The door opened slowly, silently, allowing more light into the darkened room. There was
no stirring from the sleeping forms on the bed. As the door opened, the area of light
broadened to cover the bed and the two forms in it. They were covered by a satin sheet in
the casual manner only possible when asleep. Since the bluish light in the hallway was
backlighting the figure in the door, it was difficult to recognize details. Then the
figure moved a hand upward, and it became easy to reccognize the detail of a stainless
steel gun. It was a .45, held about waist high, leveled at the two forms sleeping in the
bed. It roared, spitting flame and shattering the silence. It roared again almost as soon
as the first noise had stopped. The light from the hall highlighted the blue-gray smoke
rolling as it spread into the room. The gun roared again and again, a bit slower between
the shots. Eight times the gun bucked and lit up the room with a harsh light. The smoke
rolled and spread thinner as it moved away from the gun.
At first, the forms on the bed jumped with the sound of each shot, emitting a sound
between a grunt and a sigh. By the time of the last few shots, there were no sighs or
grunts, only the sound of the slugs hitting flesh just after the roar and then the sound
of the empty cartridge hitting the floor. The sheet now was strewn over the bodies in the
disheviled manner only possible in death, with blue-black holes burned into it and
spreading stains of red.
When the room was silent again, the form in the door stood for a moment as a serpent of
smoke rose above the gun's mouth. The smoke in the room drifted about, slower and slower
after being hurled so violently at first. The form in the door took a step into the room,
making the smoke part and swirl. The gun was still levelled at the dead forms in the bed.
The gun's slide was back, revealing the empty chamber and the barrel of the gun. The
shooter released the slide, letting it slap closed, the noise almost startling. It was
only now clear that the finger wrapped against the trigger was delicate and tipped with a
perfectly manicured and polished pink nail.
It was the delicate and elegant finger of a woman. The fingers that held the pistol's grip
were all fine and with elegant pink nails. The woman's hand seemed so small against the
pistol's grip. In the light, the form was now clearly the curved shape of a woman. The
curve of her hips and breasts could be seen below and above her thin waist. The light
glistened off her earings and the highlights in her hair pulled back along the sides of
her head. Her face was still shadowed, partly because of the fedora she wore. The faint
light on her face revealed the almost metallic glisten of her pink lipstick, visible as
the smoke from her gun thinned in the room.
She brought the gun barrel up until the front sight touched her glistening lip. She parted
her lips slightly and blew softly across the barrel. This brought a thin stream of smoke
out that curled up and vanished in front of her face as she eased her breath. She slowly
lowered the gun and felt the slight pull againgst her lip as her creamy lipstick clung to
the tip of the sight. She wiped the lipstick from the gun with the tip of her finger. She
released the empty clip into her hand. She slipped it into her purse and reached in for
the other clip she carried that was full of the heavy slugs. She slid this into the butt
of the gun and clicked it home.
She dropped the gun into her purse.
She walked over to the bodies and looked at what she had done. She seemed to take the
scene in carefully, looking silently at the lifeless man and woman. He had a gaping hole
in his cheek and another in the hair above his ear. He also had two holes in the sheet
over his torso. The woman on the bed lay with her body on the pillow and her head against
the wall, facing the door where the bullets had come from. Her face was pretty, but the
slackness of her jaw gave a strange look to her expression. One bullet had struck her high
on the inside of her right breast, above the sheet. There was a slight bulging surrounding
the black hole. A thin line of blood had curved down from it between her breasts and under
the sheet. In the bluish light it looked lurid against her pale skin. The other 3 bullets
had hit her further down on her breasts. The black holes in the swell of the sheet were
surrounded by bright red blood. The shooter pulled the sheet down to get a better look at
the dead woman's wounds. They had been pretty breasts: full and nicely shaped. The bullets
had made nasty looking holes with some bruising and bulging around them. What blood had
flowed from these had mostly been soaked into the sheet. There was no more flowing.
The room was absolutely still now. Then the woman standing by the bed turned and walked
toward the door, her high heels clicking on the hard floor. As she faced the door, the
light shone on her and revealed how beautiful she was, elegantly dressed and perfectly
made up. Her soft face revealed none of the horror of what she had just done. She walked
from the room, one hand resting on the flap of her purse. She paused in the doorway and
looked at the shell casings scattered on the floor. She knelt down to pick them up,
causing the slim skirt of her suit to slide up her leg with the soft whisper of silk
against silk. She slid the cartridges into the pocket of her jacket but drew one back out
and looked at it as she rolled it between her thumb and forefinger. It looked short and
stubby, almost as big around as a lipstick case. Her finger and thumb looked so soft and
tapered against its perfect metallic cylinder. The shell was still slightly warm as she
held it. She brought it up to her nose and smelled it. It was the same smell that had
filled the room. It was a smell she would now remember forever, a smell she had made
happen. A smell that would always make her remember the kicking of the gun in her hand as
she watched the bodies recoil under the blows of her bullets.
She stood up, placed the cartridge into her jacket pocket and walked out of the room.