The Last Customer Read Free Page B

watched attentively as Rod’s full red lips puckered around the base of the straw. As he began to suck, a heavy cloud of the uppity smoke left the bulb and entered Rod’s mouth.
    Leaning back in his chair, Rod turned to Patty. His piercing blue eyes met her face. His pupils were dilated—blackened, and his cheeks were sunken in. Pulling the pipe away from his lips, he leaned toward her, extending the pipe to her.
    Patty’s heart leapt when his eyes met hers. She felt her affection for him funnel. Her hands began to shake and perspire. She loved him. He understood the hate in her heart and accepted it—loved it. She’d never—in her short life—felt as complete as she did with Rod. They’d been together for four years. She would never, willingly, leave his presence. She couldn’t. The bond they’d created was unbreakable. The things that he’d shown her made the flesh on her arms tingle and the hair on the back of her neck jump. Sex was just part of it. The journey, as Rod called it, was the excitement. It was an intense relationship. Her father would have called it a perversion. But who cared? She and Rod took care of daddy years ago. Patty had gotten the last words in on him.
    The last time that Patty King had seen her father, she was looking directly into his sunken brown eyes. She was swaying back and forth from her right leg to her left. She was excited, unable to sit. Rod held a freshly sharpened straight razor beneath his chin.
    Rod was smiling.
    “I never loved you, Dad, and I am enjoying this. If you want to make me happy, Dad, then you should scream,” Patty told her father. While she said this, she remembered the beatings that she’d endured at his hand. When Patty was a child, her father locked her in a dog kennel. He’d kept her there for days at a time, starving her, making her go without water until she would faint from dehydration. He’d put her there whether she’d been bad or not. He enjoyed watching her suffer. He even told her that she’d thank him one day, that he was doing this for her own good . She’d frozen out there, in the kennel, behind the barn. The fenced-cage was freezing at night and the evening long as time moved slowly. Each minute seemed like an eternity. Her hatred was given plenty of time to develop.
                And now, while she watched Rod suck on the glass pipe, she enjoyed the memory of her father’s demise. Murder was invigorating. The meth accentuated Patty and Rod’s experiences. It was a tool of choice to heighten their sensations.
    Patty had wanted to kill her father for many years. She’d thought about it day and night. She even played out scenarios, in her head, of killing him. Finally, Rod talked Patty into moving forward, killing him. He’d sat her down, explained that she didn’t have to feel guilty for relishing the nasty things that she enjoyed doing. He told her that to achieve happiness she would have to accept the sick thoughts swirling in her head. She needed to revel in her sickness. With acceptance came happiness. It helped, as he said that it would. Her wall of inhibitions crumbled when it came to Rod. He made Patty happy and she would do anything for him. Just thinking about the beautiful crimson blood as it drained from her father’s neck, allowed her to feel sensations of love and hate intertwined. Her thoughts were good—orgasmic. She loved her hate.
                A blooming cloud of amphetamine smoke erupted from Rod’s mouth. His throat bulged. A huffing sound escaped his lips. Although his T-shirt was white, Patty could see a hint of yellow. The cotton material sagged from the weight of his sweat. They’d been sitting in the ungodly heat for the past three days. Sure, they showered, but as soon as the sweat washed off, it was leaking from their pores again.
    Patty took the pipe, then the lighter. She put the pipe to her lips, and then sucked. She retracted the pipe, smiled, and set the glass tube down on the