Killing Sarai

35

Victor

I stand with my hands pressed against the counter, a towel wrapped around my lower body after having just showered. I peer into the mirror over the sink, tilting my chin to one side and then the other, feeling like I should probably shave but decide against it. Samantha sits down on the closed toilet seat with a suture needle and thread in one hand, ready to stitch me up.

"Are you going to drop the towel?" she asks. "I can't very well do this with it in the way. And it's not like I haven't seen it before."

I start to remove the towel just as she says that, but then I notice a sound so faint, like the sound of a sharp breath, that I'm surprised I heard it at all. I glance into the mirror and look behind me at the door seeing nothing but knowing that Sarai is on the other side of it.

"Victor?" Samantha urges me, getting irritated with my slow response.

"No," I finally answer, turning around so that the side where the wound is, is facing her. I reach down and strategically adjust the towel over the back of my hip so that she can access it, afterwards tying it firmly together on the other side to hold it in place.

"If you insist," Samantha says and goes right to work.

I feel the needle slide in once and I grit my teeth for a moment until the pain fades.

"You never did tell me why you stopped coming here," Samantha says.

"It was for the best."

"Bullshit. It was something I did, or said, or maybe it was something I didn't do. I just want to know. No hard feelings. No awkwardness. Just answer the question that's been bugging the shit out of me for ten years. I deserve that much."

After the second pass of the needle through my skin, I no longer feel it.

"I respected you," I say. "It didn't feel it right to use you anymore."

"Honey, you know better than that." She smiles up at me briefly. "I didn't mind; hell, I enjoyed it."

"But I did mind."

Samantha pushes the needle through again, always carefully. Then she shakes her head. "I wonder how you manage to pull off this job with that conscience of yours. I think you're the only one with a conscience who can."

"Well, it was nothing you did or didn't do," I say, skipping over her comment entirely. "So, I hope I've answered the question enough to satisfy you."

"Stop being so technical with me, Victor. You know I hate it."

She stands up from the toilet seat and reaches for the iodine, spilling a small amount onto a wash cloth. She dabs it all over and around the stitched bullet wound.

"I hear you started staying at Safe House Nine over in Dallas when you came through these parts," she goes on and I can predict where she's going with the rest of it. "Is it because that one was younger than me? I mean, it's perfectly fine. I am getting up in the years, I admit."

It is exactly what I predicted she'd say.

I sigh and lean against the counter, crossing my arms. She pulls a large square of gauze from a packet to prepare it next.

I look right at her, hoping I can say what I'm about to say without turning her against me. I won't leave Sarai alone with her if she thinks I chose Safe House Nine over her because of something as absurd as her age. Samantha is a killer. And a woman who feels scorned who is also a killer is a fatal combination.

"I chose Nine because she was a whore and proud of it," I say, laying the truth out the way it needs to be, to make her understand. "I couldn't use you like she let me use her. Because you were and still are my friend. I hope you understand."