ONE-NIGHT STAND

ONE NIGHT STAND

Sex Sleaze Murder

Short Fiction Story - a Passionate Thriller

By
VIKRAM KARVE

From My Creative Writing Archives: 

One of my earliest short stories - a passionate thriller - a story of sex sleaze and murder. 

Do tell me if you like it.  

          I waited in anticipation.

          I was overcome by tremors of trepidation.

          I  secretly hoped that he would not come.

          But he did come. 

          Right on the dot. 

          Sharp ten o’clock at night. 

          Exactly as planned.
         
          He said nothing when he entered. 

          The moment I recognized him I started to tremble. 

          But he didn’t seem to notice. 

          He turned around, as if he had forgotten something, took two quick steps and bolted the door. 

          Hoping to conceal my emotion, I began to speak in order to gain my composure.

          I said: “Please be seated, sir. Would you like a drink?”

          “Whisky and soda,” he said, loosening the knot of his tie, as he moved towards the sofa. 

          He sat down and gave me an appraising look.

          I took my time getting up from my chair, taking care to make my movements deliberately slow, in order to hide my fear and nervousness. 

           I walked towards the fridge.

           My back was turned in his direction, but still I could feel his eyes piercing me. 

           Soda, glass, opener, ice-bucket and a bowl of peanuts ready on a tray, I opened the liquor-cabinet. 

          At first my hands instinctively touched a bottle of cheap whisky, but then I hesitatingly picked out a bottle of the best premium whisky. 

           After all this was a first-class client. 

           And maybe this would be his last drink. 

           Let him enjoy it.

           I carefully set the loaded tray on the table in front of him and sat down on the chair across. 

           I poured him a stiff drink and opened the bottle of soda.

           “Put lots of ice,” he said, in a commanding voice. 

            And then, as an afterthought, he added, “What about you?”

           “No,” I said handing him the glass, “I don’t drink on duty.” 

          “Duty?” he laughed looking me in the eye.            

           He took a sip of the whisky and closed his eyes with a gesture of fatigue, as if waiting for the whisky to caress his brain. 

            His was not an unpleasant face. In fact he looked quite handsome. 

           “Without any effort I could go straight to sleep,” he said with his eyes still closed. 

            Then suddenly he opened his eyes, looked directly at me, and with a mischievous smile he said, “But there’s plenty to do tonight, isn’t it?”

            “Yes indeed!” I said to myself, “there was plenty to do tonight.” 

             In my mind’s eye, I tried to visualize how I was going to do it.

            The man shifted on his seat, took out a wallet from his hip pocket and stylishly extracted ten crisp red coloured thousand-rupee notes and put them on the table in front of me. 

           I did not pick up the money. 

          “It’s okay,” I said, “there is no need for you to pay me. The treat is on the house.”

          “Who said so?” he snapped an angrily.

          “The person who sent me here,” I answered.

          “What else did he say?”

          “That you are a very special guest.”

          “And?” he asked.

          “That I should be very discreet. That I should not even breathe a word about you to anyone.” 

          I paused, and then I said, “It’s okay. You can trust me.”

          He smiled and said, “Take the money. I always pay for everything. I am a man of principles.” 

          Suddenly I could feel the venom rising inside me. 

          A man of principles - my foot!

          Hypocrite. 

         That’s what he was. 

         A Bloody Hypocrite.

          Where were his principles when he had killed my husband and concocted lies that it was a gruesome accident?

         Where were his principles when he quickly disposed off my husband’s body at sea – into the Davy Jones’s Locker - buried into the deep at the bottom of the sea?

        Murderer. 

        Bloody Murderer. 

       That’s what he was. 

       An unscrupulous mendacious murderer.

       And tonight he was going to pay for it.

        Everything was in my favour.

        I had recognized him. 

       I knew who he was but he did not know who I was. 

       For him I was just a nameless face. 

       Just a one-night stand. 

       To be used, discarded and forgotten. 

       Though he could not possibly realize it, it was he who had reduced me to this. 

        And now he had unknowingly walked right into my hands.

       “Is it enough?” he asked, pointing to the money on the table. 

       “My normal rate is fifty thousand,” I said. 

         I wanted to embarrass him for I had glimpsed into his wallet when he took out the money. 

         I picked up the ten thousand rupees from the table, tucked them in my blouse, and said, “But for you, ten thousand is okay.”

          He smiled, looking intently into my eyes for a few seconds. 

          Then he gulped down his drink, got up from the sofa, came around the table and stood behind me. 

         I sat still, waiting for his next move. 

          He put his hands on my shoulders and said matter-of-factly, “Let’s go to bed.”

          When I woke up, for a moment I could not imagine where I was. 

          The silence was so intense that I could hear my heart beating. 

          The room was not quite dark.

          The door of the bathroom was partly open, and I had left the bathroom light on.

           As I turned and I saw him lying beside me.

           I felt a sudden flush of passion. 

           It was after a long time that I had made love to a man.

           I had really enjoyed it. 

           I yearned for some more.

           But I quickly controlled my feelings and carefully observed the sleeping man.

           He breathed steadily, like a man immersed in deep sleep, fully satiated. 

           But I had to be sure.

          “Hello,” I whispered near his ear.

           No answer. 

           He was dead to the world.

           Very slowly, very silently, I slipped out of my bed. 

           I slowly bent down near the bedside table.

           I unplugged the two-pin electric plug from the socket on the wall and carefully coiled the wires around the base of the table-lamp.

          I picked up the table-lamp in both hands holding the plug carefully, and stood for a while, looking at the man to see whether I had disturbed him.

         His breathing was as regular as before. 

         I took a couple of tip-toe steps and halted, took a few steps more and waited, and so on, until I reached the bathroom door. 

          Then I quickly went inside and locked the door.

          I yanked out the wires from the table-lamp.

          Then, with my teeth, I removed the plastic cladding from the open ends exposing at least two inches of naked copper on both the wires.

           I smiled to myself. 

           In my hands was a weapon of death. 

           A set of coiled wires, one red and one black, long enough, a two-pin plug at one end and the other end was exposed, naked.

           I retraced my steps, tiptoed, leaving the bathroom light on and the door a bit ajar, so that I could just about see slightly. 

          I put the plug in the socket. 

          Then I uncoiled the wires, carefully holding one wire in each hand, a few inches away from the naked exposed copper, my hands apart.

           I switched on the electric switch with my left toe, got on the bed and slowly advanced on my knees towards the sleeping figure. 

          The man was lying on his back, sleeping soundly.

          He seemed dead to the world.

          Soon he would be actually dead.

          I decided to aim for his eyes. 

          Simply thrust one live electric wire into each eye. 

          Hopefully death would be instantaneous.

         

          The electric current would flow through his brain and kill him on the spot.

          Even if death wasn’t instantaneous, at least he would be knocked unconscious and then I could take my time to finish him off by shoving the live wires deep into his eyes till his brain got roasted.

          I steadied myself and moved my hands slowly.

           The live wires had almost touched his eyes when some invisible force seemed to have grabbed my wrists.

           I froze. 

           I felt a turbulence of conscience.

           “I don’t want to be a murderess. What do I gain? And then what’s the difference between him and me? What about his family? Why should I make them suffer for no fault of theirs? And maybe what he said was indeed true; that it was just an accident, like he had reported,” said one part of me, pulling my hands back. 

           “Revenge! Vengeance! He deserves it,” desperately urged the other part of me, pushing my hands forward. 

           “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Do it now. Fast!” I said to myself.

           And slowly my hands started moving forward.

           Suddenly the man started turning.

           I panicked.

           In panic, as a sudden reflex action, I instantly pulled my hands back. 

           In the confusion, the live naked electric wires touched.

           There were sparks of electricity.

           And then there was total darkness.

           Short Circuit - the fuse had blown.

           My blood ran cold. 

           There was no movement from the man. 

           Instinctively I guessed that the man had turned over on his side, his back towards me.

           I tiptoed to the bathroom, retrieved the table-lamp, kept it on the bedside table and tucked the wires underneath. 

           Then I lay down on my bed as if nothing had happened. 

           The centralized air-conditioning was still on; but the bathroom light had gone off.

           Probably only the local 5 Ampere light fuse had blown, but I did not know where it was.

           I had muffed up a golden chance. 

           The man was lucky to be alive. 

           It was his sheer luck! 

           But I knew I would have to try again to kill him. 

           Again and again. 

           Some other ways perhaps.

           For he did not deserve to live. 

           And with these thoughts I drifted off to sleep. 

           When I woke up in the morning, I saw that the man was still fast asleep. 

           The dawn had broken. 

            I opened the window and let the sunlight in. 

           “Who’s that?” he asked, startled, adjusting his eyes to the sunlight.

           “It is time for you to leave. You must go away now,” I said. 

          I walked towards the sofa, picked up his clothes and threw them to him.

          He dressed hurriedly and quickly walked to the connecting door between our rooms. 

          He opened the door.

          At the door he paused for a moment.

          Then he turned towards me and he said: “Good Bye, Mrs. Morris. They told me that you’d kill me. I came to find out. But killing isn’t easy. Yes, killing is not easy. You can take my word for it.”

              With these words he left my room, silently closing the door.

              I sat in dumbstruck silence, a deathly grotesque deafening silence.

              I never saw him again. 

             I never want to see him again. 

             Never have I ever felt so scared as I felt at that moment.

            And when I think of that one-night stand, a tremor goes up my spine, a deadly electric shiver perambulates throughout my whole body and I resonate with fear.

VIKRAM KARVE

Copyright © Vikram Karve 2013

Vikram Karve has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this story. 

© vikram karve., all rights reserved.

Disclaimer:

All stories in this blog are a work of fiction. The characters do not exist and are purely imaginary. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

NB:

No part of this Blog may be reproduced or utilized in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the Blog Author Vikram Karve who holds the copyright.

Copyright © Vikram Karve 2013 all rights reserved

Did you like this story?

I am sure you will like the 27 short stories from my recently published anthology of Short Fiction COCKTAIL
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About Vikram Karve

A creative person with a zest for life, Vikram Karve is a retired Naval Officer turned full time writer and blogger. Educated at IIT Delhi, IIT (BHU) Varanasi, The Lawrence School Lovedale and Bishops School Pune, Vikram has published two books: COCKTAIL a collection of fiction short stories about relationships (2011) and APPETITE FOR A STROLL a book of Foodie Adventures (2008) and is currently working on his novel and a book of vignettes and an anthology of short fiction. An avid blogger, he has written a number of fiction short stories and creative non-fiction articles on a variety of topics including food, travel, philosophy, academics, technology, management, health, pet parenting, teaching stories and self help in magazines and published a large number of professional  and academic research papers in journals and edited in-house journals and magazines for many years, before the advent of blogging. Vikram has taught at a University as a Professor for 15 years and now teaches as a visiting faculty and devotes most of his time to creative writing and blogging. Vikram Karve lives in Pune India with his family and muse - his pet dog Sherry with whom he takes long walks thinking creative thoughts.

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