ sakes. I’m college educated, so there’s no excuse. Except, I’m not one of those write-on-the-side sort of fellas. I need to be all in, or I’m not in at all. Something I’ve tried to explain to Stella on a daily basis, not that she ever understood. I’m assuming you probably don’t understand it either. But I’d be happy to explain it better for you, that is, you pony up for a beer and hamburger.

But I’m also not a complete moron, meaning, I’m not the sort to give up an opportunity to make a quick buck. Which leads me to this morning. Stella hadn’t been gone more than a half hour for her morning gym workout followed by her job at the State Motor Vehicle Department when someone knocked on my door. I was seated at the dining room table, banging out a new short story I was hoping to sell to a mystery magazine down in New York City. The knock took me by surprise because nobody, not even bill collectors, bothered to make house calls at seven in the morning.

At first, I considered letting it go. Figured whoever was knocking would just go away. But when her voice accompanied the knocking, I knew I couldn’t just let it go.

“Mr. Casey?” she barked. “Mr. Casey, you in there? Please, can you come to the door?”

I recognized the voice, more or less, but found it impossible to attach it to a face. As I slid out of my chair, got up, and headed across the living room to the door, I thought it might be Stella’s mother who lived across town in the higher society section. But then, since when did she refer to me as mister? Usually, she referred to me as “the unkempt man” while handing me the want-ads section of the Sunday Times.

Making my way to the front door, I glanced through the little square section of inlaid glass. My pulse picked up. It was Tara from next door. The young wife of a lawyer who I saw almost daily, but whom I’d never actually struck up a conversation with. Usually, our interaction consisted of a casual wave from my driveway to hers.

I opened the door.

“I’m so, so sorry to disturb your work, Mr. Casey. But I have a bit of an emergency next door.”

I tried to plant a smile on my face. It wasn’t that she was disturbing me. My work was going nowhere that morning anyway. It was that I was dressed only in an old wife beater T-shirt and a pair of torn jeans. I was also barefoot. I hadn’t shaved in days either, and since the writing wasn’t coming very well as of late, I’d taken to adding a little Crown Royal to my morning coffee just to dull the edge. But I wasn’t about to run to the bathroom to brush my teeth just because Tara showed up unannounced.

“Come on in, Tara,” I said. “You look a little distressed. Is there something I can help you with?”

Sure, she looked distressed. But, she also looked hot as hell. She obviously ran out of the house without thinking about her wardrobe. She was dressed in a T-shirt that doubled as a nightgown. While I had no idea about panties, she wasn’t wearing a bra, and the way her young breasts pressed against the thin cotton shirt nearly robbed me of my breath. The hardness of her nipples was matched only by the hardness growing between my legs.   

She was maybe ten years younger than me. She had a nice house, a nice husband, nice little kids who lined up shoulder to shoulder every morning to catch the school bus. I’d always thought of them as the perfect American family. I kept my distance for fear of rubbing off on them. They were nice, if not perfect, and I was a total wreck. If I made an effort to offer so much as a casual hi there to the kids, offered them some candy, they’d only think of me as that weird man who lives next door and stays home all day. The guy who’s always swearing at the mailbox. The guy who doesn’t have a job.

She brushed back her thick, shoulder-length, dirty blonde hair, and crossed her arms over her chest. She seemed suddenly self-conscious. Like she knew full well my eyes were locked on her breasts.

“There’s a spider,” she said.

I felt myself shaking my head, more to snap me out of my trance than anything else.

“I’m not following, Tara.”

“In the basement. Over the washing machine. There’s a web and spider living on it.” Her blue eyes were dilated with fear. “If only . . . If only you knew how I felt about . . . spiders.”

“You’re positively catatonic,” I said, knowing precisely where this was going, knowing the bravery that was going to be expected of me.

“I can’t bear spiders of any kind, Mr. Casey.”

Truth was, I couldn’t either. But I wasn’t about to tell her that. Let her in on the fact that most nights I dreamt about a big orange-bellied spider slowly descending from a web constructed on a dark ceiling. I’m on my back, mouth open. I’m paralyzed. I can’t shout out or move a muscle. There’s only the big black spider with the orange belly about to enter my mouth, into my body . . .

It was the nightmare from hell.

“I know what you mean,” I said.

“Can you help me? It’s holding my family’s dirty laundry hostage.”

I couldn’t help but smile. Maybe I’d use that line for a short story.

“Let me grab my shoes,” I said, my pulse picking up, heart pumping in my chest. “You sure you wouldn’t like to come in?”

“I’ll wait here,” she said, crossing her arms once more over her chest self-consciously.

She was a timid one, this lonely housewife.

I was anything but.

I followed her across the length of both our lawns until we came to her front door. The big wood door was already opened, so we entered her vestibule through the screen door. I was immediately struck by the odor. It smelled, how do I put this . . . clean. Like too clean. Like not lived in enough. I’d half expected the place to smell like bacon and eggs, and coffee, and other aromas that usually goes with the average modern nuclear family gearing up for an average day.

Mounted on one wall were framed pictures of the kids. Good looking kids. Sweet kids dressed in their school uniforms, or sporting outfits. One picture showed the boy dressed like Batman on Halloween, and another showed the little girl dressed like a ballerina. One large photo showed the husband—Stan, I believe his name was—standing at a podium where he was giving a speech. The projection behind him read New York State Society of Lawyers. He was tall and blond, clean shaven, and very serious about his work. She caught me staring at him, and whispered, “That’s Stan. He’s a bit of a nerd.”

“Nerd is good,” I said. “Nerd brings home the bacon.”

I focused on her heart-shaped ass as she made her way into the kitchen and to the door that I assumed led down into the basement. She opened the door, flicked on the light.

“Follow me, Mr. Casey.”

“Call me, Vic,” I offered.

I followed her down the wood steps, the cool basement air washed over me. The stairs hadn’t been carpeted, and the basement wasn’t much more than a concrete hole in the ground that doubled as a sort of man cave. Correction, the opposite end of the basement had been sheet-rocked, the interior walls painted hunter green, while the concrete floors had been partially covered with a patchwork of throw rugs. A wide screen, high-def television was mounted to the far wall. A video game console was hooked up to it, and a sectional couch that was nicer than anything Stella and I had in our living room was positioned before it. A couple of stand-up lamps were set on either side of the couch. A big sign that spelled out Budweiser in red neon tube lighting was attached to the wall over a small, but fully stocked, black plastic mini bar. There was also a stair-climber stored in the far corner that also faced the television.

“That stair climber how you stay in such great shape?” I asked.

She stopped, gazed at the machine, then peeked at me over her shoulder.

“Thanks for noticing, Vic,” she said smiling. “But this space is strictly off limits for me or the kids. It’s Stan’s refuge. He lives down here when he’s home. Most of the time he sleeps on that couch.”

“I can’t imagine a man not wanting to share a bed with you,” I said. I’m not sure why I said out loud the first thought that entered my head, but it just happened like that.

She turned to me, set her fingers gently onto my face.

“You’re very sweet for saying so,” she cooed. 

Her gentle touch and kind words sent a shock through my system. They also made me somewhat hard. But all that changed as soon as I entered the partitioned laundry room. Inside the brightly lit room, I faced my nightmare.

The black spider with the orange belly.

Any semblance of my hard-on quickly vanished. In fact, my manhood retreated up inside me. It was one of the biggest spiders I’d ever seen in my life. Even from all the way across the room I could see that the legs were long and black, the body black and hairy, the belly bright orange. It must have known we were in there because it traipsed up the web a couple of inches then stopped, rubbing the ends of its two front legs together.

“You have got to be kidding me,” I said, my mouth turning desert sand dry.

“My god, it’s horrible, isn’t it?”

That’s when the spider quickly scurried up the web and disappeared under a rafter. Tara shrieked and grabbed hold of me, burying her face in my chest.

“Oh my god,” she barked. “Where is it? Is it in my hair?”

I found myself holding her tight, my hand cupping her ass as if it had no choice but to migrate there all on its own.

“No,” I said, swallowing something dry and bitter. “Do you have a broom?”

I slipped my hand off her ass.

“In the corner,” she said, pointing to the corner beside the washer and dryer. “There.”

I let go of her, and made my way to the broom, my body tingling and at the ready every inch of the way. I kept one eye ahead of me, and the other focused on the ceiling. I sensed the spider was looking at me with its many eyes, strategizing, looking for the perfect opportunity to jump on me, bury its fangs into my neck.

I grabbed the broom, raised the business end up like a weapon. I tiptoed my way in front of the washer and dryer, my wide eyes peering up at the ceiling, heart pumping in my throat.

“Be careful, Vic,” Tara said from the opposite end of the small room, her back against the door.

That’s when I saw it scurry across the rafter. Panic filled me. I lashed out at it with the broom, but only managed to shatter the single bare lightbulb. The room fell dark. Tara screamed. I felt like the spider was on me.

I dropped the broom and slapped at myself like it was wrapping me up in a thick web.

“Open the door!” I shouted. “Open the fucking door!”

The door opened, and light from the main room filled the space. That’s when I found that I was down on my back. How did I get there? In all my panic, I must have dropped down out of instinct. But now, with my eyes open, staring up at the ceiling, I saw the big spider with the orange belly slowly descending toward my face. It was just like my dream. I was living the nightmare for real.

“Jesus H!” I shouted, rolling over to my side, grabbing hold of the broom, jumping up to my feet.

When the spider hit the floor and started scurrying for the narrow, dark space beneath the washing machine, I brought the broom down on it hard and swift.

“There, you insect bastard. Take that,” I shouted.

I applied pressure on the broom to crush the insect.

“Is it dead?” Tara anxiously asked.

“Not sure,” I said, slowly, timidly lifting the broom.

The spider raised back up on all eight legs, once more began heading for safety under the washer. That is, until I stamped down on it with my left foot. I felt the tearing of flesh, the crushing of cartilage, and the popping of the orange belly, the white larvae like guts squirting out from beneath the rubber sole of my shoe.

“No more spider,” I said, inhaling a breath of air.

She ran both her hands through her hair.

“Now, that’s what I call a handyman,” she said.

Tara approached me, pulled a few paper towels from the dispenser mounted to the wall.

“Give me your foot,” she said.

Instead, I took the towels from her, and cleaned my own shoe, discarding the soiled towels into the trash can set beside the dryer. That’s when I started to laugh.

She smiled. “What’s so funny?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever been more scared in my life, Tara. I thought I was going to pee myself I was so scared.”

She giggled. “I know what you mean.”

Then she took hold of my hand.

“Come with me. The least I can do is offer you a cup of coffee.”

“Have any whiskey in the house?”

“Stan lives here,” she said, rolling her eyes. “I think I might be able to rustle something up.”

I followed her upstairs. I’m not sure if she intended me to offer an eye full, but all the way up the stairs, I focused my gaze on everything that was happening under that T-shirt. It was a black silk thong, and the way it disappeared up into her perfect ass, made me want to jump her right there on the steps.

As soon as she was in the kitchen, she placed a coffee pod into the machine, set an empty white cup underneath the dispenser.

“How do you like yours, Vic?”

I felt desire building inside me, like when lava boils up from the underground, fills the chambers. I felt the rumbling inside my body, the tightness in my sternum and throat, the dryness in my mouth. My brain was humming like an electrical output, and my cock was uncontrollably hard. Maybe I should have swallowed a deep breath, got a hold of myself, reigned my desire in. Other than to say hello now again to this woman, I didn’t know her at all. We were complete strangers. If I made an advance, she was likely to slap my face, tell me the get the hell out.

But something inside was telling me to go for it. To tell her exactly how she was making me feel. If she kicked me out, then so be it.  

I came up behind her, pressed myself against her ass so that she felt my hardness.

“How do you like to take yours?” I said, heart pounding in my throat.

I could feel her hesitating. I felt her breathing in and out. This could go one of two ways. Either she was going to scream, insist I get out before she called the cops. Or she was going to play along. There was no middle ground here.

“From behind,” she countered.

She turned around fast. Our mouths locked. It wasn’t like we were kissing one another. More like we wanted to devour one another. I pulled off her T-shirt. Tore it off her. She didn’t care. She kept kissing me, so desperately and so hard she bit my bottom lip. I tasted the blood in my mouth. It only made me hungry for more. Bending at the knees, I lifted her up, set her on the counter. Using both my hands, I pulled off her panties. I pressed them against my face, breathed in the scent, then tossed them aside. Her scent on me, in me, I slowly spread her legs, began kissing her creamy thighs.

It took a crazy amount of self-control, but I moved up the length of her thigh slowly, deliberately until I found myself within inches of her wet, triangular patch. She wasn’t completely shaved, but instead, nicely trimmed. Her dark hair glistening with her own hot juices. I kissed her pussy, starting at the top and worked my way down to her ass, then back up again. When I started in with my tongue, it sent her into convulsions. She held to the back of my head with both hands, pushing my face into her moist pussy so forcefully it was like she wanted me to crawl up inside her body. 

She tasted sweet like candy. I couldn’t get enough of the sugar. She moaned loudly and thrust her hips, and I knew it would only be a matter of a few seconds before the flood gates opened. When they did, she screamed. Her pussy let loose with a gush of hot moisture that seeped into my mouth and coated my tongue. I swallowed her not once but twice.

When she was finished, I stood back up. I unbuckled my belt, unbuttoned my jeans, pulled down the zipper. She slid to the edge the counter, leaned down, reached for my hardness, and pulled me out.

“Fuck me right here,” she demanded. As if there was time to go anywhere else.

I grabbed hold of her and pulled her onto me, entered her. I fucked her hard while she rocked in rhythm with my thrusts, letting loose with a shriek each time.

“Fuck me,” she yelled. “Fuck me harder, Vic.”

I felt myself getting to that place very quickly. Too quickly. But I didn’t want it to happen yet. I had something else in store for her first. I eased my place, forcing my cock to move slower until it was no longer thrusting in her at all. Very gently, I pulled out only to hear her whimper her disappointment. Then, with my hardness leading the way, I took hold of her hand, brought her around the counter to the kitchen table.

“Lean over the table,” I commanded, hard, direct.

She complied, her perfect white ass staring me in the face. Cocking back my hand, I spanked her. She jolted forward with surprise, but she didn’t resist. She didn’t tell me to stop. If she’d told me to stop, I would have. But she didn’t utter any such thing.

Again, I slapped her ass. And again. Harder each time. Each time she thrust forward, but she never resisted. She seemed to love it. It made her even hornier. Even more wanting.

I smacked her two more times as hard as I could. So hard, I left a hand print. I pumped my cock into her but did so slowly, to make the moment last. But she wanted me to go faster.

“Harder,” she insisted. “Harder, Vic.”

Taking her request, I put my hips into it and slammed into her round ass. I fucked her hard, harder, and harder still. It was all I could do to keep from exploding. The way she leaned over the table, supporting herself on her elbows, her breasts bobbing with each thrust, her ass giving way with just a hint of jiggle, sent me into a kind of ulterior reality.

It was all too much to take. I pulled out, grabbed hold of her hair, turned her around. Without protest, she went down onto her knees and took hold of my cock.

“Let me,” she said, pumping it like a professional.

When I came, it was like an eruption. She took in every bit of it, and when I was emptied I felt so lightheaded, so drained, I had no choice but to pull out a chair and set myself down. She took hold of my T-shirt tail, cleaned herself off, then got up and set herself in my lap.

“Like I already told you, lover,” she said, smiling, “you are one hell of a handyman.”

“I aim to please,” I said.

We’d just experienced one of the sexiest, intimate moments two people could share together. But now I felt awkward. I also felt more than a little guilty. I wasn’t the type to drift from Stella, even if she was planning on kicking me out. Suddenly, there was no question about drifting. It was done, as in past tense. What the hell motivates a man to give up three years of monogamy in the flash of a moment? It all felt so natural, so perfect, so prescribed. It was almost like my meeting with Tara had been scripted somehow.

What did I do now?

Tell her I’d be seeing her? Go back to issuing a quick wave, one driveway to another? Forget this meeting ever occurred in the first place?

As I was contemplating the situation, something happened that diverted both our attentions. Another spider was making its way up the closed basement door. It wasn’t nearly as big as the first spider, but it was still black and nasty. We somehow caught sight of it at the same time, and it startled me. But Tara did something I never would have expected.

She slid off my lap, approached the door. Holding out her palm, she cocked her arm back and swatted the spider bare handed. Pulling back her hand, the crushed spider fell dead to the floor.

“Gotcha, you little black bastard,” she said.

When she glanced at me over her shoulder, I could see that she was smiling. Like she was enjoying herself entirely.

“Wait,” I said, standing, pulling up my pants. “I thought the whole point was that you hate spiders. They make you absolutely catatonic.”

She went around the counter, opened a drawer, grabbed a paper napkin which she used to pick up the dead spider.

Tossing the spider into the trash receptacle under the sink, she said, “Oh they do. I guess I just acted on instinct.”

It hit me like a Louisville Slugger to the brain. The reason why I was there.

“This was never about killing any spider in the basement, was it?”

She turned to me . . . entirely naked and looking as fresh as a happy teenager.

“What was your first clue, Handyman?”

She got dressed and insisted on buying me lunch at a local juke joint called Lanies Cafe.

It was a nice day, so we were able to sit outside on the patio.

“I have a proposition for you, Vic,” she said, stealing a deep drink of her Corona beer. “Please don’t take offense to what I’m about to say, but I’m guessing you’re not making a whole lot of money at the current writing gig.”

I don’t know why her words struck me as odd. Maybe because I’d never heard them coming from someone other than Stella before. That they were coming from a woman who claimed to be afraid of spiders but who was, in fact, the spider drawing me into her web, made them all the stranger.    

“I don’t do too badly, Tara.”

It was a lie, and she saw through it. She smiled, drank some beer, dried her lips by running her long tongue over them.

“You’re not fooling me, Vic. Everyone in the neighborhood knows you and Stella are surviving by the skin of your teeth.” Her smile grew wider. “Tell me something. What is it that keeps Stella around anyway? Maybe it’s the sex.”

This time, I felt her words in my gut. I also pictured Stella and me going at it on the couch in the living room. We liked to do it sometimes in broad daylight with the blinds open. Had Tara seen us in action? It’s tough to say for certain.

“We love one another,” I said.

“Today proves it.”

“I’m a writer. I need to experience something if I’m going to write about it. It’s the only way to make it seem real.” I shrugged my shoulders. “You know, make it come across as true.” The rejection letters flashed through my brain. The ones that said my work was cold, stilted, lacking in experience.

“Is that what I am to you, Vic?” she asked. “Experience?”

“I’d be lying if I said you weren’t.”

Her smile faded somewhat. I could tell we were about to segue into something else entirely.

“About that proposition, Vic. I need a favor from you. A quick favor that will pay very well.”

“A handyman kind of favor?”

“Exactly. Something only a handyman of your talents can handle.”

What she revealed to me took only five or six minutes. But it took me at least that amount of time to absorb it. It also involved the draining of one full beer and two shots of Jameson. When I finally found the balls to respond to her proposition, I said simply this: “You’re out of your mind.”

“Why?” she asked. “Because I want my husband dead?”

I looked over both shoulders. Not only was she insane, but she wasn’t bothering to be discreet about it. I leaned over the table.

“Look, Tara, I get it that you hate your husband. I get it that he doesn’t pay the slightest attention to you. I get it that he hasn’t fucked you, or even touched you for that matter, in years. I get that he’s a miserable bastard who treats you and the kids like indentured servants. I even get it that he’s got a girlfriend or two going on the side. But what you’re talking about is nothing short of premeditated murder.”

She exhaled, drank the rest of her beer, set the empty bottle back down gently on the table.

“Some murders are justified.” She said it as casually as if she were ordering another round for the table.

“A statement only the devil could love,” I said.

“Victor, we all hate our husbands.”

“All of you?” I questioned. “As in women? Like in general?”

She smiled once more.

“At the very least, a few of us could use a handyman.” She got up. “Now, I want you to think it over. Don’t decide right now. Give it a day or two. Remember, there’s nothing like personal experience when it comes to writing a good book.” She gave me a wink. “A great book.”

“Now you’re an expert on literary matters.” I also got up.

She reached into her jeans pocket, pulled out a wad of cash that made me want to cry.

“At least I can afford lunch,” she spat then headed for the parking lot. “Come on, I’ll give you a lift home.”

“Since you’re going that way anyway,” I agreed.

I didn’t say much of anything during the short ride back to our Orchard Grove neighborhood. It was like my feelings about Tara were split. Divided.

On one hand, I would love nothing more than the chance to get her back in bed. On the other hand, I wanted to alert the police to a possible murder-in-the-works. Murder in the first degree. Premeditated murder.

What I mean is, if the bastard were beating she and her kids on a daily basis, maybe I could condone his having a bad accident. But, as far as I knew, he had done no such thing. What it came down to was this: Tara hated her husband, and she wanted him gone.

Forever.

There was something else too.

She also wanted his life insurance money.

“Not the most original of stories,” I whispered to myself. “But a classic all the same.”

“Excuse me?” she said pulling into her driveway.

“Nothing.” I opened the car door.

She took hold of my hand, pulled me to her. She brought her mouth to mine. We kissed for a full minute, hands began wandering. She rubbed my hard-on so fiercely I thought I might cum in my jeans. I unbuckled her belt, unbuttoned her jeans, and forced my hand into her panties. I rubbed her warm wetness gently but rapidly until she exploded against my fingers. It all took less than three minutes.

“You might want to rub the rest of that one out when you get home,” she said, her breathing heavy and labored.

“Why don’t you finish it for me here. Now.”

“Accept my offer, and you’ll get as much of that as you want. Forever.”

Money and sex from a beautiful woman like Tara. There were worse things in life. I got out without saying goodbye.

Behind us, the mail truck pulled up to the curb. The mail man reached out the window, deposited Tara’s daily mail in her mailbox. He saw me, nodded, then pulled up to my mailbox. He stuffed three or four manila envelopes into the box.

Rejections.

“Will it ever end?” I asked myself. “The rejection?”

As usual, I was sporting a hard-on. But I wasn’t very happy about it. I made my way across Tara’s driveway and across my lawn to the mailbox with all the enthusiasm of a condemned man.

I carried the mail inside the house, set it down beside my typewriter. I poured a whiskey, brought it with me back to the table, ripped open the first envelope. The story wasn’t even dog-eared. It was as pristine as the day I slipped it into the envelope and pasted three dollars’ worth of stamps on it. A note was included. Or, what’s commonly referred to in the business as a form rejection letter.

We regret that we won’t be able to publish your story at this time. Due to the high volume of manuscripts received, we cannot reply on a personal basis to each submission. We wish you luck in your future writing endeavors.

—The Editors

I stole a swig of the whiskey. Slowly, I steamed. You would have thought at that point in the game, I’d be immune to this kind of treatment, this total ignorance, this amateurishness. My guess was that a college grad student was hired by the journal to sift through the slush pile of submissions. In general, they read the first sentence. Maybe, just maybe they read an entire first paragraph before deciding whether or not to read on or just flat out reject the piece. Like a story has no way of getting better as it progresses.

“Assholes.” It felt good to say it out loud.

The first line of my most recent story was a killer. Literally.

Josh always knew he wanted to kill someone, but he wasn’t sure he had the guts, or the stomach, or the courage. He also knew that one day, he’d have no choice but to try.

Okay, so that’s the first couple of sentences, and I’m not sure they’re all that good since I’m making them up out of thin air, but you get the drift. Still, don’t you feel like Josh is in for a train wreck of a ride just by reading those words? How could you resist reading more, knowing that, eventually, the man who lacked the courage to kill would one day have no choice but to attempt it? Oh, and the title of the story?

Obsessive Compulsive. Killer, right?

I placed the story off to the side for resubmission to another journal. I tore the envelope up like I was tearing off the head of the editor.

Next envelope.

I ripped it open, pulled out the story. Like the first one, this manuscript had a note attached to it. But unlike the first impersonal one, this note it was handwritten. It was a personal note.

My heart began to pound, my mouth went dry.

Maybe whoever wrote the note was sending back revision suggestions and asking me to resubmit as soon as possible. Amazing how just the mere possibility of publication filled me with renewed optimism. I experienced this before, and the editor ended up taking the story. The journal wasn’t huge or all that important, and it only paid in author copies, but it was a success. One for the W column. A success in a sea of constant rejection and failure.

I avoided reading the note until I drank down what was in my glass and poured another. Inhaling a deep breath, I slid the note off the paper clip and read.

Dear Victor,

There’s some good stuff here. Great stuff in some places. I wonder, though, if your prose would benefit from authority of voice. I’m not suggesting you actually go out and kill someone. Of course not. But have you perhaps visited a morgue, or engaged in a drive-around with the local paramedics, or a squad of EMTs, or even the police? Such research can prove a valuable writing experience. Hemingway didn’t get where was by sitting in his living room all day. He went to war. He killed fish. He killed animals. He killed men in World War II. He was even a spy. And, whether he realized it or not, he did it all for the benefit of his craft. Just a thought. Keep up the good work, and if you wish to take the time to collect that hands-on research, you are welcome to resubmit a revision of Obsessive Compulsive whenever you feel the time is appropriate.

It was signed by an editor who went by the name of Pat. He or she added a little smiley face right after their name, telling me he/she liked me and my story. I drank some more whiskey and felt my heart pound in my chest. My blood sped through my veins. I saw the rejected story sitting next to my typewriter, and I tore it up. I scanned through the pages of the story Pat had returned, saw that there were no edits, and tore that one up too.

I would have to start from scratch. My character, Josh, could benefit from some new experience and therefore, so could Obsessive Compulsive.

Sitting back in my chair, I sipped some more whiskey.

But how? I thought.

That’s when I thought of Tara, and her offer of murder entered back into my brain.

I might have contacted her right away. Told her I’d take the job. I would be her handyman. If she could assure me no one would be the wiser when her husband suffered an “accident” and that I would get the money and the pussy she promised, then I would do it. Not gladly, but I would do it for the experience. I would become like Hemingway. He killed men, so, why shouldn’t I?

But I wanted to give it more thought. Maybe sleep on it, if it was even possible to sleep on the prospect of committing homicide in cold blood. I wished I could go over it with Stella, but even if it were possible for her to hear me out without kicking me out of the house for good, I would never place her in danger like that. What good would it do to make her an accomplice in a premeditated murder?

As the afternoon wore on, half the bottle of whiskey disappeared. I was drunk by the time Stella came home at half past three. Drunk, and horny as all hell. I’d been rejected again, after all. But not entirely.

Standing in the door of the garage where she’d just parked her car directly beside my wall of rejections, she issued me a strange, if not suspicious, glance. My hand wasn’t exactly stuffed in the cookie jar, but I knew that she knew she’d caught me red-handed.

Caught me red-handed at what, exactly, she had no idea.

For sure, she would have no clue that I spent much of the morning fucking the daylights out of Tara, our sweet next-door neighbor with the two sweet kids and the handsome, responsible, money-making husband. The near empty whiskey bottle was also a clue. The blank page stuffed in the typewriter. Not a goddamned word typed on it.

There was, however, the note.

The note from an editor who wanted to see another revised version of my short story, Obsessive Compulsive. I put a smile on, picked up the note.

“Offer to resubmit.” I smiled wide. “It’s a big deal, Stel.”

She took a step inside, tried to plant a grin on her face.

“Will it pay, Vic? As in real dollars and cents?”

The question I fully expected. 

“Yes. You betcha it’ll pay.”

Not a lot, of course. But it would be something. Five hundred bucks maybe. Something to add to the pot instead of my usual nothing. It wasn’t that we were dirt poor, or in danger of starving. It was more a matter of Stella’s job not paying a whole lot, and the credit cards being wracked up to the max, and us always being behind so far even the creditors were laughing at us.

But I didn’t care about that right now.

Right now, I had to decide if I was going to go through with Tara’s offer. An offer that would not only get me published in a well-respected magazine. But one that would pay. It would pay big, and that would make Stella happy again. It would make her love me again.

My eyes looked her up and down. She was wearing a dress that hugged her creamy smooth thighs. It was so short, I could practically make out the mound her pussy made inside her panties. I wondered how many men and women had been able to see up her dress today. If they liked it. If they went back to their offices, closed the doors, and masturbated. I wondered if Stella knew they were trying to get a look at her pussy. She was a tease like that. My girlfriend was a major tease.

“You have a drink left for me?” she asked.

She ran her hand slowly through her long, thick, dark hair so that it hung heavily over the left side of her face. It made her big brown eyes light up. Her breasts were pressed together in her push up bra, and her nipples were hard. I got up, a noticeable erection pressing against my jeans. I grabbed a glass from the cabinet in the kitchen, brought it back out with me to the dining room table, set it down hard.

I poured us both a shot. She took hers off the table.

“So, what in heaven’s name shall we drink to, Vic?”

My eyes locked on hers, I used my free hand to feel her up under her dress. She blinked but didn’t protest.

“How about we drink to your pussy.”

“That doesn’t seem right. Why don’t we drink to your accomplishment? Then I’ll allow you to go down on me.”

I felt a start in my heart and a heaviness in my chest that always accompanied even the simple suggestion of her pussy—something I was obsessed with. We both drank. I didn’t taste the whiskey. I didn’t even feel it go down. I tossed the glass against the wall. It shattered. She didn’t bat an eye. She just drank her whiskey, set her glass gently onto the table.

“You’re a fucking animal, Vic,” she said. “But I love that about you.”

Grabbing hold of her arm, I pulled her to me, kissed her hard on the mouth. Then, shoving the typewriter to the side, I threw her up onto the table. She decided to fight me. Meaning, she wouldn’t spread her legs. She knew it would drive me insane if she wouldn’t spread her legs. She knew I’d fight her back.

I reached for her panties anyway.

I didn’t pull them off. I tore them off. Then, using my hands like pry bars, I pulled her knees apart and bulled my way to her pussy.

The Golden Fleece.

She was drenched. Her hair was trimmed to perfection, and I went hunting for her clit with my tongue. It wasn’t hard to find. It was so swelled and throbbing. She no longer resisted me, but instead, slowly relaxed, laid back on the dining room table like it was a chaise lounge. She pulled her dress over her titties, pulled up on her bra and began pinching her nipples so that they were as erect, thick, and as long as my thumbs.

I kept working on her, hard and violently, but somehow gently at the same time. My tongue and lips doing all the work. She began gyrating her hips, thrusting herself at me like she wanted more from me. Like she wanted my entire being inside of her. Like she wouldn’t be satisfied until my whole body was up inside her. Like she wanted to consume me. Eat me up. Make me disappear.

She was a vicious woman.

She hated me. I was convinced of it. She hated me. She wanted to destroy me. Chop me up like raw meat. Make hamburger of me. But at the same time, she wanted me. She wanted me to do the things to her that only I could do. And when she came, she gushed. She planted both of her hands around the back of my head, pressed my face against her pussy like it was caught in a vice grip. She wouldn’t let go if it killed her. I thought I would drown. I swallowed what I could, and the rest just dripped out of my mouth like the juice from an overly ripe peach.

When she finally released me, I drew back, stood up straight. Breathed.

“Fuck me,” she insisted. “Fuck me hard, you son of a bitch.”

The bitch didn’t have to ask me twice.

I unbuckled my belt, pried open my pants, grabbed hold of her legs. I pulled her toward me and entered her in one swift motion. She was hot and wet but tight. I tried to go slow. But slow was an impossible dream. Slow was for romantics. Slow was for dreamers. Slow was for love.

Love never entered the equation. Hadn’t in a long time. This was anger. It was rage. It was naked aggression. The fluids were sweat and tears but they were the color of blood—dark crimson blood bled from severed arteries. Always we would bleed one another out as if it were possible to murder one another in the process of one good fuck. When I came, it was an explosion, a bullet lodged deep inside her pelvis. I wanted her to feel it. Feel the pain. Feel the shock, the awe, the destruction.

I pulled out of her, my breathing heavy and labored, my biceps burning from the pressure of supporting my upper body weight. That’s when I became aware of just how much I was sweating. It’s not like I wanted to. But for the first time, I looked down into her eyes. She looked into mine. The gaze contained all the feeling of identifying the body of an acquaintance on a stainless-steel slab inside the local morgue. A single drop of sweat dripped off my chin, landed onto her lips. She spit it out with revulsion.

“Get off me,” she demanded.

I did as she told me to do.

Tara’s pretty face entered my brain.

Stella slid off the table, pulled her dress back down like a school girl self-conscious of anyone eying her privates. She bent down at the knees, retrieved the remnants of her shredded panties, rolled them up in her hands like a ball. Entering the kitchen, she stamped down on the garbage pail lid opener, tossed them inside, allowed the lid to drop back down. It was like the metal mouth on an evil robot cleaning up after us.

No one should have to suffer being together as much as we had after we lost our child. It wasn’t two halves of a heart joined together in a silly romantic Hallmark card. More like a tumor attached to a vital organ. Guess who’d become the tumor? Guess, if you will, who’d become the parasite?

Our child . . .

I don’t have the heart or the strength to talk about him right now.

She worked up a half-hearted smile, ran her hands through her hair, pushing it back on her head. The gesture filled me with sadness and dread. What had we done to deserve one another? Why had God forsaken us?

“I’m going to take a shower,” she said. “Then, I’m meeting Allison for a drink and a bite.” She inhaled, exhaled like it was going to take great strength to finish her train of thought. “If you want, I can bring you something back for dinner.”

In other words, I can buy you your dinner once again, and again, and again, and again.

“No worries, Stel. I’ll fix something for myself here.”

Half-hearted smile once more. Or, maybe it was just a hint more than half-hearted. A notch up on the Stella smile meter. Because there was a victory in that smile. A sense that for once, her passive attack proved a winner on the battlefield that was our relationship. Our existence together. Our war of blood and wilted roses.

She turned, walked out of the kitchen and into the hall. But before she got too far, she turned back around.

“You know, Vic,” she said, “you might not believe me, but I am proud of you.”

I nodded. “Means a lot, Stel.”

She pursed her lips. There was no other way to interpret her facial expression as anything other than resignation. A woman resigned to either accept me as I was or simply step outside the door and keep on going.

She disappeared around the corner like she had never been present in the first place.

It had all started with the best of intentions more than three years ago. 

I met Stella at a book signing of all places. A local author-makes-good was signing his first novel. Stella was seeing him at the time. Living with him. I waited my place in line until it came to be my turn to have my copy signed. He was a tall, thin man with thick horn-rim eyeglasses. Everyone referred to him not by his full name, but only his last.

Mackey.

This was a time when the big New York publishers were giving out huge contracts to any sixty-thousand-word manuscript that resembled a thriller. Despite numerous attempts and false starts, I hadn’t written one yet, so I’d missed the boat.

But Mackey had scored. And I mean, Mackey scored big. A contract with Random House worth more than a quarter million dollars. Huge money for that time. Still huge money. For Mackey, the future seemed brighter than the light that once shined out of Hemingway’s ass.

He looked so proud and entitled seated at the long table stacked with dozens of hardcover editions of his new book. He wore a purple button down, expensive jeans that had been professionally pressed, and black leather shoes. His corduroy jacket was brown and worn as if he were giving off a kind of professorial intellectual meets seasoned writer who knew what it was to be poor once upon a time.

The biggest trophy of all, however, was not his new novel, but the dame who was standing by his side. She was tall, but not skinny. You could measure the angles and curves on her body by the number of beats per second in my ever-elevating pulse. Her red dress fit her body like a second skin. Her hair was dark, long, and lush, and I wanted only to swim in it and drown. Her eyes were the deepest brown, her nose so perfect it almost hurt to look at it. Her lips were thick and luscious, and when she licked them with her tongue, I thought I would pass out from oxygen deprivation.

She’d made sure to choose a dress that exposed plenty of chest and cleavage. Hints of her lacy black bra captured my attention as much as her skin, and when she bent down to retrieve the pen that Mackey had mistakenly dropped, I could make out the triangular crest of her thong panties.

Her long legs seemed to rise up all the way to her shoulders. Black open toed pumps protected her feet. They showed off her perfectly manicured red-painted toenails. She was a vision to behold, and I’m convinced Mackey knew it. What he didn’t realize was how her eyes connected with mine and never let go for the entire time he was signing my book.

“I know you from somewhere?” he’d said while signing his name to the book’s inner leaf.

My eyes were dashing from him to her and to him again.

“We were in a workshop together.” It was the truth. “A couple year’s back. New York State Writer’s Institute. You probably don’t remember.”

He raised his hand, pointed an extended index finger at his own head. A gesture indicating he’d just made the connection in his brain. But I knew he was full of shit. He knew who I was all right, and it was humiliating to have to spell it out for him. Still, I played the game. If only to get more time in the proximity of his magnificent girlfriend.  

He asked me to join him for a drink after the signing. His agent would be there. Plus, his editor.

“I can introduce you,” he said. “You must have something for them to look at by now. That writer’s institute thing was ages ago.”

My chest went tight. Mackey was looking up at me, the pen in one hand, the book he’d just signed for me in the other. But my eyes kept gravitating to his girlfriend. She was eying me back, like she could see through my skin. See the heart pumping, the blood pulsing, the neurons lighting up. My desire burning. 

People were lined up behind me. Impatient people who wanted their face to face time with Mackey. The man planted directly behind me cleared the annoyed frog from his throat. I was holding things up.

“I do have something,” I told him. “A novel. A mystery. But I’m not sure it’s ready for an agent’s eyes. Or an editor.”

Mackey laughed like something was funny.

“Tell you what,” he said. “Drop the manuscript off to my house if you want. I’m heading out of town tomorrow for a signing in the city. But Stella will be there.” He turned around to eye his girl. “Isn’t that right, Stella honey?”

For the first time, I saw what she looked like when she smiled. It was like the gates of heaven opening up for me. It wasn’t a huge smile, but just enough to bare perfect teeth. How was it there were no flaws in this woman?

“Yes, Mackey,” she said. “I’ll be there with my apron on.”

And a killer sense of humor to boot. Suddenly I found myself wishing it were tomorrow morning. But what about the manuscript I’d just promised? It was more like thirty pages of shit. Hardly a full novel. But there was no going back now. No retracting my promise.

“Thanks, Mackey. I’ll be happy to drop it off tomorrow.”

“Jeeze man,” he said. “What’s the name again? Starts with a V, if I’m not mistaken. Vince, maybe?

“Victor,” I told him. Then I told him the last name too.

“Victor,” he repeated. “I knew that.”

Like I said, he was full of shit. He’d known my name all along. I was convinced of it.

He gave me his address. Wrote it down on a little slip of paper he tore from small writer’s notebook he stored in the interior pocket of his jacket. I took the paper in my hands, looked at it, shoved it in my pocket.

Then, my focus once more on Stella, I said, “See you in the morning.”

“I’ll have the coffee brewing.” She was joking of course. But I sensed some seriousness there too. I wondered if Mackey did also and if he gave a shit. Maybe he was so wrapped up in his newfound fame that he couldn’t see beyond his own starry eyes.

I walked away from the table.

“Hey, Vic,” Mackey said.

I turned around quick.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?”

Stella looked at me without blinking. Mackey held up the book he’d just signed for me.

I felt a sea of embarrassment wash over me. 

“Hell am I thinking?” I said.

I went back to the table, grabbed hold of the book, grinned at Stella.

“See you tomorrow, Mr. Victor,” she said.

“Can’t wait,” I said.

Mackey’s first novel tucked under my arm, I left the store wishing it were tomorrow already.

The next morning, I was up early. I shaved, put on a decent shirt. A clean shirt. It was a strange sensation. But I found myself feeling lighter than air. I was traipsing around my small north Albany apartment like I’d dropped ten pounds overnight, and somehow shed ten years in the process. The day was sunny, bright, and warm and the promise of a long summer lie ahead. Optimism abounded.

Pulling open my desk drawer, I pulled out the one printed copy of the new manuscript I was working on, and I shoved it inside a manila envelope. I wrote “Mackey” on the front of it in blue ballpoint.

In truth, I had my doubts that he would actually read it. But I didn’t give a shit. I was just happy for the excuse to see Stella again. Happy that he wasn’t home. Happy that she would be home alone. That she would have coffee for me. Maybe even something stronger. Happy that she would no doubt look hot and stunning with her long hair, big brown eyes, firm chest and sweet heart-shaped ass.

Grabbing my car keys, I took hold of the envelope and headed for the door. That’s when I caught sight of Mackey’s novel sitting on the coffee table. I picked it up, took it with me into the kitchen, tossed it into the trash.

Her house was located on quiet neighborhood street called Orchard Grove, in what was considered the finest hamlet in North Albany. It wasn’t the biggest house in the neighborhood. In fact, it was humble. A post war ranch with a garage on the left and the main entrance on the right. In the middle was a big picture window to which the curtain was open. Meaning I could see inside just enough to make out a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf that would one day house all of Mackey’s books.

But Mackey’s success was brand new, which told me that dollars to donuts, this house was bought, paid for, and deeded only to Stella. Maybe he’d scored some serious dough as of late, but the guy I knew back when we were studying together at the New York State Writer’s Institute was so broke he couldn’t afford his own car. I picked him up for workshop countless times.

What was that he’d said at the signing? “You look familiar to me?”

Yeah, fuck you too, Mackey.

The manuscript envelope in hand, I climbed the short set of concrete steps up onto the front landing. Rang the doorbell. There was that little nervous time in between the ringing of the bell and when I finally first made out the sound of a human being moving around inside the shell of a house. Ice water shot through my veins. In my mind, I pictured Mackey coming to the door. That would pretty much fuck up my plan entirely.

I gazed through one of the little panes of glass embedded into the door, and I saw her then. Stella, coming toward the door, running both her hands through her hair, like she’d just gotten out of the shower.

She unlocked the deadbolt, opened the door, smiled at me, slyly.

“Well if isn’t another writer. Come on in before you catch cold.”

It was about eighty degrees. A hot early summer’s morning. I was hoping the day would get hotter. A lot hotter.

Stepping inside, I suddenly felt like I’d been transported back to high school. She was the way more mature, way more put together young woman, and I was the awkward pimply faced kid. I clumsily handed her the envelope, nearly dropping it to the floor in the process. She looked at it like I was handing her my living and breathing child. Which wasn’t too far from the truth.

“This is it?” she said, her beautiful brow furrowed. “More like a short story than a novel, Mr. Victor.”

I told her to call me Vic. She nodded. But in the time it took for her to nod, I soaked in everything about her. She was wearing a white tank top over a black bra. Her chest seemed to be busting out of the bra. Hanging from her neck were three or four silver necklaces that rested against her cleavage. Her shorts were cutoffs, and the rear of them rose up into her ass just enough to reveal the bottoms of her smooth, creamy cheeks. She was barefoot, and every time she moved her hands, the many bracelets on her wrists jangled, like they had a life of their own.

“It’s a work in progress,” I pointed out.

“A short work in progress, you mean.” Then, one eye open, the other partially closed, a sly grin painted on her face, “Makes me think you’re not really here to give Mackey a sneak peek at your new work.”

I felt my throat close in on itself, my chest grew tight, my stomach twist.

“Really, Stella? Why do you think I’m here?”

She laughed.

“Never mind,” she said with a giggle. “Coffee. Want some?”

“I seem to recall that promise.”

“Might have a little something stronger than two percent milk to put in it also,” she added.

“Now you’re talking,” I said.

She turned, started for the kitchen which I assumed was located at the far end of the short hallway.

“When did you say Mackey was coming back?” I probed.

“I didn’t.”

It might have been wishful thinking, but I took that as, he won’t be home in forever.

Making my way along the hallway, I glanced at some of the framed pictures that hung there. An intellectual looking Mackey in his old professor’s jacket, crazy thick black hair, and black framed eyeglasses giving a reading somewhere. Stella and Mackey sitting outside at a table under an umbrella at a lakeside or seaside bar, both of them smiling. Rather, Stella smiling, and Mackey looking smug and somehow more intellectually superior than everyone else. Finally, a photo of just Mackey, standing ankle deep in the surf.

She noticed me noticing the photos.

“That last one was taken in Northern California. We went there on vacation a couple years ago. I have friends there. Cost me a bundle I couldn’t afford.”

I turned to her quick. “Mackey’s got a major deal. Money shouldn’t be a problem.”

“It’s not now,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Don’t know how long that’s gonna last. From what I hear, publishers have a revolving door policy with their new, unestablished authors.”

As she set out the coffee onto a tray that also contained a bottle of Sambuca, I got the sense she wasn’t all that proud of Mackey’s accomplishment. Or maybe, proud isn’t the right way to put it. It was more like she resented his recent success. She didn’t have to come right out and say it, but I could read it on her face, smell it radiating off her skin. Maybe she was wearing a perfume that gave off a rose petal scent. But she definitely smelled of resentment if not bitterness.

“Let’s go out onto the deck,” she said.

I followed, like a dog and his new master.

The back deck was long. It ran the length of the entire house. There was an elevated piece of deck constructed on the far west end. A pricey gas cooker sat on top of it. The deck was an expensive addition to the house. Or so it seemed to me anyway . . . a poor guy on Medicare who survived in a New York Section 8 studio apartment in the middle of the city. 

“Brand new?” I asked. “The spoils of a new book deal.”

“Bite your tongue, Vic. I paid for this deck. Every penny.”

More resentment. That was a good thing. Good for me, I should say.

We sat down across from one another at a wood table that looked like it came from an Ikea outdoor collection. She poured the coffees and added a significant amount of Sambuca to both.

“Cheers,” she said, lifting her glass.

“Congrats to your boyfriend,” I offered.

She grinned.

“Screw my boyfriend,” she said.

The short of it.

Mackey was a hard worker. He was single minded. Nothing was going to stop him from being the best writer he could be. The most successful around. The most well paid. Nothing was going to stop him from hitting the bestseller lists, from capturing the adulation and respect of big New York, of Hollywood, of the world.

For five years she’d supported him. Bought him everything from food to manuscript paper to toilet paper. She was there for him through the rejections. Through the writer’s block. Through the humiliations. Through the long nights and even longer days. She’d built him up when he was down, took him down a notch when he got too over confident, and yes, she’d fucked his brains out whenever he asked for it. She had been his loyal, devoted servant. His muse. There was nothing she wouldn’t have done for him because one, she believed in him, and two, she loved him. At least, she thought she loved him.

I drank my coffee, felt the warmth of the alcohol settling in.

“So, what’s changed, Stella?”

She did something then that took me by surprise. She tossed her coffee out onto the lawn, poured a generous shot of Sambuca into the cup, downed it in one swift pull.

“After he got his book deal,” she said, “he started fucking anything and everything with a skirt on.”

She poured a second shot, allow it to sit for a moment. Then she turned to me, a sly grin on her beautiful face.

“And you, Vic,” she said. “You are going fuck me right now.”

We didn’t even bother to go back inside and into her bedroom. I just shot up from the table, came around it, grabbed hold of her, pulled her to me. Our mouths locked together, she rose out of the chair, her hands exploring me, and mine hers. I had her top off and her bra undone in a matter of seconds. While I nibbled on her hard, tight nipples, she unbuttoned my shirt and unbuckled my belt with all the speed and grace of a pro. Next thing I knew, my pants were down around my knees and I had her jeans and panties down around her ankles. She merely stepped out of them before sitting herself onto the edge of the table.

“Make me cum,” she said, her voice reduced to a kind of hoarse whisper in all her passion.

She took hold of my cock and led me to her sweet spot. It was like I’d died and gone straight to heaven, she was so warm and wet and throbbing. She came in a matter not of minutes, but seconds. Like she hadn’t enjoyed this kind of physical attention—this sexual pleasure—in months, or even longer.

I was as hard as I could possibly get. The table was just the right height for me, so I pushed into her while standing. Like her, it took me only a few seconds before I released. When it was finally over, I pulled her into me and held her for a little while. Held her hard. Sure, we’d just committed a crime-of-passion in terms of her significant other. We’d begun an illicit affair in the man’s own home. A man who apparently wanted to help me, even if he had been acting overly strange when it came to his not recognizing me from the New York State Writer’s Institute Workshop.

But there was something else there between Stella and me than just naked lust. Maybe I’d only known her for a matter of hours, but I knew we shared a strong bond. We were like kindred spirits who’d only just found one another after a search that had taken many lifetimes. She was suffering from something, and so was I. Although our sufferings were entirely different, we’d become like two deer who hopelessly locked antlers in the span of one single morning. Things were happening so quickly that even the coffee hadn’t had the chance to get cold yet.

We started seeing one another. On the side, at first. Or, if you will, on the sly. She couldn’t just kick Mackey out onto the street even if he was cash-rich at present. She needed time to think things over. To be fair to him. He’d struck it big, but that didn’t mean he didn’t need her emotionally right now. Even if he was cheating his ass off on her.

“He tells me I’m his muse,” she said, a worried look staining her face. “Like he can’t live without me.”

In turn, I was patient with her, but falling head over boot heels with every passing day. Until I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I slapped her up with an ultimatum. It was either going to be Mackey or me. It was the kind of ultimatum that can only happen over the phone. In my case, a pay phone mounted to a wall inside a saloon I frequented in West Albany.

“What’s it gonna be, Stella?” I demanded, my voice slightly slurred from far too many beers and whiskey chasers. “Him or me?”

“He’s upset,” she said, somewhat under her breath. Like he was in the room with her, and she was cupping her hand over the phone, so he couldn’t hear her. “I told him. Told him everything. He keeps saying he’s a hit now. What sense does it make to reverse course? Go back to living with a loser. Someone who isn’t even published.”

Her words cut right through me like a razor blade, right through skin, flesh, and bone. Sure, she was just relaying the message, but I wanted to strangle her. I wanted to strangle him. For a just a few overheated seconds, I wanted to strangle them both.

But then, what the hell was I thinking? I wanted Stella to be by my side forever and ever. I wanted her as my muse. She was wasting her time and energy on an intellectual prick like Mackey. If she were with me, she would be appreciated and not just as means for my eventual success. She would be loved for who she is. Physically. Emotionally.

My blood was on fire.

“If I hang up this phone,” I said, “I will never contact you again.”

What followed was a pause that was as long as it was weighted.

“Pick me up in half an hour,” she said. “I’ll be out in the driveway.”

I hung up the phone, paid my tab.

Twenty minutes later, I pulled into her driveway. Only, it wasn’t Stella standing outside at the top of the drive. It was Mackey. Some men would run from situations like this one. One where confrontation was not only probable but inevitable. Verbal and even physical confrontation.

I didn’t give a flying fuck.

I hit the brakes, shoved the transmission into park, left the engine idling and threw the door open. I approached him like I owned the joint. There was something rolled up in his hand. My story.

He was wearing a pair of black corduroys and loafers with red socks. Naturally, he had his tan jacket on with the holes in the elbows, just to make him look professorial. To make him look better than me. It’s what he had instead of biceps. The eyes reflected under his thick eyeglasses were red and swelled, like he’d been crying. 

“This,” he said, running his free hand through his thick black hair. “This is a piece of shit. I think you’ve gotten worse since we were in that workshop together.”

I took a step toward him, felt my hands turn into fists.

“That make you feel better, Mackey? Way to ignore the white elephant.”

He smiled. The son of a bitch actually smiled. When he shifted himself, I took notice of the small day pack that was set by his feet.

“You know what, Vic?” he said. “You’re right. I’m beating around the bush, if you’ll excuse the cliché. You see, here’s the thing. This is Stella’s house, and it’s only right that I’m the one who should leave. My time with her is finished. So many books to sell, so many books to write, so many women to fuck. You see, pal, a man with my talents, my drive, I’m going places. A man with your limited abilities, you’re stuck in the mud with flat tires and, believe me, it ain’t gonna stop raining anytime soon.”

He bent down, picked up his bag, wrapped the strap around his shoulder, pulled a set of keys from his jacket pocket. Stared down the short length of driveway toward his ride— a brown SUV.

“Oh, and Vic,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “Tell Stella I’ll be sending a truck out for my books. Everything else she can keep. Good luck with the muse. You’ll need it.” He winked at me. Assuming a faux hillbilly voice, he added, “Enjoy those sloppy seconds, ya hear?”

He opened the door on the SUV, tossed in his day pack, got in. Closing the door, he started her up, backed out of the drive. When he put the transmission in drive, he burned rubber. That’s when I saw him holding my story out the open driver’s side window. He slowly released it page by page into the wind, the eight and a half by eleven pages fluttering in the sky like big white leaves descending onto the pavement.

As he turned onto the main road, his now free hand was still held up high, along with his middle finger.

Even I had to laugh at that one.

It all seemed like a long time ago now. And you know what? I’m beginning to think that Mackey was right about everything. Stella had me fooled. She hadn’t been a muse for me, any more than she’d been the one to bring me good luck. She put a roof over my head, however, and kept me well. For that, I was entirely grateful. But the muse was not there. The inspiration was not there. I was a man trapped in his lust for his woman, a slave to my passion, to my lust.

But passion was not enough. Nor was lust. Never was. Lust without love is as empty as a shallow grave and just as dirty. A hand job into a dirty tissue, selfie style. What I needed was to get out of this rut. I needed to experience something new. Something that would allow me to write a novel not even Mackey would recognize. A novel that would shock the New York publishers and make them beg for my signature on a contract so big it would land on the New York Times front page.

I was going to go through with Tara’s plan. I would get rid of her husband for her, and collect invaluable experience in the meantime.

I would be her handyman.

Stella came back out of the bedroom. She was dressed in a long white dress with an open V-neck front. Her olive skin against the white made her look edible. A part of me wanted to throw myself at her just one more time before she left the house for her dinner date. But I knew she would only resist me. The frustrations of an addict.

“You look lovely, Stel,” I said, pouring myself another whiskey.

“Sure, I can’t bring you home something to eat?”

I was holding the glass of booze in my hand. I glanced down at it.

“Got everything I need right here.” It wasn’t the truth, but it seemed like the right thing to say.

“Sure you do,” she said, grabbing her car keys off the dining room table. “Write well. And congrats once again on your success today.”

“It’s not quite a success yet. But after the research I’m about to engage in, it will be quite the story. Might even make a big novel, eventually. I even have the perfect title in mind. Savage Sins.”

She nodded like she was saying, Not bad.

“Get to it then,” she said.

“My best to Allison.” In my mind, I pictured the attractive Asian-American who still lived with her ex-husband, or soon to be ex, in the same house. Lived in a state of siege, that is.

Opening the door to the garage, she exited the room, closed the door behind her hard. She hit the wall-mounted button that raised the overhead door. I downed the shot of whiskey and waited until the car started, backed out, and the garage door closed until I grabbed the keys to the house, and made my way back through the front door, and over the length of two front lawns to Tara’s.

I rang the doorbell but tried the opener at the same time. The door was open. She came running into the vestibule through the kitchen.

“Jesus, Vic, you scared the living daylights out of me.”

“Sorry. It was open.”

“You’re lucky Stan’s not home.”

“Maybe it’s you who’s lucky.”

She was wearing a black silk button-down. It was unbuttoned enough to reveal some serious skin. Serious cleavage. Her sandy blonde hair was parted to the side, and her eyes were bright and excited. At the same time, I sensed the anxiety in them. She was still the luscious woman I’d been with that morning. Now, however, she seemed to be revealing her weaker side.

Why?

Because she knew I was about to accept her offer. It was not only the first step in the murder process. It made the prospect of killing her husband all the more real.

“I’m in,” I told her. Straight up. No chaser.

She blinked, licked her lips. Not like she was trying to be seductive, but like her mouth had suddenly gone dry. If she’d possessed an Adam’s apple, it would have bobbed up and down in her neck, like a turkey about to face the hatchet on Thanksgiving morning.

“Sure,” was all she said.

I was taken aback, and she knew it.

“Look, doll,” I said, gesturing with my thumb over my shoulder. “If your pretty little feet have suddenly turned to ice, I can walk out of here right now, and we never had this conversation.” Exhaling, biting down on my bottom lip. “Today, never happened. Spiders included.”

Lowering my hand, I turned, made for the front door.

“Wait,” she insisted.

I stopped, turned.

“What’s your plan, Vic? How are you going to kill my husband?”

I revealed my plan to her. It was a damn simple plan, and considering her husband’s love of his man cave, the most logical one. The short and long of it: Stan would come home from work, head down the basement stairs to escape into his cave. When he hit the second stair, the tread would be loose, and he’d tumble to his death. Easy peasy. It would be considered a common household accident.

But first, Tara had to make sure she got him a little drunk, if not more than drunk.

“Listen,” I said, looking at my wristwatch, seeing that it was past five in the late afternoon. “How long until he comes home?”

She brought both her hands to her face, her eyes wide.

“Oh, dear god.” The anxiety dripped from her eyes like tears. “We’re actually going to do this today, aren’t we?”

“We’ve got to be committed and quick,” I said. “I take a night to sleep on this, I’ll lose my nerve.”

Slowly, she lowered her hands. She did something then that was both surprising and welcome. She smiled.

“Okay, Vic, I’m committed. You’re my handyman, and you’re going to fix this once and for all. And when it’s done, I’ll pay you what I promised.”

I held up my hands, shook my head.

“My payment,” I said. “I’ve changed my mind.”

She scrunched her brow. “I don’t get it. We had a deal.”

“I don’t want your money. Somehow taking your money doesn’t feel right. It feels more like a payoff for cold blooded murder. You know, blood money. All I want from you is the experience.”

“The experience?” she asked confused.

“The experience I will use in my writing. The looks, sounds, and feel of a man who’s had a bad accident. A fatal accident.”

“Is that what this will be then, Vic? An accident?”

“I’ll make sure the conditions exist for an accident to happen. The rest is up to fate.”

“Meaning?”

“Meaning, if he should happen to survive, then we’ve had our chance. The ship will have sailed.”

“We could always try again.”

“That’s another one of my rules. You get one shot and one shot only.”

“How is it you, a man who’s never done this kind of thing before, has established rules?”

“I’m making them up as I go, honey.”

“Then we’d better do it right.” She took hold of my forearm. “And here’s a rule I’m making up on the spot. I do not accept your first rule. You will get half the money as promised. Fifty/fifty, pal. Maybe you won’t want this on your conscience, but you are taking the money, regardless.”

“Because it will lighten the load considerably on your conscience.”

She nodded and removed her hand.

“Do the math,” she said.

Me, I went back to looking at my watch.

“Back to my original question, Tara. How long until he gets home?”

She glanced at the clock on the wall in the kitchen.

“One hour,” she said.

“Will he have been drinking?”

“He always has a couple of pops with the boys before coming home.”

“That’s good,” I said. “He drink at home?”

“Pours a scotch as soon as he’s through the door.”

“Got any Ambien or Xanax in the house?”

“Will Valium do?”

Now it was my turn to smile.

“Go get it,” I said. “I want you to have his drink poured and mixed for him before he gets home.”

She gently placed her hand on my mid-section.

“There’s still some time,” she said. “I want to do something for you. Give you a down payment, Mr. Handyman.”

She went down onto her knees, on the spot. She unbuckled my belt, unbuttoned my pants, and took me into her mouth. The fact that I was so hard was a testament to how attractive she was, how seductive, and how good she was at sucking my cock. What the hell was wrong with her husband that he felt the need to sleep on the couch in the basement? I was pent up and nervous over what I was about to do, but somehow, she was able to calm me down. I’d fucked her that morning, and fucked Stella that afternoon. I just couldn’t get enough. Now my cock was as hard as a rock again, and she was taking all of it in her mouth, doing things to the overly sensitive head with her never still tongue.

She freed her mouth and worked it with her hand, slowly, but also like she meant it. Grinning she said, “If I didn’t know any better, Vic, I’d say I taste pussy on your cock. And it’s not mine. I know what I taste like.”

I saw myself on the couch with Stella, my face buried in her pink wet pussy. I saw her legs spread and once again I heard her pleasure-filled moans, and I felt my cock begin to throb like it was hooked up to an electrical outlet.

“I fucked Stella this afternoon,” I said. “I made her cum with my mouth and my cock.”

“Are you a sex addict, Vic? Is it all you think about?”

Sex. It was always on my mind then.

“It’s quite possible,” I admitted. “Very possible.”

She was working me with both her hands now, running them from the tip of the head all the way down to my balls, and back again.

“Did you fuck her on the couch, in the living room?” she asked. “With the curtains open?”

My throat began to close up on itself, my chest tightened, my brain came alive with adrenalin. I knew I was going to release soon. Very soon.

“Yes,” I said.

“You both like it that way. I’ve seen you. Seen you both, on the couch. Did you know that?”

“When?”

“I watched you once, from out on my lawn. You were right there in front of the window, fucking. I couldn’t believe what I was witnessing. I had to go inside and rub my pussy.”

“What did you think about?”

“I pretended Stella was going down on me on the couch while, at the same time, I was sucking you off. Sucking your hard, eight-inch cock. She was running her long tongue up and down my entire pussy, tasting my pink clit, and the length of your cock was down my throat. I kept telling her how much I couldn’t wait to lick her wet pussy.”

That did it. I exploded. The first cum shot squirted out of me like a bullet from a gun. Quickly, she took me in her mouth then and caught the second and third explosions. Then, using her tongue, she was careful to capture every single drop. She was so good, I was in heaven, even if what I was about to do would one day send me straight to hell.

She provided me with a hammer and a screwdriver. I didn’t have any tools of my own. We were hurting for time, but what I had planned would only take a few minutes at most. I headed back down the basement stairs, came around the entire wood staircase. It had been originally constructed not with wood screws, but instead, six penny nails. A cheap cob job, just like the basement stairs in my house. Stella’s house, I should say. But that was my good luck, and her husband’s bad luck. I jammed the business end of the screwdriver under one of the nails on the third stair tread from the top, tapped the hard plastic grip with the hammer head.

The nail head emerged from out of the wood, just enough for me to fit the hammer claw under it and for me to yank it out even more. I wrapped both hands around the hammer grip and, using all my strength, pulled the nail out. Not entirely, but enough so that it would weaken the stair tread. There were three more nails attaching the tread to the long, vertical stair frame. I loosened all three of them.

Heading back up the stairs, I tested the tread with my foot. It wasn’t so loose that it would completely collapse when her husband stomped down on it. But it was loose enough so that given the right conditions . . . in this case, his being drunk and drugged . . . there was a very good chance he’d loose his balance, go tumbling down the entire staircase and onto the concrete floor below. There was no guarantee it would happen this way, but then, there was an equally good shot at it going down entirely as planned.

I made my way back into the kitchen. Tara was in there pouring a tall glass of scotch for her husband. Set out on the counter was a yellow bottle filled with pills. The Valium she had mentioned before. She opened the bottle, shook out not one, but four little blue pills. Crushing them between her index finger and thumb she added the powder to the drink, then stirred the volatile cocktail with a teaspoon.

She looked at me, grinned.

“All set,” she said.

“I’m ready, too,” I said.

I went to her, pressed my mouth against hers, felt her tongue play with my own. I cupped her ass, and felt up her shirt, gently squeezing her breast. Her nipple was hard between my fingers. She went down on her knees so fast, I thought she’d fainted. It was all she could do to unbuckle my belt, unbutton my pants. How was it possible that I was hard again? Was the prospect of killing a man making me an unstoppable sex machine? I was already a machine. She pulled out my eight inches of hardness and just like she had less than a half hour ago, took it all the way into her mouth, once more.

Who knew murder could be so sexy? So exciting?

Like I said, we were pressed for time. She worked me so fast and hard I could feel myself filling up with each stroke. But this time, I wanted something more. Something for her.

“Turn around,” I insisted. “Bend over.”

“Make me your bitch, Vic.” She was panting. “Make me your whore.”

She turned around, bent herself over so that her perfect ass was staring me in the face. I pulled her silk panties down around her knees and slid into her pussy. It was hot and slick. I then pulled out and pushed my cock into her ass. It made her moan with desire and pleasure beyond pleasure.

I thrust my cock in and out of her tight ass and used my fingers on her clit until she came, letting loose with a scream. I pulled out then, and she spun around, dropping to her knees.

“I want more of your cum, Vic,” she demanded.

When she wrapped her lips around my cock again, I exploded. I swear I could have shrieked it was so intense. But I kept my mouth shut. Kept my shit together.

When she stood up, she placed her hand my face and kissed my lips.

“There’s more where that came from when this thing is over,” she said.

Just then, the sound of a car pulling up in the driveway.

I made my way back downstairs to the basement. Lights off. I heard the front door open.

“Tara!” Stan barked.

He sounded gruff. His footsteps were heavy. Laden. Maybe he was already drunk. That would be a good thing.

“Tara!” he shouted once more.

The pitter patter of footsteps going from the kitchen into the vestibule.

“Hi honey,” she said, Betty Crocker house-frau happy. “How was your day?”

“Does it really matter, Tara?”

“I have a drink waiting for you. On the counter. Smells like you’ve already had a couple.”

“Stopped for drinks with the boys at the Nineteenth Hole. Please don’t give me one of your interrogations. I’m tired already.”

“Did you play hooky today? Golf a little?”

“We did nine holes. Where’s that drink?”

“I told you. On the counter.”

There was a pause in their conversation, if you wanted to call it that. I pictured him staring her down. He’d be wearing a golf shirt and trousers that were too tight for his beer gut. His lower arms would be tanned, but his upper arms and the rest of his torso would be white as a ghost. A golfer’s tan.

“Don’t get snippy with me, Tara,” he said, his voice low but somehow screaming.

“Sorry,” she said, sheepishly. “I didn’t realize--”

“Yeah, just think before you talk.”

More heavy footsteps into the kitchen. I heard him grab the glass of scotch off the counter. 

“This looks inviting,” he said. “Thanks for pouring it. Say, where're the kids?”

“They’re with my mother for dinner,” she said. “I thought it would be nice if we could have a nice quiet supper on our own. We haven’t had a date night in forever.”

He laughed. “Imagine you, getting all mushy on me.”

“We used to be close, Stan. I’d like to get that back.”

“You would, would you?”

I heard ice clinking against the glass. He was not only drinking his drink. He was drinking it down fast. Tara was such an attractive lady. A nice lady. A good mother. Okay, sure, she wanted her husband dead, and she was willing to pay a lot for it. But I didn’t need to lay eyes on this man to know what kind of creep he was. The type of man who might make every effort possible to destroy Tara’s life should she attempt to leave him. He’d make sure she never saw the kids again. He’d try to bankrupt her. Ruin her reputation as both a woman and as a potential employee. He’d make her life a living hell. These are the things I wanted to believe if I was going to make his accident happen.

Tara hated Stan. She had good reason to hate him. I couldn’t blame her one bit.

“I’ll get dinner started, honey,” I heard her say.

“You do that,” he said, his words slurred. “I’m going . . . down . . . stairs.”

I heard him take a step. It sounded like a stumble. Like he was tripping over his own feet.

“Are you okay, honey?”

“Something,” he said, his voice slow, becoming inaudible, like an old-fashioned vinyl record played at too slow a speed. “Something . . . not good . . . in my drink.”

“Maybe you should lie down for a while,” Tara suggested. “You’re overtired. You really shouldn’t drink like that after spending the afternoon in the hot sun.”

“Don’t tell me what I should drink!” he barked.

The basement door opened. He flicked on the light. He descended the first step. It wasn’t like he was walking down the stairs. More like he was dropping. Then he took the second. I braced myself for what was about to happen on the third by pressing my back up against the concrete wall that ran perpendicular to the wooden staircase.

Finally, he landed hard on the third step. That’s when the stair tread collapsed.

It was a sight to see. His body dropped like a stone through the staircase, his chin catching the fourth stair tread as he went down so that his head reared backward violently. If that wasn’t enough, he landed flat on his back, dead weight, the rear portion of his skull bouncing off the concrete floor. I could actually hear the hollowness of the skull against the concrete. It sounded like a water melon being smashed with a rock. It made my back teeth hurt to hear it, to see it. It was the kind of detail that I would have to remember for my story.

A puddle of crimson blood began to form beneath his head. It formed quicker than I would have imagined had I been making this up in my brain. It was another real-life detail that I would need to recall later when I revised Obsessive Compulsive when I began my new novel, Savage Sins.

His hands were trembling, and his right leg was shaking while his left leg was as dead as a branch that had fallen from a dead tree. I make a mental note of it. His lips were separated, but his mouth was far from wide open. There was foam forming in the corners of his mouth, and the tip of his tongue was now protruding from between the lips. The tongue was not flesh colored and alive. It was purple, still and dead.

. . . Make a note of that, Vic . . . Make note of everything . . .

The blood pool grew larger and larger. It looked like a crimson pond. His leg was no longer trembling. Neither was his hand. His face looked suddenly sunken and his chest concave, like there was no more air in his lungs. Like his soul had left his body entirely. I believed in a soul. I also believed in heaven and hell. It was too easy to not believe in something. It took effort to believe in something larger and more profound than yourself. I couldn’t help but wonder now . . . now that I had helped kill a man . . . which awaited me. Heaven or hell?

Or maybe I should have been completely honest with myself.

I had killed a man. I had done it all on my own.

I killed Tara’s husband, and somehow, I would be a better writer for it. But would I be a better man?

Footsteps from above.

Slow, almost timid footstep.

The basement door opened, the hinges squeaking.

“Is it done, Vic?” Her trembling voice sounded like it was coming at me through a hollow tube.

I took one more long look at Stan. Dead Stan.

“He’s gone.” Inhaling, exhaling. Suddenly I felt somewhat queasy. “You’d better call 911. You’d better play this one up like you’re trying for an Oscar.”

“I can handle it,” she said.

I pulled the hanky from my back pocket and wiped down everything I might have touched, including the screwdriver and hammer. Then, I carried the tools back upstairs with me.

Tara was standing in the middle of the kitchen floor, her cell phone in hand.

“I want you to go,” she said. “What I need to do next, I need to do alone.”

“I understand,” I said, gently setting the tools onto the kitchen counter, then returning the hanky to my back pocket.

I made my way into the vestibule while she pressed three digits on her phone pad, placed the phone to her ear. I opened the front door, stepped outside, closed the door behind me.

“Hello! Hello!” she screamed, so loud her voice pierced the wood, glass, and plastic front door. “Something’s happened to my husband. He fell down the basement stairs. Or he fell through them. Oh, sweet Jesus, I think he’s dead. Come quick! Do you hear me? Come! Quick! Come now!”

I walked home, knowing that the words I was about to pound out on my typewriter were the real deal. Hemingway would have nothing on me.

The next morning, Tara arrived at my front door. She was dressed all in black. I was a little tired because Stella and I had been up much of the late evening and night, watching the tragedy unfold at our next-door neighbor’s home.

“Do you think we should take Tara and Stan’s kids for a while, Stel?” I’d asked, a glass of fresh whiskey in my hand.

She glanced at my whiskey glass.

“I don’t think the atmosphere here is conducive to little children. Do you, Vic?”

Immediately I was transported back to a time when Stella was carrying our child. Her belly looked beautiful by the ninth month. I was so happy to become a daddy. The child was a boy, and he was born with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. It was one of those things that only happens in the modern age maybe once out of every one hundred thousand births. But years later, I still recalled his face. So blue, so painful looking, so very dead. He had a head full of black hair and blue eyes. I loved him, even if I never had the chance to meet him.

She put her hand on my hand as if to say, It’s all right. I miss him too.

How was it possible to miss someone you never knew? Perhaps the answer lies in the fact that he had been a part of her. A part of me.

I was a far cry from the father figure I might have been back then if given a chance. I’d done something bad, for the good of my work. For the good of my pocketbook, for the personal good of Tara and her family. And to be perfectly honest, already, in the few hours since Stan’s “accident,” I was writing and rewriting with renewed confidence. The confidence of an expert who’d not only witnessed a significant event but who’d played a major role in it. An expert who saw it all happen first hand. An expert who heard the sound a man makes when he falls to his death, listened to the hollow melon sound a skull makes when it comes into violent contact with a concrete slab. I smelled the iron aroma of freshly spilled blood, felt the cold clamminess of the dead skin, witnessed the eyes roll back into his head. It had all become a part of who I was now. No longer would my work be considered emotionless and dull. I guess you could say that because of Stan’s death, it would come alive.

Backed up in the driveway was an EMT van. The uniformed medics carted Stan out on a portable gurney, stuffed him into the back of the van, and closed the doors. A white latex sheet was draped over his face. There was blood on the sheet. Little droplets of it. From where I stood in my driveway, I could make out the outline of his face even with the sheet covering it. The nose, slightly open mouth, sunken eye sockets, and flat forehead. It was like one of those eerie death masks you see in museums.

“I can’t believe he’s dead,” Stella said. “What the hell is Tara going to do?”

I couldn’t help but laugh on the inside. I knew exactly what she was going to do. She was going to collect his pension and the insurance money, and she was going to live again. As the EMT van took off, I focused on the cop cruiser that had been parked on the front lawn beside the van. There were two cops patrolling the scene, but there wasn’t a whole lot to patrol.

One of the cops was holding a clipboard and a pen. He was questioning a distraught Tara on the front lawn. She spoke to him while illuminated in bright halogen headlamps, her arms crossed over her chest. I knew she was telling him it was an accident. That they loved one another and always got along. That he’d had maybe one drink after work, per usual. That he’d never shown violence toward she and the kids. That she’d never shown it to him or the kids either. He was a loving, devoted husband and right now, she was positively in shock.

The cop tipped his lid to her and offered his condolences once more then got back into the cruiser along with his partner. They hung around a few minutes more but soon left the scene, leaving Tara alone with members of her immediate family—her mother and sister.

“Show’s over,” I said to Stella.

We went to bed that night without touching one another.

Tara was standing in my doorway in her black mourning outfit. The skirt fit perfectly against her hips, and her black blouse was unbuttoned enough to reveal that beautiful skin and cleavage.

“May I come in, Vic?”

“Stella’s at work. I’m writing,” I said it with renewed enthusiasm. With piss and vinegar even, instead of the usual dread.

It was early morning, so I didn’t bother to ask her if she wanted a drink. But she reached out for me, gently took hold of my forearm.

“He’s gone,” she said. “And I’m forever grateful.” Her eyes drifted to the dining room table. The pages stacked to the side of the typewriter, a fresh page inserted into the machine, half of it covered in black Times New Roman style lettering, double-spaced. “And you’re writing up a storm, I see.”

I couldn’t help but smile. But then, heaven and hell came to mind again. Where I’d end up when the inevitable happened. One had to wonder, had I performed a good and decent service for Tara? Or had I turned into a cold-blooded murderer just for the sake of a writing a good story?

Time would tell. Best to not continually dwell on it. What was done was irreversibly done.

She leaned into me, kissed me on the mouth. I kissed her back, ran my hand up her skirt, cupped her perfect, bare ass cheek, slid my fingers under her silky thong panties, felt her naked heat. But she took hold of my hand and slowly removed it.

“It wouldn’t be right,” she said. She exhaled. “No matter what he did to me. Give me some time.”

“No means no,” I said. “I respect that.”

She blushed. I could tell she wanted me, and she knew how much I desired her. That is, judging by the erection I was pressing against her.

“You’re my handyman,” she said.

“I’m at your service, madam.”

“Speaking of which,” she said, “I just might have another job for you, Vic. Assuming you’re willing to take it on.”

She pulled her cell phone from her pocket, went to the photos app. She showed me a picture of her seated beside a lovely Asian brunette with big brown eyes. A brunette whose look and style weren't all that different from Stella’s. Only the eyes were different. They were exotic and alluring. The two were seated at a bar by the looks of it. They were holding up their cocktails for the camera. Pink cocktails. My pulse kicked up a notch because I was well acquainted with this Asian woman. Asian-American to be specific.

“Allison,” I said. “She’s friends with Stella.”

“Allison, that’s right. She’s going through a terrible divorce. Problem is, her husband won’t leave the house, even though he’s got a girlfriend or two.”

“Complicated,” I said. “Stella has let me in on much of it.”

“But you find her attractive, don’t you, Vic?”

That’s when she slid her hand down to my midsection, felt my hardness. I couldn’t help but recall more than a few fantasies I’d entertained over the past couple of years, pretending to watch a naked Stella making love to an equally naked Allison while I slipped in between them, fucked them both.

“Does that answer your question?” I asked.

“She’d like to have a meeting. Not with you,” she said, “but The Handyman.”

I felt a cold shock run down my spine.

“You didn’t tell her—”

“No worries, darling,” Tara said. “I merely suggested to her that I know a man who is really good at fixing things. He’s a handyman.”

I thought about the possibilities. The experience, the first-hand knowledge, the stunning opportunity. I could write not just one story or book, but a series of books, all of them based on the . . . How should I put it?  . . . the fixing of a problem that has become all too impossible.

Okay, some of that was pure bullshit.

The truth of the matter was that something had opened up in me when I killed Stan. Something had been set free. I knew killing was wrong, that it was evil. But then, why had it felt so good? So, liberating? It was fun to play god. It was, even more fun to transfer what I had learned in the killing process to my fiction. For the first time in years, I felt young again, optimistic about the future. I wanted more of that.

“When would she like to meet?” I asked, my pulse elevated, blood speeding through my veins.

“In a couple of days. After the funeral. Soon as Stella leaves for the day, you can join us.”

“And you’ll have coffee?”

“And something stronger, of course. I should know the drill by now, Vic.” She pinched my cock gently before removing her hand. Then, “I’d better get back home to my mourning and my grieving wife routine. People might get suspicious.”

She went to the door, opened it, and stepped out. I stepped into the door opening and called out for her.

“What is it?” she asked, over her shoulder.

“I’m really sorry for your loss,” I said.

“No, you’re not.” She laughed.

Then she blew me a kiss.

I made my way back inside, poured myself an early shot of Jameson, downed it in one swift pull. The liquor felt warm and inviting inside my body. Like a warm blanket on a cold winter’s day. I sat down before my typewriter, read the words I’d been working on all morning before Tara made an unannounced visit. It was the opening to my new novel. My first full-length novel. Savage Sins.

“I can do better,” I whispered to myself. “I’ve seen this shit with my own eyes. I’m The Handyman. Details, Vic. Kill them with details.”

Pulling the sheet of paper from the roller, I crumpled it up into a ball and tossed it onto the dining room floor. Then, I fed the typewriter with a brand new, clean white sheet and positioned my fingers on the keys.

I typed:

Sex.

It was always on my mind back then.

(To be continued . . .)

We hope you enjoyed the first episode in the Handyman romantic noir series. The next episode, , is now available. To find out more about Vincent Zandri’s novels and to catch the next episode in the series, go to

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About the Author

Winner of the 2015 PWA Shamus Award and the 2015 ITW Thriller Award for Best Original Paperback Novel, Vincent Zandri is the NEW YORK TIMES, USA TODAY, and AMAZON NO. 1 Overall Bestselling author of more than 25 novels including THE REMAINS, MOONLIGHT WEEPS, EVERYTHING BURNS, and ORCHARD GROVE. An MFA in Writing graduate of Vermont College, Zandri's work is translated in the Dutch, Russian, French, Italian, and Japanese. Recently, Zandri was the subject of a major feature by the New York Times. He has also made appearances on Bloomberg TV and FOX news. In December 2014, Suspense Magazine named Zandri's, THE SHROUD KEY, as one of the Best Books of 2014. Recently, Suspense Magazine voted WHEN SHADOWS COME as one of the Best Books of 2016. A freelance photo-journalist and the author of the popular "lit blog," The Vincent Zandri Vox, Zandri has written for Living Ready Magazine, RT, New York Newsday, Hudson Valley Magazine, The Times Union (Albany), Game & Fish Magazine, and many more. He lives in New York and Florence, Italy. For more go to