Hands
t�s dark. It�s late. He�s waiting.
Engulfed in opaque shadows, Andrew sits on the edge of the bed, naked, holding the hand of a young hooker. Quietly he rises, tosses the hand on the bed, glides to the open window. He stays in shadows. Thinking of his new interests, a woman and her teenage daughter, they�ll be home soon, excites him and he touches himself, but not before casting one last, wishful look toward the bed. Then, he stares out at the long, stately driveway.
Still fondling himself, he figures to rape the girl first, make mom watch, then let the girl enjoy the view. There�s a young boy also, about nine-years-old. The boy will die first, but he can watch until Andrew�s hands get anxious. Andrew spreads his fingers, wiggling them, making sure movement is not restricted by the thin, red latex. The gloves are a necessity because of fingerprints. Moreover, he likes the color red; it contrasts vividly with his pale nudity, and his fondest memories are awash in red.
He�s grinning now, like a lizard, and touching himself again, please hurry home!, anticipating his excitement when they see him naked, just moments before he overpowers them with precise blows from his skilled hands. Eighteen years of karate have contributed greatly to his physical prowess and physique, making him a genuine man. And women are so easy to subdue. He�s been watching these two for over a week, and there�s never a man around, but there�s always a window cracked-open. It�s been ten days since he did the pretty hooker, and he yearns for a softer, more pliable hand.
He reaches toward the pile of discarded clothing, grazing the long, heavy blade lying on top. He likes the cold hardness, knows the damage the keen edge can inflict, can almost smell the blood . . . and becomes more aroused. Mmmmm! Still, his hands are the real weapons. They make the knife�s work possible; they can kill, or they can simply disable. They can feel death as it encroaches and life as it ebbs away. He rubs his hands together gently, each one caressing the other.
Bringing his muscular one-hundred-fifty pounds back toward the bed, Andrew intertwines the fingers of his hands, stretching his arms toward the ceiling, knuckles popping, the latex crinkling delicately, almost soundlessly, like . . . a baby�s breath! Separating his hands, he curls the fingers that are so skilled at securing the correct grip. As much as he enjoys the amputations and the exhibitionist-sex, he enjoys even more the petrified look on his victims� faces when they realize they can�t break the grip on their throats. "Like a fuck�in field mouse when the snake squeezes the crap out of it," he giggles. Andrew loves that analogy. Always has. For an instant he ponders whither he should remove their hands before or after he kills them. And whose hand will he take with him? He glances at the Bowie Knife, flexes his fingers.
Now Andrew is ready to leave the bedroom, deciding to take a look around. It�s an immense home. He assumes this bedroom is for guests: no family pictures on the walls or nightstand, only sheets and pillowcases in the drawers, everything neat and orderly, and a bathroom with that "unused" look. The knife is being left behind. Andrew refuses to carry anything that diminishes his nakedness, and the knife not only diminishes his nakedness but trivializes his masculinity. Later, after the women and the little boy are restrained, he�ll bring them here . . . to the knife. That�s when he will decide about the hands. He opens the door.
Andrew is standing in a hallway lighted only by the pale luminescence of distant stars, his hands in a defensive posture. The house is engulfed in darkness, and he will leave it that way; a light can be seen for miles. Even in the gloom, he avoids crossing in front of windows, because someone outside might notice his shadow worming across the dark. As he approaches a mirrored wall, he intently studies his dim, phantomlike reflection. It�s lewd and threatening, with hands like dark talons. He wishes he was several inches taller, many pounds heavier. Then he cements his eyes to the diminutive image of his mid-section, frowns, almost cries.
Now Andrew moves to a door, opens it. It�s her room. The girl! It must be, because he thinks he can smell her. Staying away from the window, he moves in the night�s glow, knocking a stack of CDs from the dresser, scattering tubes of lipstick and vials of eye shadow, flipping through chemistry and English books, glancing at a shadowed picture of what appears to be a large man, opening drawers and rifling through her clothes, searching. "Yes!" he squeals, bringing a pair of panties to his face, smelling them, stalking her scent, caressing himself. He wrinkles his nose, sneezes. Soap! He knows they�ll smell better when she�s in them. Glancing again at the picture, Andrew wonders if it�s the photograph of a boyfriend. He�s tempted to turn on a light, just for a brief second, just to get a peek so he can put a face on the large body when he fantasizes about the girl being pinned under it�but he won�t risk the light. As he turns to leave the room he brushes the panties across his groin, ohhh!, then lets them slide from his fingers.
Andrew is moving to the next door now, turning the knob slowly, his grip firm, opening the door quietly. Stepping into the room he is immersed in the milky glow of a computer monitor. On the monitor screen is a scene from "Stealth Fighter." The processing unit hums quietly. The fact that the computer is on in mid-game excites Andrew further and he strokes himself again. They evidently don�t plan on being gone for long. Seeing that there are no windows in the room, he closes the door and flips on the light.
This is a small room, apparently used by the boy for hobbies. Alongside the computer is a tube of airplane glue, several small bottles of hobby paint, and the unopened box of a model airplane. From the ceiling several plastic models already hang, swinging ever-so-slightly: Tomcats, F15s, Tornadoes, a B52. But Andrew barely notices these things, because he�s being drawn to the far wall and the desk against it. This desk and wall are like a shrine. The wall is covered with pictures of a huge, extremely muscular man: a professional wrestler�and no doubt every bit the buffoon. In one picture, the man wears a velvet cape, an oversized gold crown, and is posed pompously, leaning on a cane. The stupid fuck! A nearby photo shows him in zebra-stripe tights, with a midget woman-wrestler propped on his knee. Disgusting! In yet another, he has an enormous python draped over his shoulders. Yuck! And on the desk, amidst more pictures, is a binder filled with newspaper clippings, all neatly taped and aligned in chronological order. Andrew is browsing through it, stopping on the last page used and reading the latest entries: "Bruiser Jeff Crushes Rick Flair In Tokyo," "Bruiser Jeff Bruises The Rising Sun," "Bruiser Jeff Detonates In Hiroshima," "Bruiser Jeff Returns Home." He�s sneering as he closes the binder, flips an obscene gesture at the man in the pictures, then runs his left hand down his right arm, admiring the sleekness of his own muscles. "You�re a fucking fake!" Andrew laughs, almost a hush. "All those veins and muscles. All that hypocrisy. You�re a fake!," and Andrew again slides a hand to his�
A noise downstairs! They�re home!
Andrew quietly switches-off the light, is statuelike, listening closely to the muted voices. "I�ll run it upstairs," and it�s a girl� voice, as the stairway and hall become bathed in light that snakes under the door. Andrew grins, belatedly touches himself and sighs. Now he creeps to the door, opens it, and here she comes, a suitcase bouncing on every step as she ascends. She�s in the hallway now, about to pass his lair, lugging the suitcase, and she�s so pretty up close and her body is so nice and her hands . . . her hands are as pretty as her face, why wait? So he leaps through the air, pinning her to the wall, rubbing against her, his hand covering her mouth. "Been waiting for you," he mumbles, relishing the expression on her face, already the field mouse eyes.
But this one surprises him. She�s biting his fingers, deftly pushing him away, kicking at his groin. "You little bitch!" Andrew snarls, blocking the kicks just as she cries out and bolts for the stairway. He lunges for her and they crash to the floor with his hand sealing her mouth. They almost roll down the stairs. Andrew tightens the grip over her mouth and raises the other hand to strike. But the girl strikes first! She�s grabbing for his groin and he has to defend himself with both hands and now she�s screaming, "DADDY, HELP ME! THERE�S A . . ."
"KELLY?" someone roars frantically from below. It�s not the mother, and definitely not the boy. "KELLY!"
There�s a man in the house?
Andrew is rising, moving away from the girl. He doesn�t like surprises so he�s suddenly anxious to find his clothes and leave, Oh God!, but he can�t, because coming-up the stairs three-at-a-time at Guinness-Book-speed is the biggest man Andrew has ever seen: Bruiser Jeff�Daddy.
"You sonofabitch!" the man seethes, and Andrew recoils from the hatred. Calling upon years of training, Andrew fires rapid punches at the enraged figure, only to have his hands caught in midair and bent backwards, backwards until the bones crack and the wrists snap, backwards until his fingertips almost touch his elbows. Andrew kicks too, right at the vitals. Good, hard kicks. But how do you hurt something this strong? This huge? This angry?
Andrew is trying to be brave, but still, he pisses all over himself. There�s no place to hide. No way to get the knife. No way out of the house. He�s trapped in a corner and panic is taking control as the man, bigger than God intended any man to be, reaches for him. And though Daddy is an uncommonly large man, even for a professional wrestler, it�s not the typically obvious trappings of his size that frighten Andrew the most. No, it�s not the 15" forearms. Not even the 27" biceps. Nor is it the massive shoulders or the 58" chest. What frightens Andrew the most, what makes him piss all over himself, what makes him see through the eyes of that vaunted field mouse is the size of the hands now tightening around his throat.
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