Chapter 2
He found the bright blue Ford. Studying the tire tracks in the snow he saw Irene had narrowly missed hitting a tree when she tried to turn around. The road was wide enough to turn around in if she had done it properly, but she had swung too wide and gone into the ditch. He unlocked the door on the driver's side, slid behind the wheel and fumbled with the keys until he found the ignition key. He put the key into the ignition slot but then he waited, glancing around the car.
It had the new-car scent, the scent of new leather, the peculiar blend of scents that only a new car can have. He could smell faint traces of their perfume and imagined he could smell traces of the woman-odors of their bodies, a faintly sweet, musky odor. The ashtray was filled with lip stick painted cigarette butts, there was a box of tissues on the dashboard. The glove compartment was empty except for a pair of long white gloves and a gaily colored scarf.
When he turned the ignition key, the engine roared into life instantly. He put the gearshift in reverse and pressed against the accelerator. In a few minutes, by rocking the car back and forth, by shifting rapidly from first gear to reverse, he maneuvered the car out of the ditch.
He laughed. It had been so easy. Irene had been driving and, like many women, not knowing exactly how to handle a car in snow, she must have simply stepped on the gas, burrowing one of the tires deeper and deeper into the ditch.
He lit a cigarette and drove slowly toward his house. Before he came within sight of it, he turned the car around until it faced in the other direction and then parked on the side of the road. The snow had stopped falling and he stared at the black-and-white world, wondering what he should do next.
He glanced at his wrist watch and saw it was seven o'clock. They-Irene, Janie, Emma, Ellen-must have left their offices at five. They must have driven toward Trenton and got the car in the ditch around five-thirty. They had reached his house shortly after six. Irene said they had been driving toward Trenton, so that meant they had jobs on the outskirts of Trenton. They must have formed the car pool as a means of convenience and saving money.
They had blundered into his life and now he had to act quickly. Their husbands would expect them to be late because of the condition of the roads, but around eight or nine o'clock, they'd begin to suspect something had happened. One or all of them would notify the police. He had to take care of all the details before the police were called in.
He had parked the car only a short distance from his house. When he reached the door, he stood for a moment, pressing his ear against the wooden panel. He could hear their voices-soft, whispery emanations through the wooden panel. He could hear some words distinctly, some indistinctly as their voices rose and fell in volume. He couldn't hear entire sentences, but he could hear fragments of their conversation:
"-and it'll probably be midnight before we get home."
"My husband will be-"
"We should have asked him to-"
"-house looks old and drafty and-"
"And filthy."
"obviously he isn't married. A man wouldn't clean as much as-"
"Obviously he isn't married! With a face like that!"
Laughter.
"Did you see the way he looked at Ellen."
"-and positively drooling."
"Dear, you should really-" More laughter.
He opened the door and the voices and laughter stopped abruptly. They looked at him expectantly but he only glanced at them, hurrying to his bedroom. He had to get the Luger out of his bureau. He had to be quick.
"Is the car out of the ditch?"
He left the bedroom door open and answered while he fumbled in the top drawer of the bureau. "No."
"What happened?"
He found the Luger. Irene stood in the bedroom doorway and he pointed the pistol at her as he turned. Her eyes widened, her large breasts rose and fell rapidly. He walked toward her and she backed into the living room ahead of him. When the others saw the gun in his hand, the plump one fainted-the one named Emma, he remembered. She took one look at the gun, clutched at her neck, toppled, slid to the floor with the effortless boneless roll of a baby. Her coffee cup fell with her and shattered.
The small one with the brown hair and the brown eyes jumped from the cot and screamed, a high piercing scream that ended as quickly as it came. She stared at the gun and although she stopped screaming, she began to tremble so much her skirt rustled around her knees.
The one named Ellen was the calmest. She rose from her chair with only a slight paleness of her face. She did not seem to be breathing faster, and she did not seem alarmed.
He waved the gun to indicate the direction he wanted them to walk.
"Through that door," he said. When they hesitated, beginning to protest and plead and cry, he stalked toward them as if about to hit them with the gun. He shouted and they scurried through the door he had indicated.
After they crowded into the storage room, he gestured for them to move against the far wall. Holding the gun aimed at them, he kicked at the cardboard boxes that had been piled in front of the hidden door. After he cleared the area by kicking the boxes to one side, he pushed a finger through the small knot hole and pulled the door open.
He stood aside and nodded for them to go through the doorway. They did not move. "In there," he ordered.
They still did not move. He studied them for a moment and realized they were like female animals. Three frightened female animals, paralyzed by fear. The small one, the one named Janie, looked as if she would faint. The one named Irene was now breathing so rapidly, her large pointed breasts rising and falling so rapidly, that if the circumstances had been different, he would have been completely aroused. Ellen's face had drained of color still more but she remained the calmest of the group.
Janie stood with her legs slightly apart and he carefully aimed the Luger at her skirt between her knees. The bark of the bullet and Janie's scream seemed simultaneous. She stared at the bullet hole in her skirt, screamed and ran toward the door he had indicated. Irene and Ellen followed, the three of them shoving against each other in their haste.
In the damp passageway that smelled of earth and decaying wood, he told them, "There's a door at the end. Go through it."
They did as he ordered and when they were inside, he closed the door and locked it. He hurried back to the front room, fearing for a moment that Emma might have regained consciousness and run from the house.
She was still there on the floor-had not moved an inch. He laid the Luger on the table and pulled his handkerchief from his pocket to wipe at the sweat on his face. His heart was pounding and he tried to calm it by sheer concentration. It had worked. Now he had them-all four of them. Now he could rape them whenever he wanted.
He would keep them alive for awhile, rape them one by one and then kill them one by one. He would spend some time deciding which to take first. He would devise little sex-games for the five of them and they would have to play his games. They had no choice. They belonged to him.
He slipped the Luger into a pocket and knelt on the floor beside Emma. He turned her on her back. Her head rolled lifelessly back and forth on the linoleum. He fingered her wrist but could feel no pulse. He groped beneath her breasts and felt the pounding of her heart and knew she was alive. He tried to feel for a pulse in her wrist again, could not find one and decided he was either doing it improperly or else her pulse was too weak to detect.
He tried to lift her from the floor by sliding one arm under her legs and another under her back. He managed to lift her but his legs were straining with the effort and he knew she was too heavy to carry. He'd have to drag her. He lowered her to the floor but at the last moment he lost his balance and her head clunked on the floor.
Her skirt was now up, around her thighs and he could see the soft whiteness of her thighs crisscrossed with the tops of her nylons and garter-straps. He felt a burst of new desire and knew he could rape her. Now there would be nothing to stop him. He pulled her skirt up and found she was wearing a girdle with a zipper down the front. He unzipped the girdle and discovered her pink panties beneath that.
He tried to pull her panties off but found he had to unsnap the ends of the garter-straps and, after some time spent struggling with the unfamiliar items of clothing, he managed to slide her panties down the length of her legs. He rose and stood for a moment with the aching in his loins. Emma was plump, he saw-so plump she wore a girdle to compress some of the plumpness, but she was not what he thought of as fat.
He removed his pants and shorts, knelt on the floor, sliding her legs apart. He knelt for a moment, staring at the black triangle beneath him, the soft vulnerable flesh. He touched her, exploring intimately with the tips of his fingers, and then, as suddenly as he had felt the desire to rape her, he decided not to. Not then. Later, when there was time to do it more slowly and enjoy every detail....
For now there were too many things to be done. He had to get her into the cellar. He had to get rid of their car. It was possible one of their husbands had already alerted the police. If the police found their car near his house....
He zipped the girdle together, snapped the garter-straps to the tops of her stockings. He pulled her dress down to her knees, grabbed her beneath her arms and dragged her across the floor. While he was dragging her he saw the pink panties on the floor but decided to get rid of them later. When he reached the cellar door he unlocked it and, as he opened it, he heard one of the women crying.
They hadn't found the light switch-the room was still dark. He reached inside and flipped on the switch. They blinked in the sudden glare and when their eyes had grown accustomed to the light, he pointed at the unconscious woman on the floor.
"Drag her inside."
"You can't do this!" Irene shouted. Her face had reddened now, suddenly, she seemed more angry than frightened.
"Why are you keeping us in here?" Janie asked. "Why? Why?" She began to cry again and fell across the bed, her body shaking with convulsive sobs.
"Drag her in there," Stan said mechanically. Oddly, he felt no emotion at all. Their fear had no effect on him. He had made his decision, he had thought the plan through and he was executing it. Their fear meant nothing. They belonged to him. He would get rid of their car and then he would rape them one by one.
With the help of the gun and perhaps a whip if necessary, he would play with them all the little sex-games he had ever read about or dreamed of. When he became tired of them, or when it became too risky to keep them prisoners any longer, he would kill them one by one.
Disposing of their bodies would be no problem at all. He could take up the floor boards in the cellar and dig their graves in the dirt beneath the floor. He could bury them there and then replace the floor boards and no one would ever know what he'd done.
He watched as Irene and Ellen dragged the unconscious Emma into the room. Janie rose from the bed, still crying, and Irene and Ellen lifted Emma onto the bed, grunting with the effort.
Emma began to stir on the bed, moaning softly. She raised her knees and her skirt fell around her hips-fell far enough so that her naked loins could be seen.
Irene turned toward the doorway. "What did you do to her? You filthy..." She rose from beside the bed and walked rapidly toward him. "Did you rape her? Did you rape her?"
She looked angry enough to slap his face or scratch him or hit him with her fists despite the danger of the gun. He slammed the door and locked it.
He had to get rid of their car.
Then, when everything was safe, there would be plenty of time to enjoy them.