(Warning: Violence, Graphic Language, Strong Sexual Situations)

She woke up with a heavy weight on the other side of the bed, which indicated that there is someone laying next to her. She opened one eye and gingerly reached behind her, patting the solid form. Yep, it was a body. She jack-knifed into a sitting position, blinking rapidly to adjust her eyes to the darkness of her bedroom, and turned on the lamp sitting on her bedside table.

The light from the hundred watt bulb felt like needles stabbing into her eyeballs. She rubbed furiously at her eyes with her fists, then slowly opened them again, still squinting at the bright light. The room came into focus as though she were looking into a viewfinder of a camera and someone had adjusted the lens for her.

A pungent smell wafted towards her nose, which had a rusty iron smell to it that was associated with blood. She touched her upper lip and found a thin layer of crust there. She peeled off a portion of the crust and brought it to the light. Blood. She wasn’t immediately worried about it since her nose sometimes bled in her sleep, especially if she had a particularly bad migraine, and the faint throbbing of the vein behind her left eye reminded her of the one she had the other night.

She was supposed to meet a couple of her co-workers at the bar down the block from the law firm, but had begged off at the last minute when her head began pounding as though a steel-toed boot was kicking it. She staggered home from the office, tossed four caplets of Excedrin Migraine down her throat, drowned it with a half a bottle of Vodka, then promptly fell asleep. When the hell did she find the time to pick up a man to bring home?

She shoved her curly black hair out of her face, then winced in pain when one of her fingers got snagged in the locks. She bunched a handful of her hair in her fist and heard a faint crackling sound. Had she bled all over her hair, too? Gross. She looked down the shirt that she was wearing and gasped out the amount of the crusty maroon mess that she found there. Whenever her nose bled, it gave out two or three drops, but no more than that. Did she need to go to the hospital?

She looked back at the pillow she had been laying on and found that it was practically saturated with blood. There was no way her nose would have shed that much blood, but she had read somewhere that a head wound always bled profusely. Her eyes trained on the man laying next to her in bed. Since he was facing the window, she could only see his back, but was pretty sure that he was still asleep. She scooted out of bed, grabbed the heavy-duty flashlight she kept in the bedside drawer, and rushed to the doorway of her bedroom. Had he broken into her apartment while she was asleep, bashed her in the head, and raped her while she was unconscious?

The hand that was not clutching the flashlight in a death grip flew to her head and inspected her scalp for a wound. She found none. She breathed a sigh of relief and sagged against the doorway. Okay, so her head was intact, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t assault her in another way. She slipped the flashlight between her legs, clenched it between her thighs, and hurriedly searched her body for any superficial wounds. She found none. Not that he would have had to knock her unconscious to have taken advantage of her. She was pretty dead to the world the other night. What did he do to her while she was sleeping? The thought made her light-headed and nauseous.

“I should call 911,” she muttered to herself, but a nagging feeling told her to hold off.

Wrapping her fingers around the flashlight-the heavy weight told her it could crush a man’s skull-she hefted it over her shoulder and tiptoed towards the bed. With her foot, she nudged the lump under the covers. No response. She kicked again, harder this time. Not a stir, not a sound. A cold finger of fear traced a path down her spine and she swallowed the bile that was rising up her throat. Ignoring the voice that told her that the man on the bed was dead, she gingerly approached his side of the bed, placed her hand on his shoulder, and pushed.

The grisly sight that greeted her pushed a scream out of her mouth and she fell on her ass in her haste to get as far away from the bed as possible. The carpet was sticky with blood… and something thicker that was not quite blood. She grabbed the trash can that she kept by her bedside, stuck her head into it, and vomited. She vomited until her stomach was empty, then she heaved again, but only air came out. Dear God, who could have done this? She brought her hands to her face and rubbed vigorously. She was still asleep, she had to be! There couldn’t be a dead man on her bed who looked like he’d been torn apart by a wild boar. She lived in Reseda, for God’s sake, there weren’t any wild boars roaming around in Reseda! But then again, she doesn’t really watch the news anymore, so wild boars could have taken over the world, and she wouldn’t have known about it!

Could pepper spray take down a wild boar?

“Okay, Karen, you’re freaking out,” she said to herself. “Calm the fuck down.”

With a deep breath, she forced herself to her feet and staggered towards bed. Even though his throat and the lower half of his jaw had been ripped out and his left eye was laying on his cheekbone, she still recognized the man on her bed as Casey Saunders, her former lover and a junior partner at the law firm where she worked. She broke up with him last month because he freaked out when he found her having a drink with a male coworker at the bar near the law firm and she had avoided him ever since. He had refused to give back her key, though, and she had been meaning to replace the locks, but had been so swamped at work that she had had no time to do it. He could have let himself in while she slept, she supposed, but who had killed him?

There was a lump of bloody flesh on the pillow near his head and a small part of her brain that was still sane told her that it was his heart. There was a ragged hole where his chest had been and someone had yanked out his heart. Upon closer look, it looked… half-eaten. She was about to scream again, but stifled it with a hand over her mouth. She couldn’t scream… it would only bring the neighbors to her door. How the hell could she possibly explain that her ex-boyfriend is dead in her bed and looked like he’d been eaten by a wild boar? They would only call the police and the police would take one look at Casey, pronounce Karen a monster, and stick her in a padded room before she can even say anything in her defense. She didn’t even want to imagine what the partners at the law firm would say if they found out about this.

“Think, Karen, think. Who could have done this?”

She made room for herself on the bed by shoving Casey aside and sat down, burying her hands in her hair. There was a number of people at the firm who would benefit from her incarceration and wouldn’t hesitate to frame her for Casey’s murder. After all, everyone knew that Woodrow and King had been grooming her for partnership since her first day at the firm. Hell, it was only a matter of time until the two old men made it official and made her a partner. It was a cutthroat business. Literally.

She wouldn’t have been surprised if she found out that Harold Jensen and his little cunt girlfriend, Melinda, planned this whole thing, butchered Casey’s body themselves, and planted him in her bed. With Karen out of the way, it would be Jensen who’d be up for partnership and everyone knew that Jensen had been gunning for her ever since Woodrow and King began expressing interest in her. Wasn’t it Casey himself who told her that it was Jensen who spread around that malicious rumor that she was only up for partnership because she gave it up to Woodrow and King… at the same time?

She could just kill Jensen for putting her in this position. She could just take his head between her hands and squeeze until his tiny little brain oozed out of his ears. And she wouldn’t even stop there. She couldn’t wait to see the look on that cunt Miranda’s face when she walked in and found Karen tearing open Jensen’s chest and digging out the little twerp’s heart with her bare hands. What would Miranda Peters say if Karen took that heart and just took a giant bite out of it? Probably something inane, like how a human heart is filled with bad fats and calories.

“Stupid bitch,” Karen muttered, thinking of Miranda’s shiny white teeth and stupid blond hair. What would Miranda do in this situation? Well, she wouldn’t have panicked, for one thing. She would have kept her cool, called the police herself, and icily demanded that they find the perpetrator immediately. Karen pictured the haughty blond woman waking up next to a torn up Casey Saunders, making a moue of disgust with her perfect little mouth, and mixing herself a dirty martini before forcing herself to call the cops. She probably wouldn’t have thrown up, either.

“Man, I need a shower,” Karen whispered to herself even as she raised her arm and took a whiff of her armpit. “Yeah, I’d feel better after a shower.”

She got up from the bed and walked over to the bathroom across the hall from her bedroom. She flicked on the light and winced at the reflection of herself that she saw on the mirror above the sink. There was a ring of blood surrounding her mouth and dried-up tracks of it all over her neck and upper chest. Her curly black hair was a mess and the smudged mascara that circled her big green eyes made her look like a deranged raccoon. How could she have gone to bed without removing her make-up? She tried to remember if she even brushed her teeth before passing out, but she couldn’t be certain that she did.

“Cavities, Karen Black,” she murmured as she inspected her teeth in the mirror. “A partner at Woodrow and King can’t afford to have cavities.” She leaned closer to the mirror, lifted her lip, and ran her tongue over her upper teeth. “Ugh, what’s that pink stuff? What the hell did I eat last night?” She cupped a hand in front of her mouth, exhaled into it, and sniffed. “Eww… that’s disgusting!”

She yanked open the drawer under the sink and scrounged around for the dental floss. When she found it, she unraveled about eighteen inches of floss and began to work on clearing the spaces between her teeth, spitting out the chunks that she had liberated. As soon as she was finished, she poured a capful of Listerine and tossed it into her mouth, gargling furiously. Ignoring the burn on her walls of her mouth as the Listerine worked its disinfecting magic, she held up her hands to her face to inspect her nails. There she found crescent-shaped blood stains underneath her nails and was dismayed to find that she had broken the French tip of her left middle finger. With some clippers, she cut the offending nail to its nub, reminded herself to make an appointment with the Vietnamese salon down the street, and plunged her hands under the faucet and hot water.

After about a minute, she spat out the Listerine, applied some Dial anti-bacterial soap on her hands and began lathering furiously. Ten minutes later, she rinsed her hands and dried them on the pristine white towel hanging from the rack by the sink. Satisfied that her gums and hands were clean, she unbuttoned the bloody nightshirt and removed it from her body. Afterwards, she turned on the faucet again, made sure the water was cold, applied the stopper to the drain, and soaked her poor shirt in the water. Cold water did wonders for all sorts of stains and Lord knows that she had to remove the offending stain before taking it to the drycleaners. She could always tell them that it was a cranberry stain, but she didn’t really like to lie unless she absolutely had to.

As a lawyer, it should have been a liability, but her clients appreciated her candor and her direct, no-bullshit approach. It was what she used to battle against Jensen’s charm and smarm.

She unhooked her black satin bra, rolled her black satin bikini bottoms down her legs, and dropped them both in the hamper. When she was fully naked, she pulled the glass door of the shower, and stepped in. Once inside, she turned on the faucet, made sure that the temperature was perfect, then turned on the shower full-blast. As she stood underneath the shower, watching the blood wash away from her body and down the drain, she wondered what she would do about the Casey situation. She always did her best thinking in the shower and this situation was no different. Woodrow and King called her a problem-solver and goddamn it, she would find a way out of this mess even if it killed her.

She could take Casey’s body and roll him up in the Persian rug in her bedroom, she supposed. She could then take him down to the incinerator in the building’s basement and set him on fire. She could also burn the sheets, the pillows, his clothes, and all the evidence that he’d ever been in her apartment. But damn it, the Persian rug had cost her a fortune and the bed sheets were 800 thread count Egyptian cotton. She couldn’t just… set them on fire. Money didn’t grow on trees, after all. Ever since she was a little girl, her mother had told her not to throw away anything that could be salvaged.

She was sure she could remove the stains from her sheets, but the blood would still leave a forensic trace. She watched CSI on TV whenever she could and learned that all the trace guys had to do was spray some Luminol on her sheets. If the Luminol turned blue, it meant there was blood on it. No, it would be best if she burned down the sheets and the rug. It hurt her heart to think about it, but the thought of going to jail and losing the partnership to Harold Jensen hurt her even more.

She picked up the bottle of salon-exclusive shampoo whose formula her stylist had mixed especially for her and applied a dollop to her hair, whipping her locks and the shampoo into a lather. She massaged her scalp gently, avoiding scratching the surface with her nails, and breathed in the smell of honeysuckle and jojoba. After a few minutes, she carefully rinsed her hair, then applied a coconut-based conditioner to it. While the conditioner worked on her hair, she washed her body with an apple scented wash, using a loofah to exfoliate her skin. After rinsing the conditioner from her hair and the wash from her body, she turned off the water, and wrapped her hair in a towel and used another to dry her body. She combed her hair, rubbed moisturizer into her skin, then walked back to her bedroom where she slipped into a pair of black jeans and a black t-shirt.

With her hands on her waist, she surveyed the scene before her. She didn’t notice it before, but there were godawful blood stains all over her once pristine white walls and virgin white satin curtains. That would mean that Casey wasn’t killed somewhere else and deposited in her bed. It meant that Casey was killed right beside her while she slept. Goddamn that Harold Jensen and that cunt Miranda. They had no right killing her ex-boyfriend in her apartment! How did they even get in? Karen glared at Casey’s eviscerated form on her bed, marched over to his side, and slapped him hard on the side of his head.

“You idiot,” she hissed. “I bet Miranda flashed some leg at you and you just went for it, didn’t you? This is all your fault. If you’d been able to keep your cock in your pants, you wouldn’t be lying dead in my bed right now.” She grasped a handful of the bed sheets and waved them at Casey. “Eight hundred thread count, Saunders! Do you know what that means? Four hundred dollars, motherfucker, four hundred dollars!”

Quickly and efficiently, she wrapped up the body of her ex-boyfriend in the eight hundred thread count Egyptian cotton sheet, then rolled him up in the fitted sheet for a good measure. Afterwards, she yanked him off of the bed and dropped him on the Persian rug and used it to roll up Casey good and proper like an eggroll. She was done in five minutes. When she spotted his heart laying harmlessly on her goose down pillow, her stomach emitted an odd rumble. Before she could think about what it meant, she stormed to the kitchen, grabbed a Ziplock bag and some tongs, then returned to her bedroom. With the tongs, she carefully picked up the heart, dropped it into the Ziplock, sealed it, then strode back to the kitchen to deposit the bag in the freezer.

The digital clock on her microwave oven told her that it was four-thirty AM. Everyone in the building should still be asleep. She could drag Casey to the basement, dump him in the incinerator, and set his ass on fire before anyone was the wiser. Afterwards, she could bleach the blood stain from her mattress, the walls… hell, she’d have to burn up her satin curtains, too. She gritted her teeth and punched the stainless steel door of her refrigerator, leaving a fist-sized dent. Goddamn that Casey! She could be in the office now, working on the Sanderson file, and building up billable hours, instead of disposing of his dumb ass.

With a sigh, she walked back to her bedroom, and eyed the Persian rug that contained Casey with disdain. As soon as she made partner, she’d go after Jensen and assign him the shittiest cases that came across her desk. His ass would be busted down to the mailroom before the year’s end, if she had anything to say about it. A cruel smile crossed her face at the thought of the poor bastard at her beck and call. She could make him fetch her coffee or shine her shoes… with his tongue.

“Alright, Karen Black,” she murmured to herself. “Let’s get this shit done, get ourselves cleaned up, and get to the office.”

Gracefully, she bent at the knees, hoisted the rolled up rug across her shoulders, and effortlessly stood up. As though Casey weighed nothing more than air, she strolled through her living room with him draped over her shoulders, and opened the door out of her apartment, whistling a jaunty little tune. She poked her head out to check out the hallway and made sure there was no one around, then walked out, closing the door behind her. With a nonchalant smile on her face, she walked down the hallway and headed for the elevator, pressing the button to call it. As soon as the doors opened for her, she went in, punched the button for the basement, and bobbed her head to the faint strains of Girl from Ipanema as she waited for the elevator to descend to her destination.

There was a “ping” when the elevator reached the basement and the doors slid open for her. Karen stepped out, yanked open the incinerator, and dumped Casey and the rug inside. After turning up the temperature to nine hundred degrees, she stepped back, and patted herself on the shoulder for a job well done. She imagined that Casey was still alive as the flames licked at his body and smiled even wider.

Absently humming the Girl from Ipanema under her breath, she walked back to the elevator even as her stomach growled in hunger. As the doors closed on her, she wondered what Miranda Peters’ heart tasted like.