Jane Doe(51)

Then there’s Vanessa, his failed booty call. He’s deleted whatever messages he sent when they were seeing each other, and Monday’s are just a version of “You up?”

Other than that, most of the texts are just verifications and reminders. He doesn’t leave a trail.

I check his email, but it’s only work stuff. I forward a couple of important documents to my anonymous email account, then delete the evidence from the sent folder. Maybe I can set him up for something after all.

After that, I forward his entire contact list to myself. Then I see the Tinder app icon on the second page of his phone. Score!

The profile photo doesn’t show his face. He’s a deacon, after all. Instead, it’s a standard shirtless-in-the-mirror selfie with only the bottom half of his smirk showing. There are a couple more pics of his chest, taken when he was a little more tan and cut than he is now. Fair enough.

I click on Profile and find a few women he’s been matched with, but most of them he’s organized into lists. The top list is titled Nice Tits. There’s also Dateable, Slutty, and Hit That.

Hit That has four women in it. They’re all white with hair ranging from blond to light brown. He calls all of them “baby” in conversation, just like he calls me. Now I don’t feel special.

The last contact with each of them was around April. He hooked up with all of these women almost immediately after Meg’s death, as if he were trying to screw a demon away. Good. I hope he was roasting alive with guilt and regret.

I screenshot the interactions and send them to myself. The other lists are full of typical come-ons from Steven and a few topless shots from women. I capture those conversations too. Why not?

Steven starts to snore beside me.

Shooting him a grimace of annoyance, I close Tinder and open his photos. There aren’t very many. Steven doesn’t have an artist’s eye for the world. There are more shirtless selfies of him, a few pics from the stands at a Minnesota Twins game last summer, snaps of him and his dad at some Christian conference together, a picture of a crack in the foundation of his house. There’s also a picture of his erect penis, of course, the shot angled to make it look bigger than it is. All in all, no surprises.

Then I get to a selfie of him and Meg, similar to the one she sent me, but taken from a slightly different angle. There’s also a pic of her wearing cutoff shorts and a tiny little tank top, holding out her hand and laughing. Next is a photo of her in a small boat, a light beer in one hand and a fishing pole in the other.

Hitting the back arrow, I find a separate folder of photos underneath the general file. When I click on these, rage turns my vision red. Red Meg. Red nudity. Red breasts and thighs. Red pictures of her from behind, being penetrated by Steven.

These are the pictures he threatened her with, likely after begging and cajoling and promising her the world in exchange for them. He wanted these photos and then he called her a dirty slut for providing them. They were proof that she wasn’t good enough to even be alive.

I feel a wild urge to grab a knife and end this now. He’s naked and helpless and out cold, and I could carve him into a puzzle of gore. By the time he wakes up enough to fight back, he’ll be bleeding out, missing his throat or his balls, some crucial part now permanently fixed in a bloody, open-mouthed gape.

I stand and throw back the sheets to glare at his limp nudity. I hear my own panting.

This is love. This is my love, and it may be a dark, mean, greedy thing, but it is real. I feel it. I love Meg and I would kill for her. I should kill for her. All of this dancing around, all of this toying with him—it needs to end.

Before I’ve given myself permission, I’m in the kitchen, at the knife block, sliding out a medium-sized utility knife. People are scared by the big chef knives or meat cleavers, picturing those as murder weapons, but I want precision. I want to feel exactly what I’m severing inside him.

I return to stand over him again and measure all the hollowed spots of his body where no bone or muscle presses the skin. There, at his throat. Under his eyes. The spot just beneath his breastbone. The hollows of his hips right above the groin. Or the groin itself, all of it so squishy and unprotected from the danger I present. The insides of his thighs . . .

I lay the blade of the knife flat against his leg. He doesn’t stir.

I slide it up, scraping the edge along his crisp hair. His balls are loose and heavy with satisfaction and sleep. Will he wake if I take them in a gentle grasp and lift them for a tiny metal kiss?

Smiling, I raise the knife and smooth it gently up his testicles and over his penis. The shaft stirs a little at the touch. Just a twitch. Then a slight thickening. His respiration stays the same, but his dick will take any kind of attention, even in sleep.

Pet me, it says. Pet me with your knife.

I slide it over him again, snickering at his stupid vulnerability. They’re all stupid. Stupid and worthless.

He’s not that deeply drugged. He could wake at any moment, but what do I care? At his first sign of protest, I’ll slip the knife deep, and it will be too late for him.

But I’d rather take my time, so I lift the blade and move it higher.

His belly rises and falls in a slow rhythm like the skin of a toad’s throat. Up and down. Up and down. I can almost hear him croaking.

I point the blade at the hollow between the bottom curves of his rib cage. The aorta is just there, unprotected by bone or gristle. I could pop it like a balloon and watch the blood shoot out with impressive pressure. It would paint me scarlet, but I’m already naked. A quick shower would clean me up.