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Naughtybynature
Spanko
Username: Naughtybynature
Post Number: 119
Registered: 04-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, January 29, 2006 - 04:18 pm: | 
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The Special Builder
The End
“It was the woman I spoke to, the woman he recommended I call to check his credentials. And her apartment is exactly the same as mine! He decorated it in an identical style. Don’t you see what that means?”
“This is stupid, Leslie, you know that? It’s just a coincidence. You want to go to the police? You want to walk in there and say ‘Excuse me, officer, but I shared the same builder as the murdered woman?”
“You know damned well that we shared more than just the same builder.”
Allie sighed. She hadn’t minded changing her route to work so that she could meet a near hysterical Leslie in the coffee shop, but the sight of a good friend seemingly falling to pieces bothered her.
“Every builder has a style,” she said, trying to sound as calm and rational as possible. “The apartments he designs are bound to be similar to some extent. You’re working too hard you know that? You should get out more.”
“Maybe you’re right.” Leslie seemed to back down suddenly. “My imagination’s been a little overactive lately.”
“If you’re so worried, I’ll set your mind at rest. After all, it was me who put you in touch with this guy in the first place. I’ll call him. Do you have his number?”
“I thought you had it. You gave it to me.”
“That was just a temporary one. He was moving to somewhere in Queens.”
Leslie thought for a moment. “That’s right, she said, remember. “I mailed his check there.” She began to rummage in her purse. “I think I threw the piece of paper away.”
“It doesn’t matter. We know his name. I’ll find out where he lives and give him a call. And you’ve got to promise me that you will start taking things a little easier.” Allie held out her hand and she shook. Leslie’s fingers were freezing.
“Do we have a deal?”
“A deal.”
II
Exactly two weeks before Christmas, Leslie’s ex-boyfriend turned up at her office. He had been meaning to see her for a while now, he said, just to bury the hatchet. Coincidentally, he had just broken up with his girlfriend Carol. Leslie was surprised but hardly thrilled. Still, in the spirit of Christmas she went for a drink with him and actually managed to have a good time. At the end of the evening he tried to kiss her and she pulled gently but firmly away. She did, however, give him her new home telephone number, which was certainly more than she meant to do. Daniel was a scoundrel, but a charming one, and she figured that he deserved something for at least possessing one good quality.
The following Saturday, there was another strange event in the apartment. Leslie had arrived home from work and was playing back her messages… one from Daniel suggesting dinner… when there was a thud and a bang in the next room. Clicking off the answering machine, she moved back against the wall and listened. For a minute or so there was silence. Than a weight shifted and a floorboard creaked, not from the apartment above or the one below but right in the next room, the weight falling against the wall with a sudden heart stopping thump.
Leslie moved across to her desk and picked up the brass letter opener that lay on the blotter. Slowly she crept toward the archway into the dining room. Poised on the threshold, preparing to attack, she suddenly felt foolish. Here she was, a grown woman, acting like a child of six just because she had heard a few strange bumps and thuds. With an uneasy laugh she began to lower the knife.
The apartment lights went out.
The darkness was complete and solid, like a black wall. She had always hated the dark, ever since she had been a small child. Hurrying across the living room to the front door, she caught her shin on the edge of the coffee table and fell sprawling, her knee tearing open on its sharp edge. When she reached the doorway to the hall she found Daniel standing there with his finger still resting on the apartment buzzer.
Seconds later, the lights came back on.
The last thing she intended to do was cry on his shoulder. Perhaps it was the result of the month’s events that caused her to behave in such an uncharacteristic manner, but she hung onto Daniel and told him all her fears… about her job, her private life, and even the bizarre problems of her apartment. When she had finished, he smiled and poured her a brandy before taking her to bed and tucking her in. He sat with her for three hours rubbing her back soothing her and didn’t try to force himself on her. It was a side of him she had never seen before.
Leslie, feeling totally calm with his soft caresses, fell into blissful sleep…
Roughly binding her wrists…his rough fingers intruding, his thumb stroking… Inflamed and throbbing patterns of desire seemed to burst the cords that bound her. Leslie woke up with her heart pounding and sweating profusely.*
The following Friday, Leslie returned late from a meeting to find that the apartment had been broken into.
“That’s the whole point, she told the officer. “I’m not even sure if there’s anything missing.” She was standing in the living room amid the wreckage of the shattered glass coffee table and the stuffing of the slashed sofa. The young policeman picked his way from room to room with a look of distaste on his face.
“Forgive me for saying so, ma’am, “he said, ‘but this is kind of a regular problem at the moment, and we don’t have too much of a chance of catching anybody. A lot of folks resent the yuppies moving in and forcing local property prices to increase.”
“I understand what you’re saying,” said Leslie angrily, “but I have as much right to protection as the next person and I don’t think it’s your job to make value judgments.”
“Listen, I’m just trying to tell you how it is around here.” Now armed with a legitimate excuse to lose interest in the crime, the police officer moved away toward the door.
“Just make a list of the missing items and bring it down to the station, ma’am, and we will do what we can. Also, give me the names of anyone you know who might have done this.”
Halfway to the door, Leslie stopped. “What makes you think I know anyone who would do something like this?” she asked.
“Well, there’s no sign of a break-in. Either you forgot to lock the door or whoever it was had a key.”
“Nobody has a key to this apartment except me.”
“Then you left the place unlocked. If it’s not one, it has to be the other.”
“Terrific. You’ve been a great help.”
After slamming the front door, she returned to the ruins of the sofa, sat down, and cried.
She found nothing missing. Her jewelry box was unopened, and some cash lay on her dressing table untouched. The damage was less serious than it had seemed at first. Even so, the coffee table and the expensive designer sofa would have to be replaced. Peter and Joan came by to help tidy the place up, and suggest that Leslie install a burglar alarm. At least, they said, it would prevent the same thing from happening again. After the last dustpan of broken glass had been emptied in the garbage, they opened a bottle of red wine and toasted the coming New Year.
“You have to get an entry phone for this place, you know that?”
“Daniel, what are you doing here?” Leslie stood in the doorway in her robe, unprepared for visitors. To be honest though, she was glad to see her former boyfriend. She moved aside to let him enter. “You will have to be quick; I’m getting ready to go out to dinner. But while you’re here, you can do something for me.”
As he walked into the living room he pulled a champagne bottle from his jacket. “To toast the new apartment,” he explained. “Better late than never. What do you need me to do?”
Leslie led him down the hallway and into the strange crystal…mirror bathroom Blaine Feller had designed for her.
Taking the champagne bottle from him and setting it down, she positioned Daniel in the center of the room and held her finger to her lips.
“Listen,” she whispered, “and then tell me what you hear.”
Daniel cocked his head on one side in an exaggerated gesture of attentiveness. He listened for a while, then shook his head. “Nothing,” he said finally. “Nothing at all. What was I supposed to hear?”
“I don’t know. There’s this weird sound I keep hearing at night. Maybe I really am imagining it?
I don’t know exactly… rats, mice, you name it. Something. You need a haircut." She reached up and touched the back of his neck.
I happen to like it.” Daniel patted his hair back in place. “So, have you called an exterminator yet?”
“No, it doesn’t seem that serious.” Leslie found two glasses and opened the champagne. “It comes and goes.”
“Forgive my saying so, but it looks like it’s keeping you awake at night.”
She poured, and then touched Daniel’s glass with hers. “You know how I always used to worry about little things? I am just doing it again, that’s all.”
“You want me to stay with you tonight?” His smile became a smirk.
“I know its Christmas,” she said with a chuckle, “but I’m not quite that full of goodwill yet.”
And hour and a half later, though, she was.
It was the first time she had made love to anyone since the special builder departed, and it took some getting used to. Daniel was a courteous, considerate, conservative lover. He took into account a woman’s needs. He took things slowly. He massaged her body gently. In fact, she had completely forgotten how utterly boring he was in bed.
He lay heavily on top of her, his hands kneading her breasts. His clothes were folded neatly on a nearby chair. The bedroom lights were all turned off. He was moaning softly in what he considered to be a sexy manner. Leslie felt her left leg falling asleep as he shifted his weight, pulling the sheets out again.
Suddenly, the room began reverberating with a series of deafening rhythmic bangs. Daniel leapt form the bed with a cry as if he had been electrocuted. As the hammering continued, he ran to the wall and slapped on the lights. Immediately, the noise stopped as swiftly as it had begun. Leslie cautiously removed the pillow she had pulled over her ears to block out the sound.
“That’s a hell of a plumbing problem you have got there,” he said as soon as his heartbeat had returned to normal. “Lordy, does that happen often?”
“Quite often,” replied Leslie.
“Where was it coming from?”
“The apartment,” she said still shaking. It just come form the apartment.”
II
“Leslie, you have to meet me tonight for a Christmas drink. I have got a present for you.” On the other end of the telephone Allie already sounded a little merry. In the background Leslie could hear an office party in full swing. She looked from the receiver to the stack of paperwork on her desk and sighed.
“Allie, I’m flying down to spend Christmas with my parents tomorrow night and I have all this work to catch up on…”
“Meet you in one hour at 12 Alexander. If I’m there first I will have Michael get us a table. Be there or I will tell everyone that you went back to your old flame last night.”
“How do you know that?” asked Leslie in amazement. “Word sure gets around fast.”
“You forget that Daniel still works in my department.”
“Yeah, but I didn’t expect him to go around telling everyone.”
“Not everyone, just me. Oh, about Blaine Feller…”
“You managed to get a hold of him?”
“No, I didn’t. Nobody seems to have seen him alive since you had him… Listen, do you still have the blueprints he made up of your apartment?”
“I’ve got them right here in my desk drawer.”
“Good, bring them with you to the restaurant. I have a little surprise for you.”
The line went dead.
An hour later in the restaurant, Leslie and Allie exchanged gifts and drank a toast to each other. Then, at her friend’s request, Leslie unfolded the plans to her apartment and laid them flat on the tablecloth.
“Remember the woman who was washed up on the beach? After she died, they put her apartment up for sale,” explained Allie, fishing about in her handbag as she spoke. “I requested information from the realtors and they sent me a copy of the floor layout.” She found the piece of paper she was looking for and studied it carefully. “I thought it might be interesting to see if your suspicions… whatever the hell they are supposed to be… are well founded.
Leslie leaned forward and studied the two sets of plans. She was disappointed to find, however, that in blueprint form they bore little resemblance to each other.
“Sort of a letdown, huh?” said Allie, emptying her glass.
“I don’t know what to think anymore,” replied Leslie as she reached of the wine bottle. “Let’s forget about it. Be happy I was wrong.”
On December 28th, Leslie returned from her parent’s condo in Florida and climbed the stairs to her apartment. As she opened the front door, she could see the red light on her answering machine flashing on and off. She put down her bags in the hallway, and then turned on the lounge radiators. While she waited for the apartment to warm up, she played back her messages.
“Leslie, call me the minute you get in. Something awful has happened. It’s Allie.”
Leslie raised the receiver and speed-dialed the number on the phone.
“Thank Goodness, I didn’t want you turning on the TV and hearing about it on some news show.”
“Hear about what?” asked Leslie. “What are you talking about?”
“It’s Daniel. I don’t know how to say this any other way. He’s been murdered.”
The room dipped before Leslie’s eyes. “No, that’s not possible.”
“Leslie, listen to me. Don’t watch the news, OK?”
“When did this happen?” She reached out for the arm of the chair and slowly sat down.
“Yesterday. He was found in his apartment in a very bad way. I really don’t want you to hear about it. Stay there, I’m on my way over.”
Allie came over and stayed at her friend’s apartment for the next two days. The police stopped by a number of times, but only made the situation worse by describing the murder in greater detail. Daniel had been at home sitting in front of the TV when he was attacked by someone wielding a hammer, or a similarly heavy blunt instrument. By the time his attacker had finished, there hadn’t been a whole lot left of Daniel to take downstairs. The door to his apartment had been torn from its hinges. There had been no witnesses to the crime, and the police had no direct leads. Was there anything at all she could tell them that would shed some light on his death? Leslie tried to think of something tangible, some concrete piece of evidence that would link the suspicions in her mind. In the end, though, she settled for promising to call the detective at the station if she remembered any further details of their final time together.
“You’re sure you don’t want me to stay with you again tonight? Asked Allie for the third time. Absolutely sure?”
“Go, go, for Goodness sake, I’ll speak to you tomorrow morning.” Leslie pushed her friend to the front door and opened it for her.
“All right, but you know where I am if you need me. I’ll call you before I leave and we can go to the cemetery together.”
Daniel’s funeral, delayed by the need for an autopsy, had finally been scheduled for eleven o’clock the following morning. Leslie was grateful for her friend’s concern, but was relieved to be left alone for a while.
Beyond the windows, the river lay in darkness, the tide ebbing sluggishly in the freezing night air.
She went to the kitchen and made herself a cup of coffee, then sat in the living room with a paperback novel. She felt more lethargic than she had at any time since moving into the apartment. As she scanned a page and tried to concentrate on the complexities of the plot, her fingers explored the knife rips in the fabric of the sofa. Because of the Christmas rush, the new covers she had ordered had yet to arrive. The jagged striations across the material she now absently touched seemed to recall the fine red marks which had once adorned her bottom like tribal markings. On a nearby table the telephone ran, making her jump. She reached across and answered it.
At first she thought there was nobody on the other end of the line. Then a strange tapping sound began like someone running a stick back and forth across the bars of a wooden cage. Behind this, she could hear a man steadily breathing, the air in his throat being forced out in a series of sexual spasms.
She hung up with a gasp of disgust. Now was not the time for someone to be playing practical jokes. She wondered if perhaps she should report the call to the police, then decided against it. She had enough questions from them in the last two days. The only sure way to outwit cranks was to get an unlisted number. She sat back on the damaged sofa and tugged her robe more tightly over her breasts. Slowly but surely the apartment felt as if it was becoming her prison, and the receptacle of all the unnamed things she most dreaded.
Allie entered the chaos of her SoHo apartment and headed for the kitchen. Something had been bothering her on the journey from Leslie apartment. She pulled out the drawers beneath the cluttered kitchen counter and began to search among the balls of twine and special-offer coupons. Finally she located what she was looking for…the blueprints Leslie had accidentally left behind in the restaurant just before Christmas.
Unfolding the plans, she held one end down with a cookie jar and began to study the diagrams inch by inch. Then she took a piece of tracing paper and began to draw.
Leslie reknotted the sash around her waist and headed into the bathroom. Turning on the tap, she splashed cold water over her face in the vain hope that it would make her feel less exhausted. She was debating whether to run a bath when the telephone began to ring once more. She hesitated, her hand resting on the doorknob. Her parents sometimes liked to call her at this late hour. She walked across the darkened living room and picked up the phone.
This time the sound was clearer: a steady click, wood on wood, expanding and contracting. And beneath it was the rasping, quicken breath of a man fast approaching orgasm. She slammed the phone down hard and cleared the line, her heart thudding in her chest. She was about to pick it up and dial the police when it rang again. Carefully, she raised the phone and slowly moved it closer.
This time the voice was a familiar one. It was Allie, probably calling to say that she had arrived home safely.
“Leslie, thank God? Now listen carefully. You must do as I say.” Leslie frowned. The voice at the other end of the line sounded taut and strange.
“Allie, what’s…”
“Shut up and listen! You have to leave the building, right now. Just grab your bag and walk to the front door.”
“Are you nuts? It must be five below out there.”
“Please,” pleaded Allie, “do this for me. Just get up and go.”
“Why? Asked Leslie, puzzled. “Just tell me why.”
“Your apartment, I checked the plans.”
“So?”
“I kept thinking something was wrong. The way the place looked didn’t seem to match the way it was on the blueprint.” Allie sounded out of breath. Had she been running?” “Blaine Fuller, he built it according to the plans that he gave you, but he built it the other way around.”
“What do you mean?”
“If you flip the drawing over, you get a different shaped apartment. I tried it just now with a piece of tracing paper. There’s a second wall running all the way around the place. An inner skin.”
“I don’t understand,” said Leslie, shaking her head as if to clear away her fears. “What are you saying?”
“I’m saying that he’s in there with you.”
Horrified, she looked up from one wall to the other. Away in the background, the clicking wooden sound had started up again. This time it wasn’t being transmitted over the telephone but was coming from somewhere within the apartment.
“Leslie, are you there? You see what this means? He’s been there with you all the time. He must be watching you right now.”
The receiver slid from her hands. She knew that Allie was telling her the truth. Everything made sense. The builder had been controlling her every movement from the start, forcing her to reveal her nakedness in the sudden glare of the bedroom lights, slowly baring her body beneath the drying taps of the shower, sending her from room to room, feeding on her growing anxiety.
She rose and moved into the center of the living room, searching the walls, listening for the smallest sound. Now other details began to fall into place. She remembered shedding her blanket and crossing naked to the TV as she tried to fix the picture, something cold touching her hand as she emerged from the shower, the sense of someone standing over her bed watching her as she slept, the jealous rage that hammered in the bedroom walls because Daniel had made love to her. The burglary had been nothing more than a display of anger at her leaving. How many cracks and crevices, peepholes and passageways could he have built into the apartment?
As the cracking wooden noise became more urgent, she recognized its origin. He was breaking through the slats of the living room wall. No more sneaking from secret openings… the special builder was about to make his grand entrance.
She ran for the kitchen and the knife rack above the sink as he appeared behind her in a showering explosion of plaster and broken wooden pieces. For a second she caught sight of him striding across the room through a spray of dust, and the madness that glittered behind his blood streaked eyes spurred her on. “Stay away from me!” she screamed, grabbing a bread knife from the rack and holding it with both hands in front of her stomach. Ahead in the hallway, he paused. His erect penis swayed from side to side as he began to move forward once more. She backed against the counter, desperately trying to think about the noise of her racing heart. Turning, she peered ahead through the doorway of the kitchen into the hall, but now there was nothing to be seen. It was as if he had suddenly disappeared.
The apartment had fallen silent; Leslie took a step forward, then another, carefully shifting her weight as lightly as possible. She began to think clearly again. The first priority was to get out of the apartment. Her neighbor below worked nights, so she would have to go into the street for help. And to do that she would need clothes. The bedroom was at her back. Her jacket and car keys lay on the bed. She listened once more. There was still nothing to be heard from the living room or the hall. Out on the river, the sound of a barge horn was muffled by falling snow. Slowly she lowered the knife, then turned and walked into the bedroom. Into his awaiting arms.
“You’ll feel better if you drink this right down.” The young officer holding out the brandy to her was the same one who had called after the burglary. “Do you have someone you can stay with tonight?”
“I guess so, yes.” Leslie accepted the drink and sipped at it. Although the blanket was pulled high around her shoulders she was unable to stop shivering. The doctor had told her it was shock, not the cold.
The officer watched dispassionately, as they removed the builder’s body from the room. The handle of the bread knife thrust out above the edge of the sheet, firmly wedged between the ribs of his chest, just below his heart.
“He designed the apartment, huh?” The officer looked about approvingly. “He did a nice job. Got a real good finish on these units. He ran his hand along the edge of a shelf, and then looked back at the blood spattered body as it went through the door. “He obviously took great pride in his work.”
“Blaine Feller started rebuilding the place right after I broke off with him,” said Leslie, unfolding her napkin and dropping it into her lap. “I was hardly ever there, so I never noticed what he was up to. The police say he’s tried the same thing before on a smaller scale, when he rebuilt Irene Lassiter’s apartment. He was able to come and go as he pleased, and I was none the wiser.”
“That poor woman,” said Allie, burrowing her fork into a stuffed mushroom. “She obviously wasn’t quick enough for him. You’re lucky you didn’t get washed up on the beach as well. These are delicious.”
“All that time spent between the walls, watching,” Leslie reached across to Allie’s plate and stole a mushroom. “The police wouldn’t let me see inside. They said he had… things… in there.” She shuddered. “No more fixer uppers for me. My next apartment is going to be completely ready to move into,”
“Just think,” said Allie through a mouthful of food, “if you hadn’t slept with him in the first place, none of this would ever have happened.” Leslie narrowed her eyes at friend as she continued eating.
“He knew you would never have sex with him again,” said Allie, refusing to let the subject drop. “He must have gotten so frustrated.”
“That’s the worst part of it,” said Leslie, slowly lowering her fork to the table. “I have a horrible feeling he never did.”
They finished the rest of the meal in silence.
Did is a word of achievement, Won't is a word of retreat, Might is a word of bereavement, Can't is a word of defeat, Ought is a word of duty, Try is a word of each hour, Will is a word of beauty, Can is a word of power.
*(Unknown Author)
Don't take life so seriously.....it isn't permanent
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Tammynx
Spanko
Username: Tammynx
Post Number: 276
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, January 29, 2006 - 05:31 pm: |
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That was Great!!!! Please write more stories!!!! |
Ziggy
Advanced Spanko
Username: Ziggy
Post Number: 2318
Registered: 08-2005
| | Posted on Monday, January 30, 2006 - 10:53 am: |
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 WOW what an ending, I love it !! just like a Friday night at the movies.. 
when caught run faster then him !!
I am a TA junkie !!
Hubbie is due back home in march.................pout stomp !!!
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Itchy
Spanko
Username: Itchy
Post Number: 478
Registered: 08-2005
| | Posted on Monday, January 30, 2006 - 02:46 pm: |
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phew i can let my breath out now great story
"Evaluation has replaced torture as the primary means of social control"
Foccoult
ohhh how boring
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Littlelotte
New member
Username: Littlelotte
Post Number: 16
Registered: 12-2005
| | Posted on Monday, January 30, 2006 - 08:34 pm: |
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...wow. Not your average story for these boards. Maybe that's one of the reasons I loved it so much! 
Way to go!
"I've always thought a good lashing with a buggy whip would benefit you immensely."
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Redhinney
Junior Spanko
Username: Redhinney
Post Number: 167
Registered: 10-2005
| | Posted on Thursday, February 02, 2006 - 08:17 pm: |
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SO I guess I'll never buy a fixer upper- different story but a good read.
Love can't always be seen or hear but will always be felt with your heart
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Brooke_ray
New member
Username: Brooke_ray
Post Number: 25
Registered: 05-2005
| | Posted on Sunday, February 19, 2006 - 09:07 am: |
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Completely enthralling!
I absolutely loved this story...your writing is awesome...and your ideas and plotlines blow my mind! Thankyou for a most refreshing read. 
Trinkets and Treasure
There are colors and feelings and emotional terrain that we occupy that are ours and ours alone...
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