Fist of the Spider Woman (9 page)

She liked the firmness and weight of him over her and her legs wrapped around his, on the sofa like teenagers. Except as a teenager, she had never done anything like this. It was hedonistic and heady, and her skin was a furnace. All her worries sparkled on the back of her tongue with the wine. She kissed him as she unbuttoned her jeans. He helped her pull them down her legs.

He always liked her strong legs. Her stomach fluttered as his fingertips slid up her newly shaved legs, and she thought for a moment about closing her legs again, crossing them. But she was thirty-three and horny and a little drunk. She forgot just a few seconds too late.

He had stopped with her panties caught at her knees. Stared.

Between her legs, then up at her face, stared at the dilated horror in her eyes. His face changed colour as his emotions ran over it like water: confusion, revelation, disgust, betrayal, and revulsion. He stood up, grabbed his jacket and briefcase, fastened his trousers, and left.

Daniel Foreman was her second boyfriend. After a year and a half of patience, Kate wanted to unveil. Daniel was a nice man.

Her thoughts had skipped through each of the key phrases in her books: diversity, body image, positive thinking, love yourself, relativity. He thought her pretty, and that was more than she ever expected. They were adults, they were in love, they had been talking about engagement.

Some boundaries, Kate thought as she stared into the mirror, are meant to be crossed. He had never given her a ring. At least he did not find out on their wedding night. And that's when the tears started. She shrugged the rose-coloured blouse off her shoulders, standing there in her underwear with her throat swollen and her eyes turning red. Broad shoulders, flat breasts, and purple stretch marks on her stomach. She had good skin when it was clear, and she used moisturizers and exfoliated; she shaved everywhere.

Grabbing a handful of tissues, she wiped her dripping nose, trying not to make a sound. Who she was hiding from?—it was just her and the cat in the apartment. All she knew was that she did not want to cry now. Before getting into the shower, she lit a few scented candles and shut off the lights. She could see enough. Everything looked better by candlelight. She slipped behind the shower curtain. She jerked the knob to the left until the water burned her, then shifted it back to the right, and it cooled down slightly.

The last time she really looked in the mirror properly was at her best friend Judy's tenth birthday party. Judy had a sleepover with three other girls, and they sat in the Jacuzzi tub with their bathing suits on, giggling in the bubbles. Kate wore shorts over her bathing suit because without them you could see. Eventually, the discussion turned to ghost stories, and Judy retrieved a book from her bookshelf and started reading from it in a low, intense voice. The hook, the babysitter's call, the long fingernails, Mary Worth—all the classics.

“They have stories about Bloody Mary all over the world,” Judy whispered. “She's always in the mirror after you chant her name, dripping in blood, reaching out to grab you. If you don't turn on the lights in time, they never find your remains.”

Judy set the book down and looked at all of her friends huddled in the tub. Then she smiled. “Wanna try it?” she said.

Candlelight, locked doors, fluffy white towels around their shoulders, they stared into the mirror and chanted Bloody Mary, turning in circles five times for each name.

“Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary, Bloody Mary.”

The girls all looked at each other and tittered nervously. Finally, one of them found the courage to turn once more, so the rest of them did too. “Bloody Mary.”

They all peered into the mirror, half wanting to shield their eyes and half wanting to see the fruits of their spell. Kate did not know which one of them screamed first. But once one screamed, they all started screaming, stampeding to the door, unlocking it, and yanking it open. It was not until they were in the master bedroom that it occurred to Judy to just turn on the bathroom light. It went without saying that there was nothing in the bathroom, nothing in the mirror but reflections of sheepish smiles.

Two of them swore they had seen something in the mirror—a person behind them, a face. Kate had not seen anything. Still, all of them slept tightly huddled together in their sleeping bags, with a night light on in the hall. Maybe there had been something in that mirror. But like all nights, it dissolved into morning. That was when things were relatively normal, when she still had dreams of flowers blossoming, ugly ducklings turning into swans, beasts into beauties.

Kate let the hot water pound against her back as she squeezed vanilla body wash onto her loofah. Her eyes felt swollen shut, and she could barely see, but she knew her body by touch as well as by sight. The soap smoothed over her arms, then her stomach and back, then down her legs. Hesitating, she curled the loofah between her legs. She thought she could feel it. A little less than an inch wide, a little more than an inch long. It was disgusting.

It was there. She jerked her hand away and turned into the spray again.

It had been Judy who first saw her—Kate's daring attempt to change in the girls' locker room after seventh grade gym. She was not the only girl who preferred to change in the bathroom stalls, but they were all girls there, right? Looking was never supposed to be a problem as long as no one
really
looked. But when Judy caught a glimpse, she couldn't help but stare. Kate's face flushed bright red, and she rushed to cover herself. She felt like she was going to vomit at the look of confusion and disgust on Judy's face. Kate was lucky that Judy didn't spread the word to the entire school. Instead, their friendship waned until it was nothing but awkward glances in the hallways. Middle school was not a bastion of nonconformity, and Kate went back to changing in the bathroom stalls all the way through high school.

She turned off the water and reached for a towel. She dried the same way she cleaned. A brief swipe between her legs, and she looked into the mirror. It was crooked. She blinked, reached up to set it right on its nail. The corner cut into her finger. She hissed between her teeth, bringing her finger to her mouth to suck on it. In the fogged glass and candlelight, she could see the blur of deep purple that was her towel and the lighter tan that was her body.

For a moment, her breath shuddered the candlelight, and it looked like there was someone behind her. She turned around, but there was no one there. She felt that queer tension in her lower back, the one she got when it was too quiet and she had strange ideas. Her fingers fumbled with the light switch and flicked it on quickly. The light changed everything. She could breathe. And she did not have to look. She swung the bathroom door almost closed on her way out. Those turned-down sheets whispered under the weight of one body. Kate kept the lamp on, curled under the covers with her arms around a pillow. There was a steady ringing in her left ear, and she thought she heard her cat, Gracie, in the bathroom. With her eyes shut she saw Daniel's face dissolve into the lightning in her eyelids.

Dinner by herself the next night did not seem so dire as long as she kept the television on. Gracie sat in the hall with the tip of her tail twitching irritably and watched Kate eat her readymade lasagna. She lost herself in the motion of the fork from her plate to her mouth and in the news story that kept coming up on every station. For the last five weeks, all of the local and some of the national stations had been covering the Chicago serial murders. Three women brutally killed in their own homes—all single, their houses untouched but for their mutilated bodies, and no leads. All suspects in custody released. Little physical evidence. No comment. The new story, though, was about another woman, same M.O. But this woman was alive.

The reporter looked gravely into the camera. His voice was sincere and impartial. Kate felt nauseated as she watched the newscast show fuzzy photos of the crime scene. “Last night, a woman was brutally attacked in her one-bedroom apartment at Highway 70 and Belgium Street. Neighbours claimed they heard screaming, and one couple called the police. Upon arriving, the police found her on her bathroom floor. They transported her to St. Bethany's Medical Center, where she stayed in critical condition until this afternoon. The doctors are confident she will recover. The police believe that this was the work of the serial killer they're calling the Surgeon.”

The report cut from the news desk to a Hispanic woman from the victim's apartment complex with her three-year-old daughter propped on her hip. “We're keeping everything locked, but I wish we had bars on the windows, you know? What else can we do?”

The camera cut to a business woman on the street. “My friends and I are terrified. We try not to stay out too late, and we don't go home alone. But that doesn't really help, does it? This guy gets these women
in their homes
. It's horrible.”

Cut back to the reporter. “As is typical for the Surgeon, there was no forced entry, and the police could find no physical evidence on the scene. An anonymous tip from the police department stated that all four women share a similar medical condition, but that the specific details are being withheld. More on this breaking story as it develops.”

Because she worked at St. Bethany's Kate knew a little more than the reporters, although she was not supposed to. Lila, a nurse from Emergency, came by at the end of Kate's shift as a receptionist in Psychiatrics, dying to tell somebody.

White female, late thirties, no allergies, acute blood loss, lacerations all over her body with particular attention paid to the stomach, the face, and the breasts. The wounds were too cleanly cut and too particular to be the work of an amateur. The first few articles called the killer the Plastic Surgeon because of his skill and the focus of his attentions, but the pseudonym was eventually shortened to the Surgeon. After all, the killer wasn't putting anything into them. He was taking things out.

“You wouldn't believe it,” Lila said, sitting on the bench across from the bathroom sinks. “I mean, the others pretty much went straight to the morgue. This one's strong; blood pressure's finally stable after transfusions, although she's still unconscious. We don't know if there was any brain damage, but let me tell you, there's
going
to be brain damage if she wakes up. Jesus Christ.” Her voice was filled with that sickly combination of both eagerness and contempt. “That's one psycho bastard, whoever he is. Her face is going to be a mess. He took her lips. And he cut off her breasts. He practically gutted her—one of her kidneys is missing. It's like fucking Charles Manson or Hannibal Lector or something.”

“Lila, I'm about to go home and have dinner,” Kate said. “Do you have to tell me every last detail?”

“Believe me, you haven't heard anything yet,” Lila replied. “You know, it was one thing when he killed these women. That was horrible. But I never really thought about what would happen if they, you know, lived. Skin grafts are only going to be able to do so much. Imagine if you had to look in the mirror every day and see that for the rest of your life.”

Kate slung her purse over her shoulder. “Yeah,” she murmured. “Look, I deal with mentally sick people all day. Do I have to take it home with me?”

“Just thought you'd want to know,” Lila said, shrugging.

“Anything happening next weekend? Want to go see a movie or something? Anything but a slasher film.”

“I think I'll stay in,” Kate replied.

“What else is new? Hey,” Lila called as Kate headed out, “lock your doors, okay?”

Kate stopped eating when the crime shows started to come on. She wasn't hungry anymore. She took out some Saran wrap, covered the rest of the lasagna, and threw the leftovers into the freezer. Cooking for one, her freezer always seemed to be full. She changed the channel to something more palatable than corpses and criminals (wasn't reality terrible enough?) and turned the sound down. It was enough to have the mumble of voices in the emptiness. She just stood in her living area, not really watching the screen. Usually, at this time of night she would call Daniel or her mother and talk until ten. But calling Daniel was no longer an option. Her mother knew she had been dating, and Kate didn't want to answer any questions. Kate's silence would be her mother's answer.

She remembered the talks in her childhood bedroom. Her mother would blame herself—she told the doctors no to surgery when Kate was about three months old and the problem began to surface. Kate's mother finally brought up the possibility of cosmetic adjustment when Kate was fourteen and beginning to weed: growing bone, growing breasts, growing hair. Kate remembered that she jumped on the idea, but her mother balked when actually confronted with the possibility. In retrospect, Kate supposed that the prospect of rendering Diana Barrett's only daughter practically sterile convinced her otherwise. Kate might have had it done herself, but she tended to live paycheque to paycheque. Also, it was embarrassing enough to go to a gynecologist once every two years (she refused to go more often); she felt her tongue twist at the thought of calling her insurance company and asking whether genital corrective surgery was covered.

She turned the clock radio to the soft-rock station and kept the volume low so that the distant sound of the television and the crooning from the radio mingled into mindlessness. White noise. She did not bother turning down the covers to her bed. She sat on the comforter and cushioned her back with her pillow before opening her book to its first page.

She caught herself falling asleep over the pages more than once. Gracie had deigned to join her on the bed, curled between Kate's knees like it was her own little nest. At 9:48 p.m., according to the digital clock, Gracie leapt off the bed and ran into the bathroom with her tail high like a flag. She sometimes did that when Kate opened a can of sardines or when a stranger came into the house and Gracie would flee under the bed. Kate didn't think anything of it until the yowling started. It was unlike anything Kate ever heard from her cat before—low, round, and resonant—too loud to be coming from Gracie's slight body.