Ask Nicely and I Might by Lorraine Elzia

I can feel the mist hitting my face like fine piss-ant rain. Irritating, yet invigoratingly refreshing just the same. In retrospect, I have to admit that the events of my here and now are morbid, to say the least. Especially given the fact that the mist which is actually hitting my face is in the form of the warm blood of my husband, squirting in spurts from the small, pin-size puncture wound I have inflicted into his temple as I lay next to him in bed. Yet, I lay here unfazed.

Poor sucker. I almost feel pity for his sorry ass. Almost. I know Carl never saw it coming. Although he had been asking for it for years, I could tell that he was blind and clueless to the fact that one day I would finally give the useless bastard what he unknowingly cultivated over time–my contempt and my rage. He had been begging me, through his actions, to show him the fabric of what I’m made of. Cockingly inquiring if I had a backbone made of steel. He further mocked the saying, “beware of a woman scorned” and whether that saying had any merit in regards to me.

He had been provoking me day after day, begging me through his abuse to take a stand; yet I had known, deep in the back of his mind, he never thought I could or ever would. I have contemplated his death for years, it has always been in the suitcase of my mind, waiting for me to open it and use its contents. Each snide comment uttered from his lips, lead me to the place I’m at now of wanting him dead. I have no fear of being without him. To be honest, I welcome the relief my life would sustain simply from him not being around.

Carl was in a drunken, pill-induced sleep. He had no idea of my actions. I pressed the safety pins firmly and forcefully into his temple with a jabbing motion. I even had to wince at the force I needed to apply as I watched the blood begin to squirt out in morbid volume. His body barely moved as the fluid began to drain life from him. I wanted to do a holy dance, but that would have been inappropriate, so I just pushed the pins further into his temple instead.

Practicing my facial movements in the mirror before inserting the pins, I wanted to make sure that the first reactions the police saw from me were those of a woman grief-stricken by her husband’s death, and not those of a cold-blooded killer.

My story to the police would be that we were poor, and as such, I had used safety pins to hold our raggedy pillows together when they began to bust at the seams because we couldn’t afford new ones.

I would tell them through forced tears and a sob-filled acknowledgement, that in the middle of the night a couple of the safety pins must have popped open and poked into his temples causing a rupture and ultimately his death.

I practiced crying. Sobbing. Remorse.

I practiced looking innocent.

I practiced blaming him for mixing sleeping pills with his beer.

I practiced blaming his actions for nullifying the pain and making it impossible for him to wake up and call out for help to save his own life.

I practiced it all.

Skillfully so.

Ultimately making sure I laid right next to his dying body so that his blood would be all over me and would be evidence that I had no clue he was dying in his sleep. My excuse would be that I had laid in bed right next to him all night while he slowly, but surely, died in his sleep.

A sinister smile invades my face.

“Fucking bastard! Never underestimate a woman! Who’s the sorry bitch now?” I shout, feeling a sense of pride as I relived the night’s events again and again in my head.

A euphoric feeling overcomes me unlike anything I have felt before. I guess my actions, when you think about it, were extremely morbid–even diabolical in some aspects. But to me it was all as natural as breathing, and in some respect, the simple ecstasy of that moment gave me a high, like the first hit of any drug.

I got away with it.

Carl’s murder was just the beginning.

I can’t explain it, but killing him made me feel self-confident and liberated. It was the fuel I needed to awaken a spider in me–a sense to prowl, to capture and to conquer prey in order to feel alive.

I had been weak for so many years. Killing Carl changed my perspective and sense of being a victim. I was no longer his victim, I was victorious. His death, at my hands, gave me the power I had secretly craved for years; the power I never knew I needed, but apparently I did. As I played the police like a fine-tuned violin while they questioned me, giving them the traumatized wife routine, something within me felt instantly alive. The old, timid, insecure Jade was gone. Carl’s death gave birth to the new Jade. The take-no-shit-from-no-one Jade. The I’ll-kill-you-dead-before-you-fuck-me-over Jade.

I loved the feeling his death, at my hands, brought to my entire being. For the first time in my life I was in control, I felt complete, and killing him was the key. Like a child attached to a pacifier, I knew I would need to suckle, from time to time, on the soothing relief murder gave me and the gratification it brought to my entire being.

I killed my husband.

I fooled the police.

In doing both, I opened a door I never knew existed, but one I wanted to cross through the threshold of from time to time for my own satisfaction and contentment.

It started with Carl and his piss-ant rain. From that moment on, I was never the same for I had tasted blood and…to be honest…I liked it.