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Softly now, quiet. You don’t want to wake her. She always complained when you woke her, she hated that. Sometimes she would call the police when you made a noise outside her window. But that was only when she was alone. When she had that thug with her she would send him out. What a big tough man he thought he was. Standing there in his silky boxer shorts and puffed out chest, yelling ‘come out here, you fucking pervert. Come and fight like a man.’ What would he know about being a man? He doesn’t satisfy her. He satisfies himself, and it’s all over in three minutes. Who is he to question your manhood? I bet his mother bought him those damn boxer shorts.
You know she’s alone tonight. You’ve already arranged that. Now you just have to surprise her. She loves suprises, but I don’t think she’s going to like this one. You once cared what she liked, what she didn’t like. Not anymore. She hurt you, betrayed you. She needs to know, she needs to feel what she’s done to you. You have to show her.
* * *
The blade seems out of place lying next to her flesh. You wonder what you ever saw in her. She’s so pale, so vulnerable, so weak. Her soft skin, barely visible amongst the tangle of blood and white sheets makes the knife look so much sharper, deadlier than it did lying motionless amongst the clutter of the kitchen drawer. It is no longer simply a utensil, a piece of cutlery, but an instrument of destruction; the force that filled the gap between you and this once living being. Staring at it now, it represents so much with its shiny edge, blurred by crimson. You see everything in that knife; the love, the desire that rapidly turned to hatred and the greed for revenge. As you pick the knife up and wipe her clean with the corner of the bed sheet, you think how she deserves a name. A beautiful name. Victoria, yes. Call her Victoria. Victoria slipped so bravely through the flesh; so boldly, so carelessly. Even the bones, the so-called strength of the human body, meant nothing to Victoria. She has come from the dark depths of the kitchen to complete your bidding better than you could have ever imagined. She has ridded of the soft weak mass, the vermin that plagued you.
‘Victoria …,’ you whisper, as she plunges into your heart.
© 2002 by Julia Carpenter and gangan books australia