Blood Will Have Blood
By David Gamble
At the height of the steep incline, his feet, slipping in six inches of muck, shot out from under him. As he rolled down the hill, he resolved not to run away from his home, but to go home and make up. His flight was escape, mad escape from overwhelming guilt; he had to get out, somewhere anywhere, even into the frigid downpour of this April night.
Although this fight had been one of the worst, he knew he was tied to her with red hot iron fetters. Sometimes he hated her; sometimes he supposed, she him. “But, god damn it,” he blubbered into the surrounding mud, “It’s my hell, it’s all I have.”
In his fit, he had run in the torrents at midnight. He picked himself up—wet, soaked, caked with clay so deeply he could taste it. His face was scraped. With teeth chattering, he lugged his aching body up the steep, slimy slope, slipping and sliding, like Sisyphus nearing the summit. Winded and bruised at the crest, he began to retrace his steps back through the cruel darkness towards the chalet.
Ten minutes in pelting rain; twenty minutes shivering against the cold slicing wet shards of the storm; thirty minutes limping to his back veranda. He pushed the door open, stepped through the frame and slammed the door against the angry blasts. He stood bathed in the weak, soft light of the fireplace wrapped in the embracing warmth of the room. Collapsing, he slumped into the nearest chair.
“Ah, Teddy-boy,” a raspy voice called from a bar stool, “I knew you would come back. You always do.” She threw her head back and laughed. “Look at you, the zombie from the swamp. And ruining that Barcelona I just had recovered.” Alice stood. A bolt of lightning flashed over the lake—her trim, willowy frame was instantly silhouetted by the picture window overlooking Lake Serenity. As darkness reclaimed the room, she sucked on a cigarette, the glow suspended in mid-air. She strode to the doorway.
He heard a click and the track lights blared. Momentarily, he took in the room that he had paid for—the low slung mid-century sofa set, originals; the Prairie School dining room of Arts and Crafts, classic modern blended with turn-of-the-century; the carved mahogany bookcase nurturing his collection of a collector’s leather-bound Shakespeare; the marble-topped credenza, and David Hockney’s landscape gracing the Deco fireplace, gaining value every year. This was his hell.
She stepped in front of his soggy, reclined body, reached over, stroked his thick greying mass of curls that touched his shoulders, and eased his face toward her.
“And you want to give all this up. You silly, silly, little boy. Fooooool.” Alice laughed softly.
“Yes.”
“You, at thirty thousand a month and rising? What then?” A gentle waft of her, or rather his, Jean Patou scent surrounded him. He pulled away.
He muttered through rattling teeth. “Take it all.”
“I will,” she retorted as she stood back. “It was always ‘thee-aw-tah’ for you, dahhling. Always quoting Shakespeare, ‘Had I but followed the arts!’” Her laughter was shrill. “Theatre by night; barista by day. We’re better than that.”
He muttered into his filthy shirt sleeve, “I am in blood stepp’d in so far….”
“And really, Teddy-boy, after I’ve invested my best years in you…us?” She crossed her arms in front of her as his mother had when scolding. “I had to push you and push you. I’m not giving it up now.”
“I am.”
“Oh, Gaawwd! Again and again. When was the last round? Two weeks ago?”
“I can’t do it anymore, Alice.” He sat forward, face in his hands. “I can’t do deals for the arms trade. It’s ugly, it’s Yemen, it’s ISIS, it’s blood money, all of it.”
Her baby voice mocked, “And for those big, bad, nasty parasitical sheiks.” Her voice softened, “If you didn’t do it, someone else would.”
He spoke through his hands to the floor, slowly. “I saw them all day in conference.” He hauled his muddy body from the chair and stood motionless. “The board room was dark. A projector was beaming its polished gibberish to an arrogant executive, all done up in the best suits and Armani shirts—their protection against conscience—smiling at the graphs and their 56% profits from last year with stocks going off the charts now that more troops are going to Iraq and Afghanistan.” He clomped two steps forward from his chair forcing her back. “And they had the nerve to tell us what fine citizens we are fighting for that shit-ass thing they think is freedom and democracy on the end of a bomb.” Hands reaching to the ceiling, he let out a scream. “Shiiiit! And we are so fucking pleased with ourselves.” His sweeping arm circled the room until his hand pointed at her. “And we are so proud of this. Can’t—you—under—stand?”
She stepped into his space, gently pushing his arm down.
“Aw, sweetheart, every time you fret, pet, you get upset.” She giggled as he inched back. “Oops, I rhymed. And then you run away in a mad passion in shmerz, guilt, mea culpa. Ah, baby, and you come back in an hour. I can set my watch to it. It’s your ritual. It’s how we live.”
Ted felt heat rising from his throat to his face. “Live? I’m a slug chewing up life on this planet, in this garden paradise. Sliding in my ooze, gobbling and destroying every leaf and blade it can find leaving a trail of shit dribbling from my asshole.” His voice lowered as his face approached hers. “I hate slugs. Nasty, lazy, eating all my plants. Now they’re back and they have armour too. With designer labels.”
Alice shook her head as a smooth wave of blond hair cascaded down her back, “Tsk, tsk.” She flicked her cigarette into the fireplace, stepped face-to-face to Ted and with her right hand behind his neck drew his stubbled face to hers and cooed, “Teddy, please, let’s just be happy. Please, darling. Anything you want. With me. Stop this Captain Granola stuff. It’s for kids.”
With that, she undid three buttons on his shirt, slid her hand across his hard pectoral and pinched his right protruding nipple. She squeezed, and adjusting her nails, pinched and pinched and pinched harder.
His penis stirred. Silence. His head fell back and he sucked in a lung full of air.
She crooned as her pelvis met his. “Come now. Let’s see if our Teddy-man is all grown up and past his little temper.” Her breath warmed his throat and she raised her thigh gently into his crotch. “Direct line to your cock, isn’t it? The tit-clamps are in the bedroom,” she said as her tongue slid up his neck.
He pulled back and leered at her. He stared at her, hard. His teeth bared. At that moment, she became a joke, a bad one. A very bad one. A siren with cigarette breath, a whiskey voice and tit-clamps as toys. He had become swine; his head was on a platter. He could neither laugh nor cry. The dead silence was electrified by a lightning flash.
In the roar of thunder, he reached forward and wrapped his muscled left hand around her neck and squeezed.
“Out, damned spot!” His saliva spat upon her. He squeezed tighter, and as her phlegm gurgled, he squeezed harder.
She stood transfixed by his face and, as her eyes bulged in their sockets, her own fear. She gasped, “Awk, awk,” but her lungs did not fill.
In a deft move, she stretched out her right hand. Terror written on her face, she reached to the side table and grabbed a metal object. She plunged the scissors into his left thigh.
The impact stopped them. They froze, their opposing eyes burning into each other’s pupils. He knew hate when he saw it. Squeezing harder as she gurgled in the choke, he ripped the scissors from her hand and his thigh with his right. He squeezed harder, his muscles taut and powerful.
Then he struck. The scissors didn’t penetrate at first but stopped at the surface of her chest. He flexed his tricep and the points entered, suddenly pushing past her cotton Prada top and past the obstructing rib to the softer organ beneath.
“Gaaa!” Her voice passed his grip as he loosened. Before she fell, he struck again. Finding little resistance, the scissors pushed up to the handle. Blood spurted onto his bare chest and face. It spewed from the wound and her throat. Thud, her body crumpled as he dropped her.
As he stood over her dying body, the crimson dripped from the weapon and his hand. Almost imperceptibly, a red wave spread from her gaping mouth and the hole in her chest over the dark blue and burgundy hues of the plush mat of his Afghan carpet.
Lightning streaked from the lake, as a spotlight on him. A voice from somewhere dark sounded through his throat, “As flies are to wanton boys, are we to the gods. They kill us for their sport.”