The Freeze-Dried Groom: Part 2

Note: this is an entry into Margaret Atwood's "Freeze Dried Fiction" contest. She posted one of her short stories ("The Freeze-Dried Groom") from her latest collection. The story had a deliciously open ending, and people were invited to keep going with it. Below is my entry.

The Freeze-Dried Groom: Part 2              

Ned finds Nadine sitting on the edge of the bed next to Sam's lifeless body. She wears nothing but a black silk slip, and Ned goes hard just looking at her.

She adjusts the plastic bag over Sam's head, the canister of helium on the floor, the book Final Exit on the bedside table. No note, because that wouldn't be Sam's style.

Ned studies her movements, impressed with how she conducts herself. He doesn't give much thought about the dead body. He's seen plenty of them over the years, and he certainly doesn't give a rat's ass about Sam, considering the little prick had been double dipping, using Ned's furniture as drug mules.

Ned's no boy scout, so Sam's secret drug business hadn't bothered him because of the dope. Yeah, Sam should have offered him a taste, but whatever. What made Ned bullshit was the fact Sam obviously didn't think Ned was smart enough to figure it out.  

Ned had always struggled with that, with people thinking he was dumb. Ned had been born two months premature, if you can call being ripped from your mother's stomach an actual birth. He'd entered the world a howling, blotchy red little runt that was left to die on the bathroom floor while his father finished off his mother. And he would have died, had it not been for the neighbor down the hall who heard his mother's screams and actually decided to dial 9-1-1 for a change.

Ned grew up a little slower and shorter than his peers. He made up for the shortness with six-pack abs, hulky arms, and a tall order of menace. As for the slowness, turns out it was just his tongue and mouth muscles that needed to play catch up. His mind was sharp. So underestimating Ned Healy (or Chambers or Barrows or whatever name he invented) was something people only did once, if they knew what was good for them.

Sam had learned this lesson six months ago when he tried to short change Ned on his cut of a big sale—the "Victorian" hutch Ned had worked on practically non-stop for almost two months. One perfectly timed blow to Sam's jaw was all it took to remind Sam that you don't fuck around with Ned when it comes to money. Sam had fallen to the floor, dazed and confused. When he looked up, Ned loomed over him and Sam's baby blues opened wide in genuine fear.

"You know," Sam had said, his voice shaking, "I think my math might have been wrong." And that was that. Sam understood who was boss.

Or so Ned had thought until he discovered the drugs.

He'd wanted to take Sam out, execution style, and bury the body in a place no one would find. Straightforward, clean, move on. But Nadine had wanted to play. So the storage unit, the hotel, all the wedding shit—this was all her doing. This was all for Nadine.

##

"Have fun last night?" he asks her.

She stands and stretches her long, lithe body, barely covered by the slip, and desire sweeps over him. He has to have her. She's already taken care of one stiff. Now she has to take care of his. Ned chuckles at his own clever wordplay as Nadine loops her arms around his neck.

"Last night was delicious," she says. "Thank you."

Ned winces at the meaning behind her words, but quickly shakes it off. He learned long ago not to be jealous, that any shenanigans that go on between Nadine and her marks are all part of a larger story, one in which he knows the ending. She always comes back to him. He's the person she loves, that is if someone like her can feel real love, but he allows himself to pretend that she does because, despite his best intentions, he loves her.