The apartment wasn't going to be easy to get into.
For hours, Denny had been watching the place, walking around outside, studying the heavily-draped windows and not failing to notice the shock alarms attached to each one. The door at the front and the one leading in from the balcony were both locked with massive dead-bolts, it wasn't going to be possible for him to get in either of those ways short of using major force and causing significant noise.
This, he told himself, wasn't working out very well. He'd come here assuming he'd be able to find a way in relatively easily; his target, whom he'd been told had been a high-priced call girl by profession, wasn't the sort he'd expect to be living in a place this well defended. She had, he had also been told, moved herself out of the Federal witness protection program; still, the defenses around the house might be a remnant of that. For this sort of thing he should have had a different sort of plan in place, some ruse to get him inside. But he did not, and the client, who was paying very well, was eager to get this one done with. He felt he should at least try. Perhaps, he thought, he could pose as a would-be customer--someone unaware she no longer worked at her old profession. He leaned against the railing in front of the door for a moment considering this. He'd been casing the place most of the day; she hadn't left and no one had come or gone, the doors had been closed the whole time. Lights being switched on after dark, the sounds of a TV playing, and a single shadow moving against the drapes suggested that she was there, and that she was alone. It was, he decided finally, worth a try.
Not knowing quite what to expect, Denny stepped up to the door and rang the bell. Almost immediately the dead-bolt was turned and the door swung open. An extremely beautiful dark-haired girl dressed in a short robe stood framed in the doorway. She gazed at him for a moment. Then, with an expressionless face, she nodded and pulled the door open wider. She turned away as he stepped inside; he closed the door and locked it himself.
"Are you alone?" he asked.
She didn't turn around. "Yes."
He frowned at her back. "Uh--Laura, isn't it? Laura Peterson? Do you know who I--I mean, what I'm here for?"
She turned back to face him. "Yes," she answered. "I am Laura Peterson. And yes, I've been expecting you. I know why you're here."
"You do?"
She gazed steadily at his face. "Yes. You've come to kill me."
He scowled at her. For a moment he considered trying to play the ruse about being a prospective john, but the look in her eyes suggested that was useless, she wasn't going to be buying. "Then why the hell did you let me in?" he demanded.
She smiled a little; a wooden expression without emotion behind it. "I'm tired," she told him. "I'm tired, tired of running from--well, from the people who hired you. It's been three years since I saw what was in those books, three long years. I haven't had a moment's peace since. I'm tired of running, tired of hiding, tired of looking over my shoulder, watching for someone like you." She shrugged and looked away. "I don't have a life, I really don't. I can't go out, I can't have friends, I can't get involved with anyone because I'm constantly being hunted and I know it. Mr. Simonetti may have been convicted and sent to prison, but the appeals go on and there's no end in sight to them. As long as they go on, there might be an order for a new trial. As long as a new trial is possible, I'm a danger to Mr. Simonetti. And so he keeps a contract out on me. You're here to finish that contract and I'm going to let you, because I'm sick of living like this." She threw him a quick glance. "Are you in a big hurry?" she asked. "To get this done, I mean?"
He scowled. This wasn't an ordinary sort of question in these circumstances. "Uh--I don't know--"
She smiled, a fragile and tenuous smile that did not last long. "I mean, would you like something to drink? First, that is."
He was confused, but he nodded. She walked to the kitchen, took a bottle of wine from the refrigerator, poured two glasses, and offered him one. He took hers; she laughed, and she gave it to him.
Back in the living room, they sat down on the couch. She sipped her wine. "Do you do this a lot?" she asked. "Hits, I mean?"
"Enough," he answered shortly. "Not many women, though."
"You like doing women?"
He threw her a suspicious glance, but then he shrugged. "I don't mind. Some guys don't want to do women. I'm not like that."
"No, I know--well, I know you must do women, otherwise they wouldn't have sent you after me! That's not what I asked. I asked if you liked it, if you liked killing women."
He hesitated for a long moment, then shrugged again. "Yeah," he admitted finally. "Yeah, I do. Especially pretty women. I never had one of those before."
"Am I pretty?"
"You know you are. You're a knockout."
"So I've been told," she murmured. Sitting her wine glass down, she got up and crossed the room. A soft thick mat was laid out on the floor, and there were a number of oversized pillows lying on it and around it. Saying nothing, she arranged the pillows carefully.
Then she turned to face Denny and stripped off her robe. Underneath, she was naked. Her body was very slender, her legs long, her breasts large but firm. She then retrieved her wine glass, sat down on the mat, and reclined on the pillows. "You like me this way?" she asked.
He couldn't help staring at her. But, after a moment, he grinned and shook his head. "Yeah," he answered. "Naturally. But that ain't gonna do no good, honey. I'm still gonna do the job I came here to do."
She looked confused for an instant. "Oh, no, I know that," she told him, shaking her head. "I'm sorry, I didn't think about that, about how you might take this. Look, I'm not trying to convince you not to. Even I were able to do that, someone else would come tomorrow, or the day after, or next week. I've come to terms with this. My life is over, and I expect it to end tonight."
"Then why this?"
"I thought it might be more fun for you if you kill me this way..." she replied. "While I'm naked, I mean. Is that right?"
"Yes..."
She smiled again and crooked a finger toward him. "Then come on. Let's have fun."
He came to her and crouched beside her. "You're a strange woman."
"Maybe." She looked down at her own body. "I decided a long time ago I wanted to be naked when I was being killed," she told him. "It makes me feel vulnerable, and I want to feel vulnerable right now." She looked back up at him and her eyes studied his. "How will you do it? Will you shoot me?"
"No." He drew out a knife and showed it to her; the blade was slim but long, and very shiny. "I'll use this." Reaching out, he tangled his fingers in her tousled dark hair, winding them around to get a good grip, and, turning her head so that she was facing him, pulled her head forward a little.
She didn't offer any resistance at all. She kept one hand on the floor, the other on her left knee, and she stared fixedly at the knife, her eyes growing huge. She licked her lips. "Could I see it?" she asked. "Touch it, maybe?"
He remained suspicious, but, though he gripped the hilt of the knife very tightly, he held it out to her. She studied it closely, gliding her fingertips over the cool metal, testing the edge and the point carefully. "It's very sharp..." she observed.
"Yes. I always keep it that way."
She kept staring at it. "That means it'll--go in--very easily."
He twisted his mouth. "Uh-huh."
"So. What were you planning to do with it?" she asked, looking up at him.
He grunted. "You know the answer. It isn't personal, it's my job."
"Yes--yes, I understand that. But--how? Exactly, how?"
He stopped, frowned, looked confused. "Well... I was going to, uh, uhm..."
"What?"
"You really want to know?"
"Yes. Yes, I do."
"Well, I was going to, uhm, cut your throat..."
"Now? Right now?"
"Well... I was planning to..." Becoming a little frustrated, he sputtered to a halt. He let go of her hair. "I mean, there's no sense in putting it off. I figured I'd make it as quick and easy as it can be, for you, I mean... well, I mean, I know it can be tough waiting, knowing it's going to happen and all, and there sure ain't nothin' in the contract that says you gotta be tortured..."
She smiled; a bit tremulously now. "Well, you're in charge, of course--but for me, I don't know if I want it as quick and easy as it can be." Again she studied his eyes. "I'm not in a big hurry. Isn't there something else you might want to do first?"
His eyes flicked up and down her body. Fantasies, old ones that had considerable power for him but that he'd never had anything close to an opportunity to experience in the real world, ran through his mind. "Well--yes--"
"What? What is it? Tell me! There's no need to be embarrassed!" She laughed--it was a very strained and nervous laugh, but it was a laugh nevertheless. "I'm surely not going to be telling anyone!"
He hesitated noticeably. "Well--I'd like to run this knife into you--real soft and slow--and watch your face while I'm doing it--"
"Then do that," she instructed. "Do what you want to do." She stroked her palm down across her soft and shapely breast. "Maybe right here. Would you like that?"
"I can't do that!" Denny protested. "Damn, lady, that would hurt like hell! It would hurt like hell and you'd start yelling and we could have a real problem here!"
"How'd you know I wasn't going to start yelling anyway?"
"I was planning to slit your throat. When your throat's slit you can't yell, all you can do is gurgle. Take my word for it, I've slit a buncha throats!"
"Oh." She shook her head. "I see. But I still think you should do what you want to do. I won't yell. I know it's going to hurt, I expect that. I still won't yell. I don't want someone else breaking in here and maybe getting hurt too."
"You can't say that! You can't promise you won't yell!"
"I just did." She cupped her breast in her hand. "Just try it. If I can't take the pain, if I'm going to scream and I can't help it I'll tell you, and you can stop and then you can slit my throat and it'll all be over, just like that. Come on, try it! You still want to, don't you? You're still interested, aren't you?"
"Well... yes..."
"Then do it!"
He was, very definitely, still interested. "If you say so..." he muttered. He caressed her breast gently for a few moments, teasing the nipple, watching it surge to erection. Then he touched it with the knife's point, lightly, just above and outside her nipple. For a moment he was uncertain about the angle, and he changed it several times, hoping she wouldn't notice his fumbling. She glanced at it, and, to his amazement, she giggled.
"What the hell?" he demanded, sure that she had, in fact, noticed.
"It's cold!" she told him. "And it tickles!"
He put his arm around her back, pulling her close, and then pressed down with the knife, indenting her skin deeply. "That'll change! In just a minute!"
Her look became challenging. "Well, let's see!"
His face took on a hard set, and he pushed on the knife, lightly at first but then, when she didn't react in any visible way, much harder. Blood appeared, though only a little initially. Laura trembled and her face went pale and tight, but she didn't move or speak. Denny kept pushing, and her skin finally gave way. She gasped and jerked, her eyes going wide and her hands twitching, as it began slipping softly on in. She jerked again and blood erupted, welling up and out, flowing down her breast and dripping off her nipple onto the floor. No longer hesitant, Denny watched her eyes and pressed on, forcing almost the entire length of the blade into her chest.
"You're right," she said when he stopped pushing. Her voice was thick. "It feels hot now..." She stared at it for several seconds, then looked back up at him. "Is that what you wanted?" she asked. "Did you enjoy that?"
"Yeah." He too was staring at the blade piercing her. Only an inch or so of the blade remained visible.
She nodded slowly. "So did I," she mused. "Believe it or not. It hurt like hell but it was... sensual, too." She opened her mouth and let a trickle of blood drain from her lips. "I can taste it--it's coming right up, right up in my mouth..." She sighed. "It tastes good..."
"You're something," he commented.
"Thank you..." she whispered. Still staring at the knife, she raised her hand and touched it lightly. "Tell me, have I been... mortally wounded? Will this be fatal? I really can't tell..."
Denny shrugged. "Hard to say. You've got a punctured lung there, but I made sure I didn't hit your heart--you damn well would've known it if I had! You might survive this, you might not. You'll bleed a lot when I take it out."
"Take it out, then."
"That'll hurt too."
"It doesn't matter."
Holding her breast with his free hand, he slowly drew the knife straight back. She went rigid, her face a mask and her teeth chattering, but he kept pulling until it came loose. As he'd predicted, blood pulsed out steadily, much more than before, coating her breast, streaking her side, dripping onto her thigh and pooling on the floor.
"God, that feels weird," she murmured, watching it. After a moment she looked up at him. "You want to do it again?"
He grinned. "Yeah," he answered. "But I think there's something else I'd rather do first..."
Her face was still tight but she arched her eyebrows. "And what might that be?" Far from misunderstanding, she reached out and started undoing his belt.
He put the knife down and peeled off his shirt; in seconds he was as naked as she was. She cupped his testicles in her hand and tipped her head forward, licking gently around the tip of his rapidly-hardening penis; after a moment she took it into her mouth.
"Oh, yeah," he sighed. "Yeah, yeah!" She sucked him eagerly for a few seconds; he then came down on the mat beside her and maneuvered his body so that his erection was touching her groin. Cooperatively, she lifted her leg; he pushed forward, slipping quickly and easily inside her. She sighed as he pushed back and forth; he laid his hand on her pierced breast, squeezing it, bloodying his fingers and causing her to wince. After only a few seconds, she stiffened and cried out with a shattering orgasm.
He did not climax, though. Pulling out and away from her, he knelt in front of her and picked up his knife. "A while ago," he said, "you asked me if I wanted to put this in you again, like before. I gotta tell you, I do, I really do. How about you? You want me to?"
She looked both shy and excited. "Yes... I think I do..."
"You," he said, "are something else." He stroked her cheek, and, after a pause, pressed the knife's point into her side, just under her ribs. She tipped her face up, he leaned forward and kissed her; then, holding her by the back of her neck, he started pushing the knife in.
Her eyes went wide, then dropped closed; her body jerking involuntarily at times, she shuddered and trembled as it broke through, as it sank softly and slowly back into her. "Oh, God, yes," she whispered as it moved deeper. "Yes, God, get it all the way in me, all the way, all the way...!"
He did, he buried the knife to the hilt; she jerked and spasmed a few times, then relaxed in his arms. Holding her tightly, he kissed her again and pulled it back, almost but not quite out; after allowing her blood to flow for a moment he shoved it home again, guiding it along the same path as before.
"Oh!" she moaned as it sank deep. "Oh, yes, ooooh God, oh do it to me, do it to me...!" Smiling, kissing her again, he pulled it back as before, only to slowly push it right back in.
"Now," he told her, "you've been mortally wounded."
She was weakening noticeably. "I think," she murmured, "that it's about time--about time to finish this... I'm feeling really cold, I feel like I'm going to pass out... I don't want to, I want to be awake when you finish it..."
"Yeah," he agreed, drawing the knife out of her. Taking hold of her hair again, he laid the edge under the line of her jaw. Again he paused to study her eyes, her beautiful face. "Ready to go, honey?"
Her gaze was steady, her eyes showed excitement but no sign of fear. "I'm ready," she whispered. "But you, you haven't come yet... don't you want to...?"
"Yeah," he told her. He repositioned himself, bringing his hard cock up against her sex. "I plan to. While you're going out."
"Ah, I see." She reached down, grabbed his cock, and guided it inside herself. "Now," she said, staring fixedly at his face. "Go ahead, do it, do it now, slit my throat..."
With a grunt, he started cutting, working the blade slowly back and forth, forcing it deep into her soft throat but taking his time about it, listening to the crunch as it severed her windpipe. Her body stiffened but she still didn't move, and her expression showed little evidence of what he was doing to her. Blood, a river of it, flowed down over her chest, and it squirted out when he cut through the jugulars. Stopping there, short of severing the carotid arteries, he stopped cutting and tossed the knife aside.
Although her body was quivering and her limbs were jerking, she retained enough control to keep her legs spread and push her hips back against him. His movements took on an increased urgency. Blood was still gushing from her throat and she obviously couldn't breathe, but she kept her eyes wide open for quite a while, watching his face while he moved atop her. After a very short time he erupted in an explosive climax. As his semen drained into her, she shuddered violently; he saw her eyes begin to glaze, it was almost as if she'd been waiting for him. Her movements degenerated into random jerks, then stopped altogether.
It was a while before Denny got up.
Once on his feet again, he shook himself, trying to get the sense of unreality to dissipate as he stared at the still-beautiful corpse lying on the floor. Exactly why she'd done that--why she'd accepted a death far more painful and protracted than it had to be, how she could evidently find this erotic, and why she'd been concerned that he, her killer, get sexual satisfaction from it--he couldn't understand.
He couldn't help wondering, though, if there were more like her out there in the world. There had to be, he told himself. No one is unique.
After a while, he visited her shower, washed away the blood, and got dressed again. As he fastened his shirt he began to hurry. For the first time in his life he began to feel as if his life truly had purpose, that he was no longer a common hired killer living on an edge, one mistake away from life in prison or execution. He had a mission, a mission to find more women like Laura and learn more about them.
That Laura had just given him the most profound sexual experience of his life didn't interfere with his interpretation, it merely strengthened it. Truly rushing now, excited, he dragged on his shoes and socks. He wanted to get a message out, a message to his usual clients and to those who steered business his way, that he had preferences; from now on there would be special deals for those who pointed him toward certain specific kinds of targets. The encounter with Laura Peterson had changed him for good, he told himself as he cautiously left the apartment.
He'd become a specialist. And he knew, somehow, that there was a place in the world for someone like him...