A personal note from Carl: "I wrote this story as a catharsis about some painful experiences in my life. I know I can never carry out what this character did, but goodness knows, I can try to contemplate why someone would do something like this. Rereading this story, I was struck by how logical his actions seemed in context of his psychosis and paranoia. Perhaps in some alternate reality, this happened at my hands. I doubt it, because I recognize the basic humanity of everyone, even those who get added to my shit list. But I also know that simple concept is not easily grasped by everyone on this planet. Just ask Mark David Chapman."
*kkkkkkkkrrrrrraaaaaaaaPFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF* The flaring of the match died down as he lifted it to light the Camel filter clenched between his lips. The flickering light revealed deep dark eyes that in his rage had turned a steel blue. He was dressed, head to toe, in black: wide-brimmed Stetson, floor length denim overcoat, black turtleneck, black gloves, black leather jeans, and black Nu buck boots, waterproof and perfect for the cleansing ritual. In his car, there was a black duffel bag, a white shirt, white parka, white sneakers, and blue jeans, a nod to the fact that white jeans would have been out of fashion. He stood motionless in the park across the street from her house. The occasional splash of light from a street lamp or a passing car did not reach him. Most earthly things did not reach him by now. His eyes were focused on her door. Valentine's night. She would soon be going out with her boyfriend, John. The guy she dumped him for all those months ago. A chill shook him as he remembered the first time he'd heard about this new development in her life on his answering machine. "Hello. This is John, Lisa's new boyfriend..." The words echoed in his mind, even now, eight months later. The seed had developed into an embryo, and although premature, Valentine's Day was also Lisa's birthday and was the perfect time for birth and cleansing. He chuckled at the irony of a birth taking place in this relationship, as he considered how many times she had told him, "Honey...I'm late again," and how many times they had gone to get it taken care of for the small fee of $200 and a chunk of his soul. How much he wished he'd said no to her, before or after the conception. Like dark smoke from an oily fire, he drifted across the street in the chill night, slid through the door to the tall apartment building, and wafted up the seventeen flights of stairs to her apartment. She'd be getting ready to go out about now, putting on her meager makeup (she was beautiful), dressing in her tightest skirt, a drop of John's cum slipping down her leg, no doubt having just fucked him well. She was like that, she needed a good fuck when she was about to celebrate. He remembered from when they lived together. He slipped in the door, and congealed behind her. Grabbing her chin with his left hand, he yanked her head up. His right hand slid the filleting knife across her throat slowly and deeply, the tearing flesh sounding like Velcro opening under a mattress, severing her vocal cords so that she couldn't scream, killing her instantly. Blood spurted out in great gobs on the wall and floor, even the ceiling. Old Faithful, although "faithful" was a word you could never apply to Lisa... He snapped to attention as the apartment building buzzed to life. The elevator must have let a load of people off. He stamped the cigarette out, and scrutinized the people who strode into view. It was June when she told him goodbye. Not "goodbye" so much as she "needed space". She was engaged when they first met, then married, and in the course of their affair, she inched towards divorce through his inspirations and motivations. She moved out, he moved in, they lived happily ever after for a week or so. That was years ago, though, and the betrayal still stung him. He moved out, and inside of two years, whatever attempts they had made to reconcile had fallen through as of last June. He'd been stalking her, on and off, since that phone call from John. Curious the way life bookends itself. Her husband had been named John, was from Atlanta. Her new boyfriend was named John, and was from Virginia. He worked in some aerospace firm, from what he had been able to find out. At first, he'd just stood outside her office in Herald Square, trying to size up this intruder and what he meant to her, but John never showed up to pick her up after work. He recalled how, each and every day when they were dating, he'd pick Lisa up and either ride home with her, or walk her to the Port Authority. Sometimes, he'd even ride the bus and walk her within a block of her house, never daring to get closer because her husband was a failed musician with a (very) local following and a lot of time on his hands, which usually meant sitting in the house, drinking beer, or going to the topless bar down the street. He never forgot the night they spent together in her bed, and how uncomfortable he felt...that is, until his cock was buried deep inside her cunt. She even made him take the sheet back with him, so that John wouldn't smell their cum. He dumped them in a garbage can by his wife's house. One day in August, she sped out of the office building, and quickly scanned bustling Broadway, turned, and then snapped her head back in his direction. Subliminally, she must have seen him, but he was pressed back into the shadows, and she seemed not to notice him beyond that. He followed her to the PATH station, a few blocks away, where she got on the train for Hoboken. Still no boyfriend. There were other harassments as well. He'd call her and hang up, or he'd speak to John as a "representative of New Jersey Bell, with an incredible offer to lay a second cable for free". And every single magazine he read, he clipped those "free subscription" come ons, and mailed them in with her name and address, variously distorted, like "Lisa DeWhore". Then one day, in October, he'd followed her into the subway, and got on the train himself, to make sure she lived where she had lived ever since he moved out of their apartment. He had to be very slick, and the act of tracking her gave him an unremitting hard-on that, once she stepped into her building, he ran to relieve in the parking garage. The smell of the hunt, the scent of blood, was firmly established now, and he'd never turn back. He thought about her small studio apartment, how they used to screw on the floor and her sofa bed and the kitchen counters. He remembered one time when they left the door of the apartment wide open, on purpose, and he was certain they had been seen banging away, he buried to the hilt in her ass. "I was the best she'll ever have," he muttered as his breath blew cold in front of him, the night slipping slowly towards the morning. And he meant that literally. Another flurry of activity announced the arrival of yet another elevator. He'd hope she wasn't going to visit her mother first, who lived in the adjacent building behind hers, and was accessible either through the basement or via the complex's swimming pool/promenade, six stories up. He'd thought about approaching there, and tossing her off, but he wasn't sure six floors would kill her. Her banshee wail pierced his eardrums as she plummeted to the ground, her dress sheared off her from the velocity of the wind as the ground rushed up to meet her, her pretty panties exploded apart as she impacted, her cunt splayed across the pavement in a final, ultimate orgasm. Oh yes, he'd brought her to many of those, and she to him, and it always seemed the best ones happened in public, on parked cars, in dark playgrounds, by the pool in broad daylight with preschoolers toddling past. He grabbed his crotch and tugged the head of his dick. He was feeling the tingle of his first cumming when he spotted her: red spandex and cotton dress, tight to her body, displayed under the blue overcoat she seemed to always wear. Black stockings...he could imagine the teal and black garter belt she must be wearing, with matching bra and panties, from Victoria Secrets that he had given her after they first consummated their affair. It was May of the year they met, and he rented a hotel room on 36th Street at the Collingwood, a cheap hotel where the city housed the stray homeless person and welfare case amid the runaways and tourists suckered in by promises of "midtown location at reasonable prices". They met on the street down the block from her office. Lisa wore cheap sunglasses and a checked shirt and chino skirt. They stepped off the elevator on the 23rd Floor, and crept down the corridor to the room, both with something to hide, knowing what was coming. They sat on the bed for what seemed like hours, before he leaned in and kissed her. All he remembered of this encounter were the cheap paper (paper?) panties she wore, and how wet she was when he penetrated her, how it made him melt and stiffen all at the same time. And how much in love he was. Lisa got back to work on time, he a few minutes late. They met later that afternoon, and it was as if nothing had happened at lunch. They were comfortable with what they had done. He bought her the garter set that weekend. She grinned over her shoulder at the slender man walking behind her. He presumed this was John, since John had kept a regular contact with him through various channels, such as calling him at work and so on, trying to intimidate him in his search for redemption and cleansing. He'd argue with him, from time to time, but mostly he'd remain quiet and then hang up after a minute or so. It was his way of gauging if John was still involved with Lisa, by the degree of anger in his voice, or if they, too, had parted ways and were playing out the string. He had played the answering machine tape to Lisa on the phone that following Monday at work, four or five times, first thing in the morning, immediately again after that, an hour later (he had to disguise his voice to get through the receptionist), just after lunch when she was working the reception desk, and again just before she'd be relieved to go back to her own work. He called the machine at her home, judging that John worked into the night at his job, and left copies there a few times. Each time she heard it, she shrieked in agony and panic, her secret was out and not only that, he wasn't taking it well. She had lied to him about her involvement with "someone else". She swore she was only with him, not screwing another, but that was a lie, and he'd known about it since January of the previous year. He'd seen it in her eyes. Why would she risk his life like that? He'd repeat to himself, over and over, AIDS, AIDS, AIDS, until it was his mantra. He'd wondered, if he'd been infected, if he had given it to his other girlfriends. Or his wife. No, scratch that. He hadn't been intimate with Eileen since their daughter was conceived, and that was the year he and Lisa met, three years earlier. Still, they shared a bed, and who knew how diseases were transmitted? John tugged his coat on, and they turned sharply down the block, and then turned the corner on River Road, heading towards the PATH station. He waited three beats, and started off after them, taking great pains to walk under the dark street lamp s he had broken late the night before with a slingshot. Still, he crouched every so often, more to move the massive erection he had than to hide. By now, he knew this was the night, and he didn't care if he was seen early. He walked slowly, deliberately, and with his gait and in his costume, he looked like nothing but an Old West undertaker. They strolled hand in hand, kissing every few yards. He spied her wedding band on her hand, and wondered if she would ever get divorced. He'd met her husband, John, several times. Mostly, John wanted to kill him, but they also respected each other. Lisa's affair gave John's straying validation, and John made Lisa a safe lover, since she wasn't going to press him to move out unless she was kicked out by John. Which was exactly what happened. She cried for months, begging him to move in with her. John had once told him that, if they'd met under better circumstances, they'd probably end up friends. He agreed. Maybe in Hell. Lisa, even after years of separation from John I, had never bothered to file papers, even though she been served twice by John's attorney. The memories rushed back now. Lisa leaving the apartment to "go get cigarettes". He followed her. She going to a pay phone. He rushed back home to get there before she did. He asked where the cigarettes were. She saying she ran into her sister. He smacked her against the wall. She, in hysterics, admitting that she "cared" for her husband and called to make sure John was OK. He found the agreement John forced her to sign, turning over her paycheck to him in total, while he and Lisa were forced to sleep on the floor, eating Minute Rice for dinner, and a six pack of beer to wash it down, on his paycheck, which he was paying Eileen child support out of as well. The drive down the night John called her at work saying he was going to kill himself. The motorcycle in the driveway. Her sister's silhouette in his window, naked, her full tits bouncing up and down. And still, she kept giving John her money. He moved out right after that. He knew he had been screwed, in more ways than one. Lisa came to his office the following week, after she settled into her mother's apartment temporarily, and refused to leave until he looked her in the eye and said he didn't want her anymore. He did, she left, but came back a week later, waiting outside his building, looking drawn and pale, her olive complexion looking more like drab khaki. She asked for a minute with him. He relented. She apologized, and said she would do anything to get him back, to get back what they had. "I told her 'no way', but did she ever listen to me? Did she ever give a shit about anyone but herself?", he spat out in a whisper. He watched as they leaned against a wall, John's hands on her waist, his hips grinding against her. He gave her a set of conditions that he would come back on. Among them, she had to pay back half the rent that he had shelled out, and that seemed fair to him, would help him feel whole again. Also, she had to file for divorce. And, she had to allow him time to get himself back together again, and it would be on his timetable. She asked him how long. He said, "A couple of years, no more than four." Lisa balked, but ultimately agreed. He felt loved again. Three years later, he's watching a porn movie starring her and her new boyfriend on River Street in Hoboken, NJ. He knew the terms were unreasonable, he was shocked when she said yes to them, and he held them over her head constantly. He fumed, picked up a pebble from the ground, and fired it at the car behind them, then ducked low. He could her Lisa gasp, and frantic mumbling. She must have sensed he was near. He must have put quite a scare into her. They smoothed their clothes, and then scurried along. He smiled bleakly, as he had managed to maintain the sanctity of *their* public fucking place. He saved it from desecration. He would make sure to piss on the wall there after the Cleansing. His turf. His territory. Two blocks down, they stopped into the bar across from the train station. It had been through various owners, and was currently a Tex-Mex place, rumored to be owned by Tom Cruise. Why Cruise would want to own a bar in a town notorious for its sleaze (home to Frank Sinatra and various other corrupt folks) was beyond his ken, and he figured it was a flight of fancy on someone's part, an attempt to deny the naked truth of Hoboken: the place sucks and smells on a good day. He wandered over to the abandoned ferry station across from the bar, and took position in a nook he had found a few weeks earlier, when she had turned suddenly on her way home. He saw Sonja in the window. Lisa's mom looked as trashy as ever, her hair spike straight up, her fifty year old body sagging, her makeup plastered on with a trowel. He thought about how Lisa had arranged a meeting at this bar two nights before her wedding. It was, to be, their final night together, and she had kicked her mother out of the apartment for the night, on the pretext that she wanted to hold a bachelorette party. She, Sonja, and her sister Jaime would go out for drinks ahead of time, and then she'd go to the party. Lisa and he had arranged a scenario. He would pick her up in the bar as if they had never met before, and then offer to walk her home. He'd make a show of walking back past the bar, and then rush around the block to Hudson Street and then back to the house. It got hairy when Sonja started hitting on this superb looking Englishman named Gordon who had just come from inspecting the fencing school he owned around the corner, as well as when Jaime's hand "accidentally" stroked over his cock, but eventually they were able to extricate themselves, and Jaime took Sonja to her house to help babysit her kids, and wait for her husband to come back from John's bachelor party. They went back to her mom's, where she changed into a black wrap dress with black silk stockings, lacy black panties and bra, and they ended up sleeping in each other's arms the next morning, when Sonja came home. Sonja's marriage to Lisa's dad ended in the same fashion. He met someone else, and she caught them in bed one morning. She was remarkably restrained by this sight, given that fact. When Lisa returned from her honeymoon, he was waiting there outside her locked office. She opened up, then she opened up, and they picked up where they left off that night a few weeks before. John's arm cradled Lisa. Sonja grinned. He heard them laughing at him, mocking him. He snapped off the mirror of the car he had crouched behind to get a better view, and then crushed the glass. Breath tore through his lungs like a supersonic jet, and blood rushed to his ears, and his heart pounded like a bad garage band in a Jersey Shore bar that was covering their guitar mistakes. He narrowed his focus and wondered if he shouldn't put this off until he could get his gun permit. Of course, that wouldn't be the gun he'd use, but it would help alibi him if his gun wasn't the one that killed them both. He knew people who knew people, and the parties of the first part owed him favors from the old neighborhood.
No, the Cleansing had to be done this way. It was the only way.
He needed a drink. No, he didn't. He snuck across the street, and sidled up to the bar, whispering to the bartender to get him a Miller. He picked up the glass, only to feel hands grab his shoulders, and jerk him off the stool. He turned to come face to face with John. John's right hand was clenched in a fist, about to smash down on his face. He grabbed John by the throat with one hand, lifted him high in the air, and slammed him on the bar with a loud thump, where he took the stool and broke it over his throat. He took the two broken legs in his hands and stalked over to Lisa, kicked her behind her knees and rammed the splintered wood into her ass and cunt. He went back over to John, broke the Miller bottle over the bar and ground the neck into his eye and cut up his cock. Then he grabbed Lisa by the hair forced her to her knees, and made her look up at John as he stuck his dick in her mouth and slammed her face up and down against his pubes. There was movement at the table across the road. Sonja was slapping more makeup on her face, bright red lipstick. John stood up to get his coat, Lisa put hers on, Sonja dressed in a ski parka. He tugged his coat closer to himself, feeling the three knives he had sewn in the lining. John excused himself, and went down the stairs, probably to use the bathroom. He remembered that the bathroom was inevitably crowded, especially on festive nights like this. John would have to wait a good two or three minutes. He used to use the bathroom at the pizzeria next door. He was clever. Lisa and Sonja strolled out, and he could hear them talking, faintly, about him! Whispers in his ear..."Glad you are rid of him...would have killed you....he was a scum bag....what a jerk....tried to kill the cat....had a big cock, was only good for stud service...never really felt much for him...wish I had fucked him before you two were through" He raged, and in his rage, he saw the Devil before him...the Devil was Jim Morrison, and this Devil was mocking him for not using his talents, wasting them...he turned into a lizard, sucked his dick and disappeared. He ignored the sticky spot on his jeans, slid his hand out and zipped up. Sonja had walked away. Lisa was alone! He crept across the street slowly, deliberately, keeping one eye on the stairway, visible through the picture window, the other on Lisa's shoulder, turned away from him now. When he approached her, he leaped across the sidewalk, and brought her down, teeth in her neck, arms pinned behind her back. He tasted blood. That had never happened before in his fantasies. He saw it, could smell it and feel it, but never tasted it. He shivered from the heat, and then swallowed hard. He acted quickly, dragging her dazed body into the doorway that loomed over them. He turned her around, punched her in both eyes time and time again, and tore her slinky, sexy dress off her. Red. Spandex. Cotton. His mind drifted back to the last time they had fucked. It was shortly after she started pulling away from him for good, but before she had ended it. They had been sunning themselves on her deck. She was wearing a floral print swimsuit, and one of his old red T-shirts as a coverup. they went back to her apartment, where he grabbed her and ripped her bikini bottom off. She knelt on all fours, and he slipped his cock in, pumping in the loving fashion that she had gotten off on, time and time again. With a moan, he came, hard and deep, turned on by her tan lines, the first of that summer for her. As he came, he twisted the bottom of the t-shirt around and around his fist, and yanked her tightly against him. She scurried into the bathroom as soon as he came, and he could hear the bath running. She came out a few minutes later, and said "I thought you promised to never do that again?" He had cum in her, unprotected. She had had her third (maybe it was her fourth) abortion that March, and they had agreed to use protection, or he'd pull out and she'd suck him or jerk him the rest of the way off. In his heart, he knew it was the last time they'd fuck, although there was one more time when they went out to dinner and she had had her period and thought she wouldn't possibly get turned on enough, what with cramps and all. It took ten minutes to wipe her floor clean of the blood. He stared at her gorgeous slender body, and for a moment, his eyes seemed to soften to a sapphire's hue, glistening with a tear. So much pain. He had to quit his job two months before, since following her and finding out all he could had become a full time obsession and he was ignoring his work. He would have been fired shortly, anyway. They caught him jerking off in his office. He lifted her off the ground, her shaved pussy spread wide apart, thumbed aside her black silk panties, and he penetrated her just as he came again, barely entering her before he shook with an orgasm. She moaned, and tried to blink the blood and swelling out of her eyes, wiping at them, now clawing at them, panicking, gasping to let out a scream. He muffled her mouth with his hand, and whispered in a gravely voice he hoped she hadn't heard from him before, "I don't want to hurt you, I only want to cleanse you." Her body stiffened, and then she began to fight vigorously, clawing, scratching, biting, kicking....but he was impervious to pain. Most earthly things could not touch him anymore. He impaled her against the wall, and reached for a knife and cut her wrist. John opened the door. When the bodies were found the next morning, John had been carved with the words "The South Shall Rise Again" down his back and legs. He was nestled in between Lisa's bare legs, which had the word "Betrayal" and "Friend" scraped into them, semen and blood caked on his ass, his vocal cords ripped from his Adam's Apple and a cassette tape jammed in his throat. Wrapped around her throat was a teal and black garter and black silk stockings, twisted tightly and then knotted. Lisa's arteries in her arms and legs were sliced open as was her carotid, and her body was drained of blood. The coroner's report stated that the blood collected at the crime scene was not sufficient to account for the normal amounts in a human. The presence of Nu buck boot shoe prints and leather scrapings under the fingernails suggest that the clothing of the attacker would have soaked up some, but not all, of the remaining blood. He was dressed all in white, they say, and his hair matted but clean, as if he had bathed in glue, when he crossed the border into Alberta, Canada. CARL SALONEN,When you are walking the streets of New York late at night, or in the daytime, be nice to the man who is in the long denim overcoat tipping his hat to you. It might be your own reflection you are seeing. Check out his personal homepage at http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/de_Valois 
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