Kill Bill

I’m jarred awake by the sound of glass shattering; the backdoor window pane, to be specific. I remember the same noise from last month, when Dummy accidentally threw a football into the house. The chatter of shards bursting onto the kitchen floor was that of a busted dam; the pressure released itself in a violent rush of backdoor hail. He got it fixed quickly, of course, to prohibit me from going outside. So, I haven’t really forgiven him.

“Shhhh!” Someone says, as if hushing works retrospectively. “What the hell, Rachel, I thought you said you had a key?”

“I do,” Rachel says. 

“So, what? You just wanted to trigger the glass breaker alarm?” The other woman’s voice is familiar. It’s soft, but assertive, like a strict grandmother.

“He doesn’t have any alarms, Blair. He doesn’t need them.” My ears perk up.

“Right.”

The two girls step through the path of broken glass until they are in the middle of the room, standing in the empty space between Dummy’s custom kitchen island and the back of his crocodile-leather couch. 

I can see them clearly now. Rachel: tall, light hair, legs like a gazelle. She’s the one who always wears too much perfume; soaked in the stench of artificial roses like an open casket funeral. Not that I’ve been.

Then there’s Blair—like the witch. She’s much smaller, with auburn hair, and always creeps along so quietly, I can barely hear her. There’s a feline essence to her walk, they way her hips sway and her toes step delicately. She looks meek beside Rachel. But I’ve seen her roar once before.

“Okay, hurry, where is it?” Blair asks. She’s looking around the dark room blindly. 

“Chill B, he’s a heavy sleeper.”

“What!” Blair grabs Rachel’s arm and drags her back towards the broken door, out of my sight. I angle my neck to get a better view, but they’re just out of reach.

“Rach, I thought you said he was in Hawaii right now?”

“He was. Last week. He came back yesterday.”

“Then why didn’t we do this then!”

“I was busy.” Rachel’s voice is flat. She’s lying. She’s bad at it too. Blair doesn’t fall for it, but she does ignore it. 

“Just get it and go.”

“Yes ma’am. It’s upstairs.”

They move back into the sweet spot, in the middle of the first floor. I watch Rachel skillfully analyze the room; she checks the front door for shoes, the living room for remnants of dirty wine glasses. She wants to know if he was alone…is alone. But then she has another thought; I can see it in the way her expression changes suddenly. Her eyes wander back and forth in the darkness searching for something in the corners of the room. Someone. Me?

“He keeps his liquor in his room? That’s very college-frat-boy of him,” Blair whispers.

“What? Oh, right, the Patrón...” Rachel peels her eyes away.

“That’s what you wanted, right?”

“Yeah. But um, it’s not in his room. There’s another lounge area up there…and he has a bar cart thingy.”

“Huh?” Blair asks. Her face crunches up into a clueless ball of frustration. She doesn’t want to be here, clearly. She never seemed like she did, ever. She’d look at the door, and her watch, and jump up at the slightest noise. I’d call her skittish, but there was a kind of power behind it; she was scared, but proceeded anyway.

“You are on the lookout down here. I’m gonna head up.” Blair nods and positions herself by the bottom of the stairs. Rachel slinks into the kitchen quickly first. There are fumbling noises—like the ones I hear when Dummy tries to cook himself dinner—before she returns with something in her hand.

“What the hell, Rach?”

“What?”

“Why do you need that?” 

Rachel holds her arm out. She is holding a giant kitchen knife. 

“Protection.”

“From who, the cat?”

“No! Buttercup loves me.”

Ugh, Buttercup. That is not my name. That is just the stupid word Dummy calls me. I call him ‘Dummy’ in my head, but that nickname never seems to stick—everyone insists he looks more like a ‘Mark.’ And ‘love’ is debatable, Stinky-perfume-woman; it is a strong word. Maybe settle for ‘tolerates.’ Also, cut it with the baby voice… It makes you look stupid and it makes me feel stupid. Nobody wins, and frankly it’s just obnoxiously annoying. 

At least whenever Blair comes over, she drops food on the floor for me, no matter how many times ‘Mark’ tells her not to. I tolerate her; respect her, perhaps.

“Don’t worry about it babes,” Rachel says.

“Rachel!” Blair raises her voice.

“Screw him, Blair! Screw him, okay?”

“What are you going to do?” Blair looks ill. 

My corner is ridiculously tight, so I have to acrobatically shift my body to stay comfortable. This house is getting too small for the both of us. I no longer fit snug in this tiny bed; I cascade over it. If Dummy would at least open the door now and then, I could stretch my limbs, smell the grass…

I crane my neck to hear better. I want to hear their hearts race. I want to hear them breathe. 

“I can’t see him with anyone else, if he’s not with me, then he’s with nobody ever again!”

“Rachel, you can’t kill him!”

“Why not? He murdered my heart. We were in love. We were engaged! And he threw that all away!” She throws her hands up in the air frantically. The knife is flailing around, weightless and carefless like a drunk person with a sparkler. 

“That doesn’t mean you can kill him!” Blair grabs her shoulders to steady her. “I won’t let you do this.”

“You can’t stop me.” Rachel squirms out of her grasp and runs bounding up the stairs. Before she can reach the top, Dummy appears at the edge of the landing. He stands tall and broad, bare chested, and in blue linen boxers. 

“What the hell is going on?” He slaps the light switch beside him and the stairs illuminate. I slink back further into my corner by the edge of the bathroom. It’s dusty back here; disgusting. Dummy really doesn’t do a good job of taking care of the house. 

“Rachel?” He stares at her, face-to-face, knife still in her hand. There’s silence for a moment, and then Dummy sees Blair in the corner of his eye. “…Blair?”

“Rachel wanted to steal your Patón!” She blurts out. “Because she found out you were cheating on her with someone.” Now she’s stammering.

“What? How…”

“I found womens underwear under your pillow, Mark!”

“Rachel, Rachel, listen…” She holds the knife up and basically growls.

“Forget the Patrón, I have a better suited form of revenge in mind.” Dummy holds his hands up in defence, pathetically backing up in terror.

“Hey, hey, hey, wait… let me explain…” he says.

“Oh, let me guess, ‘it didn’t mean anything?’ ‘Was it a mistake?’ ‘You’re soooo sorry???’”

“Yes, yes, all of that! It meant nothing! It was stupid. She was nobody. It didn’t matter.” Rachel begins to slap him with one hand, still pointing the knife towards his abdomen in the other. 

“Buttercup! Buttercup!!” Dummy wails. Ugh, what? He wants me to get up? 

I used to always oblige. I thought we were friends, and friends help each other out. But, slowly I began to realize that Mark never thought of me as a friend. I was his. Just like his Porsche, or his TV, or his Patrón Tequila. I was just something useful to him.

But this is not for him. I myself am curious. So, I push myself off the floor and drag my heavy body across the room. I catch my reflection in the giant bathroom mirror as I walk by; majestic, mysterious. They say black cats are bad luck, but we know everyone is just intimidated.

“Jesus, Mark!” Rachel howls. She stares at me as I creep towards the bottom of the steps. Blair doesn’t shutter. She studies me carefully, but with curiosity not concern. 

“For goodness sake, Mark, leave the cat out of this,” she says. “She’s not your fucking guard dog.”

“Rachel, you’re being crazy!” He yells, ignoring Blair. “You’re being irrational.”

“Irrational? We were engaged! I am out thousands of dollars and I am single for the first time in four years. You did that to me. And you did it for some skank!”

“Stop it, Rachel!” Blair snaps. “You’re being unfeminist.”

“Not the time!” She shouts down to Blair. They seem to be good friends. I’ve seen Rachel around frequently over the years, and on the rare occasion Blair would join her and Dummy for dinner. We’d never been properly introduced, however. I assumed she was just Rachel’s companion until I saw Blair and Dummy alone together once. That is when I finally met her, briefly. She wouldn’t look at me at first. She told him she didn’t ‘condone it,’ whatever ‘it’ was. But when he wasn’t looking, she scratched my chin. Twice.

Rachel looks back up to Dummy, and then down to Blair again. Then her eyes wander over me, and a chill vibrates through her. 

“Mark, why the hell is Buttercup not attacking Blair right now?”

“Huh?” He says. Blair stares blankly at me. 

“Buttercup has never met Blair before.”

“Of course she has,” he says—technically the truth, but built on lies. “She has joined us for wine-night before, and also that dinner party with Chris and Angela from college last fall…”

“No, but Buttercup was in her cage. You locked her up because Angela is allergic to cats. And for all the wine-nights, you always lock her up in case we pass out on the sofa from drinking.”

Yeah… I hate when he does that. 

“They’ve surely met, otherwise she’d be all over her. You just forgot,” he says. Rachel is growing irritated.

“No! You told me if Buttercup is not properly introduced, one-on-one, in a closed-in environment with someone first, then she will attack onsite! That’s how the Uber delivery guy got that nasty scar across his face last Halloween.” Dummy looks as dumb as ever; eyes wide, mouth gaping, like a fish caught on a Dora fishing rod. He stutters to fill sentences with words.

“I’ve had enough of this!” Blair cries, and slams her fists into the wall. “Rachel is not crazy!”

She walks up the steps to Rachel’s level, and puts her hand on her forearm. She’s watching the knife, but trying to look at Rachel—who’s shaking like a wet Chihuahua—at the same time. “It was me, Rach… I’m so, so sorry.”

“What?” Rachel laughs, unsettling. “That is not funny, Blair.”

“I’m not kidding, Rachel.” Blair’s eyes drop to her feet. Disappointment radiates from inside of her.

“When? How?”

“When you went to visit your parents in Florida. You asked us both to house-sit…”

“I asked you to water my plants and get my mail, not fuck my boyfriend!” Rachel flails the knife in the air again. But Blair just watches calmly. 

“…Our schedules got mixed up. We ended up showing up at the house on the same days. And it is a pain getting in and out of the parking at your place, so we’d both just stay; Order food, talk. We realised we had a lot in common. We’re both the youngest of large families, we both work in the arts…Nothing ever happened at your house though, I promise. I just thought we were becoming good friends…”

“So, how the hell did your underwear end up in his bed then?” Rachel’s holding the knife so loosely, that I’m afraid she might drop it. 

Am I supposed to rip it out of her hand? Hiss at her? Why does Dummy think I should handle his mess? I deal with my business by myself. And I certainly owe him no favours. 

“He left his phone at your place. It was the night before you returned. We had a normal night in, and fell asleep—in different rooms. He went off to work the next morning without it. I drove it over to his house in the evening. He had a stressful phoneless day, and he opened wine, and he was ranting, and we were drinking… He was angry. He was getting nowhere at the gallery, his art rejected online… He was tired of paying for this fancy house. He said he wanted to leave the city, run away. He said he wanted to run away with—”

“Shut up, Blair!” Dummy yells. He’s marching downstairs now to pull the women apart. He grabs the knife from Rachel’s hand and holds it in front of himself as a shield. “She doesn’t know what she’s talking about. She’s delusional.” Dummy shoves Blair. She stumbles like a rag doll, down the steps to the base of the stairs. Then he spits on her as if she was a peasant below him. 

Blair’s eyes are watering. “Rachel, I’m so, so sorry. I feel terrible. It was the worst mistake of my life. I was drunk, and caught up in the moment… I told him immediately that we had to confess, but he refused.” Rachel looks back and forth between Dummy and Blair. She rubs her face with her hand. 

“I’m done…with both of you.” And she departs. Dummy follows swiftly, knife still in hand.

“Baby, baby, please! We can work this out.”

They’re in the middle of the room now, three shadows lurking in the night. I pace the perimeter coyly, contemplating whether I want to participate or not. 

“No, we can’t! You have feelings for my best friend, Mark.” Rachel faces away from him. He faces away from Blair. She’s lingering, like me, unsure of where she’s expected to be. 

“I don’t! I swear, it meant nothing, I was drunk.” Mark is hugging her waist, crying big slobbery tears. 

“You told me you were falling in love with me, Mark,” Blair whispers. Her cheeks are sheen with tears. Her eyes are doll-glossy in the moonlight. She looks like an abandoned child. “You said I understood you—”

“Shut up!” He demands.

“Mark… I wouldn’t have done something so stupid if it didn’t mean something to me.”

“Shut the hell up!” He repeats. Then he looks over in my direction and jabs a finger towards Blair. “Buttercup, go!” I stop pacing and look at the small crying woman. She looks so helpless. He made her feel so, for his own benefit. “Dinner! Go!” I glance at him and then back to Blair. I walk towards her slowly. I inhale her scent. I feel her heartbeat; steady and powerful, like waves crashing up onto shore at night. I circle her once, then I sit at her feet. 

“Stupid cat, intruder! Get her!” He howls.

Rachel snaps her neck around to see what he’s directing.

“What the hell, Mark?” She pushes him off of her. “Buttercup, down!” She yells—I was already sitting down, if I’m who she was referring to. But okay—“You weren’t really going to hurt Blair, were you?” Dummy spins on his knees so he’s begging in front of Rachel.

“I would get rid of her for you. I would prove she’s nothing. It will be just us, I promise.” Rachel crosses her arms. 

“What the fuck, Mark; She’s my best friend!”

“…You were going to kill me for cheating on you, but you’ll defend her?”

“…for sleeping with an asshole? Yeah…” Mark clambers to his feet. 

“Bloody hell, you really are crazy!”

“Stop calling her that,” Blair cuts in.

“Buttercup! Buttercup!” He whines. He flings his knife around again, this time towards all three of us. 

I crouch into a predatory position and growl in the back of my throat. I watch Blair. I watch Rachel. I watch the thrusting kitchen knife in Dummy’s hand. I lunge towards him; chomp! I hear a clatter. The knife falls to the floor. His hand is there too, spewing blood like a fruit gusher. He screams like a baby hyena. 

“Lousy security system you got there,” Rachel says, voice still breathy with astonishment.

“She’s not a bodyguard, Rach. She’s a wild animal.”

Dummy kneels on the floor, holding his severed hand to his arm, as if pushing the pieces together will cause them to immediately fuse. The girls just stare at eachother like they’ve met for the first time. 

“Where do you get a panther in LA anyway?” Rachel asks.

“Illegal exotic pet dealers. I guess we should have seen that as his first red flag.”

“Amen… I guess we both overlooked some major stuff.”

“So… are we going to be okay?” Blair asks. Her voice is wobbly. Rachel hesitates for a moment and then smiles. She touches Blair’s hand and nods her head. “What do we do about…?” Blair motions to the handless man. He’s sniffling like a sick child. 

“We broke in. He’s gonna tell them I tried to murder him…” 

I nudge Blair’s hand with my head and rub up against Rachel as I descend from the group. ‘It’s dinner time,’ he said. And for some reason, he always thought he got to pick my meals. 

But tonight, I choose. 

“Oh…” says Blair.

“Well, that takes care of it, I guess,” says Rachel.

I lick the flesh from bones in record time. I feel like I’ve won a BBQ ribs eating contest—though doubtfully as delicious. The girls don’t hang around to watch. Rachel wipes her fingerprints from the kitchen knife and puts it back in its drawer. They retreat slowly out of the backdoor window, slinking into the night like twin shadows. 

I finish my dinner. I walk outside. I bask in the sunrise as it slowly breaks and begins to cast its halo-like glow over my glimmering black fur. I take a nap in the flowerbeds, consuming the bittersweet scent of clover, lavender, and black-eyed-Susan. 

Finally, I got rid of that silly pet.