How to Kill Your Boyfriend (in 10 Easy Steps) Read online

  Just as they were nearing the top of the staircase (and the second floor), someone suddenly appeared at the top of the staircase, screaming: “Where is he!” When Vera looked up, she saw a woman in her sixties, dressed in what seemed to be her church funeral outfit: black dress, black straw hat. Adding to the entire effect, she had horn-rimed glasses and clutched her purse with claw-like fingers.

  “Shit,” Stacy whispered when she saw who it was.

  “Where’s my son!” the woman demanded again, and Vera suddenly realized that this had to be the boyfriend’s mother! “I know you’ve done something to him!” the woman screamed from the top of the staircase. She was standing there with her arms akimbo, as if she were going to bar their way.

  After a moment of surprise, Stacy continued to walk up the flight of stairs. The boyfriend’s mother continued to bar the way, and the tension grew with each step that Stacy took up the staircase. Vera froze where she was, staring on as the two women confronted one another. Stacy was almost to the top of the staircase now. She was so much taller than the woman that they were looking eye-to-eye when Stacy still had two more steps to walk to the top. Stacy offered her hand in greeting then:

  “Hi, I’m Stacy.”

  “I know who you are,” the mother said with disgust, “—my son sent me pictures of you!”

  “How’d you get in here?” she said, wondering how the woman had gotten into the building.

  “The club owner let me in. I told him I was here to see my son.”

  Stacy shrugged. “I didn’t know you were dropping by.”

  “Don’t try your tricks on me, missy!” the old woman cursed her, wagging her claw finger in the air now. “I know you did something to him. A mother knows these things!”

  “Is that so?” Stacy said, barely able to suppress a laugh.

  “You’ve brainwashed him—I know it. I called him this morning—like I always do on Fridays—and you know what he said? He said that his mother was dead, and that I should stop calling him! What kind of son says that to his mother! You’ve corrupted him!”

  Stacy was looking at the woman with a bored, indifferent, expression. Vera had stood frozen all that time, but realizing the two women were not going to come to blows, she continued walking up the staircase. The boyfriend’s mother looked at Vera as if just noticing her:

  “Who’s this?” the woman demanded of Stacy, “—another one of your whores?”

  “I beg your pardon!” Vera screamed.

  Seeing Vera’s reaction, and looking at her professional, overdressed attire, the woman guessed that Vera did not know what Stacy did for a living. The mother smiled now, and stared at Vera with a sordid gleam in her eyes, like an old gossip about to reveal a juicy secret: “I’m betting you don’t know that she’s one of those female pimps…what do they call them…? Madams!” she said as the word occurred to her. Vera looked up at Stacy to gauge her expression, but Stacy only chortled.

  Somehow, this enraged the mother, and she screamed: “Look at her laugh! She has the devil in her, I’m telling you!” Here, she looked at Vera imploringly, as if trying to win her over. “She corrupts everything, mark my words. She’ll have you selling your ass soon, if she hasn’t already.”

  Stacy chortled again.

  The woman went on: “My son was a good Christian before he met you!”

  “Please!” Stacy protested with a mean laugh. “You know how old he was when he lost his virginity? Eleven! He screwed that good Christian babysitter you liked so much—the one with the huge tits.”

  The mother grabbed for her heart, but only ended up clutching her sagging tit. It was as if she had received a blow, because she staggered back a few steps. “You’re lying!” she squeaked.

  “Am I?” Stacy taunted her in a calm, matter-of-fact tone. She walked the last two steps to the top of the staircase, and stood towering over the woman, who now stared at her in horror. “You know how old that girl was at the time?” Stacy went on. “Sixteen! They screwed in your bed, you know? That’s probably why he’s so messed up now—he was probably fantasizing that he was screwing you—”

  “Y-You’re a monster!” the mother stammered. Stacy only stared at her with a calm smile:

  “I may be all that, but your son obviously likes it.”

  “I’ll get him back from you, you witch!”

  “You talk as though we’re competing for the same lover,” Stacy taunted her.

  “Where’s my son!” she screamed, ignoring Stacy’s insinuation. “I know you’ve done something to him!”

  “I do things to him all the time,” she said with a mischievous wink.

  The mother stared at her, aghast—as if Stacy’s wink had downloaded a hundred sordid sexual acts in her mind, all showcasing her one-time-good-Christian son. She seemed to sway from the blow. “I’m going to the police tonight,” she said as forcefully as she could, but it came out as a whisper. “I’ll be back with a search warrant.” She brushed past Stacy now, but in her wounded state, she almost went headlong down the staircase. She had to grab the banister; Vera went to help her, but the woman slapped her hand away and continued down the staircase in the same reckless way.

  Stacy stood at the top of the staircase with an amused expression on her face. When the woman was gone, Vera walked up to Stacy.

  “That was brutal,” she whispered.

  Stacy shrugged her shoulders. “I doubt that the police will believe her, but I’ll have to take care of everything tonight—just in case.”

  “Take care of what?”

  Stacy sighed as she remembered it all. “My boyfriend was always annoying me with all his talk about his mother. …I didn’t tell you everything that happened the second time I killed him—maybe I was blocking it out, myself. …When he came out of the bedroom that night and found me lying on the ground, he said, ‘Mama?’ perhaps thinking that he was still a kid, and had had a bad dream. I was so pissed that I told him that his mother was dead—that she had been killed and eaten by a serial killer when he was five.”

  “My God!”

  Stacy shrugged: “It seemed like a good idea at the time. How was I supposed to know she’d come all the way from Maine?”

  “You can manipulate his memories that much when he comes back to life?”

  “I told you that he’s a blank slate. He’ll be whatever I tell him to be… do whatever I want…”

  “My God!” Vera whispered again, realizing the full extent of it.

  “I’ll have to kill him again tonight,” Stacy went on, “and tell him he has a mother, so that when that bitch comes back she can go back to henpecking the shit out of him.”

  “What did she mean about you being a madam?”

  “A misunderstanding on her part.”

  Vera seemed relieved; but then, Stacy went on:

  “She meant to say I’m a pornographer, not a madam.”

  “You make sex videos?” Vera said, struggling to digest yet one more incomprehensible fact.

  “I direct one of the most popular porn series in the world,” Stacy said with pride: “Stank ‘n’ Ugly.”

  “Stank ‘n’ Ugly?” Vera said, her face creasing.

  “Yeah—a sexual breakthrough. You know how pornos usually have these sexpot women: blond hair, huge (fake) boobs, cute face?” she asked rhetorically. “I’ve gotten rid of all that.”

  “How so?” Vera asked uneasily.

  “All the women I use in my pornos have to be hideous.”

  Vera stared at her as if both desperate to know more and terrified of the consequences of knowing. At last, her curiosity won out: “What do you mean?”

  “Beauty is a turnoff to most men,” Stacy revealed, “—but they’re too stupid to realize it. When they watch my pornos, they realize this truth for themselves. Men have always babbled on about the grandeur of beauty; millions of poems have been written about ‘fairness’ and ‘comely lasses’ and all that nonsense, but in the back of their minds, men crave a hideous woman.”

&
nbsp; Despite everything, Vera giggled. “You really believe that?”

  “Of course! They want someone with whom they can have the most animalistic, mindless sex. With a hideous woman they have no inhibitions—and that’s what they want most of all. The more attracted a man is to his woman, the less satisfied he’ll be with the sex.”

  “You can’t honestly believe that!” Vera said, trying to stifle a laugh before it took total control of her.

  “It’s simple human nature,” Stacy went on. “In public, a man wants to be seen with a beautiful woman; but when it’s time for sex, he wants a total hog.”

  Vera burst out laughing, but Stacy was laughing as well, so Vera did not know how earnest Stacy was.

  “Anyway,” Stacy said at last, “—we’d better get back to the van.”

  “You’re going to kill him right now?” Vera whispered again, even though they were alone.

  “Why not? There’s no reason to wait.”

  “He doesn’t need some kind of recuperation period between killings?” Vera asked.

  “I guess we’ll find out,” she said with an unconcerned expression.

  They began walking down the stairs.

  “What if his mother is lurking around?” Vera said anxiously. “Are you sure we should go straight to the van? What if she’s spying on us right now?”

  “I’ll just kill that old bitch too, and dump her in the back of the van with her son.”

  Vera looked at her in horror, but Stacy laughed:

  “I’m only kidding.” However, there was a pleased expression on her face, as if she were considering the merits of the idea.

  Vera looked at her uneasily once more: “What if your boyfriend’s immortality is genetic? Maybe his mother can’t die either.”

  “There’s only one way to find out,” Stacy said with one of her trademark mischievous winks. Vera tried to smile, but the entire thing made her queasy.

  They went downstairs and exited through a side door that allowed them to bypass the groping young people within the club. A crowd was still milling about outside the building. Stacy walked straight for the sliding side door of the van, and was about to open it when Vera put her hand on her shoulder to stop her. She whispered:

  “You can’t honestly intend to kill him right here!”

  “Why not?”

  “Look at all these people!” she said, gesturing over her shoulder. “And what if his mother is still lurking about? Let’s at least drive to a secluded spot.”

  Stacy thought about it for a while: “I guess you have a point.” And then, with a broad smile: “See, I told you I needed you.”

  “Yeah,” she said sarcastically, “I’ve turned into the perfect accomplice.”

  Stacy walked around to the driver’s door and opened it. Vera was waiting for her to open the door for her when it occurred to her that the door had not been locked the last time. She looked at Stacy with concern after she got inside the van:

  “You have to be more careful, Stacy. You don’t take any precautions.”

  “Like what?”

  “You leave the door open, as if daring someone to come and open it.”

  “All they’d see is my sleeping, naked boyfriend.”

  “It’s always the little things people overlook that—”

  “That what? That get them caught?”

  “Yeah.”

  Stacy smiled at her—as if she had said something stupid. “You’re acting as though we’re murderers, Vera. It still has not sunk in yet: he can’t die. No matter what we do to him, he can’t die. There is nothing for us to hide from: no consequences.”

  “Everything has consequences,” Vera said sullenly.

  “At any rate, we’re not criminals—stop thinking of yourself as one. There is no crime for you to cover up. We’re not accomplices: we’re explorers.”

  They drove in silence for two blocks. Stacy entered a dark, residential neighborhood and double-parked.

  “You’re going to do it here?” Vera asked.

  “Sure. Why not? I told you before that we’re not criminals.” She began to get out of the car; when she saw that Vera was going to wait in the van, she stopped. “Don’t sulk, Vera. Come on—I’ll show you how I do it—how I kill him. You know you want to see—for the sake of curiosity.” She was smiling again. “Come on,” she urged Vera again, “you have to be the one to document that I really do kill him.” Here, Stacy poked Vera in the side, tickling her; and despite everything, Vera giggled.

  “Okay,” Vera relented, opening the door to get out, “—let me see how the master does it.”

  Vera waited for Stacy to come around to the side door. When Stacy arrived, she was still smiling. She pulled open the sliding door with the same smooth motion. The boyfriend was still sleeping. Vera looked up and down the block uneasily, to see if anyone was looking; Stacy shook her head and laughed at her.

  At last, Vera peered over Stacy’s shoulder, at the boyfriend, and whispered: “You sure he won’t wake up?”

  “I’m sure. I told him to sleep until morning, remember? He always does what I say.”

  “He sounds like the perfect man,” Vera mused. When Stacy laughed, Vera laughed as well.

  Stacy climbed into the back of the van; Vera followed her. When the door was closed, Stacy turned on the ceiling light once more. The sight of the naked, sleeping boyfriend again made Vera cringe. Stacy suppressed her laugh while she reached for the ice pick. Vera’s heart was pounding in her chest; she felt sick and turned her head away.

  “Don’t be so squeamish, Vera.”

  Vera nodded, but her stomach refused to comply. She was preparing herself for a grand act, but in one quick move, Stack jammed the ice pick into the boyfriend’s chest. The body did not even move. Vera, likewise, felt frozen. Stacy looked at her and smiled.

  “See how easy that was?”

  Vera looked at the body uneasily. “Is he dead already?”

  “Sure.”

  Vera was about to say something else when the side door suddenly slid open; at the noise, they both jumped; and then, there was the sound of a woman screaming at the top of her lungs. When they looked, they saw the boyfriend’s mother bawling.

  “You killed him!” she screamed. “Help…!” she yelled into the night. “Murder…!”

  At first, Stacy and Vera were so stunned that they just crouched there. It was Stacy who jumped at the woman. Soon she and the woman were wrangling in the middle of the street—

  “Help!” the woman screamed again. “Murder!”

  By now, Stacy had punched the woman in the face several times, trying to quiet her. As Vera looked on, stunned, it suddenly occurred to her that Stacy was going to kill the woman! If the ice pick were still in Stacy’s hand, Vera had no doubt that she would have used it—

  Vera jumped out of the vehicle, just as Stacy was rearing her hand back to punch the old woman again. Vera grabbed Stacy’s arm:

  “Let’s get out of here!”

  “Murder!” the mother continued to scream.

  “Let’s go!” Vera screamed, tugging at Stacy’s arm now. “We can’t let anyone see us here!”

  Looking up at the apartment building across from their position, and seeing one of the room lights flicker on at that moment, Stacy finally came to her senses. She jumped up and ran around to the driver’s side of the van. Vera was about to jump in the passenger side when the mother grabbed her. For an old woman, she was strong!

  “Murderers!” she screamed. Vera tried to push her off, but the woman was like a raging bull now. Seeing the course of the battle, Stacy was about to come back and help her, but Vera looked up at the surrounding buildings then, noticing several people looking at the scene from their bedroom windows—

  “Get out of here!” Vera screamed. “I’ll hold her off! You get out of here!” With the adrenaline pumping through her, she jammed her forearm into the mother’s nose, so that the woman grunted and retreated a step. Before the woman could regain her balance, Vera s
prang on her, making her collapse to the ground. That was when Stacy started the van and zoomed off. The tires pealed. The back door was still open, showing the boyfriend lying there with an ice pick in his chest. Stacy zoomed down the block and turned the corner so fast that the van almost flipped over. When Vera tackled the mother to the ground, the blow had stunned the old woman, but now the woman began to scream again. Vera tried to put her hand over the woman’s mouth, but she bit Vera’s hand. Vera screamed and cursed. The mother’s arms were flinging wildly now. One fist caught Vera in her left eye; the other landed on Vera’s right breast; she groaned and coughed. Another blow caught her in the temple, and she found everything going blurry.

  “Murderer!” the woman had screamed all that time.

  As more blows hit her, Vera tasted hot blood in her mouth; she tried to get up, but another one of the mother’s wild blows landed on her jaw. That was when she found her knees buckling and the world going black.

  “Ma’am, wake up!”

  Vera tried to open her eyes, but she somehow did not have the energy. She tried to move, but she felt as though she were paralyzed. She was numb all over—

  “Ma’am!”

  Someone was prodding her in the side. She tried to open her eyes, but realized that they were swollen. Her mouth was full of blood. She groaned.

  “She’s waking up.” It was a man’s voice. She suddenly realized that there were sirens blaring in the background; she could hear people’s footsteps: it sounded like hundreds of them. She was still lying prone in the middle of the street, but in those first moments, she had no idea where she was. The asphalt was still warm from the heat of the day. It smelled burnt, and irritated the back of her throat. She coughed and winced, but she still had no idea where she was.