SERIALLY INCLINED

Kevin Rault

Well, it’s Friday evening. No miracles this week, and the two tablets of cyanide sit eerily calm on my bedside table. I glance out the window of her one-bedroom apartment onto rain-glistened streets, watching cars plow through untainted turn lanes and fishtail into hazy oblivion. The floor vibrates under our feet as a subway train speeds through the bowels of the city. “I ask myself every day why I subject myself to your burdensome love, you absolute son of a bitch.” She turns to me from the bed and calmly raises her middle finger, playing with a switchblade in her other hand. The blade used to be a stainless silver, but now she’s carving words into her arm. “I ask myself the same thing, you insufferable whore.” Her expressionless face continues to stare at her oozing forearm. “So,” I try, “who’s going first?” She sighs, lowers the knife, and raises her apathetic eyes to meet mine. “Whoever feels like it.” I stare out the window again, intending to remove her psyche from mine and become one with the outside as she mopes on the crimson-stained bedsheets. Traffic moves the same, the bus stop in front of her place is desolate apart from a single woman holding a large coat tight to her body as unrelenting wind shreds the autumn air to pieces. She steps back and forth impatiently and fidgets with the edge of her collar; her hope in waiting in pummeling rain for a bus that may never come is oddly endearing to me. So I keep watching. The cars grumble on, splashing immeasurable amounts of water onto sidewalks. The entire city looks like a macabre, acid rain wave pool. Across the street, a man in a brilliantly colored smock exits a paint mixing warehouse, and trips over the curb. The ensuing splash jostles loose the two buckets he’s holding, their contents blooming into the grotesque offspring of mustard yellow and navy blue that flows quickly down the street and into the mouths of nearby sewer grates. I can’t help but laugh, hitting my forehead against the windowpane with each silent curse the dark green man lets off as he manages to retrieve the empty buckets and continue to his ride. “What can possibly be so funny?” Torn back to reality. She is glaring at me with a capsule in her palm. “Oh, nothing, you wouldn’t get it.”

20 Her face doesn’t falter an inch. “You’re probably right. Well, I guess I’ll be waiting for you. Down there.” She points impatiently to the ground, and I know where she means. I turn back to the window. The woman outside is unremarkable, yes, but something has changed. Her hand is up to her ear and a tiny glow emanates from the space in between. Another quaint feeling comes over me that maybe, just maybe, there’s another way out. I slowly crack the window a few inches, allowing the woman’s soft voice to flow into the cramped room. “...on my way home. The god damned bus is late again, and you know how long it takes anyway. I hate to say it, but can we rain check for another night? I was really hoping to see you.” I couldn’t hear it, but I knew what the man on the other end said back. Yeah, that’s okay, I understand. I really want to see you too, but maybe it’s best that we see each other on a brighter and warmer day. Pretty uncharacteristic to have this much drizzle in late September. “That’s very true. Let’s chalk it up to bad circumstances and see each other again, maybe tomorrow? I’m off work at seven and a coworker invited me to her place for a wine night, so if your evening is open...” The girl is dead and convulsing on the bed behind me. Now, you have to do it now. I mindlessly slide my phone out of my pocket and hold it up to my ear. “Actually, where are you right now?” I speak into the microphone as calmly and cooly as her real male counterpart. “I-I’m,” she stammered. The interruption was jarring, but effective. Hook. “It’s just that I made a great big dinner for the both of us that I’d rather not refrigerate if I don’t have to.” “Well, um, I’m at the bus stop on the corner Parkstone and 7th, right across from that express paint shop with the funny name.” “Every Brushstroke for Every Rushed Folk? That’s funny, that really is quite funny. I live at the Obelisk.” “Oh, the building right b-behind me?” She turns to look at the weary, malformed bricks that make up the second-rate complex. Line. “That’s right. The elevator man, Greg, real nice guy, he’ll let you right up to the fifth floor. I’m in 544, should be unlocked, you can let yourself right in. Just finishing up the saute.” I place the phone up against the dead girl’s mouth as it bubbles and foams. Sinker.

“Wow, uh, sounds amazing! You’re right, I’d hate to miss. I’ll be right up!” Quite an interesting turn this time, I muse as I grab my last pack of smokes and twirl one cig between my fingers. When you love your job, you’ll never work a day in your life. I pocket the bloodstained knife and the remaining cyanide tablet; I’ll have to order a second one again soon if my facade is to be kept up. Seduce, kill, frame, seduce again. The elevator doors creak open on the first floor and I head through the lobby to the bus stop, intent on hopping a few cities and names. Of course, the position of perpetual deceiver includes an eye-catching travel package. I exchange a curt smile with the woman in the long black coat through the revolving door, the shimmering glass ushering her into the dry and myself into the wet. I keep smiling as she crosses the lobby to ask Greg to take her to the fifth floor, where her new lover is making an extravagant dinner for two.