Sociopaths In Love by Andersen Prunty Page B

probably just the sound of
living in a city. She had never spent any amount of time in
anything close to a city and imagined that even a small one like
Dayton was in a constant state of crime and emergency. She smiled
at the thought of Walt loading the bodies into the bathtub. All
that noise and those were just the known crimes and emergencies.
All the after-the-fact ones, those were the ones dealt with in
silence.
    A painting she hated hung above the bed. It
was abstract, she supposed, but her first glance revealed a
grinning red devil head staring out from a chaotic black and yellow
swirl. She climbed up on the bed. It was at just the right height,
not too low to the ground or so high she had to heave herself up.
She took the painting off the wall and went through the doors to
the balcony. She held the painting out in front of her. It wasn't
framed or anything and she wondered if they dusted it like they did
any other piece of furniture. Now it seemed dull, outside and with
the bright lights of the city behind it. She let go of it and
watched it fall. It fell fast at first and then turned so the
canvas acted like the world's worst parachute and it slowed before
tipping over and then diving toward the street, the wooden frame
under the canvas shattering. When she went back into the room she
looked at the wall. The wall behind the painting was the same shade
of white as the rest of the wall. It may as well not have ever been
there.
    She walked into the bathroom to see how Walt
was doing.
    "How's it going?" she said.
    He was peeling the guy's underwear off. Both
the man and the woman were now in the bathtub. The water was turned
on to a steady but not wide open stream. "Good," he said. "Trying
to figure out what I'm going to do with these."
    "Aren't you going to get rid of them?"
    "I was thinking about hanging onto them.
Have you ever eaten a human before?"
    "No. I don't know if I want to start."
    "Well, you still owe me one. What if that
was what I asked you to do?"
    "Then I guess I'd have to do it."
    "I'm just kidding. That's not what I want to
use it for. But I'm not kidding about eating these corpses. Have
you ever really thought about cannibalism?"
    "Not very much."
    "It seems like it would be the last word in
luxury fare. Think about it . . . there are so many
different tiers of what people eat. There are cheap brands and that
goes all the way up to expensive brands, but that stuff's harder to
find. And then you start getting into expensive dishes, no name
brands, the price based on the rarity of the dish. But what is
rarer than a human being? Even the rarest of animal species is not
as rare as the most common human being. Almost every animal of a
species is exactly the same. It's the species that is rare, not the
individual animal. But every human is one of a kind, or so our
guidance counselors in school would have us believe. These people
were born and given names and social security numbers that would
set them apart from others in their species. They spent their
entire lives developing personality traits and quirks, acquiring an
education, a good wardrobe and a sense of worth. Sure, it's a human
desire to share interests with a number of other people – we call
that community – but everyone, deep down, thinks they are truly
unique." He patted the man on the shoulder. "So that's what I've
been thinking about doing. But we'll probably have to go to Home
Depot first thing in the morning to get a small chainsaw. I don't
think they're going to fit in the freezer the way they are."
    "I'm sorry I snapped at you earlier."
    "It's okay. Every relationship will have its
bumps. So what're you doing?"
    "I was going to try and clean up the blood
but I think I'm going to wait till the morning. I'm kind of tired.
Come to bed with me."
    He held up his bloody arms and hands. "I'm
kind of messy."
    "I don't mind."

 
    Chores
     
    Erica woke up with a stiff neck and sore
vagina. Naked, she shuffled out of bed. The formerly white