Finishing Touches

Ruby's bedroom still looked the same as it had when she was sixteen. White furniture. Grey walls. Red fairy lights that were on, suffocating the room with a warm, arterial glow. Shaun was tangled in her bedsheets with her.

Their mouths crashed together in what he probably thought was passion, but what Ruby considered a mild assault on her personal space. He was close enough that she could feel his breath against her neck. Their kisses hardened, and with that, so did he. 

“I want this now,” he whispered. “I want you.” 

Ruby smiled and let him pull her closer. The moment settled around them: heavy and intimate and strangely dull. His head rolled back as he let out a sweet gasp, moving against her with hunger.  

They all did that. Men. So primal. So convinced that wanting something makes it theirs. 

Shaun wasn’t special. He was just another version of the same men she’d already grown tired of. Different face, different bed, same expectation. Just the latest body attached to it. 

Shaun and his horrible, shaved legs, trying to make himself softer, neater, more presentable, stripping away any element of masculinity he had going for him. She hated it.  

She hated his tiny frame, too. He was so thin it felt like holding onto a shadow. There was nothing to press against, nothing to anchor her to the moment in any capacity. Just bone and heat and disappointment.  

She hated his hair, his eyes, his lips; but most of all, she hated that it had taken him thirty-six days to fuck her. 

Thirty-six days of pretending to laugh at his jokes. 

Thirty-six days of pretending not to notice how often he talked about himself. 

Thirty-six days of pretending to be mildly interested in him to get him into her bed. 

He looked at her longingly, and she returned the look as if she was checking the time. 

Ruby let him enjoy it for another minute. It seemed polite. 

Nothing about this excited her, but something soon would. 

She shifted beneath him and whispered into his ear, “Turn around.”  

Shaun obeyed immediately.  

Kneeling in front of her, facing away, he seemed thrilled. Eager. Hopeful. Probably thinking this was some kind of fun kink she wanted to explore. 

He couldn’t have been more wrong.  

In one smooth movement, Ruby reached beneath her pillow and pulled out the knife. 

She swung. 

Blood sprayed the wall behind him, blooming red against the fairy lights. It almost matched the room. She appreciated the symmetry. 

Shaun collapsed forward onto the bed, suddenly very quiet. 

Ruby dragged his body into position, arranging him like a ritual offering. Arms out. Legs straight. She stepped back and nodded at her work. 

Then she opened her bedside drawer and pulled out a small bottle. 

Hair growth cream. 

She knelt and carefully rubbed it into his shaved legs, tidying up the man’s mistakes, finishing a project she’d been working on for weeks. 

“There,” she murmured. “Much better.” 

She stood, took a photo, and sighed happily. 

“Now this one,” she said softly, “is going to be a fun one.”