Page 103 of Serial Killer Games

“You said we’d follow my MO,” I remind him. I pry his hands from my hips and shrug my robe off.

It’s embarrassing how many times I’ve snuck this exact condom around with me, tucked in my purse or bra, just in case, since our trip to Las Vegas.

“What’s your MO?” he whispers, barely breathing.

So I tell him. I whisper it into his ear as I bite his earlobe, and he shudders. I whisper it against the skin of his neck and his chest, the muscles flickering in his sides as he convulses against the tickle of my breath. He smells so good. And then I whisper the final part against his lower belly. I’m silent after that for a little while, and I make sure he’s not. He twitches and trembles, and when his fingertips trace frantic nonsense patterns on my face and scalp, I pull away and climb up his body. He pants like he’s run a minute mile, and I don’t give him a chance to catch his breath. I drape myself over him, slide myself onto him, and devour his little moans with my mouth.

I hold his face between my hands—his jaw, his throat. I scratch my nails slowly across his scalp, through his thick hair, and he lets out another stifled sigh. I want to get more than a sigh out of him. I press myself against him more firmly and he kissesmethen, blindly, hungrily—

And then slowly, languorously—and then he pulls away.

He licks his lips and strokes my knee with one thumb, hesitating. His breath is careful and shallow, like he’s being mindful of disturbing the poor dust motes suspended in the air.

He cups the side of my face and his thumb ghosts over my eyebrow, my nose, my lips.

I’m trying to force an MO. The texture of this moment is different from what I’d imagined a few weeks ago.

How many more times will we get to do this?

I kiss him again, slowly, deliberately, the stubble under his lower lip scratching my skin, and now I’m filing away details, itemizing memories, vacuum-packing them and numbering them already for the twisted little museum in my heart. I’m an archivist, and I want to document everything—I want to know everything—I want to rifle around until I’ve found all his hidden clasps and latches and undone them all. I want to luxuriate in all his details. He lets out another stuttering sigh, like he’d been holding his breath for too long, and even his breath tastes right. We move against each other—skin, sinew, bone, beating hearts—two fragile, perishable structures safe enough for a moment to be vulnerable with each other.

I sit up to survey him—I need to document a bird’s-eye view—but Jake’s not having any of my shit. It’s not my MO anymore. He pulls me down on top of him again, his arms roped around me tightly, possessively. Wanting me, even as he has me.

He’s always wanted me, prickly little monster that I am. I’m one of those pin impression toys, and Jake is the soft hand pressing me down. I don’t know if he has any idea how faithfully I’ll keep his imprint after he goes.

46

Last Words

Jake

“I’ve been thinking about thatSecret Santa copycat act that was in the news…” she says in the dark.

I open my eyes, but I don’t see that much more than I did when they were closed. What little light there is comes from beyond her darkened head next to me on my pillow.

“I think they should keep working together. Two heads are better than one.”

I watch the outline of her profile against the dim gray wall, a shape I know well. She’s spent so much time half turned away from me. She turns to me now and it vanishes.

“Have you figured out what you want to do with the rest of your life?” she whispers across the pillow. She threads her fingers through mine, and they begin to tingle.

“I was thinking,” she continues, “you seem to like…normal, everyday things. Boring, real life.” She squeezes my hand. “Nights in, and messes to clean, and cooking to do. And if that’s what you want to do instead of jet-setting around theworld and ticking off a bucket list…you could move in with me. I’d like that.”

I can’t feel her hand in mine anymore. It’s completely numb.

She wasn’t supposed to actually want any of this.

For a moment I’m so tempted. I try to math it in my head, knock it all into an equation that doesn’t produce zero-sum in my favor. I throw in my two hundred thousand from Las Vegas…but there’s nothing else, really. It’s a laughable offering when what Dodi deserves is an entire living, breathing person for the rest of her life. I can’t tidy up this equation because it’s all a fucking mess, and I hate messes.

I think of all those sharp edges left by the last bump in her life. It’ll keep happening—every time a blow happens, another crack, another row of shards to prick other people with, and herself too. Keeping people out, keeping her locked in, alone.

“I don’t care if we can only do this for a little while,” Dodi says, as if reading my mind. “I want to be with you. You want that too. That’s all most people want at the end, to be with family. I know how much that sucks to not have family.”

I think of that night on her sofa, drinking wine. Laura gazing with hearts in her eyes at the two of us clasping hands. Bill gruffly teaching me to light a fire.

I can’t help but think of Cat slipping her hand into mine at the mall.

“I’d like to have you with me…because I—”

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