Mike Faricy - Bite Me

I’d been in the shower for some time. Not the half hour Kiki suggested, but at least twenty minutes. The air in the room was steamy, moisture running down the mirror. I felt a little better, but still had a long way to go. I was confused, still a little dizzy and mortified about her black eye. I had never done anything like that in my life. It just didn’t make sense. But, then, neither did the complete black out or making her tie me up. Something just didn’t seem right.

I was trying to remember something, anything from the night before and failing miserably when there was a knock on the bathroom door. God, the poor thing was probably bringing me coffee.

“Momentito, my precious,” I called, trying to be funny.

I turned off the shower, grabbed a towel and wiped my face, then went to open the door thinking I may have really misjudged her. Amazing how sometimes you can get off on the wrong foot.

“Hey gorgeous, you’ve got…”

The jolt from the officer’s Taser gun knocked me to the floor. Writhing around on a wet, ceramic tile floor in electronic shock as thousands of volts jolted through my body did nothing to help matters.

When I stopped sizzling three of them were on me, one stomped my right hand, I was pretty sure he broke a couple of fingers, but that was the least of my problems. Someone was sitting on my head, not Kiki, while another pulled both arms up behind my back and pinched on a pair of handcuffs. There was a lot of yelling from the hallway and the bedroom. Somewhere a woman was screaming. I was attempting to breathe after being tasered, hyperventilating.

“Bring that bastard out here,” someone yelled.

I was pushed and pulled out the bathroom door. Someone bounced my head off the door frame. A knee narrowly missed its target and slammed into my hip. I found myself handcuffed, standing naked in Kiki’s hallway, surrounded by a mob of blue uniforms, all wearing badges.

“You sick son-of-a-bitch.”

“What, what the hell?” I stammered.

“Too bad you ran out of time, not to worry, you’re gonna have a good long time to think about it. Read him his right’s.”

“What the hell is going on here, where’s Kiki? Kiki, are you okay?” I called.

“Don’t let that animal near me,” a female voice I didn’t recognize howled from the bedroom.

Kiki suddenly appeared, at least I thought it was her, she looked completely different. The woman I saw twenty-five minutes before wearing a black garter belt and a hop-on-me smile, now stood wrapped in a terrycloth robe cowering behind two police officers.

Bright red lipstick was smeared across her lips and chin in a hideous clown-like grin. Tear stained mascara underlined her eyes and ran down her cheeks. Her hair was messed and bedraggled and it looked like the word “slut” was written with some sort of marker across her breasts. And then there was the black eye.

“Don’t let him near me, don’t let him near me, please, please,” she stepped behind a large patrolman.

He looked at me with very cold eyes and moved a hand toward his weapon.

“Read him his rights, get his pants on and get him out of my sight,” this from a thin bald guy in an ill fitting brown suit.

“What the hell is going on?”

“You have the right to remain silent…”

“All right, this is a crime scene, people. I want everyone out accept the site team. And don’t touch anything! Misses Barkwell, if you would let us take you to the hospital, Officer Christine Jenkins here will be with you at all times.”

Had he just referred to Kiki as Misses Barkwell? I didn’t have time to ponder that, but was led naked out the back door where my jeans were thrown at me.

“I’m fucking hand cuffed here, how am I supposed to get the things on?”

“Figure it out, you’re lucky you’re not dead, asshole. Tough guy, beating up a woman, raping her. You’re damn lucky there are witnesses around right now.”

“Rape?”

“I’m accused of rape? You’re telling me that psychotic bitch is accusing me of rape?” I asked.

“I’m afraid that’s just the tip of the iceberg,” Aaron said, shaking his head.

We were sitting in an interrogation room on the fifth floor of the police station. I knew we were on the fifth floor because I’d been interrogated up here before, although never on a rape charge. Lieutenant Aaron LaZelle headed up the vice unit. He and Detective Norris Manning from homicide were conducting the interrogation. Neither man looked to be enjoying the task at hand.

I sure as hell wasn’t.

The room was either dingy white or light grey, I wasn’t sure which. The place smelled of sweat mixed in with a healthy dose of fear, or maybe that was just me.

Leaning against one of the cinder block walls was Detective Sergeant Dixon Heller, homicide. I recognized him as the thin, bald guy in the ill fitting brown polyester suit from Kiki’s. I guessed he may have been the officer in charge of the investigation, although he clearly wasn’t conducting my interrogation.

“Rape? Honest to God, you guys know me. I didn’t rape her. I’m not some damn rapist, for Christ sake.”

“Look, Dev, I’m going to ask you again, do you want a lawyer present? This is really serious,” Aaron said, looking very uncomfortable.

“Serious? You’re telling me. Look the woman is nuts. She went after me with a knife the other day, threatened to cut me up into little pieces. Then…”

“Do you have a witness that could…”

“Well, no, but she did. Look guys, she was, no, she is crazy.”

“So you went back there. After she threatened to cut you up? Is that right?” Manning asked.

“Well yeah, but not exactly. See, I brought this guy over to paint her wall, Gary Hobson.”

“When was this?” Manning asked.

“Couple of days ago.”

“To paint her wall?” Aaron asked.

“Yeah, in her bedroom.”

“Just a wall or the entire room,” Manning fired back.

“Well, just a wall.”

“Just one wall?” Aaron asked.

“Yes.”

“What was wrong with it?”

“Some marks or something on it.”

“You know she’ll tell us if it was more than that,” Manning said, writing a note on a sheet of paper from the open file in front of him.

“There might have been a little spray paint on the wall.”

“A little spray paint, define little.”

“Maybe a few letters,” it didn’t sound good, even to me.

“Did these letter say anything?” Manning asked, almost sweetly.

“Come on, Dev, what was it?” Aaron said, clearly frustrated.

“It said, KRAZ sucks.”

“Did you spray paint that?” Manning asked, looking up from his file.

I nodded.

“I’m sorry, could you speak up.”

“Yes, apparently.”

“Apparently?” Manning asked.

“That’s what she told me, but I really don’t remember doing it. I just woke up and it was there, on the wall.”

“Large letters?”

“Sort of.”

“Care to define sort of?”

“Okay, okay, yeah, about four feet high, all capitals. So that’s why I had Gary Hobson over, to paint the wall and get things perfect for her, you know? Anyway, Gary couldn’t do the job so I ended up painting her bedroom wall. She offered to make me dinner and then talked me into staying. The next thing I know, I wake up tied to her bed. Then you guys break in and tasered me while I was standing in the bathroom.”

Manning tapped his pen on the file in front of him. Aaron stared at the grey Formica table top.

“So, what seems to be increasingly difficult for me to figure out is how you woke up tied to the bed?” Manning said.