15. Drinks With A Corpse
Drinks With A Corpse
I adjust my aching cock in my pants, my palm making waves of pleasure and need spiral through me.
It would be nothing, probably feel fucking divine to palm the shaft, to fuck into my hand as I watched her clumsily don her paint-stained jeans, her ass bouncing as she works them up her soft thighs.
I can still feel my lips on her there, the small of her back.
The smell of her shampoo and whatever lotion she’s using these days.
My teeth dig into my lip, fighting to keep a groan at bay as I jerk my hand off my cock.
Even that feels like a betrayal of her now.
Now that I’m home, slowly putting the pieces of our lives back together from the shadows.
She hasn’t stopped by after my gift, hasn’t reached out to say thank you. Not yet. Silly puppet, where in the world have your manners gone?
I never gave a damn about the clock, but from the very first time she saw it, she was mesmerized.
She’d even prepared an entire lecture for my mom and dad one day.
Which had consisted mostly of well-busted mermaids could be offensive to the clients there to grieve.
It seemed improper; that was the word she used.
Improper to display graphic nudity at a place of solace and grief.
She was ten.
My dad had laughed until he was red in the face and reassured her that the moment someone complained about the mantle clock, it would be turned over to her for safekeeping.
My mother had just sat beside him, looking somewhere between horrified and amused.
I’d fought back my own smirk until I watched the wind leave her sails, watched her laugh with them, but not a real one, a deflated, I’m giving up now laugh.
She’d really wanted the clock. One that had sat in that very place since my great-grandfather had built the place.
I’d stopped finding it funny then.
I’d considered ripping the stupid clock off the mantel and handing it over.
But she’d just hand it right back.
My girl was sweet like that.
So, I decided I’d smash it instead. If she couldn’t have it and wouldn’t just take the damn thing well, they didn’t need it either.
I told her as much later that day as we snacked on kettle corn in the field alongside the Fall Festival.
She’d smacked me and told me that was immature, that we were nearly adults now, and I needed to act like one.
We played with her Krissy doll later that day, pretending Krissy had fallen from the big tree in the grove, and I had to rush to give her medical attention. I’d thought the irony of that was amusing but didn’t dare say that out loud. Audrey was perfect the way she was.
I didn’t want her to change a thing.
That’s why I’m here, in the woods, watching her flick through piles of junk mail and bills to find her keys.
If I don’t think too hard, it’s like it was before.
Like nothing truly changed. She bounds down the steps, her blonde hair braided down her back as she all but slams herself into her dad’s old truck.
The bumper I remember now is dented and rusting.
Like in her world, too, the moment we were apart, the entire world started to decay.
My pager beeps, making me jerk it out quickly, silencing the message.
346
037*1776127117
My jaw clenches as I pocket the device again, watching my Audrey as she hops out of the cab and runs along the back to snag something out of the bed.
Detective Martin Altman has been to the office to see me eight times this week alone.
I roll over every detail in my head of my last report, my last autopsy of a suspected Marionettist victim.
My victim.
It’s airtight.
Ironclad.
But he keeps calling.
I should head to the house and call him back to see if there’s an issue—
The sound of the hood of the truck slamming shut jerks me from my thoughts, watching her ass press against her jeans as she tosses the now-empty water jug back into the bed before climbing inside.
This time, when she wrenches the key in the ignition, it roars to life like a wounded beast, a plume of jet-black smoke sputtering from underneath the hood.
Audrey pulls out of her driveway, taking every want I have in the entire world with her.
My jaw ticks as I stroll from the wood line onto the weathered front porch, the old swing swaying in the light breeze.
Irritation floods me when I reach out to find her door already unlocked.
“That’s not very smart of you, puppet. What if a maniac let himself in while you were away?
” I ask the house. “Could you defend yourself? Could you fight him off? Even yell for help?” I huff.
“No, of course not.” I sift through the mail, mostly bills marked overdue and urgent.
“But those things don’t matter anymore. You have me again. ”
I’ll take care of everything.
Just like I had for years.
The house seems paler than I remember, messy and worn but not dirty.
Like she’s almost given up on trying to keep the joy alive in it.
My eyes catch the badge in the shadowbox, and the clock next to it.
I should’ve been there for her. Should’ve been the one to hold her while she cried.
To paint Maynard Fisher and make him perfect for her, to help prepare him for her last goodbye.
Did they dress him in his uniform?
Or that frayed, piss-colored sweatshirt he wore one too many days in a row from the time I first met him to the time we left?
Did they bother to clean the dirt from under his nails? Set his features in his natural frown, or did they try to make the stern man look more pleasant than he was?
My hands fist as I turn away, off to find Krissy.
A loud, sloppy knock rings through the house. I twist, my head tilting as I regard the door, the column windows beside it. A worn letterman jacket sways on the front porch before the doorbell rings. He mashes his finger into it so many times that one ring is indistinguishable from the next.
“Open the door, Audrey! You gonna break things off with me through my sister?! Come on, that’s low even for you!”
I smirk, letting him bang a moment longer, the paintings on the neighboring walls rattling.
How many times have you banged on her door like this, Bryan Jordan? How many times have you bullied and berated my girl into answering?
How many times have you touched her?
Fucked her?
Had her when she belongs to me.
How many times were you too fucking rough? Did you ever manage to get her off? I can’t decide which version of that scenario is more offensive to me. The buzzing in my mind blots out everything else, and before I know it, I’m swinging the door open with a stiff smile on my face.
He rears back, already unsteady on his feet. Still drunk from the night before or just getting started? “Who the fuck are you?” His eyes dart behind me, looking for her.
For my puppet.
She’s not yours.
Never was.
Stop fucking looking for her.
I offer my hand to the corpse. “Dr. Gideon Bell.”
“Doctor,” he whistles, not offering me his hand in return, just regarding mine like it’s offensive to him, before I let it drop.
“Oh, hey, I fucking remember you. You’re that fucked-up kid she was all torn up about when we moved to town.
Oh shit, yeah, Bell Boy, they called you. Why are you here? The fuck is Audrey?”
“You just missed her, unfortunately. She was running late this morning.”
His dark brown eyes turn on mine as he steps back, his drunk mind sluggish to keep up as I adjust my glasses.
“Why you in my girl’s house, doc? We going to have a problem?”
We? Oh no, you… you are the one with the problem.
I just smile. “I was dropping off a gift on her way out. A memory from the funeral home before I close it down.”
I am doing no such thing.
“Ah, aren’t staying around then?”
“No, far more interesting things to see where I live,” I offer, watching as he slowly relaxes, slowly decides I’m not a threat.
He’s right to. I’m not a threat. I’m a promise. I am fucking inevitable.
And Audrey is mine.
“You're from a big city then?” he asks, barely registering it when I walk out of her home, closing the door behind me, herding him toward the porch steps.
“Piedmont, up in Washington State.”
“Oof, big, big city then.” He laughs, spitting as he does. “Bet the nightlife there is wild.”
I wouldn’t know.
“Care for a drink?” I ask, heading off the porch. It’s barely nine in the morning.
He lets loose an ever more boisterous laugh, swiveling to follow me. “Maybe you aren’t so bad, doc.”
I don’t respond, the buzzing in my head drowning out his drunken rambling as I lead him across the road into my home.