"MURDER SHE ROTE" (Part II)
- Gabrielle Marie Kelley
- May 9
- 10 min read
In the heart of Dallas, a young, successful writer is captivated by her own dark narrative. Haunted by a troubled past and ensnared in an even more dangerous present, she walks a fine line between victim, vigilante, and something far more sinister. As she crafts stories of revenge and redemption, her real-life actions blur the boundaries of morality. Is she a hero—or a cold-blooded killer? Follow her gripping escapades and try to unravel the truth before it's too late. The only question is: what will you believe?
CONTENT WARNING: This story explores themes of sexual violence. Reader discretion is advised.
(TAP PLAY TO LISTEN)
The Maserati came to a sporty halt in front of 1401 Elm Street; Veronica shimmied out and left the door open for the valet.
"Good evening, Veronica, you're looking amazing tonight, as usual," Juan, the tatted valet, yelled while catching the keys mid-air. "My dream is to win the lottery so I can afford to take you out in that dress!"
Veronica grinned, continued her strut toward the door, and said, "Never give up on your dreams, Juan, but that dream, I'm afraid, is more like a nightmare." Juan threw his head back in laughter with his mouth wide revealing silver caps.
The Monarch was an elegant and opulent restaurant and lounge perched on the 49th floor with views reserved for Dallas' most successful. A perfect place for high-powered executives to whisper deals over $20 cocktails and for luxury-draped dates to quietly agree on their hookups. Veronica came to observe and to be observed, in this circle, she was unknown and that's exactly how she liked it.
Checking her hair in the mirrored walls of the elevator, she noticed that it had increased in volume thanks to the humidity. She resembled a Victoria's Secret model sans her wings. How fitting.
Making her way to the bar, her heels, clicking on the tiled floors, signaled her arrival. She sits, allowing her dress to ride up near her waist and then crosses her legs. She orders her usual: a smoked old-fashioned with a Luxardo cherry. The bar tender is an unfamiliar face, so she eyes her glass to judge their skill; the cedar smoke is dancing around the brim of the crystal and in between her fingers, she sips, and the Burbon takes center stage while the bitters linger in an herbal playfulness. The Luxardo cherry, a deep blood red, explodes like a velvet wine-like delicacy on her palate. As she brings the glass in for a second sip, she feels the heat of a body behind her.
"Is this seat taken?"
He is about 6'-5", wavy brunet, lean but muscular frame. His attire tells her that he came directly to The Monarch from the office, looking for someone to convince him that all of his obsessive work was worth the while. He smells like money and his youthfulness screams; I have no restraint. Just what Veronica was looking for tonight.
"My invisible friend is sitting there; can't you see them?" Veronica grins and stares directly into the man's eyes before refocusing her attention on her drink.
The man smiles and plays along saying, "Oh, excuse me Miss, please forgive me. I didn't see you there. Would it be ok if I speak to your beautiful friend for a moment?" The man pretends to watch the friend walk away and bows as he thanks her for giving up her seat. Taking the seat, he says, "She is very nice, your friend. She said I could take all night if I wanted to."
"He's a he." Veronica says, swiveling her chair to face the man, her legs still crossed now in between his.
"Oh? Wow. Well, my next question is: who is his plastic surgeon?"
Vernoica smiles and takes another sip. She notices that the man becomes more relaxed in his chair and begins to scan Veronica's body starting with her hair. When his eyes reach her waist, she uncrosses and crosses her legs again, imagining that she is Sharon Stone in Fatal Attraction.
"What are you looking for tonight?" she asks, knowing exactly what he wants to say.
"No names, huh? Whatever you're looking for, I guess." he responds, knowing exactly what she wants him to say.
"Your place or mine?" she asks.
"Do you have a name?"
Veronica finishes what is left of her drink, sits back in her stool, and raises her eyebrows as if to ask the question again.
"Mine. And by the way, my name is Benson." he says, swallowing the last bit of scotch in his glass.
"Vanessa." Veronica responds.
Benson's passing air smells of scotch and Baccarat. The protagonist in her newest romantic thriller would love him, an Oxford type with heathenistic desires. Would she fall madly in love with him to the point of obsession? Or would his selfish exploits lead her to vengeful insanity? How could she know? Just like in real life, Veronica never really knew the ending of any story.
He signals to the valet to retrieve his vehicle and then turns to Veronica, grabs her waste and slightly crouches to meet her eyes, as if he's known her in a past life.
"Have you ever ridden in a Maserati?" he asks.
"A Maserati?" she responds.
He laughs as his G16 pulls into the driveway and signals her to hop in while holding the door open. Veronica loves this part of the date, the way that men usually pretend to be gentlemen wanting to please a woman until they escape the public eye. She knew better to be fooled.
On the road, Benson swerves, mostly in his lane, to the sound of light jazz. When he does leave his lane, it is slow enough for other drivers to get out of the way. He is a decent driver and conversationalist. Veronica says very little, after all, he really doesn't want to know who she actually is. He wants one thing and so he is content with the occasional, Oh really? or Wow!
"Well, that's enough about me. Tell me about yourself. Like, what are you into?"
There it goes. The reveal of his true interests.
"Don't be shy. A woman so forward as you must be a real beast in the bedroom, am I right?" Benson asks, reaching for Veronica's thigh.
"What I like is sort of rash. I don't think I should share." She wanted to seem a bit coy; it always made men more vulnerable to share their own sexual deviances.
"Oh yeah? Well, you may as well let the cat out of the bag, since you're about to let the cat out of the bag, you know."
He is humored by his own joke and swerves again, this time nearly missing a BMW now gesturing their disapproval out of the window. Veronica looks over at Benson and asks, "You promise you won't judge me?"
"I pinky swear promise." He holds up his pinky and Veronica reaches out to pledge the vow with him. "I like being taken against my will."
"Woe!" Benson exclaims emphatically. "Well, hey, I'm no judge! But that's quite a thing there."
"Have you ever done something like that for a woman? Or am I dealing with a rookie?" Veronica provoked.
"A rookie? No ma'am, no rookie here. I said I am no judge, but the jury might have a guilty verdict. You wanna hear a story?"
Here we go. "To get me in the mood? Sure."
"It's been a while, a long while." Benson stares ahead as if to see the scene right before him on the road. "Some years ago, on campus, there was this one girl, Jocelyn Whitmore, was her name. She was hot for me and my crew. She wanted all of us; she was the typical campus cunt, sleeping with anyone who would so much as blink an eye at her. I can't blame her though! If I was that hot, I'd probably pass myself around, too!" He laughs, his smile less friendly than the one he donned at the bar.
"So, what happened next?" Veronica asks.
"Well, we invited her to a house party, it was just really the guys hanging out and she kept nagging us to come smoke, so we invited her. We rolled up, as usual, and drank tequila all night. One thing led to another, and she started to take off her clothes. I was the least drunk, so I remember everything. She climbed on Ashton, and she kept dancing on him until he..."
"So, you all ran a train on her? Is that supposed to be risqué?" Veronica made sure to maintain a scoffed demeanor, knowing it would incite him to prove himself.
"Hey, you mentioned that you liked bondage, I was getting to that part."
She said absolutely nothing about bondage. "Did she scream?"
"Oh yeah, she screamed. All night." Benson pulls into his garage and just like that, the conversation is over. They walk through the door and Veronica trails behind him as he drops his belongings near the entrance and leads the way to the kitchen. He holds up a half empty bottle and asks, "Would you like to have a glass of whiskey? It's Blanton's..."
Veronica cuts him off with a kiss and asks him to take her to his bedroom. Removing his shirt and kissing her, he guides her up a winding staircase. Opening her eyes to watch her step, she catches a glimpse of a tanned Asian woman with two preschool aged children hanging on the wall. He has a type.
"Don't worry, she's with the children visiting her parents in the Philippines. They won't be back for another month."
Turning around lowly, he grabs her hand behind his back and opens the door to their bedroom. The decor has a feminine touch. How many times had he led a strange woman into his wife's bedroom? Did he have the decency to wash the sheets after? Probably not.
"I need to take a piss." He stumbles away into the bathroom, his relief loud enough to mask the noises Veronica makes propping up her camera on a small bookshelf standing adjacent to the bed. Removing her heels and unzipping her dress, she waits on the end of the bed. He flushes the toilet and walks out of the bathroom without washing his hands.
"Now, where were we?"
"Something about she screamed all night?" Veronica teased.
He grabs her collar and jerks down, forcing her dress off of her frame and shoves her, forcing her to lay back onto the bed. His hands drunkenly find every crevice of her body; his breath fails a sobriety test. He kisses her lips sloppily, then her neck, her breasts, and as he makes his way, Veronica drifts into her small under furnished bedroom in East Oakland.
"You stay in room, ah? No go out. Door close. Keep close." Through the cracked door, Veronica could see her mother's red lace lingerie, fishnets, and smeared red lipstick. Her right eye was still black but less swollen.
Veronica nodded in obedience as her mother closed the door. Before the odd and confusing sounds could start, she put on her earphones and tuned into 106.1 FM. Lollipop by Lil' Wayne was playing, and she was safe again.
Veronica is forced to return to the present when Benson rips her lace thong away from her torso. He tosses the torn garment, and it lands on a frame displaying a picture of his two small children being held by a gray-haired Filipina smiling into the camera.
"Stop. I don't want to do this anymore."
"Ah, I see, you're playing hard to get. Well, you've come a little too far to go back, haven't you?"
"I mean it, get off of me." Benson looks startled but ever more intrigued. He goes in for a kiss and she slaps him. He raises his hand near her face, but Veronica, as instructed by her Taekwondo master years ago, catches his wrist and twists it toward his chest. At the same time, her knee slides between them and presses sharply into the inside of his elbow.
"What the hell! Ok, that's enough!" He tries to pin her back down to the bed, but Veronica snakes one leg over his shoulder and across the back of his neck. Her other leg folds under her calf creating a triangle shape around his neck and arm. She grabs Benson's hair and pulls his head down while squeezing her legs together and holding her ankle to maintain the lock. This is a blood choke; she has five to ten seconds until he is unconscious, in a couple of minutes he will have brain damage, and a few minutes longer, his brain will shut off and his organs will follow.
Realizing the seriousness, Benson uses his free arm, desperately clawing at Veronica's legs, attempting to release the pressure. When this fails, he twists himself but only locking him deeper in place. He starts wheezing and his chest heaves under the weight of sheer panic.
"Bitch, get off of me." His voice is strangled as he attempts to gasp. But it is not air that he lacks. His face goes from beet red to ghostly pale, testifying the loss of blood flow. Anger becomes panic, panic transforms into desperation, and desperation settles into a sluggishness, and still, Veronica does not release him. His movements become jerky, and then his arm falls limp.
"9-1-1, what's your emergency?"
"I need to report a man. He tried to rape me. I defended myself and now he’s not breathing. He needs medical attention."
"Ma’am, are you in danger now? Where are you?"
"I'm safe now." Veronica gives the address and avoids the dispatcher's attempts to obtain personal information. When asked if she wants an ambulance, she insists on remaining anonymous and expresses that she would take herself to the hospital the following day.
Bruno, the Uber driver was only 7 minutes away, so by the time Veronica finishes dressing and makes her way downstairs, he is parked outside the home. About a mile into the drive, the police and ambulance come barreling down the street.
"It looks like they're going to the neighborhood we just left. Am I part of a robbery?" he laughs.
"No, you're part of a killing."
"Is that so? Well, you're much too pretty to be a murderer..."
She said absolutely nothing about murder.
He looks into the rearview mirror to assess his prey and begins explaining how he drives for Uber just to meet new people and to make an extra buck. The same story every time.
Bruno pulls up to Veronica's front door, places the car in park and then turns around holding his position with his hand behind the headrest and asks, "Would you like me to help you carry your bags up?"
Veronica sees the lust growing in his eyes and smiles.
"Sure. I could use help with the dead weight."
Discussion: Did Veronica kill Benson in self-defense, or did she murder him coldblooded? What do you believe? Share your thoughts below!
Comments