Janice’s shoulders heaved as she struggled not to audibly sob. The door to the motel room’s bathroom muffled the voices from the TV out in the main room. Janice hoped it was also enough to keep the man from hearing her sniffle and blow her nose. She glanced sideways from her seat on the toilet at herself in the bathroom mirror.
A naked woman straddling the line between mid and late 30s, with mascara running and the beginnings off crows’ feet and other wrinkles in the face. Not many, just enough to remind her that her skin needed more care than it used to. Hair that was tousled, hands running through it having undid the curls she had carefully put in it that morning, after she’d plucked another grey hair. The hand that pushed back one of her loose bangs bore a wedding band. The hand froze, then clenched into a fist and fell into her lap.
Russell was out of town again. Another business trip. Even when he’d been in town he hadn’t touched her in over a month. At least, not in the way the man out there in the bed had. Janice gritted her teeth as her stomach knotted.
There was a knock on the door. “Everything okay in there?”
Janice dabbed at her eyes, trying to erase the marks of tears as she forced a smile. She reached over and turned on the faucet. “Yeah, yeah I’ll be right out.”
The door creaked open as the man walked in. “Oh shit, sorry, I heard the sink and I thought you were done in… are you crying?”
“No! No, I’m fine,” Janice murmured. The naked man stepped into the bathroom and took her chin in his hand.
“You don’t have anything to be upset about,” he said.
“I’m married. I shouldn’t be here. If my husband ever knew about this-“
“He won’t. You’re not going to tell him. You’ll take this to the grave and he’ll never be the wiser,” he traced a finger down her cheek. “Did you know they’ve had two murders here in the past month? They were just talking about it on the news.”
Janice’s eyes widened as she stared up at him. He ran his fingers along her jawbone and down onto her neck.
“Kind of exciting isn’t it? That we just fucked each other in the same building where someone was killed? Makes it all seem sorta, dangerous.”
His hand moved along her throat, up to the back of her head, fingers clenching over a fistful of hair as he pulled her forward. Janice closed her eyes and accepted it, like she’d accepted so many other things in her life. Russell’s proposal, his suggestion that she give up her job and stay home, the decision to have a third child after the first two had been girls, the decision that she should have a hysterectomy rather than Russell getting a vasectomy, the steadily decreasing interest in her body as he spent even more time at work, the ever increasing work load of raising three girls. She had just swallowed all of it without protest.
The man sighed and stroked her cheek again, then walked back out into the bedroom. Janice remained sitting on the toilet. Within five minutes she could hear his snores from the bedroom. At that point she finally let herself vomit. She cupped water into her hand from the faucet and washed out her mouth, then put back on the lingerie she’d bought for her and Russell’s anniversary, when he’d fallen asleep while she gave him a back massage.
She walked out into the room and stood over the man in the bed. His mouth hung slightly open as he snored. Janice closed her eyes and thought about Russell, the house, the Roth IRA, the certificates of deposit, the vacation they’d gone on last year, the girls. The girls loved her, and they loved their father. She thought about taking them to soccer practice, and going to their recitals.
She opened her eyes and looked at everything that was wrong. Her fingers tightened around the lamp on the nightstand and she raised it overhead, then brought the corner point down as hard as she could on the man’s temple. There was a loud crack, and she quickly raised and struck again, and again, and again before the man could even realize he was being killed. She lost track of how many times she hit him, but her arm ached and the lamp just dropped to the dirty carpet of its own accord.
She went back to the bathroom and showered. As the hot water washed over her she heaved a large sigh and allowed herself to smile. After drying off she used the towel to wipe down the lamp, then tossed it over the man’s face and put her clothes back on. No one at the motel would remember her, she hadn’t gone inside to talk to the clerk. She’d sat in the car as the man put the room on his credit card. The police would take prints that wouldn’t match to any known offender database, maybe find a hair sample that could match to her if they could ever get a warrant. But they’d be no closer than they were the last two times.
Janice walked down to the street and walked several blocks back to the bar district before waiting behind several other people to hail a cab. The girls would be back from their grandparents’ in the morning, and she would make them pancakes. Russell would be back in the evening, and she would ask him how his trip went and listen to his stories with a contented smile.
