It was thirty-one fucked up days after the fateful night that he met Mae when Trent picked her up from the Sacramento mall and took her to the nearest hotel (an hour’s combined driving time to and from his apartment would be a misuse of their precious time). It was there that he unloaded a hundred-and-eighty pounds of testosterone in two minutes flat. They spent the next few hours conversing and kissing, caressing and resting. They voiced their convictions of a shared chemistry that could only come from the finding of one’s true soul mate. Interests, desires, personalities so easily assimilated, bonded together by the unspoken presumption of permanence. It was unthinkable that they hadn’t meet sooner. How meaningful and natural life would be if they were but freed from these bondages, these obstacles placed to circumvent their destiny of unity.
Trent had to listen to a damned meddlesome phone call from that bitch mom every hour. But aside from that it was the best three hours of his life.
As Mae lay gathered up on his chest on the hotel bed, Trent gazed down at the perfection of body and mind upon him and appreciated his blessed fortune. She would tilt her head just enough to kiss his chest every so often, reminding him of her love and devotion. If it could all be boiled down to one moment, it was then that he knew he would be with her forever.
“I love you, Mae.”
She perked up and flashed at him her big blue eyes with fiery amber coronas blazing. “I love you too!” In her slight arms she embraced him with the impassioned fervor of a military wife reunited with her long lost P.O.W. and gave him a torrential down-pour of kisses. It was a blissful moment that never wanted to see an end. A moment that could never be duplicated or relived, endured in both the blink of an eye and the life of a memory.
The blink of an eye passed the torch to memory. Time is the most unconditional and ruthless of predators and was exceedingly so for those three heavenly hours.
He drove her back to the mall where the Clark-suckers would pick her up and transport their prisoner home. It wasn’t all bad: Mae said she’d meet him at the mall again tomorrow for another three hours. Parents permitting, that is.
After dropping her off, he milled around the mall with a spring in his step, grinning perpetually. He entered the first jewelry store that evoked the desired vibe. He bought an engagement ring—which he would call a promise ring—and decided to give it to her tomorrow at the hotel. He would be clear, crystal clear, that it wasn’t a proposal. Its symbolism was essentially the same, but it wasn’t a promise to marry, but rather to be together forever. His mother had married his father and look how that turned out. His father died shortly after. She remarried twice, both ending in divorce. Aunt and uncle?—divorced. Marriage was a hex but what it represented wasn’t. A promise ring was the way to go. A promise of a shared life. Till death do they part, a phrase that he always thought had a nice ring to it.
Later that night Mae texted Trent the bad news. There would be no trip to the mall tomorrow. No sneaking off to a hotel. ‘They’ were on to them. And the worst part was that Mr. and Mrs. Fucktard would be using a tracking device on her—“Installing a tracking device” was probably how they said it—so they’d never be able to spend time together again. Not for another three years, that is. At eighteen she’d be able to move in with him, and at last they’d be together. It was an obscene joke with no punch-line.
The combustible hatred that he had been cultivating, a dull orange glow smoldering in Trent’s heart for thirty-one days, was fanned, fueled, and ignited into a blistering red inferno of hell’s fucking fury. He needed a solution like a poisoned man needs antidote, like an uncontainable fire needs rain. There was only one way to put out this baleful fire, and the rain would surely be blood red. Fuck rain; a ship-swallowing tempest with a forecast of red tide.
Trent would have it out up-close-and-personal with the fire starters.
Chapter 27
Sunday morning started off on a high note. Tag awoke to the smell of bacon, eggs, and coffee. Kade wasn’t the type to make any of those things, so he surmised Kade got lucky at the bars last night. This assumption was confirmed when he entered the living room. A girl in an over-sized shirt and no pants, bed-hair, and spatula in hand was manning the range in the kitchen. He wondered if she was wearing panties under that ugly shirt but didn’t want to find out. If she was free-balling it, he’d be having cereal and juice. She wasn’t as hefty as were most of his one-nighters. Not at all. Dare he deem her cute? Kade with a cute girl? The sun does shine on a dog’s ass every now and then. She was in a pleasant mood, too. Tag loved morning people since he wasn’t one. They were a curious breed. More animal than human. What he liked about them is how he could siphon some good-mood out of them. Usually. Sometimes he’d just piss them off.
“Hi there,” she said with a candid grin. “I’m Bonnie.”
“Hey. Tag. It smells like Denny’s in here. Smells good.” He observed her painted toe-nails and wondered what the hell the point of that was. Did they help her win Kade over last night? Like he even noticed them now that she was barefooted.
“You should smell my sheets,” Kade said from the couch.
Bonnie frowned at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Please don’t answer that, Kade.” To Bonnie, he said, “Anyways, thanks for cooking. If you cooked for three, that is. I shouldn’t have assumed that.”
“I did. And it’s my pleasure.” She glimpsed Tag’s chest and said, “Nice shirt.”
Tag looked down. A black tee with white words reading FUCKING IDIOT and an arrow pointing to his crotch. “Thanks.”
“That was a Christmas present from me,” Kade said proudly.
Tag took his warm plate and coffee to his room to watch a little baseball before getting ready for his date. He was savoring a piece of bacon when an E-Harmony commercial aired, triggering the memory of his romantic short-story that he had posted. Molly had said that people will read and review posted works; he was suddenly curious if anyone had done that. What a colossal piece of shit! is what they’d likely say. Did he even give it a title? He hadn’t a clue. It was a mighty fine drunken fog he was cruising through that night. It could be entitled Booty Soup for all he knew.
He brought his plate to his computer desk and navigated to the website. It asked him to log in. It wanted two things from him and he couldn’t provide either: his username and password. Luckily after he entered the letter T, it auto-filled the rest: Tagwrites. The password wouldn’t come as easily. He entered the passwords of his email address, voicemail, and bank account. No dice. “Good thinking, dumbass. Pick a password when you’re drunk that you’ll never remember when you’re sober.” On a whim he entered MaeClark: the password was accepted. “Oh hell yeah! Go Mae! Is there no end to your greatness? Apparently not!” He had three messages. “Woo-hoo!”
The first was the aspiringwriter-dot-com staff welcoming him to the community. Delete. The second was from JohnHeines and read:
Awesome story! Flawless grammar, unique style, and it was two boners up! If I could make one suggestion it would be to move it out of romance and into erotica. I wouldn’t let my sixteen-year-old son read what you wrote. Keep it up, man! (and by up I’m referring to my boner!) Peace, John.
“Sounds about right. I guess I could always get a job at Penthouse Forums.” He clicked on his portfolio and saw that he had one posted story. It was titled Mae The Day Away. “Mae The Day Away? That’s the best I could come up with?” Booty Soup would’ve been better.
His last message was from Anonymous Guest. Ah, the infamous Anonymous Guest. The masked critic. Never brazen enough to confess his identity for fear of retaliation. He clicked on the message and it read:
Interesting story. It’s remarkably like my own. Coincidence, huh? What’s your name and address and I’ll mail you a printed copy of it.
There was no signature. And there was no way in hell he’d be giving out his name and address, thank you very much. Especially when the guy could just as easily post it on the site
for Tag to read. Unless it was too large to fit, which was quite possible with this joke of a website. But it wasn’t Tag’s problem this time. “Ain’t gonna happen, Anonymous Guest.” Tag replied:
Just post it and send me a link. I’d be more than happy to read it. Later, Tag.
After debating himself, he decided to post part of his novel—as much as would fit. If someone wanted to read more, he’d email it to them.
He found a good stopping-point, which was somewhat of a hook, and copied and pasted it to a blank document; then posted it. He wondered how long it would be before someone read it. He didn’t have an understanding of how people’s stories made it to the open public to browse. He navigated the website to find out. He clicked on the romance genre banner and under Newly Listed Entries he saw a story titled A Summer of Passion that was posted eight minutes ago. He scrolled down a couple dozen entries before finding Mae The Day Away.
“Who’s the handsome fellow who wrote you?” He clicked on the suspense genre banner and the first entry listed was Red Trouble – sample chapter. Even though it wasn’t published and he’d be lucky if a single soul read more than a page of it, he felt a swell of pride, having his own creation available to the willing public. Or unwilling public. More than that, Mae Clark had finally graduated from a single discerning set of eyes to an unknown plurality.
He decided to read Mae The Day Away, to see if it was as erotic as John Heines claimed it to be. And boy was it! By page two, Tag Taylor (you clever devil, swapping the B for a T!) was getting to know Mae Clark well. Very Well.
It was arousing reading it. He couldn’t remember writing a word of it, so it evoked the sensation of not coming from him, which instilled a sort of validity to Mae’s existence.
After a three-paged sex scene, there was a page of rest and small-talk. Then two more pages of sex. Tag was getting exhausted just reading it. Poor Mae was getting hammered by Tag Taylor. He felt ashamed to be so crass, so animalistic to his beloved. She deserved better than raunchy hotel sex. Hotel sex fifteen minutes after getting rear-ended by Tag. She’d have more than one rear-end collision that day. He undoubtedly borrowed part of that sex scene from his second novel. By the time he got to the third and final sex scene of Mae The Day Away, a chime notified Tag that he had a new message. It was his old friend Anonymous Guest.
“My first fan.”
It read:
Hey, buddy! I created a profile in your honor! Check it out!
Tag clicked the link. It brought him to a short story under the Other genre. It was titled ‘untitled’ and posted two minutes ago. Tag swiftly went to the kitchen to refill his coffee and hurried back. He was genuinely excited. Maybe he and Anonymous Guest could critique each other’s works. Who knows? He cracked his knuckles and began reading:
My name is Tag Taylor.
“Huh? My name is Tag Taylor? What kind of shit is this?” Bemused, he read on:
My name is Tag Taylor. Allow me to tell you a little story about a girl named Mae Clark whom I recently had the pleasure of sticking-it to. She was such a splendid little piece of ass. And while we were sweaty and recovering in the sack, she admitted to having a husband… Vengeance is his name. I wish I could tell you that I had no idea Mae was happily married, but come on, let’s be honest here, the tan-line on her bare ring finger said it all. After aiding her in defiling her wedding vows, she told me about her husband. About how he spoils her rotten even though she doesn’t deserve a fucking bit of it. Mae knows damned well that her husband is the best guy she’ll ever meet (and could ever get), but having that same old cock for five years now was all she could stand. In fact, it was time to lay down. So on her back she went. She searched for the first asshole who would help her cheat on her righteous husband, and there I was! Fucking Fag Taylor at your service! And servicing guys’ wives is my specialty! She got the full packaged deal, too. Lube and an oil change. Headlights checked (thoroughly), carpet sucked clean, trunk wouldn’t open so I oiled it up and pried my way in and my how she screamed! If only Mae had told me at the time that her husband doesn’t tolerate cheating bitches and has a fucking blast beating her sins the hell out of her, she’d probably be able to walk right now instead of popping pain-pills in bed and wondering how she’s going to hide her bruises this time. Was it worth it for me?—to get a choice piece of strange ass? You bet! Do you think that I worry about Vengeance finding me and torturing me with a dull hatchet, one lopped off body-part at a time?—of course not!
But I should. Yes, I most definitely should. You’re fucked.
Signed,
Hell’s Fucking Fury
Tag panicked. Mistaken identity, that’s all it was. There are hundreds of Mae Clark’s in the world. Thousands even. A simple mistake. But how the message ended, how he signed it, that was an ugly coincidence. There was a logical explanation, he just didn’t know what the hell it was.
He contemplated emailing him back, to explain that he’d made her up, but decided it was best to leave the situation alone. The psycho didn’t know his name, so there was nothing to worry about. He lamented using such a close facsimile of his name, but the nut-job wouldn’t know that. Even if he tried to find Tag, he’d give up when he learned Tag Taylor was a fake name. Tag wondered if the psychopath had noticed the newest Tag Taylor upload entitled Red Trouble, starring Mae Clark. If so, he couldn’t have had a chance to read it yet.
He opened his portfolio and hastily removed both his posted works.
He shut the computer down and got in the shower, cycling the signed Hell’s Fucking Fury in his mind.
* * *
Molly put her hand on Tag’s and glanced over at him. His eyes weren’t on the big-screen, but instead veering around the theater. She leaned over to whisper, “Tell me what’s wrong. And don’t say nothing, or this time I really will punch you in the balls.”
“I think I’m coming down with a cold. Sorry for being a Debbie Downer.”
“Aww, poor thing.” She placed her hand on his thigh and crept upward while saying, “Is there anything I can do to make you feel better?”
He flung her hand away. She withdrew from him mumbling an apology.
He dropped her off at her apartment immediately following the movie, saying as little as he could get away with. She trudged back to her apartment with an air of defeat.
Chapter 28
In life coincidences are as astounding as they are a-plenty. December 17, 1993 in a small town just west of Richmond Virginia, a man by the name of Arthur Rosen lived with his wife Bethany. Arthur had fallen in love with another woman, a married woman by the name of Jeanette. When Jeanette ended the affair, she ended Arthur’s will to live. He wasn’t the bullet to the brain or jumping off a bridge type. Not Arthur. Arthur was too chickenshit for a gory death. He blended a margarita and instead of salting the rim he used strychnine. Arthur checked out of this world at approximately 11:30 P.M. on said night, leaving behind his unsuspecting wife Bethany.
In the same small town just west of Richmond, a man by the name of Oswald Hurley had grown to hate his bitch wife Jeanette, but still loved her inherited fortune and wasn’t ready to divorce that enormous pile of money. So he did what any loving husband would do and staged her death. He’d recount that they’d been having rodent problems in their garden so they bought rat-poison. Jeanette, absent-minded as she was, would forget that she had applied the compound to her vegetable plants, and make a huge garden salad a couple days later, dropping dead shortly after. Jeanette checked out of this world at approximately 11:00 P.M. on December 17th, 1993. Toxicology reports would later show that Jeanette died of strychnine poisoning, commonly used to poison small vertebrates.
The coroner was busy that night, but at least she didn’t have to travel far, being that both deaths occurred a stone’s-throw away from one another. Oswald was distraught by his wife’s untimely death and couldn’t fathom how it came to be (though he had his story lined up for when toxicology reports would come back: “We did have rodent p
roblems, is that what killed my sweet wife Jeanette?”). To Oswald’s delight, his dumb-ass neighbor offed himself the same night and used the same poison that Oswald had fed his wife. Things only got juicier when correspondence was discovered between Arthur and Jeanette; it turned out they got to know each other quite explicitly. Arthur’s simple suicide note was nothing more than an apology to his wife Bethany. He never mentioned that he and his neighbor Jeanette were telling each other I love you, and the final email correspondence between the two was Jeanette telling Arthur she didn’t want to see him anymore, that she strove to be monogamous with her husband Oswald. That was learned information after the fact, discovered by detectives.
It was an open and closed case. Arthur couldn’t stand that his lover rejected him, so he poisoned her and then himself. Oswald never saw the inside of a prison.
Who would have thought (until ten years later when Oswald was lying on his death bed and felt compelled to clear his conscience) that the two poisoning deaths—both with strychnine, both at the end of the same cul-de-sac, both intimately involved cheating spouses—were in essence unrelated?
In life coincidences are as astounding as they are a-plenty, and on that seventeenth day of December, so many years ago, the biggest coincidence was this: while Oswald was feeding his wife strychnine, Bethany was next door mixing Arthur’s ‘suicide’ cocktail and typing his suicide note.
Trent needed a coincidence as marvelous as the one Bethany and Oswald experienced. Like most people in or near Sacramento, he followed the news reports of a serial killer hacking up families in the same part of town where Mae lived. Maybe it was a coincidence, maybe a sign from God. Divine Intervention. Either way he had hit the jackpot. The stupid-ass news people were practically begging for a copycat killer, by describing the murders with the kind of detail that gives homicide departments ulcers and early retirement programs. Duct taped hands and ankles, ankles to the legs of a chair, throats cut with a large knife. There would be no way he could pull off a carbon-copy murder scene of the real serial killer, but as long as it was damningly similar and he left no DNA evidence behind, police would be quick to theorize it was another attack from the serial-killer-at-large. The media would jump on the bandwagon with absolutely zero journalistic integrity, ask zero questions to anyone offering an opposing theory—ratings, publicity, new leases on Jaguars, better hair stylists—and would write the story as fantastic as their ambitions. God knows the police chief wouldn’t want to give a press conference telling the good people of Sacramento that there isn’t just one bad (bad!) man hacking up families, but two of them (“But don’t worry, we have our best cops out there knocking on random people’s doors and writing stuff down, underlining some of it. Sleep tight, Sacramento.”). An opportunity this rich only comes around once in a lifetime, and the longer Trent waited, the more likely the real serial killer would get caught; the window of opportunity would slam shut in Trent’s face.