By the lasciviousness of her smile, I knew she wasn’t talking only about writing.
A second round of drinks followed and then a third. When she downed this last G&T like she was a gunslinger in an old Western saloon, I suggested that we see if the hotel had any availability. She didn’t even blink at the overture. Instead, she grabbed her purse and said, “Let’s go.”
It was great. The kind of sex you can only have with a stranger. I think the age difference also helps. You know that thing about how wives should be half their husband’s age plus seven? Having never been married, I can’t vouch for whether that formula predicts a lifetime of wedded bliss, but I am a big believer that an age gap leads to pretty explosive sex. I know what I’m doing in the sack, and Charlotte seemed like she’d had a lifetime of dating guys who didn’t.
After, we got to the inevitable discussion about whether we were ever going to see each other again. I would have been okay either way, but Charlotte said that she’d feel less slutty if I called her. To keep in character, I went through this whole thing about my wife being super suspicious, so I’d buy a prepaid cell phone and we’d need to meet in hotels. She said she was fine with that.
And that’s the way it went for six months. Charlotte and I would meet once a week or so, have mind-blowing sex, and then say our good-byes until the next time.
That is, until tonight. When I killed her.
The evening began like all the others. She texted my burner saying that her boyfriend—as a way of heaping further disdain on him, I never called him by his name, but just referred to him as Mr. McDouche or McDouche, for short—had left unexpectedly for a few hours, and she was hoping I could get away too.
We met in the bar of the W Hotel in Union Square, where we quickly did a couple of rounds of shots followed by two real drinks. Then we adjourned upstairs. It turned out that neither of us had eaten much that day, so we were both drunker than usual. That led to the sex being particularly good, but rougher too. She was totally into it, though, screaming at the top of her lungs. Real porn-star shit.
Then she called me by another man’s name. Not her McDouche of a boyfriend’s name either. A third name. There was another guy, apparently.
I stopped cold. Still inside her, I said, “What did you call me?”
She turned around. Up until that moment, her head had been buried in the sheets facing the opposite direction from me.
“Don’t stop,” she said breathlessly. “I’m so close.”
She pushed back against me, trying to start me going again. As she gyrated, I grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked on it, hard. This only excited her more; her pace quickened and her moans grew louder.
She called me by the right name. Over and over again, in fact. But I knew what I’d heard a moment before, and the fact that she was now screaming my name in the throes of passion wasn’t going to make that go away.
When her orgasm finally subsided, I stopped too. She must have thought I had finished, because she rolled over with a satisfied smile on her face.
“I swear, I’ve never been fucked so good in my life,” she said.
“Not even by him?” I asked.
“By whom?”
For a woman who had barely uttered a word that could be said on network television for the past hour, she had the most innocent look in her eyes. I wasn’t buying it. Not for a minute.
“You know who,” I said.
“I really don’t,” she said.
I said the name. Her face told me everything I needed to know.
For a moment, I felt as if I’d left my body and I was watching the scene play out. I knew how it was going to end. Badly. Very badly. And yet I didn’t see any way to avoid that result.
I never hit her. Ironically, I wish I had. That might have spent my rage and maybe she’d still be alive. Instead, when the impulse to violence overwhelmed me, I grabbed her by the throat. It was a position we’d assumed before, but always during sex, when the danger excited her. This time her eyes bulged out. She knew this was not about anyone deriving pleasure.
Once, when I was a boy, I touched a lever on some kind of electrical box that was live, and my hand became paralyzed. I knew I had to let go, and if I didn’t I’d die, but I still couldn’t relax my grip. The circuit finally broke when I yanked my entire body back from the box and fell to the floor.
It felt exactly like that. But I didn’t release quickly enough.
26.
I move Charlotte’s lifeless body from the bed to under it, just in case housekeeping comes in. Then I put the “Do Not Disturb” sign on the doorknob and leave my dead lover inside.
There’s no place open in Union Square at close to midnight that would sell a receptacle large enough to hide a fully grown woman’s body. Although it is the last thing I want to do, I have no choice but to go home and bring back something of my own.
I walk a few blocks away from the hotel, where I grab a taxi back to my place. I pay the driver in cash. I go up to my apartment, retrieve the largest suitcase I own—which I’m hoping will be big enough for Charlotte to fit inside—and head back to the hotel. Before leaving, I scrub the valise down with a damp cloth and empty every pocket. The last thing I want is something linking it back to me.
I arrive back in the room less than an hour after I left. When I reach under the bed, I don’t feel Charlotte. For a moment I think that maybe she’s still alive. That she somehow got up and went home. But then I feel her hair. I slide my hand down until I grasp her shoulder. Her skin is room temperature, maybe a little cooler. Like a steak that’s been left out overnight. She still feels fleshy too; I’ve been wondering how long it would be before rigor mortis sets in. More than the time I’ve been gone, I suppose.
I drag her body out. She looks like she’s sleeping, although her lips are bluer than before. I give fleeting thought to dressing her, but that seems like too much work. So I collect her clothing and stuff it into the suitcase.
It’s more difficult wedging Charlotte inside than I had initially thought. Her legs fit, but her head sticks out. She looks a bit like a magician’s assistant right before he’s about to saw her in half. I push down on her head, first with my arms, but when that doesn’t yield results, I put my knees on her shoulder to leverage my body weight. That does the trick, although I hear a definite crack as I fold her in.
The suitcase lurches as I pull it, but not so much that I can’t get it to roll along to the elevator and then through the hotel’s marble lobby.
“Taxi, sir?” the gloved attendant asks.
I jump at the sound of a voice that’s not in my own head. “What?”
“Would you like me to get you a taxi, sir?”
He’s looking down at my bag. I wonder if he’s seen an arm or a leg pushing out the side. I glance down myself. Everything looks fine—aside from the fact that I’m pulling such a large suitcase after midnight, of course.
“Oh. No, thank you. I’m only going a few blocks.”