Paul Cleave - The Cleaner

When I get there I lean against it. She fishes into her handbag and pulls something out, which she tosses over to me. I make no attempt to catch.

“Pick them up.”

A pair of handcuffs. Great. “Why?”

She points the gun at my dick. I pick the handcuffs up.

“Snap one of them on your left wrist.”

“What are you going to do?” I ask.

“What am I going to do?” she repeats, in case I hadn’t heard my own question. “I’m going to shoot your balls off if you don’t do what I ask.”

I quickly snap one of the cold metal bracelets around my wrist. The ratchet in the mechanism clicks as it locks into place.

“Lie down on your back, stretch your arms around the tree, and handcuff yourself on the other side.”

“You sure?”

“Positive.”

“Still time to change your mind.”

“Do it before I get annoyed with your charm.”

I follow her orders. The grass itches at my back as I lie on it. I can’t get comfortable, but I doubt that would worry her. Nice view from here, though. The stars are still out but fading. It’s as though they’re leaving this universe, dying in this purple light. I reach around the tree and lock my other wrist into place.

She keeps the gun pointed at me, walks around the tree, and checks. Bending down she tightens the cuffs where I failed. They squeeze against the bones in my wrist. It hurts, but I don’t groan, don’t show any signs of pain. Yep, I’m a real man. A real man with no idea what’s going on.

She comes back around to face me and pulls out another set of handcuffs. She seems to have come prepared.

I consider kicking up at her as she locks them into place around my ankles. Won’t do me any good, though. She has the gun. She has the keys. I’ve nothing but an erection that can’t reach her from here. I pull at the handcuffs, then pull at the tree, but it’s no use.

“Comfortable, Joe?”

“Not really.”

She grabs the sides of my jacket and pulls them outward. “What else do you have in here?”

I’m not answering. Whether I lie or not, she’s still going to check. She rummages through the pockets and finds the knife.

“You carry some interesting items, Joe.”

I shrug, though she doesn’t see it. It’s a smaller motion when you’re lying down with your arms stretched over your head. She tosses the knife in the air-end over handle, handle over end-and catches it by the hilt, blade pointing ahead. She handles it better than I do. Maybe she’s a chef. She hunts through my jeans and finds my wallet.

“No identification, huh?”

“I’m old enough to drink, if that’s your point.”

“How long you been a cop, Joe?”

She knows I’m not a cop. Probably has known from the moment we met.

“About as long as you’ve been an architect.”

She laughs. “I bet the police would love to get a look at this knife. They could probably connect it to a few bad things that have happened lately.”

“You’re talking about my salads?”

She ignores my quip and carries on. “I bet the gun has quite a history too.”

“Everything has a history,” I say. “What’s yours?”

She walks up to me and tosses my wallet-now empty-onto the ground. She stuffs my money into my jacket pocket, telling me I can say good-bye to my jacket too. “I told you my history,” she says. “I used to live here, I moved away, and now I’m back.”

Melissa, if that’s her name, crouches next to me, the gun in her left hand, the knife in her right. I remember thinking of them as the essential weapons before I left home, which starts me reflecting on the previous ten minutes that have brought me here, but my chance of stopping whatever is about to happen ended when I snapped those handcuffs on my wrists. Maybe this was meant to happen all along. In this crazy, mixed-up world. I spend another moment wondering why handcuffs aren’t called wristcuffs, then I start considering my options. Once again God is doing nothing to help me out, so there’s no point in even praying to the guy. I’ll leave the toga-wearing hippie alone and keep my prayers to myself.

“Do you really want me to tell you more?”

She holds the knife above me, not in the dagger-plunge style of a virgin sacrifice, more in the way of slicing the top layer off a roast chicken. She rests the side of the blade against my stomach. It’s colder than the rest of my shivering body. My erection is lying on the bottom of my stomach. The tip of the knife is only a couple of inches away. Now I do start praying to God, the same God Sally prays to, the same God she wants me to come along and visit on Sunday mornings-and I’ll go too, I promise, if He gets me out of this in one piece.

“No,” I answer, shakily. No, I don’t want to know her history. It will only scare the shit out of me. I don’t need to know why she left Christchurch or why she came back. I don’t want to know how she has treated some of the men in her past. I show the same respect to the women I mess with. It’s my good nature.

It’s my humanity.

She tilts the knife so the tip of the blade touches my stomach just above my belly button. Then she pushes down. My stomach offers the same resistance as the skin of a less-than-ripe tomato, then surrenders. The knife cuts into me, but only enough to draw blood. A warm stinging rather than hurting. As I watch, straining my neck to look, she starts running it up my body. I’ve been cut before. I know what to expect.

I’m getting the view thousands of homeless people across the country are getting: a cloudless sky, with fading stars barely twinkling like holes in a purple curtain covering Heaven. If God is up there looking through one of those holes with His large knowing eyes, I wonder what He’s thinking. Can He see me? If He can, does He care?

“Are you scared, Joe?” Melissa asks, playing the knife along my body.

I am scared, but I try not to show it. “Do you want me to be scared?”

“It’s up to you.”

“Should I be scared?” I ask, trying to control my voice.

When the knife reaches my chest, it has formed a reasonably straight line up to the center of my body, spotted only where the skin hasn’t broken. The line is red.

“I know I’m not,” she says.

“No? What are you then?”

“I’m the one with the knife and the gun.”

“Want to swap?”

“No, thank you.”

“I’ll let you have the knife after we’ve finished. As a keepsake.”

“You’re so generous, Joe, but I already have the knife. And the gun. What more could I want?”

I’m not sure, and that’s the problem. She traces a finger down the cut on my body, moving it at the same slow pace she was running it over her lips. It tickles and feels kind of nice, yet my skin is crawling. The blood smears into the width of her fingertip.

“How’s that feel, Joe?”

“I can show you.”

She gets to the end of the line and takes her finger to her mouth, then sucks on the end. She closes her eyes and starts to moan. Then she pulls her finger out, opens her eyes, and smiles. Her blue eyes are locked on mine. I wonder what she sees behind them. In a quick movement, she folds her body so her face is above my chest. Slowly she angles her tongue to touch the cut. Just as slowly, she runs the length of the cut as though she were licking the inside flap of an envelope. Her face moves down to my crotch, but stops right where she really should keep going.

She looks up at me and shudders. “Tastes good.”

“I try to eat well.”

I’m aroused again. The evidence is plain.

She stands up and looks down at me.

“I know who you are, Joe.”

“Oh?”

“The gun. The knife. The scars. I’d have to be stupid not to know. You’re him.”