The room smelled like cigarettes, alcohol, mixed with some kind of pungent odour. Adam Jones, stood in the doorway, admired the painting hung up on the brown floral wallpaper on the opposite side of the room, just above his desk. It depicted a crow pecking at a skull that had flowers all colours of the rainbow blooming out of its eye sockets.
Last client of the day. The woman had already entered his room, and she sat on a chair opposite his own by the window.
"Martha," he said, cheerfully. "Glad you could make it on time!"
He stepped through the doorway, and closed the door behind him; slowly, as to lessen the sound of the creak as it closed. It was covered in scratch marks. The man took Martha's file out of his desk, and sat in the chair opposite her. He flipped her file open, and opened it up to her page; a picture of her sat above the words on the page - her skin was a tanned olive, her hair was fine as silk, straightened, and ended in chestnut coloured curls at her shoulders. Her depression hadn't taken an iron grip on her soul back then, and she was full of life; hopes and dreams, plans for the future, once she was cured of her illness. So beautiful, Adam said to himself, running a finger across her face, so very beautiful.
He looked at her now, sat across from him in her chair. Her hair was much longer and unkempt, killed by split ends. Her eyes were pale like ice, and her skin looked like it could cut off your fingers with frostbite. Her throat was covered with the marks of... something. Adam noticed a fly crawling from her mouth and onto her cheek.
"Martha, dear," Adam said, leaning forward. "You've got something on your face." He swatted the fly, hitting her cheek with his slap. It buzzed away to the other side of the room.
"So, I'd like you to explain - where did this come from?" He asked, gesturing to her neck. "Are those rope marks, someone's hands and fingers?"
She didn't answer.
"That's okay," Adam said, uncapping his pen and writing something down into Martha's file. "Does it have anything to do with your husband? I never really liked him."
The woman, again, didn't answer. He placed a hand on her knee.
"It's okay, Martha." Adam said, leaning closer. "You can tell me anything."
Martha didn't tell him anything.
"Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?" he began to snake his hand beneath her ripped pencil skirt, and up her cold thigh. "Anything at all?" he said in a whisper, inches from her face. She stared at him with his those deep blue and cold, glassy eyes of hers.
He grabbed her cold and limp hands, and placed a finger in his mouth. He pulled away, letting her arm and hand fall onto her lap. "Now, now" he said, "it's date night, you dirty whore." He closed up her file, walked back over to his desk, put the file back in his cabinet, and slammed it shut with haste.
He walked back to Martha, placing his hand upon the corpse's shoulder. He squeezed it. "You're my last client tonight. We've got plenty of time for a hot, warm bath." He sniffed the air, letting the stench of cigarettes, alcohol, and rotting flesh fill his nostrils. "God knows you fucking need one."
