Chapter 1: Surprise is Speed
I don't know if she was waiting for me to come home or snuck in the patio while I was going through my mail in the kitchen, but she was in the house, somewhere. I had just gotten home from work, the chef coat still crumpled on the floor next to my boots inside the back door and at the top of the basement stairs. The heat of the line that night was still rising off my shoulders while I glanced over a handful of catalogs that piled up daily on the big butcher's block. It's as close as I'll ever get to a kitchen table in my own home. Most of my uniform was either discarded as soon as I hit the door or left in my truck from the drive home, leaving me only a pair of black drawstring cargo pants and a grey wife beater. The stink of burning oil and hot garlic were light that night. The weather finally got warmer and the fat guy in the salad station took the brunt of tonight's action. Otherwise I probably would have missed the smell. A trace of cigarette smoke.
Nobody ever smoked in my house. It was a rule. When I had parties, the detached garage was big enough to fit two dozen people, always had plenty of ashtrays, and was even heated for those cold bitch winters. This was so faint it was impossible not to think of it on someone's clothes or in a girl's hair after waiting for a while and smoking two just to steel your nerves for what you were about to do.
I almost smiled when I heard the latch on the closet door let loose. She was trying to be a little ninja and she was about as graceful as a funniest home video of someone almost doing a back-flip. I was wrong. She exploded out of the tiny closet less than two steps away and hit me full in the back with all 110 pounds. There was plenty of time to reflect on my miscalculation as my head was driven deep into the hanging rack of heavy sauté pans over the butcher block. There was no purchase as my hands slid out on the stacked catalogs glossy paper. By the time I stopped falling forward her milk white hand snaked forward and hooked one of the straps on my tank top and pulled it tight across my throat in the opposite direction, choking me with my own clothes and giving her a secure handle when the other small forearm locked behind my head.
There was nothing to do for it. She had gotten the drop on me. I went still, not wasting energy fighting what was already done and conserving what little air was allowed my while considering my options. To my right was the doorway I came through, unsure footing on my clothes and boots lying at the top of the basement stairs. Would it still be considered a victory if we were both found heaped together at the foot of those stairs with broken necks? On my left was the big stainless refrigerator then two steps to the small island wet bar that separated the kitchen from the blackness of the living room. Three steps behind was the granite topped L of the countertops and the deep sink I'd emptied of a solitary cereal bowl and a big green incredible hulk coffee cup that morning.
She pulled herself up by clamping her thighs on my lower back. It was impossible to tell if the heat between her legs was real or just me losing consciousness. I was still taller than her by almost a head so she had to use her improvised garrote to pull her mouth close to my ear. She whispered soft but challenging, the way you'd expect more from someone trying to seduce you than someone choking you. "Surprise is speed." The strap twisted deeper, "Speed is power." Her breath was hot on the side of my face. In the stubble on the side of my head I could feel a lump growing when the words passed over. "Thinking is slow, slow is weak." She lurched forward and bit my ear hard. The thin cartilage crunched between her teeth just before the warm line trickled on my cheek. Losing was one thing, but this was getting a little to close to assassination.
I stood up, fast, wedging my feet between the legs of the 400 pound block and clenching every muscle between my spine and sternum in both directions so hard that if I lost at least I wouldn't suffer through whatever pain tearing those muscles would feel like tomorrow. She missed any of the pans the first time through. My head drove a wedge that saved her. This time I could hear the thick melon sound something made then it struck my cast iron skillet. Her grip on both my throat and ear lessened but those strong thighs still held tight. I let the momentum carry us across the kitchen as the rack finally gave way. The crash of Teflon, stainless, and brass pans all striking each other sounded like Armageddon in kitchen wares. We collided with the sink. It's a thick two compartment set into an inch of granite and deep enough to drench my elbow when I unplug the drain at the bottom. Her head snapped back hard enough I was afraid she'd shatter the window above the sink but she caught her spine on the faucet instead. She twisted away from it like it was on fire as I stepped away, pulling her legs out with me.