8
Arty and Jim sat across from one another at a diner not far from their mother’s house.
“So what did you think?” Arty said.
Jim shoveled a scoop of mashed potatoes into his mouth and spoke with it full. “She’s f*cking nice. I can’t believe she squeezed two kids out of that body.”
Arty sipped his iced tea and smiled. “Those kids are going to make everything so much better. You wait and see.”
The two brothers sat silent after that, hardly blinking, each one lost in a world they loved. Controlled, practiced breathing teased the exquisite sensations they shared like a man capable of orgasm without ejaculation so that he may savor the erotic dance again and again. Control was everything.
In their eyes, they were not serial killers, although they had certainly murdered enough to be officially labeled as such, and they were not kidnappers or thieves with simple financial motives. Sex, or more appropriately, rape, sometimes occurred, but that too was no primary motive, at least not for Arty. Jim was often guilty of indulging more often than necessary with their female captives, but Arty understood and forgave him for that, it was just his younger brother’s way.
Their primary motive for what they did was summed up best by Arty years back when a previous female captive asked the all-too common question:
“Why are you doing this to me?”
Arty had thought hard for several moments after the question; he was searching for something clever that would define it all with swift decisiveness. And when the perfect response had finally hit him all at once, and his eyes had settled contently with an odd mix of pride and foreboding, he leaned in close to the female captive and did not give an answer, but instead asked a question.
“When you see someone trip and fall, what do you do?”
The female captive had looked at Arty through swollen red eyes that were still capable of projecting confusion.
“I’ll ask again. When you watch someone slip, trip, or fall in everyday life, what do you often do?”
When the answer had appeared on the woman’s face, it was obvious. Those swollen red eyes had discarded confusion in order to project shame. Arty wondered if she would tell the truth.
“I guess I sometimes laugh,” the woman admitted, looking away.
Arty had been pleased with her honesty; it allowed him to continue with his perfect response.
“Thank you for being honest. We laugh too. We just raise the bar a little in order to keep laughing.” Arty then stood, smiled, and added, “I hope that helps you understand. And I hope I don’t disappoint when I say…it really is as simple as that.”
Bad Games
Jeff Menapace's books
- A Brand New Ending
- A Cast of Killers
- A Change of Heart
- A Christmas Bride
- A Constellation of Vital Phenomena
- A Cruel Bird Came to the Nest and Looked
- A Delicate Truth A Novel
- A Different Blue
- A Firing Offense
- A Killing in China Basin
- A Killing in the Hills
- A Matter of Trust
- A Murder at Rosamund's Gate
- A Nearly Perfect Copy
- A Novel Way to Die
- A Perfect Christmas
- A Perfect Square
- A Pound of Flesh
- A Red Sun Also Rises
- A Rural Affair
- A Spear of Summer Grass
- A Story of God and All of Us
- A Summer to Remember
- A Thousand Pardons
- A Time to Heal
- A Toast to the Good Times
- A Touch Mortal
- A Trick I Learned from Dead Men
- A Vision of Loveliness
- A Whisper of Peace
- A Winter Dream
- Abdication A Novel
- Abigail's New Hope
- Above World
- Accidents Happen A Novel
- Ad Nauseam
- Adrenaline
- Aerogrammes and Other Stories
- Aftershock
- Against the Edge (The Raines of Wind Can)
- All in Good Time (The Gilded Legacy)
- All the Things You Never Knew
- All You Could Ask For A Novel
- Almost Never A Novel
- Already Gone
- American Elsewhere
- American Tropic
- An Order of Coffee and Tears
- Ancient Echoes
- Angels at the Table_ A Shirley, Goodness
- Alien Cradle
- All That Is
- Angora Alibi A Seaside Knitters Mystery
- Arcadia's Gift
- Are You Mine
- Armageddon
- As Sweet as Honey
- As the Pig Turns
- Ascendants of Ancients Sovereign
- Ash Return of the Beast
- Away
- $200 and a Cadillac
- Back to Blood
- Back To U
- Balancing Act
- Bare It All
- Beach Lane
- Because of You
- Before I Met You
- Before the Scarlet Dawn
- Before You Go
- Being Henry David
- Bella Summer Takes a Chance
- Beneath a Midnight Moon
- Beside Two Rivers
- Best Kept Secret
- Betrayal of the Dove
- Betrayed
- Between Friends
- Between the Land and the Sea
- Binding Agreement
- Bite Me, Your Grace
- Black Flagged Apex
- Black Flagged Redux
- Black Oil, Red Blood
- Blackberry Winter
- Blackjack
- Blackmail Earth
- Blackmailed by the Italian Billionaire
- Blackout
- Blind Man's Bluff
- Blindside
- Blood & Beauty The Borgias
- Blood Gorgons
- Blood of the Assassin
- Blood Prophecy
- Blood Twist (The Erris Coven Series)
- Blood, Ash, and Bone
- Bolted (Promise Harbor Wedding)
- Bonnie of Evidence