Glasgow, 1983
John deliberately lingered in front of the large mirror next to the bathrooms. As he pretended to fix his clothes, he watched the woman through her reflection.
There were a lot of men in the club tonight, but he wasn't worried: leaving her alone at the bar after asking her to drink was a calculated risk. As she tugged gently at the cuffs of her shirt, he saw the girl reject the company of a couple of guys who approached her and cast a hopeful glance toward the restroom area. She was waiting for him.
She was aware that she could also see him, at least partially, so from time to time she turned a little to the right as if she were speaking or listening to what someone, invisible to her, was saying to her.
She had said her name was Marie, and it could even be true, in those places you never knew; She had on several occasions discovered later, through the press, that the name she had been given was not her real name.
In his case, whenever they asked him his name, he answered: “John, my name is John”. And she expressed it with confidence and her voice slightly higher than normal. It didn't do much to stand out, so if anyone happened to remember the man the girl left with, maybe a waiter or the couples sitting closest, they'd say, "I think I heard the guy say his name was John, yeah. I'm sure he said his name was John."
He liked to imagine the faces of the policemen when they heard the name. It was a prank and another calculated risk, but he didn't expose himself much further. She was striving to make sure that everything they could remember about him was useless.
He reviewed his appearance in the mirror. The clean shoes, the ironed jeans, the navy blue jacket and the white shirt. Her brown hair had reddish tinges depending on how the light hit it, and it was styled in a simple bob. Neat. She loved that word. Neat. That was how the few witnesses who remembered him had described him years before: a tall, thin young man, brown hair, neat appearance, nothing more... Well, yes, perhaps they mentioned a slightly crooked tooth. A trifle that had already been corrected long ago.
He forced a smile in the mirror and took in his straight white teeth with satisfaction. With deft fingers he brushed an invisible speck of dust from the shoulder pad of her jacket and, through reflection, he refocused on her.
John had a shrewd and discreet strategy that consisted of stationing himself somewhere at the bar near the entrance of the premises. That was how he saw her. He arrived with a couple of friends who were part of the group that had just disembarked from the bus. He watched how he walked. He knew from experience that girls had a different way of moving "in those days." He was wearing dark pants and had chosen a long, loose blouse that covered her hips, which contrasted with his friends, who wore tops and miniskirts. John was a great observer of the feminine world and he knew that groups of friends often used to dress in a similar way. But the clothes weren't the only clue. He followed her from a distance, mingling with the crowd that packed the place. He saw her go out to dance with the other girls, although after a while he left the dance floor and stationed himself next to a column sipping her Coke and smiling at her friends, who were still dancing.
The darkness and the noise of the club allowed John to position himself behind her so he could smell her while he pretended to watch the dance floor. He breathed in her scent. He smelled the soft sweat from her armpits, mixed with a cologne of sweet notes that seemed to be in fashion among girls, and that other smell, metallic, salty and acid. She pursed her upper lip a little, unable to contain a scowl of disgust. And he almost simultaneously felt her erection tightening her member under the fabric of his jeans.
Without losing sight of her, he walked a few steps away and put his right hand in his jacket pocket. With the tips of her fingers she caressed the satin of the red bow that she wore there. He thought of Lucy and, resenting her, bit the inside of her cheek until the pain overrode her other sensation and she regained her composure.
Then it was easy, it always was. The formula had worked perfectly for years, with slight differences. She would stop next to her and she would start talking, she would tell him that he didn't feel like dancing either and that she was thinking of having a drink, would she want to join him? She would look at him and see what they all saw: a young man, but not a child. Clean, well dressed but not ostentatious, polite, friendly. Neat. And that she had noticed, in all probability, the only girl who wore pants and a loose blouse in the entire club.
He would talk about anything, avoiding controversial topics. He would give her a couple of non-exaggerated compliments and let it slip that he had a job, that he really didn't like places like this very much, that what he loved was chatting and that, with that noise, it was almost impossible, that he had a car in the parking lot and that they could go wherever she wanted. And he would quickly add, and before she could object, that he, of course, would be happy to take her home if that was what she wanted. And the girl would accept because he was charming, because she had come by bus, because they all wanted a boyfriend with his own vehicle. She would accept, even though the newspapers constantly talked about the number of young people who had disappeared and even though, surely, she would have heard the warnings a thousand times not to get into cars with strangers. John knew what he would respond to when he put his mind to it, despite everything and even though in "these days" he shouldn't. It was even possible that the piggy she would agree to have sex when he suggested it. He would then hit her viciously, erasing her makeup and her smile with each hit. He would rip her clothes off and tear them to shreds and, with her own stockings, her belt or her bra, he would strangle her until he stopped screaming while he raped her. And then he would take her home, to sleep with her sisters, to let the lake purify that lady. It was a hassle, but it had to be done that way. In another time he would have left her lying on the street or in a park, searched her bag for tampons or sanitary napkins and placed them on the corpse to remind those sows not to go near a man while they were lying. menstruating
Just thinking about it made her genital area tingle intensely. He bit down hard on the inside of her cheek as he watched her from a distance in the mirror and, when he was ready, returned to her side.
