Mercy

Part 6: Dress

We walked home side by side. I was afraid that she would run but she didn't. She was strange. The air was getting cold and I put my hands in my pockets trying to keep warm, but she didn't. Her arms dangled along her sides as we walked. She wasn't even wearing a proper coat. She must have been freezing but looking at her you would never have known. It wasn't that I was worried about her being cold but I found her strange. She was friendly and social yet so disconnected. Her smile was beautiful yet fake and she decided to kill herself on a Saturday night jumping from a bridge few people walked at night. Then she met me and decided that she wanted to go to the lion's den, even after I told her that my plan had been to kill her there. Yes, something was fundamentally wrong with Charlotte and I wanted to understand. I wanted to open her up and look around for the broken pieces. What would I find? I wouldn't put her together again, that was not the intent but I wanted to know, I needed to know. I looked over at her and for a moment I only saw the shine of her hair and I wondered if the kind of sadness Charlotte had was the same my mother had. If I sliced them both open and put the broken pieces beside each other to compare, would they match?

We got to my house and went inside. We hadn't spoken since she asked me to bring her home. I still didn't understand but hey I didn't have anything else to do and she really was something else. You can not say that about people nowadays, people are all the same. They pretend like they aren't and pick up some weird hobby like building miniature houses or collecting vintage dolls that look haunted. People think that they are interesting because they crochet instead of watching TV at night. They get obsessed with books, authors, actors or anything they can relate to and they think that the culmination of these niche interests will somehow set them apart. At least I had the knowledge that these things wouldn't put me apart from my peers but the murders I had carried out would. I wasn't like them. Of course others killed but serial killers were rare and female serial killers, well we aren't many. I have this theory that the reason we aren't more is that women tend to get away with their crimes, men are sloppy.

Charlotte walked around my house. It was a small cottage with only one bedroom and one bathroom but it accommodated everything I needed and I had come to really like it. Growing up like I had, I had lived on both sides of the spectrum of wealth and although I preferred not being dirt poor, being rich never really interested me. It was also a little more discrete, from the outside it didn't look like much so no one would stop to admire the architecture and hence no one would pay me unwanted attention.

Charlotte ended up in my bedroom and plopped down on my bed, she looked at me and she looked calm.

"Do you only kill women?"

"No... But I do prefer it" I actually kind of liked this. It was this unspoken agreement of total transparency and it sounded like she actually cared about the answers I gave her.

"Is it because you are sexually repressed or that you hate your mother?" At this, I changed my mind. I didn't like the question and I would not entertain this. I thought about killing her right here. I walk over, push her down onto the bed and get on top of her. I put my hands around her throat and I choked her. She started to claw at my hands and I felt her nails dig in. I smiled and her face went red. God she was beautiful. She lost consciousness and I didn't let go. You have to make sure that they are actually dead. Of course I did none of this. I just stood there staring at her. "Did I offend you?" She looks genuine.

"No" I still don't answer the question.

"Is this... Is this where you are going to kill me, Amelia?" She sounded so sweet. Did she just not believe me?

"No. I was going to do it in the living room. Put down some plastic and kill you there. Then I'd probably try to dismember you or dissolve your body with some kind of acid. I thought about burning your body but it would take some time and it would be out in the open and then I would have to crush the bones and it would just be a whole ordeal" She nods in agreement.

"Do you have any tea?" She asked abruptly but politely as she stood up and walked to the kitchen. She passed me in the doorway and one again our faces were so close together. Maybe I was sexually frustrated. I had never fucked a woman, lot's of men but no women. I only did it for gain and no woman had ever required sex to give me what I wanted. I've never considered my sexuality, it wasn't interesting, who care who you fuck.

"Yeah..." I followed her to the kitchen. I felt like a guest in my own home. She had already found the kettle and was filling it with water. I opened one of the cabinets and put the tea on the counter then I opened another to get us some cups. In my whole life I don't think that I have lived through a more surrealistic experience than this, than making tea with a woman I am about to kill. To be fair I had not worked out how I could kill her and get away with it but I knew that she was going to die by my hands one way or another. We sat down across the table from each other and she kept looking at me.

"No one is going to miss me. So you'll be fine as long as you don't fuck it up really badly"

"What?" I knew that she had friends and some kind of relationship, someone is going to miss her. "I saw you in the pub, remember. You have people that will miss you" She shook her head.

"It will take days before anyone notices. Wednesday probably, I have work on Wednesday"

"So you and your friends don't text or call each other? Not even a 'got home safe' text?"

"Nope" She popped her 'p'.

"And your boyfriend?" She cocked her head.

"I left him. Again. If you are lucky people will probably think that he killed me" She looks sad, finally some emotion but it is kind of boring that she is sad over her break-up. I expected more.

"Sure, the police always look at the boyfriend first... Do you really hate him enough to let him go to prison for your murder?" She changes. She is no longer sad. She looks cold and angry. Her soft stare is now a threatening glare. "Ok... Why?" What could he possibly have made her so angry over? Cheating? Murder feels a little extreme but I do love a dramatic flair.

She stays silent and still. Her gaze is now on the cup in front of her. She is thinking about her next move, she is thinking about how much of herself she really wants to give a way. I feel giddy again. This reluctance shows weakness, it shows that she is worried about what the consequences of her words will be, she believes in the future. Maybe it wasn't a death wish, this made it all so much more fun.

All of a sudden she stands up from her chair. She grabs the hem of her dress and pulls it over her head. What the f... Then she just stands there in her bra and tights and everything makes sense. Bruises. I get angry. I didn't mind violence but I was the one who was going to hurt her and I also despise any man who would lay a hand on a woman. Fucking coward. Charlotte didn't look like the kind of girl who fought back. I ran my eyes over her body and I could not see any defensive wounds. She didn't fight. My eyes stop on her right hip. There are cuts, not cuts that you would get in a scuffle, straight parallel cuts at about an angle of 45 degrees. I knew these, they were self inflicted. She really was just getting more and more interesting by the minute.

She sits down again, still in her bra and tights. It sounds weird but it actually felt pretty normal in these circumstances.

"Did he give you those cuts as well?" She looks ashamed. "It's fine. It is not like things matter anymore" She looks at me and just nods. "Did it feel better?" She nods. "Good" I say and she smiles. I don't understand her, once again she left me feeling like an idiot.