CHAPTER 5
“Nothing beats a first kill.”
Wes just blinks. So I blink. We blink, and then his lips pull down into the smallest of frowns.
“Maybe that’s just a general female fear,” I say.
He leans back from the table, his brow furrowing, and I feel like this is a good time to explain that in my household—one where Laurie and I have had to find a middle ground between our two divisive interests (aka true crime documentaries)—murder is spoken about in the same way one might discuss what should go on a grocery list.
“Sorry… Um, I watch a lot of horror movies and listen to a lot of true crime podcasts, so when someone says, ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’ ‘Murder!’ is just my knee-jerk reaction.”
He doesn’t respond.
I probably shouldn’t have performed jazz hands on the word “murder,” but here we are. There is a chance he missed it, though, because his eyes are fixed on a spot on the table, that somber expression firmly back on his face.
That should be my sign to change the topic to future travel plans, favorite foods, preferred sex positions, but does that stop me from going further down the murder spiral?
Not a chance.
“I mean, I don’t know if there’s a speed date killer out there.”
Wes’s eyes flick up to mine, the formerly soft brown depths hard and unreadable.
“But, you know, Dahmer picked up most of his victims on the club scene.”
What the fuck am I saying?
“Rodney Alcala was on a dating show while he was active. How many people have died because of Tinder?”
Whatever warm, shimmery connection I thought we had is thoroughly unraveling with every word that comes out of my mouth.
Still, some dumb part of me thinks that I can save this by finishing with “I guess—what I mean is… dating is a dangerous pastime.”
Wes stares at me, his jaw tense, as the silence drags like a body being carted down a hallway by a hulking teen murderer. When the bell dings, signaling the end of our allotted ten minutes and the start of the fifteen-minute break, he can’t get out of his chair fast enough.
“It was nice getting to know you, Jamie,” he mutters, rising slowly from his seat like he’s actively trying not to bolt out of it.
“Yep!” I say too loudly, too high-pitched, audibly pathetic. “You, too.”
He gives me one more wary look and then he’s gone, striding out of the room like he’s never going to come back.
Laurie glances across at me and, seeing whatever expression is on my face, winces.
One minute of word vomit and I’ve butchered any chance of introducing this smoking-hot man to a Poltergeist/Ghost double feature.
If someone could walk over right now and put me out of my misery, that would be fantastic. Bring on the machete, the butcher’s knife, the claw glove. ’Cause there’s no coming back from that.
I use the break to regroup with Laurie, bypassing the bathroom so I can tell her about the heinous end to my date with Wes.
My account garners a deeper wince and some targeted flirting on her part with the hot-nerd bartender that results in an even heavier pour of vodka into our espresso martinis.
It’s a consolation in the loosest sense, one that loses its effectiveness when the break is almost over and Wes returns to the bar.
I try to direct an apologetic look in his direction as he makes his way to Laurie’s table, but he averts his gaze from mine.
Like I’m the psychotic woman who casually brings up murder with people she’s just met. Which, oh yeah, I am.
The glimmer of hope with John and his cute eye crinkle and floppy hair seems like it’s flickered out, too.
While he managed to give me a shy smile during the break, I can’t help but notice that his first date in the second half of the evening seems to go really well.
He has his attention squarely on Jennifer with the gorgeous blowout, his head ducked and that same soft, close-mouthed smile gracing his face while they chat.
Not to mention she keeps tracing her fingers across her collarbone.
A classic, practiced move that certainly achieves better results than word vomiting intimate details about some of the most fucked-up serial killers in history.
So when John moves on from their date and isn’t shooting me looks anymore, I’m not even mad.
Still, my heart just isn’t in it after the break, and that means my sixth, seventh, and eighth dates kind of blur together while I’m feeling sorry for myself.
When the bell rings and the men move on to their second-to-last dates—Wes avoiding my eye and John walking across the room to go sit with the woman with the resting bitch face without giving me a second glance—I don’t expect the night to improve.
And if there’s one person in the room who can meet that expectation, it’s date number nine. Curtis.
Because Curtis is a massive dick.
I’d even go so far as to say Curtis falls into a specific category of men who only appeal to a very small group of women who haven’t discovered therapy, the concept of gender equality, and are color-blind in a way that prevents them from seeing glaring red flags.
He’d be perfect for that kind of girl.
In the first five minutes of the date we cover names, what we’re drinking, and how his dates have been so far. Apparently, a lot of the women are bitches.
After those thrilling topics, the conversation lulls and I’m back to playing with the stem of my glass as he downs the rest of his drink.
“That’s a nice dress,” Curtis remarks when his vodka Red Bull (Yes… a vodka Red Bull) is nothing but yellow-tinted ice.
“Thank you?” I brace myself for what’s about to come next, because I know there’s more to come. His tongue is posed against his top teeth, his eyes narrowed appraisingly, and I just hope he’s not going to be so inanely predictable and say—
“It’d look better on my floor.”
Ugh.
You know what’s already on the floor? The fucking bar. It’s been set so low and yet this guy is struggling to jump over it and conduct a conversation that doesn’t make me feel like I need a shower.
“Sheesh, really, Curtis? That’s how we talk to women on this side of the millennium?”
I try to say it in a joking way. That’s how we’re conditioned to respond to men like Curtis. Keep it light, keep it playful. Because men like him are full of hot air and sometimes they blow up in your face and you get burned.
“I’m giving you a compliment,” he replies, and I can’t help but roll my eyes.
I don’t even try to hide it. Kate Winslet did not put in the hard work so women like me could smile and nod.
Maybe I hold myself to a higher standard than ol’ Curtis, but I just expect more from a date than what is currently manspread in front of me.
“The rapey undertone kind of counteracts the intent.”
He scoffs, but he’s jacked up on taurine and the false impression he is a ten among a room of twos.
“A guy can’t even give a girl a fucking compliment these days,” he huffs, shaking his head as he leans back in his chair.
Even though I’m a card-carrying rule follower, and we’re supposed to keep our dates “light and polite,” something inside me just snaps.
I’m not one to choose violence, but being a woman in academia and tutoring first-year film students—the kind who think identifying a Dutch angle in a Michael Bay film makes them incapable of receiving anything other than full marks—hasn’t exactly made me shy away from confrontation, either.
Maybe it’s because we’re almost two hours into this event and somebody should’ve put this guy in his place already.
Or maybe it’s because the way Wes left my table was a little bit more of a stab to my ego than I’d like.
But if Curtis is going to move on to Laurie and add me to the list of bitches of the night, I want to at least give him a strong argument for that case.
“Can I give you some advice, Curtis?”
“N—”
“If you find yourself in a situation where it seems like you are surrounded by an unusually high number of bitches, there’s a really good chance you are probably being an asshole.”
He looks like he wants to say something cutting in return, but I lean in, jump-cut quick, and he flinches in his seat instead.
The movement garners a few looks from neighboring tables.
Even John’s date—the same woman who may or may not have given me the stink eye—glances over his shoulder from where she sits near the entrance.
I shift my gaze back to Curtis, taking a page from her book and giving him a definitive stink eye.
“When a woman doesn’t appreciate your ‘compliment,’ ” I continue, “don’t blame her for your inability to read the room.” I make my voice softer, lighter, and enjoy his confusion at the contrast when I add, “Shut your fucking mouth and stop talking.”
He stares across at me, his mouth opening and closing around arguments he hasn’t formed yet as I lean back in my seat and revel in the satisfaction that comes from putting a man in his place.
I swear, I’m not usually this confrontational.
Not unless I’m calling Laurie a piece of shit, which is just one of our mutual terms of endearment.
But I do have a floral Take No Shit sticker on my laptop, and the two types of films I have decided to dedicate my life to feature women who go up against odds scarier than this two in a suit could ever hope to be.
I see the moment he figures out his rebuttal, but the soft tinkling of the bell cuts off whatever unwelcome comment his underdeveloped brain could create.
The other men around the room are already standing and moving on to their final dates as I direct an “eat shit” smile across the table.
Before I can verbalize that he should follow their lead and leave, the lights cut off.
The red velvet room is plunged into darkness.
“What the fu—” Curtis cries out among the confused rabble while I blink my eyes into adjusting to the pitch-black surrounding us.
There are sounds of movement, muttered apologies, glasses accidentally clinking, and then I catch the slick, wet sound of…
I don’t even know. I’ve never heard anything like it before.
A thick, bubbling noise takes its place, and the only thing I can liken that to is someone gargling mouthwash, but even that’s too far removed.
The lights come back on before I can think about it too much, and after a few seconds of blinding brightness, I catch Curtis’s wide-eyed gaze staring, unblinking, at me.
God, some guys need a map to know where to fuck off to. I nod in Laurie’s direction, trying to catch her eye to give her the universal facial expression for “this guy is a psycho” when he still doesn’t move.
“It was so nice mee—”
Color catches my eye. A scarlet line cutting across the thick, pale column of his neck.
At first I think he’s used the darkness to tie a scarf around his throat—which is puzzling all by itself—but then it grows.
It spreads. Dark red pouring down into the open collar of his shirt, the extra button he left undone even more obvious now.
My hand starts trembling around the stem of my martini glass before I can fully comprehend why his throat is slashed open in a wide curve, a crude imitation of the smirk that was cemented on his face for the entirety of our date.
He opens his mouth to say something, but nothing comes out except that gargling sound.
He can’t talk, and a weird part of my brain has the audacity to think at least some of what I said has had an impact.
But when he hiccups and blood starts flowing from his mouth, I scream.