Killing With Kindness By Marc Nash

She answered the front door.

“Someone just walk over your grave?”

“What the hell-? But – But, I threw a flower on your coffin this morning you bastard!”

“I know. It bounced off… Like a rubber cheque”

“Who on earth did we put in the soil then?”

“Search me, I wasn’t there. You gonna invite me in?”

She turned and went back inside. He followed her into the lounge. He studied the peeling wallpaper and damp under the windows. She was stood at her hostess’ trolley where sat bottles of spirits with no such signs of mildewed age. She mixed herself a tequila sunset, as her hand fumbled over the order. “Hair of the dog…”

Drowning your sorrows… or toasting mine?

“Look. I’m not even interested in how you faked your own funeral. Cos you sure as hell aren’t gonna be sympathetic to how I survived these past twenty years you’ve been banged up”

“Twenty-two”

She slumped down into the sagging nap of the armchair. Some liquid spilled over the rim of the glass and stained her dress. She didn’t seem even to notice it. He strode over to her and bent down to inspect the stain. “I think that’s beginning to burn a hole”

She raised her glass in mock toast. “You gonna buy me a new one then? With your ill-gotten gains?”

“Setting up my escape cost me every penny I had”. He walked back over and parted the curtain with the flat of his hand and gazed out. He let the curtains flop back. He moved over to the mantlepiece and picked up a coloured glass figurine. He held it up to the light and revolved it around in its dim corona. The smoked glass was too opaque to admit the light through it. She coughed. He spun round to regard that she was trying to light a cigarette. Her hand was trembling. He grasped it with his and steadied the lighter to the tip of the cigarette. He flicked the lid back down releasing her hand. Her fingers went straight up to cradle her temple. He flicked away a loose tress perilously close to the cigarette tip. She took a drag and exhaled loudly.

“Some of your clobber is still upstairs if you need a change of clothes”

“Thanks”

“Look like you haven’t put on a pound in all that time. Should still fit”

“Expect they’ll be moth eaten by now”

“Only kept them so they’d have something to bury you in. I should have twigged when no one came calling”. She dabbed at a leaf of tobacco on her tongue but couldn’t locate it. He lobbed the figurine into the fireplace. The glass smashed leadenly against the grate.

“You can have a bath as well if you want to”

“You come and join me? I don’t mean- Just come and chat”

She shook her head as she exhaled, jagging the smoke as if she was casting a smokescreen to efface herself. ” She drained her glass and held it up and waggled it. “Couldn’t mix me another one?”

He took the glass and mixed the ingredients. He bent down to study the sunrise taking shape. Its colours were dulled by the scratches in the glass. He handed it to her and returned to study the trolley. “Knock yourself out. When in Rome-ford and all that!” She giggled and lost herself further in the depression of her chair. She resurfaced to wipe a dribble of tequila from her chin. He pirouetted away from the trolley and walked over to the sofa. There was a magazine on the cushion. He lifted it up to inspect the title.

“‘Style’ magazine?” He cast his gaze around the careworn room.

“Whatever you do, you gotta do it with style. That’s what you always taught me”

“So I see”

“Yeah, well takes a bleedin’ budget to have style”

“Always got to be in there with the last word”

Get to have the first one too when you’re living on your own”

“See? Doing it -”

“But -”

He placed a finger over her lips. Her top lip moved to enfold the tip of his finger. He tapped against her teeth for release. She complied. He went and sat down on the sofa. With difficulty she raised herself from her chair and almost fell back into its maw. She shuffled over to the trolley. She picked up one of the bottles and tipped it upside down. “Shit. We’re out of syrup”. A thick dribble of liquid finally ended its slow slither down the bottle’s neck and plopped to the floor. She staggered back to her armchair and fell into it face first. She didn’t respond to his queries whether she was okay or not. He rose from the sofa and flipped her round in her chair. Then he left the lounge and started rooting around in the drawers of the kitchen. When he’d located what he was after, he returned back the lounge, now reverberating to her thick snores. He pulled down her sweat pants. He yawned her panties down just to expose her thatch. He worked off her wedding ring and then carefully applied the glue’s nozzle to coat the white gold in adhesive. Then he sunk to his haunches and precisely gaped her open with his fingers. “Still moist… still fermenting havoc after all these years”. He inserted the ring. “This ought to have served as a chastity belt first time round”

He stood back upright and leaned over for a cushion from the sofa. The oblivion she was in, she wouldn’t feel a thing. He would grant her that kindness at least.

——-

Marc Nash produced this story as a Friday Flash Christmas gift for Quiet Riot Girl, who gave him the prompt ‘killing with kindness’ as inspiration.