THE KILLER WHO GAVE ME LIFE

    Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about dying. Mainly because it’s been in the news so much, what with the Beauty Killer still out there. She got out again somehow. And people keep rooting for her to stay free, which makes no sense if you think about it. Because if she’s out there, she could get anyone. But no one thinks about that. They root for her because she’s beautiful. And beautiful people can get whatever they want.
    Me, I’m not beautiful. The only time people notice me is when they need to order another round. And if I wasn’t there, they’d just ask someone else to pour them a beer or get them a basket of greasy fries. Just once, I’d like someone to see the real me, to notice me, to make me feel special.
    At least, if you’re a murder victim, that means you were chosen. Not those accidental murders that people do in the heat of the moment, like if a burglar comes in, but the kind where the killer sits and waits, choosing just the right moment to attack. Whenever I’d read about another victim of the Beauty Killer’s, I’d feel almost jealous. What set them apart? I’d wonder. What made her choose them? There was never a pattern, it was always random. She killed anyone. Men or women, white or black, old or my age; it didn’t seem to matter to her. She saw something unique in all of them. I ached to know what that was.
    Where she killed was also random. It was always somewhere in Portland, of course; she never seemed to kill too far from home, although every time she escaped a new prison, she’d just kill her way back to where she started. And she always headed straight for Archie Sheridan.
    He was the police officer who first arrested her, but only after they’d had an affair and she captured and nearly killed him. The newspapers don’t tell you enough of the details, but I bet they had the hottest sex ever before he turned her in. There are plenty of websites about Gretchen and Archie. People write porn about them all the time, and there are even amateur pornos on the web of people dressed as them, doing all kind of things to each other. At the end, the girl playing Gretchen (usually someone not nearly as gorgeous as she is, with a really bad blonde wig) pretends to kill the guy playing Archie. It’s actually pretty hot, for amateur stuff. I’m surprised no one’s made a professional one yet, actually. It would sell. There are plenty of sick people out there. Like I said, people are writing made up stuff about these real people. It’s so weird.
    Me, I just sit around the bar and wait. We don’t get a lot of people coming in now that martini bars in the Pearl are the big thing. And the fake dive bars, too. All these hipsters swigging PBRs and pretending to be deep. It’s so hilarious. Our place is a real dive, off the beaten path, on a forgotten stretch of SE Powell. We get the neighborhood locals who nurse their beers all afternoon for lack of anywhere else to go and the late night drunks looking for a final round. I like working the late shift. By 12:30, it’s usually cleared out. You’d think I’d be scared, alone in a bar at night, but I’m not. I couldn’t care less about my life. I don’t have anything, really. A cat, but he comes and goes. No family around here, not much in the way of friends except for the regulars (and I’ll bet none of them know my name). If some punk came in here and shot me, I’d be a blip in The Herald. But if Gretchen Lowell came in some night and left my body in pieces all over the bar, then people would know me. My name would be all over the papers and the TV. I’d be a member of a most prestigious club: Victims of the Beauty Killer.
    For years, I’ve kept a list of where the victims’ bodies were found, but there’s not enough of a pattern to know where she could strike next. If she only kept to one area, I would make the rounds near there every night until something happened. And I’m ready for something to happen.
   
    This morning there was another headline in the paper about Gretchen Lowell. When they don’t have any new news, they recycle old stories with old photos. She is just so perfectly beautiful. I mean, her skin is flawless. Maybe killing keeps her young, because it’s the most amazing skin I’ve ever seen. Maybe she’s a vampire, drinking their blood. Even in the close-ups, there is not one visible pore. You can imagine that perfect skin all over her body, which is long and lean and muscular, from the photos they posted of her on the Internet in a bikini on the Oregon Coast. I bet it feels like silk and velvet. I bet there’s not one part of her that isn’t flawless. You have to wonder why someone so physically perfect would want to kill people. Why being beautiful isn’t enough for her. I’d like to know. I’d like to get to know her a little, talk to her for a while, before letting her have her way with me.
    On the website, people post pictures of themselves that they’ve Photoshopped. They study the way she kills people and they pose themselves like the victims and take pictures. Some dress up as Gretchen and pose in lingerie. Some are better than others. One guy looks more like Gretchen than some of the girls. They all turn me on in ways I can’t really understand. But I don’t want it to be any of them; I want it to be her, and I don’t know how much longer I can wait. But if I start posting, I’ll get all kinds of crazies pretending to be her, because they all want to be her. It’s not like chumming for sharks; I can’t put a bucket filled with my intestines out on the street and hope the scent will lure her in. No one knows where she is or what makes her kill. We all just sit and wait. And some of us even hope. If you hope long enough, you might just get something close to what you really want.

    This is the coldest October I can ever remember in Portland, and I’ve lived here all my life. The bar has been empty night after night; even the regulars are staying away. I’d close up early, but it won’t make my bus come any sooner, and the less time I have to stand out there in the wind and drizzle, the better off I’ll be. It’s too cold to ride my bike all the way back to my apartment, so I’ll just hang out another hour or so and then I’ll call it a night.
    It’s just past 11 and I’m watching Shauna Parsons on Channel 12. She’s another cute blonde, but she’s not Gretchen. Shauna probably would give you a hug and ask you where you got your sweater. Gretchen would plunge a scalpel into your pancreas while looking into your eyes and smiling.
    Suddenly, a burst of cold air blasts into the bar. The door is hanging open, though no one’s standing there. But the door opens from the inside, so I look around. Did someone come in while I was changing channels on the TV, and I missed them?
    “Here I am.”
    I whirl around at the sound of the voice, which is low and sexy. She is standing in the middle of the bar. Gretchen Lowell. She’s really here. My pulse quickens my heart pounds. She’s here. For me. She’s so tall. Her blond hair is tousled around her head in ringlets, her skin as flawless as it is in the photos I have. She’s wearing dark jeans, high-heeled boots, and a black cashmere sweater with a deep V neck. I am breathless and speechless at the sight of her.
    “How about a drink?” she asks. “Whiskey.”
    Still mute with fear and lust and so many other things I can’t name, I feel myself moving towards the bar under some power that isn’t my own. My hands find the bottle, the shot glass. They shake as I pour the amber liquid. Suddenly, her hand is on mine.
    “You’re shaking,” she says. Her voice is like nothing I’ve heard. Like her throat is made of velvet. “Are you…cold?”
    “Yes.” It comes out in a whisper.
    She laughs, and the sound of it suddenly warms me from head to toe. She knocks back the whiskey, licks her lips. “Come here,” she beckons, and of course, I obey. I walk out from behind the bar, into her open arms. She is so much taller than I am, so beautiful. Her mouth is a perfect rosebud, full and inviting. Tonight she has chosen me. I’ve willed her to come. It’s my turn. I’m so ready.
    She smells amazing, like roses, and something darker that I can’t name. I inhale her scent deeply, knowing that these are among the last breaths I will ever take. I remember suddenly that I wanted to know her, to have her know me, before she killed me. I had so many questions for her. But I suddenly can’t remember a single one of them. None of it matters now. She’s here. Gretchen Lowell is here with me now, and there is nothing else in the world.
    She places her hands on either side of my face, lifting it so that I’m looking up into her eyes. She smiles at me. “Are you ready, sweetheart?” she asks. I nod, unable to form words. She brings her mouth to mine and kisses me. Gently at first, and then harder. She pulls her face back suddenly and something in her eyes has changed. She’s gone from sweet to something…else.
    “Will it hurt?” I whisper, my eyes never leaving hers.
    “Do you want it to hurt?” she says, and her voice is nearly a purr. “Do you want to feel it?”
    “Yes,” I breathe.
    “Then get ready, sweetheart.”
    I keep my eyes locked on hers. Suddenly I feel warmth in my stomach. Her eyes darken, change. I gasp with the realization that she is cutting into me. I don’t feel any pain yet. I try to keep my breathing steady. I don’t want to pass out too soon and miss any of this.
    “Do you want more, sweetheart?” she asks, laughing.
    “Yes.”
    The warmth in my stomach begins to spread higher, coming up into my chest. My heart has been hers for so long, and now it will soon be in her hands. I am finding it hard to take deeper breaths now.
    “That’s it,” she croons. “Slowly, my sweet. Take slow breaths. The slower you breathe, the deeper I can cut. Slower, sweetheart, slower….”
    She is smiling as she says this. She seems further away now, hovering over me, and I realize she’s laying me down on the floor. I can only take shallow breaths. She kneels down next to me, smiling in a way that’s almost maternal. She gently brushes my hair away from my face. Her hand against my cheek is soft, cool; I catch another slight whiff of her scent in the air. She is smiling as she uses her scalpel, dark red with my blood, to cut into my cheek. I close my eyes, concentrate on the feel of the point scraping, scraping, and then penetrating the skin. She works the scalpel quickly, and I realize what she’s doing.
    She’s cutting her signature into my face. The heart. When they find me, everyone will know I’m the next victim of the Beauty Killer. It will be in the papers. Everyone will know my name. I won’t be forgotten. I will really have been someone. In death, I’ll finally have a life.
    “Goodbye, sweetheart,” Gretchen Lowell whispers in my ear. There is hot white pain through my ear, and suddenly, the whole world washes away in slow motion, and the last thing I see is her smile before my world goes black.

by ANONYMOUS