The resemblance was striking; that much was clear. He could have been lifting Jimmy himself from the cooled bathwater, lifeless form limp and weighted by God knows how many hours spent submerged. His near-familiar face frozen in calm complacency, the stranger could have been in a deep sleep were his skin not so waxy and cold that it sent tremors of disgust radiating from the caretaker's fingertips. Or perhaps it was the absence of blood that cast an unsettling pallor over the scene—there was a nobility in bloodshed that somehow made sense of the act, that separated the living from the dead. This boy bore no such scarlet mark of violence and a life snuffed out.
He placed the body in a white bed sheet and wrapped it tight so that the gaggle of girls crowding the doorway couldn't witness this horror first hand. He had telephoned the coroner the moment the situation had become clear; the man was gruff and irritated by the late hour, but didn't ask many questions and for that Richard was thankful. He had little to do while he waited but set to work systematically erasing any trace of what may well have happened here. To the casual observer, the needle was evidence enough of a tragic accident; the club's caretaker was not a casual observer.
She was fast asleep in his bed when he finally returned, hands raw from scrubbing the bath clean of invisible sin. He didn't utter a word, folding his trousers without a sound before settling carefully in beside her. In the gentle glow of the moonlight showering over her through the high windows, she was a model of angelic innocence. It was this troubled half-smile that endeared her to him, even in the face of forced gentility and biting insults. But even now, in the dark, as he snaked a long arm around her shoulders and drew her close to him, heart racing as her elegant fingers curled around the worn cotton of his undershirt and her cheek nuzzled gratefully into his chest, he knew better than to trust her. Not when her plot was already becoming abundantly clear.
Leander made quick work of settling "Jimmy's" affairs, and the days that followed were a blur of stiffened posture and practiced silence as he had put the pieces together. The cold marble of the mausoleum cast a ghostly pallor on the already morbid scene, and he narrowed his eyes at her distastefully from across the room. "Would you like to say a last word, Mr. Harrow?" she said, her voice dripping with the same feigned sweetness required of her in order to sell this elaborate ruse. "You two were close."
"Jimmy deserved better than this." The words rang in his head hours later, as he opened the door to her room and slipped inside.
"I didn't expect you tonight," she cooed without turning to face him. Before she could say another word, his hands were ripping her dress at the seams, calloused fingers flying over her milky skin, driven by a mad rage at the injustice of it all. His heart burned with hatred towards her for tainting his friend's memory with her lie of addiction, but he channeled his anger into each tempestuous movement. He threw her onto the bed, plunging two fingers inside of her with such force that she choked out a gasp, half in pleasure, half in pain. He glided in and out, fingers dripping with her lust for him, knowing full well that she was his to command. When her hands flew to his buckle, he grabbed her by the wrists and pinned her arms above her head, freeing himself from his trousers in one deft move.
"Yes," she moaned as he brushed himself against her, but before pushing himself inside of her as his body ached to do, he hovered above her with his hands poised on his mask. Suddenly her eyes flickered in anxious confusion, and he carefully removed the tin from his cheek. Her eyes widened at the sight of him, the withered flesh melting from the ruins of his skull in terrible scarlet streaks, but it wasn't another moment before he lowered his face between her legs, lapping up her wetness like a kitten at its saucer. Her sweetness on his tongue, he traced quick circles around that bundle of pink that always sent her reeling. He could feel her trembling as she neared the precipice of her pleasure and pulled away, relishing the sick satisfaction of her frustrated whimper.
It was then that he plunged into her, his erection filling every inch of her and her nails scraping his back with a wild hunger that only strengthened his force. As her moans turned to shouts, he threw a hand over her mouth; she dragged it to her neck, where he instinctively tightened it around her throat. He could feel her panting for air but felt the blackness welling up within him, the unbridled fury at her myriad crimes against her own child and his progeny, and didn't dare release her until he was exploding inside her. He nearly blacked out from the force of it, and only when the stars faded from his eyes did he notice the tears in her own, locked on his terrifying visage and filled with confused remorse.
Almost immediately, regret took hold. He pulled his pants on slowly, fastening them with his back to her and trying his damnedest to ignore the painful sobs that racked her slender frame. Jimmy deserved better than this, he thought to himself as he left her to her guilt, and he to his own.