I hated the title at first and got round it by sort of ignoring it…
Well, let me begin by saying that all stories are true – it’s just that some of them haven’t actually happened – so, if you don’t mind. I will leave you guessing.
The first time that anything happens is usually pretty amazing – and not always for the right reasons, but new experiences seldom fail to leave their mark. That first hesitant kiss, the soft almost not-there touch of her lips, the guilty look in your eyes, you glance sideways to see if she has read your thoughts – but no, her eyes are closed in blissful anticipation so you move in and let the gliding edge of your tongue slide over her gorgeous plump lips.
Ah, enough of this mundane stuff – we have all kissed – but I suspect none of you can quite remember that first time. Anyway, not in the graphic detail I can.
And that of course has always been my problem. I remember everything. Each falling leaf as it begins its downward spiral to earth is captured in my memory. Each handful of silvery sand I let slip through my fingers – just like the women I discarded; so many fallen petals, faded flowers, wilting and clogging up the drains after rain. All there – my memories; lined up in their little white boxes, sublime treasure-chests of remembrance, just waiting for the lid to be prised open and re-lived.
Just like the first time I killed a woman. Oh, I had no intention before it happened. This was not pre-meditated. Honestly. Thoughts of death had never crossed my mind. Seduction, persuasion, a little light tussle maybe – but not killing. Besides this was my first time; my very own virgin murder and I was hardly prepared. For anything, I might add.
The blood – of course. And how could anything, any degree of premeditation prepare you for the blood, that metallic aroma that fills your nostrils, the bright red pulsing colour of it, the stickiness – no matter how you try to wipe it away it clings to your fingers; you glance in the mirror and there are spots on your face, your glasses splattered, it even gets in your hair. Your clothes are ruined, of course; they will have to be burned – and if you are stupid enough to kill her in your own rooms you have to use gallons of bleach to eradicate the stains that seem to lurk, like shadowy reminders of the woman she once was. And the screams, those piercing high-pitched screams go right through you, yet in a way they simply encourage you to keep on stabbing, to stifle, to silence her, to extinguish the very air in her lungs. And then the body limp and collapsing around you; as you reach for an arm her leg flops out of your grasp. The weight of them too, who would have thought something so light on its toes, so sprightly, so energetic one moment – could be so unresponsive, so inert, so – well, dead, to put it bluntly. And the disposal of the now completely distasteful body presents a whole new set of problems. And I mean it when I say distasteful. Please do not mistake me for some sort of pervert. A dead thing is simply that, there is no sexual attraction in a corpse, even less than in a living being I might add.
But like everything in life, I have found, the first time is always the hardest. After a while you develop strategies for dealing with these issues.
But the first time was I must admit quite an amazing experience. As I said I had no idea of killing the woman at all. It had all started so innocently; a date – innocuous in itself, though I am sure a suspicion must have been lurking somewhere in her consciousness. Surely, she must have known that my intentions were not exactly honourable. Possibly she knew all along that we would end up entwined in a passionate embrace. Isn’t that what the game is about, after all?
Anyway. Let us not preach semantics. How we got there is unimportant suffice to say – there we are wrapped in each other’s arms and kissing, quite torridly as I recall. Then, all of a sudden she pushes me away saying “No. I really shouldn’t be doing this. I have a boyfriend already. I have to leave.”
How irrational, I can’t help but think. I feel like saying “My dear, if you were already committed to someone else what the hell were you doing with your tongue halfway down my throat?” But of course, you only think of these witticisms after the event – never at the time. In fact, as well as being completely taken by surprise I am actually quite annoyed. I had not forced her to come back to my squalid little bedsit, I had not even plied her with drink, my usual desperate ploy. She had seemed quite keen. And yet, unbelievably here she is protesting some sort of innocence. I couldn’t quite believe how stupid she must think me. Stupid enough to just smile and order her a cab I suppose. No – my lovely, no cab for you tonight, you are going nowhere.
I push her back on the sofa and grab both her wrists in my left hand while my right undoes my belt. She is kicking quite furiously now and screaming at me. This only serves to make me angry – and yet, even despite the initial rage, a strange calmness descends on me. I tie her hands and reach for her cardigan (discarded, just like her morals, on the floor). I manage to get her legs tied too, and then a tea-towel wrapped over her obscene mouth. I can barely believe the filthy words spilling out of her. “Shut up woman.” I command, but she stupidly continues, her body bucking under my strong grip. Suddenly I feel I have had enough of this nonsense. You see, I simply want her to stop screaming and shouting at me. If she had stopped her foul-mouthed abuse none of what followed would have been necessary.
It was in every way an amazing experience. Looking down at her, I can picture her now, writhing like some captured beast, or a fish hauled out of the river and squirming on the bank. I was disgusted both at her and at my own ridiculous desire. How could I have ever found her attractive.
Suddenly I know I have to kill her, to bring both of us out of this ridiculous situation. I mean, I can hardly simply untie her, apologise, and let her go. Things will not end there; no doubt she will involve the Police, or worse still her boyfriend, if indeed he exists (she may well have made him up just to satisfy her own guilty conscience). I can see no alternative but to kill her.
I grab a cushion and try to suffocate her, but no matter now hard I press against it she still manages to turn her face away, and despite the gag to gasp for air. This was taking far too long, so I reach for a kitchen knife. There is a little resistance I must admit, though that may be the layers of fabric around her chest, but eventually the knife sinks in all the way to the hilt. She stops her writhing and stares at me, as if in disbelief. I will never forget that look, pleading and helpless, and yet defiant at the same time. I pull the knife out and am covered in huge spurts of blood. She is gushing like a fountain. So, I stab her again a few more times and the flow of blood slows to a trickle and then a slow ooze. But oh, how good I feel, how completely in control at last. ‘That will teach you a lesson you little minx’, I think, ‘You won’t be teasing another man like that for a while, will you? In fact, you won’t be teasing anyone ever again.’
Okay, so now I had to get rid of the body. But a second-hand rug and a tarpaulin and she is stuffed at three in the morning into the boot of my car, then down to the coast and off the end of the pier. And no-one ever suspected me. It had been a blind date, she hadn’t told any of her friends. It was a couple of weeks before her body was washed up. Another unsolved murder I am afraid.
An amazing experience – to have killed someone, to have felt the life seep out of them. And best of all to have gotten away with it. It felt like a drug, and I must admit I had dabbled with those too in my dubious past. And just like drugs it is so amazing you want to try it – again and again.
As I said at the beginning all stories are true – it is just that some haven’t actually happened. I should have completed the sentence though. All stories are true – it is just that some simply haven’t actually happened…. yet.