Kimi Price

Professor Matthews

Creative Writing

The Perfect Crime

It was a cool August night. The kind of night that hints that Fall is on its way, but you can still feel the ground warm from the heat of the day under your feet. The last light of the day was filtering through the trees and pulling the gold through the leaves and into the air. I was enjoying the sound and feel of my heels clicking on the concrete as I soaked in the evening air. Everything seemed just right. Each bob of my short, black hair. Each swish of my legs against my green knee-length skirt. Even me playing with my keys in the pocket of my tan overcoat. Everything was absolutely idyllic. That is when I realized that I left my phone in the show room and would have to go back for it.

I sighed and turned around, away from the sun and it lovely aesthetic that I was admiring. Sometimes being so forgetful is really inconvenient, especially this time since I was already almost home. I hailed a taxi and told them to head to our main store on 6th where I had been pricing some pieces just an hour ago. After I settled with the cab, I walked up to our glorious front door. This was a sight I never did get tired of. When I had locked up and left earlier it had still been daylight, but the sight of our store -specifically this store- at night was a thing of magic. The gold trim on the doors and windows smiled back at any light that shined at it, making the building seem like it glowed. Each window looked like a fireplace and gave off a warm orange glow from within. It was home. I grew up here, now I worked here, and as I walked up to the revolving door I winked at the marquee that bore my name for good luck.

As I drew near the doors, I instantly could tell that something was not right. The sun drew its final breathe as I pushed on the crystal clear glass and the door swung inward. How odd, I could have sworn that I had locked up before I started my walk home. I made a note to be more thoughtful in the future. I walked into our lobby and past the powered-down metal detector into the main showroom. I pick up my phone from one of the display cases and start out the door, looking forward to a nice bath and glass of Château Certan, when I hear the clinking of glass behind me and freeze. I was not alone.

There have been few times I have not felt safe in my life. Ever since I was young, I have been surrounded by people who make me and the place I am in feel comfortable. Even when I went off to college in my 20's, I found people who were nice and made me feel valued so when I turned and saw a man standing on a ladder and attempting to take down the grand chandelier I didn't know how to respond. This wasn't fair, things like this were not supposed to be my problem, usually I had someone who took care of this kind of thing for me. As I watched the man taking the jewels off the chandelier one by one, I could feel emotion rising up in my chest and tried to keep from crying. I had to attempt to come at this from a position of strength and weeping like a child would not help that at all.

I gather all my courage and yell out, "STOP!"

The man freezes, noticing me for the first time. He climbs down the ladder and walks toward me. My emotion swells before I can stop it, making my voice crack as I say, "Please, it's my father's business."

The man looks at me and smirks. "You expect me to believe that you are THE Tiffany?"

"Absolutely I do."

I tear runs down my face and the man wipes it off my cheek. He is rather odd-looking, not what you would expect your average cat burglar to look like. He has his hair parted down the middle with pieces sticking to his forehead and was wearing thick wire glasses on his abnormally small nose. As his hand made contact with my face, my fear started to bleed into.. excitement. I was surprised to find that I was attracted to this man who had quite the large stature and purple stained teeth. What do you have to eat to stain your teeth purple, beets? I imagined kissing this criminal and tasting the beets he must have been dining on earlier.

I was becoming distracted. "Please, don't do this." I whispered. "If you leave now, I won't call the police. Just leave."

His beautiful, bug-like eyes bore into me. I wanted him to leave and to stay see all of me at the same time. I wondered if he was thinking the same thing. He licked his lips in a rather exaggerated and seductive way that made me go weak at the knees and simply said, "No."

Then he kissed me with the passion of a thousand suns. I knew it was wrong in every possible way: He was a criminal, He was obviously in a totally different league than me and not in a good way, we should stop.

But we didn't.

For hours and hours that night we explored each other's bodies. I definitely had good experiences in the past, once in my early twenties I even laid an entire singing group in one weekend while I toured Cornell University, but I never experienced such pleasure in one night before. Round after round, my mystery man never seemed to tire. I was even upside down at one point. We also talked. He told me about his life in Northern Pennsylvania on his farm (I was right about the beets it turns out) caring for his cousin. He told me that he had a successful job, but that he often wished for more. I could definitely relate. I sometimes wished that I could escape my fortune and go on the run, which I told the man as he kissed my neck.

He stopped and looked at me. "Let's do it then."

"Do what?"

"Let's run away together."

I laughed out loud. "That is absurd."

His face hardened. "I'm serious. One month from now, after the dust dies down, meet me in Mexico. The dock at Cancun. I could make you very happy."

It was a tempting offer. I smiled and ran my hand down his white, hairless chest.

"I don't know, I'll think about it."

Dawn came too soon. I woke up to the sound of shouting with my clothes back on, my hands and ankles bound, and gagged behind one of the displays. I looked up to see that the rest of the jewels from the chandelier had been removed, yet my midnight lover was nowhere in sight. He must have escaped before the cops had gotten here. An officer found and freed me from my bindings and asked if I was ok.

I looked around the room, now swarming with cops, and mumbled that I was fine.

The officer next to me started to take my statement and I replied to his questions distractedly, saying that I came back for my phone and found a group of people in ski masks taking down the chandelier. Everything was in a scurry around me: confused employees wandering about, reporters lobbying to get a good angle for their story, and cops surging in and out of the revolving doors. One such cop about to exit the doors caught my eye. He had quite the large stature and when he turned his beautiful bug-like eyes met mine. It was my midnight lover. He smiled and mouthed the word "Mexico." Before disappearing through the door forever. It really was the perfect crime, he got what he came for and stole my heart while doing it.

Here I am, now one month later, boarding a plane to Cancun to reunite with my cat burglar and tell him some exciting news. He is going to be a father.