What You Can't See Can't Hurt You

                “I don’t know why I am the way I am,” he said and took another sip of beer.  He sighed as he set the moisture laden glass down on the table top.  He shrugged his shoulders.  “I try to be nice, you know.  I really do.  It’s just . . . you know, for some reason, I just can’t get a woman to like me.”

         His eyes narrowed as he glared across the table top at the woman sitting across from him.

         “Nobody enjoys being invisible, you know.  I can’t help it that I’m an ugly man.  I can’t help it that I’m angry all the time.  I don’t mean to be.  But, I mean look at you.  I mean, just look at what you’re wearing, okay?  There you are struttin’ around in shorts so small I can see your ass cheeks hanging all out.  You got your tight little belly exposed.  Hell, you ain’t even wearin’ no bra.  So there you are, walkin’ through the parkin’ lot like nobody’s business.  Sashaying around.  Might as well have a sign ‘round your neck sayin’ ‘Open for Business.’  So I be nice to you, offer you a drink, and what do you do?  You look at me like I’m somethin’ you accident’ly just stepped in.”

         He took another drink of beer.  He shook out a cigarette and stuck it between his scarred lips and lit up.  He sat back in the chair, stretched his long legs, and blew a cloud of smoke at the ceiling. 

         “Yeah, I know the score.  You’re only hot and bothered for the good looking men.  Ugly dude like me, don’t stand a chance in hell with someone as beautiful as you.  Only way an ugly man ever gets laid is if he’s rich . . . or if he just takes what he wants. 

“Look at Bill Gates, for instance.  You ever see his wife?  Drop dead gorgeous, now, you hear?  I mean slap-your-mother-in-law-in-the-face fine.  You think a bitch like her would have even looked at ol’ four-eyed Bill twice if he hadn’t ‘a had money fallin’ out his skinny white ass?  He-ell no.  Women like you . . . you know, you flaunt yourselves and when some poor ugly guy like me gets interested, you scream about rape and sexual harassment and all kinds of women’s lib bullshit.

         “I’m sorry, sister, but that shit don’t work with me.”  He leaned forward and dropped the half smoked cigarette in the beer glass.  It created a minute hiss as it went out.  “You don’t play me, no ma’am.  Nobody plays Joshua Thomas Aimes like that.  Nobody.  ‘specially not some uppity little spoiled bitch like you.”

         “I do what I do because I have to,” he said, pushing away from the table and standing to his feet.  “Women like you leave me no choice.”  He picked up his cigarettes and lighter.  As he shoved them into his shirt pocket, he gave the woman another scowl.  “And then you have the nerve to look at me with this pitiful little face, like you all broken up inside.  ‘Woe is me!  Poor little ol’ me!’  Try to make me feel guilty!”

         He reached into the front pocket of his jeans and pulled out his car keys. 

         “It used to work.  When I was younger.  Used to work all the time.  You girls’d cross your legs and then cry and beg when I got what was comin’ to me.  Fuckin’ little tramps.  Well, that shit don’t work no more.  No ma’am.  Not since I’ve been removin’ the eyes.  Like Momma always used to say.  ‘What you can’t see, can’t hurt you.’”

         He turned and left the dining room.  The eyeless corpse of his victim remained slumped over in the chair, where it had been tied.  He always tied them up when he was done with them.  He knew it sounded crazy, but he always feared that if you didn’t tie up a corpse after you were finished with it, it may somehow be able to come after you.

         He left the house and closed the door behind him, making sure he had locked it on the way out.  It didn’t matter that he left fingerprints behind.  He was an old pro at this.  All those women after so many years and the police hadn’t caught up with him yet.  Let them find his prints.    All AFIS would show was a long line of dead bitches and nothing more.

         He climbed into his pick-up truck and drove away.  As he left the isolated house behind him, he began to hum softly to himself.  Getting laid always put him in a good mood.