Ogre by Anna Siri
Short Story Series | Every month Girl In Trouble presents short fiction for your troublemaking pleasure.
Psycho (1960)
The woman in 2B wore her blue scarf again today. It’s her favorite, though it has a hole in the bottom corner where the tag is starting to pull against the seam. The blue looks beautiful against all that curly dark hair, though I think she’d look better in red, but I would never say that to her. The best I can do is gulp out a “Hi” when we run into each other at the mailbox or in the laundry room. She usually checks her mail between six-thirty and six-forty-five, but I haven’t figured out her laundry schedule yet, though I waited there on Saturday for a good three hours.
Which is fine.
I’m halfway through A Confederacy of Dunces, and quiet reading time is always appreciated.
Maybe she does her laundry on Sundays.
The label on her mailbox says C. Stearns, and it’s either Callie or Cassie. I almost caught it in the hallway last week when a girlfriend stopped by to pick her up for the movies, but Anya was in the process of screaming at me as she moved the last of her boxes out. The gash in my cheek from where she threw her key at me stings but doesn’t need stitches, and I’ve almost figured out how to run our faulty dishwasher without it overflowing, so I’m doing well.
The apartment feels a little empty without Anya, but a man needs his space, and really, I’m better off. She’d stopped making dinners because she was too tired from “work” and I’m sure she was having an affair with that asshole from Accounting. If I hadn’t hacked into her phone to read her texts, I’d never have known. Of course, there was nothing overt there, but women like to speak in code when they’re screwing a guy over. No one talks about “payroll” and “PTO” that regularly. I know what was going on.
I’ve discovered that if I look through the front door peephole at just the right angle, I can see Callie/Cassie’s front door, which is good because she lives alone and could use a man to keep an eye on her.
That hole in her scarf really bothers me.
A Beautiful Mind (2001)
Her name is Callie. Callie with the dark hair and dark eyes and glorious skin. Callie who smiled at me at the mailbox today and even shook my hand when I squeaked out a greeting and introduced myself. She said she couldn’t believe we’d never met since she’d lived in the building for over a year, and I’d been here forever. It couldn’t have been more than two minutes, but I felt that spark.
She did, too.
I left the box in front of her door with a red ribbon inside to match the new scarf, then watched from the peephole for what seemed like hours until she came home from work. The butterflies in my stomach were more like a herd of buffalo as she crouched to examine the box. I couldn’t see her face at first, but when she stood up, she was reading the tag, and she looked…surprised. Of course, a gift from any admirer is a surprise, and I felt the warmth in the pit of my stomach as I imagined her unwrapping the box and then wrapping herself in the scarf. Maybe in nothing but the scarf, the warm red wool like a lover’s arms around her, like my heart’s blood coursing over her, protecting her from the chill of the outside world.
I felt dizzy.
There was a funny little twist to her lips when she turned to look at my front door, and I could swear she saw me there, and our souls connected through the wood that kept us apart. I had a moment of cold panic when she took a step in my direction, but she turned away and walked into her apartment, shutting the door behind her. The snick of the lock was a comfort – I like knowing that she’s safe and sound inside where no one can get to her. She looked…concerned, and my Callie should never be concerned.
That’s my job.
I’ll stand watch here just in case. Work can wait. I don’t care how many times that fucking bitch Jean calls to remind me that I’m out of leave days. She’s just jealous because she’s a bitter old spinster, too dried up and angry for anyone to cherish her. She probably drove her ex-husband away, too. I’m not surprised she ended up alone.
But I can’t think about Jean right now. It’s after midnight, but I’m not going to leave my post – not until Callie emerges again wrapped in my red scarf, all smiles.
To Callie, from your neighbor in 2F.
Punch-Drunk Love (2002)
Fuck, fuck, fuck!
The blood on my hands isn’t mine, but they’re shaking as I scrub them clean. It’s been a shitty morning all around, starting from the moment Callie hurried out of her apartment on her way to work, her blue scarf tucked neatly around her pretty neck.
I was shocked.
What happened to the red one? Maybe it didn’t match her outfit. Maybe she’s allergic to cashmere – fuck, I should have asked. Maybe she’s saving it for a special occasion. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that it’s pretty fucking disrespectful, Callie, after all the trouble I went to in order to find the perfect gift.
We’re going to have a conversation about that.
But I was distracted when Callie spotted Eduardo by the elevator and jogged over to complain about the hot water. Eduardo’s not a bad guy for a super, but the pipes in this building are pretty crappy, and Callie’s had plumbers coming in and out of her apartment for weeks now. I have to admit, I don’t like that. The idea of strange men in Callie’s apartment when I’m not there doesn’t sit right with me. Who knows what they could be doing? Pawing through her underwear. Smelling her shampoo.
I’d been reading up on plumbing repair. A few more weeks and she won’t need to call Eduardo to fix the hot water, because I can just head over and fix it myself. I paused in scrubbing the blood off my hands, thinking about how grateful she’d be. And really, this whole situation is Callie’s fault, anyway. If she had come to me with the problem in the first place, I would have talked to Eduardo man-to-man and gotten someone competent in there, and the hot water would be fixed. But women always get too emotional trying to handle these things.
While Callie and Eduardo talked by the elevator, I did my best to listen in with my door cracked open just an inch, but they were too far away. I could guess from Callie’s posture and tight jaw that it wasn’t good news. Eduardo shrugged, apologetic, then said something that made Callie laugh. Everything in me clenched watching her face light up like that, and then – she touched his arm.
Suddenly, it was hard to breathe.
She touched his arm.
It was meaningless, just a little pat. But maybe it wasn’t.
Maybe, in fact, she didn’t touch his arm. Maybe, instead, he grabbed her wrist.
What the fuck, Eduardo? That’s not how you treat a lady.
And though she smiled and moved past him to the elevator, I knew she was bravely hiding tears, helpless at the hands of a stronger, more dominant male.
Waiting for someone to save her.
Waiting for me to save her.
It wasn’t hard to catch Eduardo alone – he’s the only one who uses the back stairs into the garage, and I know for a fact that the cameras between the third and fourth floors are out because he complained about it to me when I ran into him last week. I didn’t have a baseball bat handy, but I ripped out a pipe from under the bathroom sink, which seemed appropriate.
I don’t think I killed him, but maybe I did. He deserved it, after all. The way he attacked Callie like that, it’s a miracle he didn’t do serious damage. My poor, sweet Callie, defenseless and so delicate.
They’ll find his body in the trash chute eventually, but I’m not worried.
So long as Callie is safe.
Three Colors - Blue (1993)
There’s something very wrong.
For the last three days, Callie has been laughing and smiling, and she won’t stop giggling while she reads texts on her phone. She’s never been morose, but I always considered her a more serious sort, and this just isn’t like her.
I was beginning to worry that she might be sick. Maybe she was taking a drug with euphoric side effects, and really, her doctor should know better than to prescribe something like that to her. There are plenty of men who would be happy to take advantage of her in this state.
And that’s exactly what happened when that delivery guy showed up with two dozen red roses this morning. Luckily, I intercepted him and gave the bastard a nice tip to make him go away. Then I carefully cut each of the roses into tiny little pieces and fed them into my garbage disposal. Callie doesn’t need that kind of attention from other men trying to lure her into unsavory behavior.
She doesn’t need anyone else at all, in fact, and on the list of things we have to discuss, I’m going to suggest she give up that stupid job, too. I’m not working at the moment, but I’m sure I can figure something out so that she can stay home and keep house while I take away the burden of having to earn a living. Of course, when she moves into my place, she’ll have to get rid of most of her things, but she’ll cooperate once I explain it’s the best course of action.
Won’t she be surprised when she discovers I’ve started packing for her?
It took longer than I would have liked to pick the lock on Callie’s door while she was at work, but once inside, the smell of her life hit me full-on. It was like coming home – a place full of books and music and art. I had to bury my face in her pillow until I pulled myself together, the giddiness of being in her space too much to bear.
I spent the next hour getting to know her, looking through her drawers and papers, touching her knickknacks, and making a mental note of what kind of food she liked so I could stock the fridge back at our place.
It wasn’t until I opened the bedside drawer that things started to go very, very wrong. The flat, rectangular box mocked me from a pile of hair ties and bookmarks.
Why would Callie need condoms? Was she cheating on me?
I dismissed the idea, but the more I poked around, the more disturbed I became.
Silky underthings. A faded grunge band shirt that I’m sure had to belong to a man because my Callie must only listen to girlish pop. Beer and hard liquor in the fridge.
At some point, while I was trying to protect my Callie from the world, she was making me look like a fool, that slut.
When she came home, I was going to be ready for it.
And I was until the door opened and I saw that Callie wasn’t alone but was followed by a tall man in a leather coat who had his arm wrapped familiarly around her waist, and she was laughing.
When time slows, you can hear your heart breaking off into a million pieces. It sounds like pebbles skittering down a mountainside, the harbinger of an avalanche.
I heard a roar that must have been me, a wild animal defending its mate from an encroaching rival, protecting her with fangs and claws, even from herself.
I heard her scream as blood spilled on the blue carpet.
A sharp pain in my head, and then –
NOTHING.
Only God Forgives (2013)
It’s peaceful here, and I’m not even bothered by the fences and guards. Word gets around pretty quickly, so I’m not surprised the others keep their distance, though I know they’re dying for the gritty details about how I literally tried to rip a man’s throat out.
Unfortunately, he survived.
But I don’t like thinking about that, and I certainly don’t like thinking that he and my beloved Callie might still be together. That he’s sleeping in my bed, marrying my wife, having my children. Instead, I’ve been working on finding inner peace and writing letters, hundreds and hundreds of letters to my dearest girl. I’m technically not allowed to mail them, but Donny in the commissary says he’ll get them out for me for a price.
Whatever it is, it will be worth it, as I’m sure Callie is worried about me. But she can’t be any more worried about me than I am about her, a helpless woman all alone in the outside world. So, I’ll keep writing my letters and finding a way for us to be together.
Because she needs me. And I’d do anything for her.
A Streetcar Named Desire (1951)
Love this, Anna, happy valentine's day!
We have to change the culture that teaches men if they want it, they are entitled to it.