[pbenvin]

While attempting to maintain herself, she didn’t even notice Craig walk back into the kitchen. He opened one of the drawers and pulled out a large, bulky meat tenderizer. The solid metal head was square, with jagged points protruding out from both sides. As he admired the weight of it in his left hand, his right hand came down and began molesting the bulge that had formed in his pants. It was time.

Craig stealthily glided over to where Marlene was sitting. Her eyes were still closed, her head lolling on the back of the sofa. He could see small beads of sweat glistening on her forehead and thought with a little dismay that she might be asleep. He wanted her to feel what was coming. He never took his eyes off hers as he walked behind the sofa, the meat tenderizer pressed tightly against his thigh. In position now, he raised the weapon above his head and told her to wake up.

Her eyelids fluttered slightly and she stirred a little. Bringing her hand to her face, she righted herself and forced her eyes open. The room was a blur, the shapes and images coming in hazy blobs. As if on instinct, she turned her head to the left to look behind her and met the blow from the meat tenderizer half way. The force of the impact knocked her unconscious and sent her sprawling to the floor, the large gash below her left eye beginning to spew blood. Craig walked over to her prone body and bent over, checking for a pulse. Satisfied she was still alive, he hit her one more time, just for fun.

“Please, please don’t,” Marlene squeaked as she came to. She was completely naked except for her socks, which Craig had left on. Her arms and legs were shackled to the four bedposts with torn strips of her pants, and blood was oozing from the cut above her right eye that Craig inflicted with a screwdriver. Her left eye was swollen completely shut from the half dozen punches he rained down on her, and her bottom lip was hanging by a thin thread of skin.

Craig was standing over her, full of gore and breathing deeply. In his left hand he held a serrated knife he took from the kitchen drawer.

“Ready for round two,” he hissed.

She shook her head from side to side, round splotches of blood hitting the walls like raindrops.

For the next three hours Craig poked, prodded, and cut Marlene. Every twenty minutes he would put his utensils down and have sex with her ravaged body, making her call him “daddy” and calling her a slut as he did so. If she didn’t say something loud enough, or if she made the mistake of trying to resist, a fist would come crashing down on her face. The last time she tried to shrink away into the sheets – sheets that were once white but were now so saturated with blood that it felt like a waterbed had popped – he punched her so hard that two of her teeth shattered and gouged through her upper lip. When it was finally over, she couldn’t even find the will to cry anymore.

“Go clean up,” Craig said disgustedly as he dismounted her. He climaxed inside her for the seventh and final time. “You look like shit.”

Marlene didn’t move.

“I said get up, bitch. Don’t make me drag your ass to the shower.”

Still Marlene didn’t stir. Craig tried to rouse her again, this time kicking the edge of the bed hard enough to wake her up.

“H-h-help me,” she whined as she held out a bloody hand. “I have to go home.”

Craig let out a laugh and took her hand in his. His muscles strained as he yanked on her arm, pulling her out of the bed and onto the floor. He bent over, picked her up under the arms, and began dragging her to the bathtub. As he backpedaled, Craig began to mumble under his breath as he noticed the large wet streak of blood her broken body was leaving.

“If those Valium’s didn’t fuck you up so bad, I’d have you clean that too,” he whispered in her ear. A stringy rope of drool dropped onto her contorted face.

He turned the water on and waited until he could see the steam rising from the tub before turning the knob to activate the showerhead. He had a fleeting thought to just shove her in and watch as she writhed in agony, the scalding water turning her skin into a boiling mass, but decided not to. He wasn’t in the mood to dispose of a body tonight.

“Hurry up,” he said to her as he left the bathroom. “I want to go to bed.”

With his conquest properly cleaned and clothed – he gave her a pair of old sweatpants to wear – he led her to the vestibule, where he offered her a fistful of money. When she didn’t take it, he opened the door to his apartment and shoved her out into the hallway. Her blonde hair blew over her shoulder in waves as he slammed the door behind her.

When he was confident she was gone, Craig stripped the bloody rags from his bed and stuffed them into a black garbage bag. He then poured some bleach and a capful of Orange Clean into a large bowl and began the task of mopping up all the blood she had left behind. It was on the floor, on the walls, some had even made it onto the ceiling. It took more than an hour and a few of his good dishrags to finally get it all, but at last he was finally done. He dropped the rags into the garbage bag with the sheets and calmly walked down the hall to the garbage shoot, where he listened as all the evidence of the night’s crimes clanged into the dumpster below. Comfortable in the thought that he would never see Marlene again, let alone get punished for what he had done to her, Craig Johnson began to whistle a tune as he stepped lightly back to his apartment.

Craig brought his hand up to his nose and noticed it was bleeding.

“Well I’ll be a son of a bitch,” he said as he pulled a tissue from his coat pocket and dabbed it at his nostril. He had a ringing in his ears that was steadily growing louder, and now his vision began to blur. It came on almost at once and made him so lightheaded he had to sit down. Suddenly a sharp pain shot through his left arm, and he let out an immediate yell. The sensation coursed through his body, causing him to double over. Flashes of anguish now penetrated his entire body from head to toe. No longer was it isolated to just one particular area, but hit every inch of him all at once. A few bystanders that had noticed Craig’s plight now rushed over to offer their assistance. He was in such distress he couldn’t even talk, and the blood from his nose was now covering the front of his white sport coat.

“What happened,” a professional looking woman asked in a shaky voice.

“I don’t know,” said a man in a neatly pressed business suit. “He was just walking by and sat down. I never saw anything.”

“Jesus, he’s bleeding pretty badly. Someone call 911,” said someone else.

Craig began to cough and retch as the pain steadily drummed at his body in its unforgiving melody. It felt like his entire being was in a vice that was steadily getting tighter. The street was now filled with concerned onlookers, each one expressing their amateur opinions as to the cause of Craig’s predicament.

“It’s a brain tumor,” said a young looking man wearing a read and black flannel shirt.

“No way, this guys in deep shit,” said another man wearing a dark blue running suit. “Brain tumors won’t do that to somebody.”

“Help…me,” Craig managed to croak out as he clutched at his throat.

In all the commotion, no one paid any attention to the small child standing across the street with the demented grin on his face. His mother, standing behind him with a comforting hand laid gently on his head, still displayed the grotesque bruises covering her face. Clutched between the boy’s tiny hands was a crudely made doll, and with every squeeze Craig writhed in agony.

“Die,” the little boy whispered. “This is for my mama.”

The little boy, his dark blue eyes transfixed on Craig from across the street, was frantically twisting the doll in his hands. His blonde hair blew across his face as the wind picked up, but he didn’t seem to notice. All his attention was on the man that had hurt his mother. He watched as people gathered around Craig, staring with horrified helplessness as he convulsed on the ground. When the little boy was satisfied the bad man was gone forever, he simply threw the doll into the metal wastebasket in front of him and looked up into his mother’s adoring face.

“All done, mama,” the boy cooed. “Did good?”

“Of course, honey,” Marlene whispered. “You always do good. Always.”

When the paramedics arrived, they covered Craig with a white sheet and carted his lifeless body away. The police took statements from the witnesses, and before long everything was back to normal. No one would remember Craig Johnson a week from now, and as the last of the spectators left the area, one proud mother and one loving child walked off hand in hand.