The flat of Ray’s left hand caught her hard across the cheek, and she collapsed under the blow as if he’d punched her. She lay still, her breathing suddenly smooth and even, her eyes closed. Her cheek bloomed into the pattern of five blushing fingers.

  He looked at his finger, the cuts made by her teeth.

  Fucking whore.

  He stood, resisted the urge to kick her where she lay. Instead he stooped to pick her up and carry her to her bed. He’d stay here the night so he could keep an eye on her.

  God knows what she’d do if he left.

  * * *

  Justine walks through the redbrick house, her smile soft, her eyes shining.

  “This…” she says, running her hands over the satin cushions that smother the couch, “is art.”

  She takes Ray by the hand, leads him into the living room. She stops before an expensively framed copy of a Matisse, the bright colours and simple line figures clashing against the Baroque pattern of the wallpaper. “This…” she says, “is art.”

  She leads him to the bedroom, her steps silent on the thick shag of the freshly laid rugs. “This…” she says, walking up to the antique dresser, running her hands over burnished ebony, “is art.”

  Ray takes her by the hips, turns her around to face him. He pulls up her shirt, squeezes her breasts, watches her nipples tighten under the bruise of his thumbs.

  “This…” he says to her, “is art.”

  * * *

  The pain in Ray’s finger woke him. He’d wrapped it tight around its neighbour with some bandages, but had loosened it before going to sleep, worried that he’d cut off the circulation. Now, without support, the crack between the joints that Stacey had opened with her teeth was pulsing hot flames, a burning swell that made his hand feel like a heavy, hot rock fixed to the end of his arm.

  Getting up to find some aspirin, he looked in on Stacey. She was sleeping soundly, naked beneath her thick down duvet. She was dreaming the empty sleep graced by narcotics. A place free of torments, an unconsciousness almost as total as death.

  Maybe she’d feel better in the morning.

  * * *

  Ray could barely drive with his injured hand and had woken up too late to go home and change his clothes. He brushed his teeth with his finger and went to the office unshaved. When he left, Stacey was still asleep, and he figured she would probably stay that way for most of the morning.

  That little slut Rosie Spicer would no doubt be thrilled to fill in on Stacey’s spots—Stacey had told him about their schoolyard rivalries before—but Ray figured it wouldn’t make much difference in the long run. There was only one Stacey Bishop, and after a few days rest she’d be right back where she belonged, in front of the cameras and then in his bed.

  He knew something was off the second he got out of the elevator and walked into the reception. He saw Melinda’s eyes widen at the sight of him, then melt down into a gaze of sickening sympathy.

  “We didn’t think you’d come in today,” she said, rising to greet him, her eyes flicking up and down to take in his creased shirt, his stubbled face, his badly wrapped hand.

  “Why the hell not?” he asked.

  “With the news…”

  “News?”

  Ray stopped himself. The news, of course. The bastards had aired the piece. Now it was common fucking knowledge that Ray White’s sweet, little, failed-actress wife had been killed making the most popular film of her career. That the ceremonial carving of her body was the price she paid for fame.

  The price that he paid.

  “You should go home, Mr. White. I already cancelled your appointments for you. No one thought—”

  “Why the fuck would you do that without consulting me?” He struggled to control his voice.

  Melinda stared at him, shocked, her eyes suddenly stinging red with the threat of tears. This he couldn’t handle. Not another weeping woman. Not another fucking fragile female moment.

  He left her gaping after him while he headed into his office, throwing his stuff on the desk and then lying down on his leather couch.

  That was when the phone rang. Not recognising the number, Ray almost didn’t answer it.

  “Hello, Ray.”

  “Who is this?”

  “I’m shocked that you’d forget me so soon, given that we’re business partners.”

  “Business partners?” he said, and then he knew where he’d heard that voice before. It was thick with mockery, just like that night in the alley. He didn’t even wonder how the man had got the number for his cell phone. “Listen here, you sick son of a bitch—”

  “Why are you angry, Ray? Especially since I executed your requirements so successfully.”

  “Requirements? I never asked you to—”

  “I fulfilled the task. You were clear that I had open range, no? I thought it was a good opportunity for me to incorporate it into my personal project.”

  Ray’s heart boomed in his chest while his mind digested the perverse truth of the man’s words. “So, what now?”

  “Now? Nothing, actually. I’m just ringing to thank you for the opportunity, and to tell you how pleased I am with how our respective projects have turned out. I never imagined how pleasurable it would be, or how fulfilling. I found the entire experience transformative, not to mention, quite profitable. Whoever thought high art would be so popular these days?”

  “You want to blackmail me? Then get about it, asshole. I’ll report this call. First you kill the man’s wife and attempt to blackmail him afterwards? You think I haven’t thought this through? You think I don’t have that angle covered?”

  The man sighed. “I’m not after anything as mundane as that. I am, after all, a pro-fes-sion-al.” The tone in his voice as he spelled out the word had an oddly feminine quality to it.

  Pro-fes-sion-al.

  Ray’s mind raced. Stacey. That’s how she’d spoken that word in the bar the other night. Ray’s gut wrenched. Had this guy been there, too? Was the freak stalking him?

  “Don’t ever call me again, you sick fuck. You…” The words died in Ray’s mouth. He swallowed hard. His throat was tight, his mouth tasted like ashes. He was starting to unravel, and for all his vast experience orating in courts of law, he couldn’t think of a single thing to say. What was there to say to such a person?

  “Oh, I won’t do that. There’s no need. I really just wanted to thank you and to ask if it was everything you wanted? I have the sneaking suspicion that you’re getting a whole lot more than you’d bargained for.”

  Ray hurled the phone and it shattered against the office wall in a shower of plastic.

  The office door opened and Melinda peeked in. She took one look at Ray’s face and hurriedly closed the door.

  Raymond White snapped his briefcase shut and reached for the keys to the Camaro.

  * * *

  “Stacey?” he called out as he stepped into her apartment. The living room was dark, lit only by a couple of lamps in the corners. He’d never noticed them before. He glanced around the room.

  What a fucking time to redecorate. Things must be worse than he’d thought.

  Gone was the chic, minimalist furniture, all white leather and glass. Where the Italian leather couches had sat previously was an antique settee and a pair of chairs.

  He checked the spare rooms, which were still empty. Whatever fashion virus she’d caught hadn’t yet infected her bedroom, which was great, but she wasn’t in there, either.

  He walked back into the living room and sat down on one of the chairs. The upholstery was soft but it was poorly cushioned. He ignored his discomfort. He should call her, maybe she was out at the bar or shopping. God, not more shopping.

  He felt the soft brush of breath at his ear, but before he could react, a thick rope slid over his shoulders, pinning him to the chair.

  “Take a seat, honey, I want to show you what I’ve been working on,” Stacey said, in a sweet, husky tone.

  Ray laughed, wondering what outfit or costume she’d be wearing, enjoying the tingle of fresh anticipation. Maybe she wasn’t mad after all. If she suddenly wanted to go all BDSM on him he could handle that. Hell, maybe he even needed it.

  Her hands were cold as they brushed against him, as she worked behind him, looping the ropes around and then pulling them tight at his back. She stooped to lick his neck, and as her hair fell he caught the scent of her perfume, delicate and oversweet. It made him, for a moment, think of dusk in autumn. The drift of dying leaves, the glow of the sinking sun. A girl trembling slightly as he puts his arms around her, the muscles beneath her blouse, beneath her skin, quivering.

  Her tongue was colder than her touch, her saliva strangely thick. He could feel it congealing on his skin in a greasy layer. For a moment, he thought it burned.

  And then she stepped around to face him.

  She was dressed in a white robe, Roman style. Her feet were bare, her smile soft. Her eyes hard and blank and utterly void. The eyes of a fish, the eyes of the dead.

  He jolted in his chair, felt the ropes force him back.

  “Hi honey,” she said, in a voice that was smooth and soft and slightly hesitant, with none of the husky bravado of Stacey’s.

  “Justine.”

  He didn’t know how he knew. The certainty struck him in a live, electric pulse, crackling through his fingers, stinging all his nerves as he watched her move, watched her step, watched her fingers clench around the fabric of her robe in tense balls, coiling it up, lifting it over her head. She stood naked before him, with Stacey’s rounder breasts and wider hips, stood staring out at him through Stacey’s vacant eyes.

  “Don’t tell me I’m more beautiful in this woman’s body,” she said. “You told me once that people are sincere when they’re faced with beauty. But I think the opposite is true. How can I make sure you’ll be sincere, Ray? By destroying beauty, maybe?”

  “Jesus.” The prayer bolted from his lips as she smiled her soft smile, her eyes unblinking.

  “The blood will be real this time,” she said. “I promise you won’t laugh once during this performance.” She moved to an antique dresser by the wall, running her hands lightly along its surface of burnished ebony, then opening one of the drawers.

  She pulled out the knife, long and flat, sharpened to a taper. For a moment Ray thought she was going to attack him with it, that she was going to kill him here, roped to this ridiculous fucking chair, but instead she lifted her breast and held the knife to it.

  “This…” she said, “is art.”

  He saw her take her nipple between her fingers, saw her pull it until it stretched taut, saw the edge of the blade bite into it.

  Somewhere in the depths of his consciousness he wondered how the seat of his pants had got soaked.

  He heard the tight, wet sounds of severing, the quick back and forth of a blade moving through raw flesh, once, twice. When he opened his eyes again, Stacey’s breasts, her beautiful breasts—the breasts he’d squeezed and kissed and pressed into his mouth—were eyeless sacks, bleeding rivulets of scarlet that raced down her body toward the floor.

  Stacey was staring back at him, tears filling her eyes, those eyes suddenly soft and living. She only had the time to say, “It hurts,” before Justine was back, closing out the light.

  “Don't say a fucking word,” she said, her soft voice suddenly hard and firm. And she placed the blade in the soft crease beneath her left breast.

  “He did it like this.”

  Before Ray could close his eyes or turn his face, she moved the blade up with sudden speed and force. She didn’t even need to hack. The blade popped through, and the weight of that bleeding sack—that eyeless mound of flesh and fat—dropped to the floor like a ruptured melon.

  “You always told me that I look beautiful in red,” she said, as blood poured down her body from the gaping wound.

  Ray’s stomach twisted suddenly, violently, and he vomited down his chest in an acidic choke that burned his breath and filled his nose with the stench of bile. Through the slime that coated his throat, he said, “Please. Don’t.”

  He could see her ribcage. Fine white bones washed pink with her viscera. He could see them moving slightly, see the spaces between them expand and contract as she breathed. The red of her meat, engorged with blood, was so dark it was almost black.

  The blade suddenly dropped from her fingers and she doubled over, clutching her belly, racked with hysterical sobs.

  “Stacey!” he screamed, helplessly fighting the ropes, the chair.

  She raised her head and looked at him with eyes like that of a child when she first sees the true face of life, bestial and leering. When she first learns that her mother and father can break her bones, that a stranger can pin her down and pull her legs apart, opening bloody holes she didn’t know existed. When she first realises that there is flesh beneath her skin, and that there are people in this world who would delight to peel her apart so that they can see it.

  And for the first time in his life, Ray understood what people meant when they talked about violations of nature, abominations—things that should not be.

  “Don’t be sorry,” Justine said, pulling Stacey’s body straight, seeing the words shuddering on his lips. “Didn’t I tell you that, at the end, it was almost beautiful? Stacey will be there soon. She’ll join me in that place where pain is like warm water poured on cold skin. She’ll want to stay there with me, too.”

  Bending slightly, Justine retrieved the knife from the floor and pinched at the tense meat of Stacey’s thigh.

  “He did it like this.”

  This time, even as his eyes streamed hot tears, Ray couldn’t make himself look away.

  * * *

  It was a long night vividly lit by a moving performance of tears and screams and scarlet disrobing. Piles of Stacey’s body lay on the floor. Ragged scraps of skin and gobbets of flesh and fat leaked clear fluid through the puddles of blood that spread across the tiled floor. Sticky red puddles that had begun to soak the edges of the new Persian rugs.

  At the end of the show the creature faced Ray with bloody black holes where its eyes had been. Its arms and legs were trimmed down to hard white bone that flew the flags of torn muscle, held together by tendons, ligaments and whatever indecent intelligence had hemmed Justine into them.

  An entire night of screaming and begging had exhausted him. He was nearing catatonia, his fingers flexing weakly, his jaw opening and closing over unformed words.

  As dawn was breaking and the show was just wrapping up, clean, new sunlight brushing against the windows, the thing that had once been a woman raised its blade once more.

  “This time,” it said, the bare muscles of its throat writhing as it spoke, “we’ll do it the traditional way. This time, we’ll start with the eyes.”

  Karen Runge lives in South Africa and is a horror author, artist, and a teacher of English as a Second Language. Her work has appeared in Pseudopod, Something Wicked, Pantheon Magazine and Structo.

  Her story “Hope is Here” was featured in the anthology Suspended in Dusk, and “Good Help” was published in Shock Totem. Horror icon Jack Ketchum once told her, “Karen, you scare me.”

  Simon Dewar lives in Canberra, Australia, with his wife and three daughters. By day, he is an Infrastructure Systems Engineer, specializing in building complex environments, application deployments and implementation of virtualization technologies. By night, he writes terrifying and gruesome tales that his wife refuses to read.

  Dewar is the editor of the anthology Suspended in Dusk. His short story, “The Kettle,” appears in Bloody Parchment: The Root Cellar and Other Stories, and his “The Wire Bird” was published in The Sea.

  He is currently working on a novella titled The House of Waite.

  There is an expression in your language: life is not fair. Well, death is not fair either.

  The others were professionals. I accompanied them because I have some English. Despite their being sailors, and I a mere interpreter, it was I who noticed all that went wrong on this raid. I kept silent because I feared their ridicule. Had I worried about the large matters instead of the small, I might live still.

  You have another phrase: done is done. Done, in this case, is most resolutely done. Yet, I retrace my steps. It is a false hope that this will help. I cling to it nonetheless, as a man thrown overboard holds to a raft although it only prolongs his suffering.

  We call ourselves badaadinta badah, coast guard. What we are, in truth, is much simpler. Yesterday, we discussed the raid over a khat picnic. Abraham Abdullah is the leader, the one they call Old Boy, so it sounds like a term of respect, which it is. He talked as we sat and chewed, drinking 7-UP to kill the bitter taste of the leaves and smoking to occupy our hands.

  Old Boy has a computer. Naturally. All the good pirate leaders have one. With the money that gets thrown around on khat and cars and pleasure marriages, I am surprised that funds remain. The curse of pirate cash, the land-bound call this. Old Boy is better about these matters. That, I suppose, is why he is the admiral and the rest mere sailors. In any case, the shipping charts are easy to find.

  “It is simply a question of using this Google,” Old Boy said. He told us a freighter was on its way. Everyone knows freighters are low and open and slow. Everyone laughed and boasted about who would be the first to board.

  By morning, my hands twitched and my stomach twisted like the ropes on the side of the fishing boat we use as a mother ship. We left Eyl before daybreak, crammed onto the boat with the skiffs trailing behind. Fareed paced until Old Boy told him to stop. It felt too close on the deck, all of us clustered together, fishing lines tangled like so many snakes. The water did not feel close. The sun turned its surface into a massive, metallic sheet. Pirate season is the hot season. We can’t work in the monsoons, and on the Horn of Africa we have only monsoons and heat.