Frederick Hamilton - Spare Key

Or maybe the reverse…

…Maybe it was the doubts? If a placebo could make someone feel better wasn’t it possible that the reverse could happen too?

If he was really convinced they weren’t working then maybe he was the one overriding his pills? Overriding them with his doubts? It had only started after he’d overheard the argument. Everything had been fine before that. It was only after the argument that he’d retrieved his tools…

Could it be him?

Ben hoped not. As he scrabbled back across the fence into his own yard, he tried desperately to convince himself that the growing certainty inside him wasn’t true. But if that was the case, then maybe he hadn’t wanted them to work. Really, deep down inside. Maybe he hadn’t had enough of his revenge yet…

He only realised that the panties were still stuffed into his pocket and remembered the jism splattered across her window when he was safely back on his side of the fence, gasping as he scrabbled for a cigarette. He didn’t dare go back though.

No, he needed time to think. He needed to take his pills. He needed to stop his doubts. They’d work… He needed to stay away from next door…

He couldn’t go back there…

… Well not yet anyway…

* * * * *

As she sat sipping her wine, Rachel’s mind was churning with fury that clamped her jaw and had her grinding her teeth in frustration.

Fucking Maree, she fumed, the alcohol doing nothing to dissipate her anger. She’d only been ten minutes late yet that bitch had acted as though she’d just butchered her first-born. Rachel had known it was coming as soon as she’d stepped through the door and seen her there behind the counter, her chest puffed up with self-importance but really… fuck… REALLY… was the dressing down in front of the other staff necessary? Rachel had seen them giggling away behind their hands and had hated herself for the blush she hadn’t be able to keep from her cheeks.

Didn’t she realise it was just a fucking café? It’s not like they were working for the UN or something. There had been a grand total of one customer in the store when she’d walked in for fuck’s sake.

And then the bitchy manner in which she’d reported it to André, the owner, when he’d dropped by. Rachel had been washing up dishes at the time and had clearly overheard her. Overheard how she kept the details vague. Made it seem like Rachel had strode in around lunchtime rather than the ten minutes late she had been.

Washing that large cake knife had been quite a job for her. She’d barely been able to refrain from rushing over and planting it in the bitch’s back. As she’d watched it glint under the kitchen lights she had just imagined the shocked look in Maree’s eyes. Imagined how good it would feel to scream at her: was it really so important!

Even just a slap would have been eminently enjoyable but she’d restrained herself. She couldn’t lose her job, not while she was saving for her house. There weren’t many jobs going around for a university drop-out that paid as well as her current one did.

It was just that fucking Maree…

Rachel knew she shouldn’t be brooding on it so much. That she was wasting her time ever hoping that vacuous bitch would see the error of her ways – not to mention wasting the blissful hours she had free until she had to go back there – but she just couldn’t help it. It was just so infuriating and as she sipped her wine, she couldn’t help replaying it over and over again in her mind.

Maybe Ana was right, she mused as she polished off the glass and rose to get a refill. Maybe she did need to get out more… Or get laid as Ana phrased it when she’d called at lunchtime to bully her into a girl’s night out. You spend too much time alone, Ana had told her, it makes you self-obsessed. You sweat the small stuff more. Suddenly everything seems to be about you. Little things just get blown out of proportion…

Although Rachel had been mildly offended by the whole exchange, she had allowed herself to acquiesce. Not that she was entirely certain it would do any good. She usually found things were great while she was by herself. It was invariably other people that caused the problems. Still it would be nice to blow off some steam tomorrow night… And then there would be two blissful days off after that. Two glorious days of peace that Rachel was already planning to spend tucked up in a doona on the couch with a big stack of DVD’s from the video store.

Rachel sculled the glass and immediately poured herself another. She could finally feel the effects of the alcohol loosening the tension . Looks like Maree survives another day… She laughed out loud as she picked up her wine and made her way back to the couch.

Now to just get through tomorrow…

* * * * *

Ben snapped awake and raised his hands but the blood wasn’t really there. Instead, gripped tightly in his hands were the jism-streaked underwear and a small, brass key.

He stared at the key in confusion for a moment, utterly baffled as to how it had come into his possession. Then he lifted the plastic tag it was attached to, read the name Thea, printed in neat script across the back and it all came flooding back to him.

He’d returned from next door in a panic, the Red Room creeping back in despite his best efforts. All the pretty playthings lined up neatly on the meathooks along the wall. He’d been able to feel it building. The urge. The desire. And even after he’d scoffed a couple of pills it had been there. The image of him waiting for her in the bedroom. Seeing her walk in… Seeing her shock as she surveyed the tools laid out by the bed… The image of that empty, glinting meat-hook… He’d known he’d had to distract himself somehow and his attempt at masturbation had only increased the vividness of the images. He’d began searching the flat instead.

It was something he always did at some point or another in every flat he’d ever lived in. He’d poke around in any crevice he could find, searching for some remnant of the previous tenants. He rarely, if ever, found anything but occasionally he’d find something so bizarre, he’d just have to stop and wonder why anyone would have left it there.

Like the time in High St out in Preston, where he found a mattress, a collection of women’s magazines and a couple of candles laid out on the insulation of the roof or the time in Bent St out in Reservoir where there was a photo of a woman dressed in a santa suit tucked under the lino in the kitchen.

Usually he only found scraps of old newspapers or the odd pen or stray bit of cutlery and at first the search of his current flat had seemed like it was going to yield similar results. There were a couple of issues of The Age from 1993, inexplicably sitting directly on top of the manhole and a small ball of string down the crack between the bench and the side of the oven. He’d been surprised to find a false bottom in the bedroom cupboard but when he lifted it up, its only contents were a few dustballs in the corners.

He’d been about to roll back the carpet when the set of the drawers in the kitchen had piqued his interest. He’d removed them all and spotted it down the bottom, tucked into a corner like it had dropped down the back.

Now as he studied it, the same tantalising questions were floating through his mind as when he found it: What was it for? Why was it in the flat? And who was Thea?

His mind jumped briefly to the woman next door but he knew that it was just wishful thinking. She’d already introduced herself as Rachel at the tram stop but still the idea persisted. It would make things so much easier. Lower the risks immensely. If he could just quietly let himself in and wait for her. He wouldn’t have to worry about a nosey neighbour hearing him; wouldn’t have to worry about the thrilling tinkle of glass…