Tonight, Homer had the feeling everything was going to fall into place. Willow Grove Automotive had loaned him a dark gray De Ville-not the one he’d had before-and when he got to Halligan’s, the minute he pulled into the parking lot, he saw Cheryl’s Sebring, and didn’t even have to go into the lounge.
He just sat in the De Ville and waited for her to come out. When she did, a guy came out after her, and they had a little argument in the doorway. The bitch was obviously telling the guy she’d been cock-teasing for the last hour, at least, that he had it wrong, that not only was she not that kind of girl, but even if she was, she wouldn’t give any to a jerk like him.
The guy went back in Halligan’s Pub, Cheryl got in her Sebring, and when she was out of sight, Homer started the De Ville. He knew where she lived and he didn’t even have to follow her. And when he got near Independence Street, he saw-on Sixty-seventh Avenue, North-a dark place where he could park the De Ville where it wouldn’t attract attention, and where he could change into the costume without being seen.
And when he got to the tree and looked up at Cheryl’s apartment, the lights were on. He figured she had been there no more than four, five minutes at most.
The light came on a minute or so later in a little window he was sure was the bathroom, and he thought about what Cheryl would look like in the shower while he waited for the light to go out.
Ten minutes later, it went out, and no more than a minute after that, so did the lights in her bedroom.
Homer checked the pockets of the coveralls to make sure he had the Jim Bowie replica knife, the camera, and the plastic thingamajigs he would use to tie her spread-eagled on her bed.
As he pulled on a pair of disposable rubber gloves, Homer started to get a hard-on thinking about what he was going to do, and told himself to cool it. He didn’t want it to be over too soon.
Outside wooden stairs, with a narrow platform, had been added to the old building to provide a rear entrance to the second-floor apartments.
He went up them quickly, putting his feet on the outside of each step. If you stepped in the middle, sometimes the stairs would squeak, and the last thing he wanted to do was to have some yapping dog hear him and start barking.
When he got to the platform and her back door, he pulled the black ski mask from his pocket and pulled it over his head, then took a close look at the door. There were actually two doors, an outer combination screen and winter door. The screen thing was in place.
He put the blade of the Jim Bowie replica in the crack between the screen and the frame, and carefully pried it open wide enough so that he could get his hand inside to unlatch it. Then he very carefully pulled it open. It came easy, without squeaking.
Once he had the screen door open, he made sure that the screen was back in place. He was pleased when he saw that he hadn’t even scratched the sonofabitch.
The inner door wasn’t much more trouble. There was a pretty good lock, but the construction was cheesy, and all it took to pop the lock was to force the blade of the Jim Bowie replica into the frame and lean on it a little.
Homer opened the door wide enough to get the blade inside and ran it up and down, checking for a chain or whatever, and when there was none, opened the door all the way, stepped into the kitchen, and then closed it behind him.
After a minute, there was enough light for him to see pretty good. He was glad he’d waited. There was a little table in the kitchen he probably would have bumped into.
This was the hairy part of the operation, making it from just being inside into the bedroom and to the bed itself without making any kind of racket.
Homer made his way slowly and carefully through the kitchen, into the living room, and then to a door he was pretty sure was the bedroom door. This sometimes was a problem; if there was a lock on the bedroom door and it had to be popped, it sometimes woke the bitches up.
No lock.
The door opened smoothly inward.
There was more light in the room, two of those go-to-the-bathroom little lights plugged into sockets near the floor.
Cheryl was in bed, lying on her stomach. She was wearing pajamas.
Homer walked to the bed, very carefully reached out for Cheryl’s shoulder, and then suddenly grabbed it, jerked her over on her back, then pushed her hard down on the bed with his hand on her throat.
“One fucking sound and you get your throat cut!” he said, waving the Jim Bowie replica in front of her face.
Cheryl whimpered.
“Please don’t hurt me,” she said. Scared shitless.
“I’m going to fuck you, bitch,” Homer said. “It’s up to you whether you get hurt or not.”
He grabbed Cheryl’s left wrist, put a plastic tie on it, jerked it tight, and then tied it to the bed.
The headboard was wrought iron. Sometimes when the headboard was material-or there was no headboard at all; that had happened twice-there was a problem. You had to tie the bitch to the springs, which meant tying a couple of the ties together to make one long enough.
No problem like that tonight. He tied the left tie to a curve in the wrought iron, then reached across the bitch for her right hand.
Cheryl started to sob.
Homer slapped her, hard.
“Not a sound, bitch!” he said.
Once he had the second plastic tie in place, he jerked on it to make sure it wouldn’t come loose, then jerked on the other one.
Then he knelt on the bed, sat back on his heels, and ran the blade of the Jim Bowie replica down Cheryl’s body, from the neck between her boobs to her crotch.
She whimpered again.
He tied her right ankle to the wrought iron at the foot of the bed, and then the left ankle. Then he ran the blade up her body again.
“Not a peep, you fucking bitch!”
He went to the light switch by the door and flipped it on.
Cheryl’s eyes were wide with terror.
He leaned over the bed and put the blade of the Jim Bowie replica under her pajama top, and one by one cut the buttons off so that it could be easily opened when it came time for that.
He took the digital camera from the coveralls and took Cheryl’s picture.
Then he leaned over her and pushed the left side of her pajama top off her breast and took a picture of that.
Very nice. Her nipples had become erect.
Homer became aware that he had a hard-on. A real hard-on.
He reached into the coveralls and took it out and waved it at her.
“This is for you, bitch!” he said.
He walked to the bed and pushed Cheryl’s pajamas off her right breast, and then took a picture of her like that.
Then he went and knelt on the bed so that he could rub the head of his penis on her nipples.
That was very exciting, so exciting that he knew he was going to have an orgasm, and since that was the case, he might as well have a good one, so he put his hand on it and pumped rapidly until he ejaculated onto her breasts and face.
She turned her head and whimpered.
As fast as the camera would permit, Homer took three pictures of that, and then had an artistic inspiration. He took the Jim Bowie replica and carefully scraped some of the semen from Cheryl’s breast on it, and then laid it between her breasts, with the tip just under her chin. And he took two pictures of that, looked at them in the camera’s built-in viewer, and then put the camera on the bedside table.
“I’ll be right back,” Homer said. “We’re just getting started.”
He went into the bathroom, and first urinated, and then, standing over the washbasin, washed his genitals, toying with them, thinking that when he went back in the bedroom, he would be able to get a shot of his sperm on her breasts and face.