Original -- Woman
Title: Woman
Rating: R
Word Count: 996
Warnings: blood, violence, murder
Summary: Cassie shouldn't've.
Author's Note: I had the prompt "Frailty, thy name is woman" for a Remus/Tonks fanfic, and this was all I could think of, so I had to get it down before I could move on. I am a creepy freaking human being. You may also blame Robert Browning's My Last Duchess and too much "CSI" in my impressionable youth.
WOMAN
Woman is the feeblest, ficklest creature on God’s gray Earth.
Through half-lidded eyes I watched the patterns of the faint moonlight shifting on the paving stones, fading into the dark that swallowed all but the mouth of the alley. Grit cut into my cheek and my palms, and the ambient damp wasn’t making it any pleasanter, but these were small adversities, which I was more than willing to field. Greater good and ends justifying the means and all that.
It wasn’t too long before the pain paid off in full, heralded by that signature crunch of tire treads devouring fragments of gravel, the rubber grinding on the slick pavement. I smiled to myself.
The driver’s side door swished open, and I got a good five seconds of garbled radio transmission harmonizing with the creaking of the leather seat before it slammed shut again. Footsteps, then, slow and deliberate, coming gradually nearer.
“Sir?” Young, and a little nervous, by the sound of it. Perfect.
I dragged myself to my feet and staggered towards the trunk end of the car, just in case this model boasted one of those stupid dashboard cameras that pump the lifeblood of COPS. You never know, the way people are these days-mesmerized by the mundane. Possessed by some insatiable desire to watch people they don’t know doing things they shouldn’t care about.
“Sorry… Officer… I was just…” I moved to support myself against the roof of the car but stopped before I touched it. Fingerprints, you know.
“Sir, are you hurt?”
I smiled again.
Then I braced my shoulder against the window with my back to him, drew my buck knife, spun, and slit his throat across in one smooth motion.
When the fountain stopped spewing and dwindled down to a nice, peaceful dribble, I snapped on my gloves, slid his pistol from its holster, and tucked it into my jacket pocket. Feeling wonderfully accomplished, I turned on my heel and walked away.
A job well-done is its own reward, after all, and, in this case, there were even additional perks.
I wrapped the phone cord absently around my finger, and it tried to curl along its own bias despite my efforts. Not too many people have phones with cords nowadays. They’re missing out. There’s something grounding about a tangible wire in a world full of floating cell phones and Bluetooth headsets you stick in your ear like a cyborg.
The gunshot click of the answering machine echoed in my ear, and then I was treated to the breathiness of what I called her Classy Cassie Voice: “Hi, there, you’ve reached Cassandra Bellweather. I’m not here right now, but I’d love to get back to you as soon as I can, so if you’ll leave your number and a short message-”
Good; I’d remembered right; she was out until ten tonight. I replaced the receiver in the cradle and walked the two blocks to her apartment complex.
When she strolled in thirty-seven minutes later, the lights were low, and there was hot food and cool wine on the table. Her glass contained a considerable quantity of the sleeping pills that had heretofore resided in her medicine cabinet, meticulously crushed and quite dissolved.
“Oh, sweetheart!” she gasped, fingers tipped with dark red nails fluttering about her face, the picture of gleeful surprise. A few lines wrinkled her smooth brow, above the sculpted eyebrows, below the soft flyaways along her hairline. “But aren’t you still-”
“Cassie, love,” I said, “there’s nothing for it now.”
She crossed the room, took my hands in hers, and kissed me earnestly. “You’re so understanding,” she murmured against my cheek.
With her that close, with the perfume rising from her skin and with her cornsilk hair brushing against my jaw, I almost doubted myself.
By the time she sat down and started guzzling wine, however, the feeling had dissipated.
After she’d chattered awhile, I held out the knife, wiped clean of both blood and prints. Predictably, she giggled and took it, turning it over and over in her hands. “Is this new?” she asked. Without waiting for an answer, she mimed stabbing an adversary, only to set her weapon down on the tabletop in favor of the wineglass.
She talked a lot more, and she drank a lot more, and I watched the light play on her hair. I hated the dark roots just starting to show along her part. The fakeness of it-the utterly unconcerned fakeness of it-disgusted me. Lies. No one had the guts to tell the truth anymore. And when they did, you didn’t want to hear it.
I got up and slipped on the sunny yellow rubber gloves draped over the faucet. I rinsed the dishes and tucked them into the dishwasher, then followed them up with my wineglass. She made some token protests about our having better things to do, though she wasn’t genuinely interested until I tore off a paper towel and dried the gloves, which I hadn’t removed.
“Sweetheart,” she interjected, bewildered now, “you can let ’em drip…”
I went to her, took her hand, pulled her to her feet, twirled her twice, and carefully backed her up against the wall. Couldn’t leave any bruises. Not like my brother did when she slept with him, so drunk she hardly remembered it in the first place.
“Sweetheart,” she cooed, “you’ve got that look in your eyes again.”
I smiled. “Which?”
I took the gun from my left inside coat pocket, slotted it into the space under her chin, and fired once.
There was still a flicker of life in the pale blue of her eyes after I’d eased her to the floor and arranged the gun in her hand. Before the blood could trickle down and ripple outward far enough to soak into any of my clothes, I knelt over her and leaned in to tuck a few wispy curls behind her ear.
“Frailty,” I said, “thy name is…”
Rating: R
Word Count: 996
Warnings: blood, violence, murder
Summary: Cassie shouldn't've.
Author's Note: I had the prompt "Frailty, thy name is woman" for a Remus/Tonks fanfic, and this was all I could think of, so I had to get it down before I could move on. I am a creepy freaking human being. You may also blame Robert Browning's My Last Duchess and too much "CSI" in my impressionable youth.
WOMAN
Woman is the feeblest, ficklest creature on God’s gray Earth.
Through half-lidded eyes I watched the patterns of the faint moonlight shifting on the paving stones, fading into the dark that swallowed all but the mouth of the alley. Grit cut into my cheek and my palms, and the ambient damp wasn’t making it any pleasanter, but these were small adversities, which I was more than willing to field. Greater good and ends justifying the means and all that.
It wasn’t too long before the pain paid off in full, heralded by that signature crunch of tire treads devouring fragments of gravel, the rubber grinding on the slick pavement. I smiled to myself.
The driver’s side door swished open, and I got a good five seconds of garbled radio transmission harmonizing with the creaking of the leather seat before it slammed shut again. Footsteps, then, slow and deliberate, coming gradually nearer.
“Sir?” Young, and a little nervous, by the sound of it. Perfect.
I dragged myself to my feet and staggered towards the trunk end of the car, just in case this model boasted one of those stupid dashboard cameras that pump the lifeblood of COPS. You never know, the way people are these days-mesmerized by the mundane. Possessed by some insatiable desire to watch people they don’t know doing things they shouldn’t care about.
“Sorry… Officer… I was just…” I moved to support myself against the roof of the car but stopped before I touched it. Fingerprints, you know.
“Sir, are you hurt?”
I smiled again.
Then I braced my shoulder against the window with my back to him, drew my buck knife, spun, and slit his throat across in one smooth motion.
When the fountain stopped spewing and dwindled down to a nice, peaceful dribble, I snapped on my gloves, slid his pistol from its holster, and tucked it into my jacket pocket. Feeling wonderfully accomplished, I turned on my heel and walked away.
A job well-done is its own reward, after all, and, in this case, there were even additional perks.
I wrapped the phone cord absently around my finger, and it tried to curl along its own bias despite my efforts. Not too many people have phones with cords nowadays. They’re missing out. There’s something grounding about a tangible wire in a world full of floating cell phones and Bluetooth headsets you stick in your ear like a cyborg.
The gunshot click of the answering machine echoed in my ear, and then I was treated to the breathiness of what I called her Classy Cassie Voice: “Hi, there, you’ve reached Cassandra Bellweather. I’m not here right now, but I’d love to get back to you as soon as I can, so if you’ll leave your number and a short message-”
Good; I’d remembered right; she was out until ten tonight. I replaced the receiver in the cradle and walked the two blocks to her apartment complex.
When she strolled in thirty-seven minutes later, the lights were low, and there was hot food and cool wine on the table. Her glass contained a considerable quantity of the sleeping pills that had heretofore resided in her medicine cabinet, meticulously crushed and quite dissolved.
“Oh, sweetheart!” she gasped, fingers tipped with dark red nails fluttering about her face, the picture of gleeful surprise. A few lines wrinkled her smooth brow, above the sculpted eyebrows, below the soft flyaways along her hairline. “But aren’t you still-”
“Cassie, love,” I said, “there’s nothing for it now.”
She crossed the room, took my hands in hers, and kissed me earnestly. “You’re so understanding,” she murmured against my cheek.
With her that close, with the perfume rising from her skin and with her cornsilk hair brushing against my jaw, I almost doubted myself.
By the time she sat down and started guzzling wine, however, the feeling had dissipated.
After she’d chattered awhile, I held out the knife, wiped clean of both blood and prints. Predictably, she giggled and took it, turning it over and over in her hands. “Is this new?” she asked. Without waiting for an answer, she mimed stabbing an adversary, only to set her weapon down on the tabletop in favor of the wineglass.
She talked a lot more, and she drank a lot more, and I watched the light play on her hair. I hated the dark roots just starting to show along her part. The fakeness of it-the utterly unconcerned fakeness of it-disgusted me. Lies. No one had the guts to tell the truth anymore. And when they did, you didn’t want to hear it.
I got up and slipped on the sunny yellow rubber gloves draped over the faucet. I rinsed the dishes and tucked them into the dishwasher, then followed them up with my wineglass. She made some token protests about our having better things to do, though she wasn’t genuinely interested until I tore off a paper towel and dried the gloves, which I hadn’t removed.
“Sweetheart,” she interjected, bewildered now, “you can let ’em drip…”
I went to her, took her hand, pulled her to her feet, twirled her twice, and carefully backed her up against the wall. Couldn’t leave any bruises. Not like my brother did when she slept with him, so drunk she hardly remembered it in the first place.
“Sweetheart,” she cooed, “you’ve got that look in your eyes again.”
I smiled. “Which?”
I took the gun from my left inside coat pocket, slotted it into the space under her chin, and fired once.
There was still a flicker of life in the pale blue of her eyes after I’d eased her to the floor and arranged the gun in her hand. Before the blood could trickle down and ripple outward far enough to soak into any of my clothes, I knelt over her and leaned in to tuck a few wispy curls behind her ear.
“Frailty,” I said, “thy name is…”