Title: My First Murder
Author: Kassfinol
All rights reserved
Genre: Noir fiction
I’ll only tell you what’s necessary.
It’s not wise for you to know everything about me.
Because if you do, you could die.
When I was seventeen, I caught my girlfriend — we’d already been dating for a year — kissing my best friend. Seeing the betrayal slap me in the face without warning was what made me who I am now.
The two people I loved most betrayed me, and tried to make a fool of me by staying close to me while at the same time being together.
I couldn’t do much at that moment, though I decided to play along. I always had the quality, according to my family, of having a lot of patience. I’d say I liked knowing how far people would go.
From that moment on, I started inviting them both to my house more often; we went out together to every party or gathering. Of course, until the moment they decided to take time for themselves and set me aside for a while with excuses — if I hadn’t known the truth, I might have taken their absences for chance or coincidence.
The more time passed, the more bitter I became about the relationship they kept in the shadows, hidden from everyone we knew. But on the other hand, if I looked at it from another angle, the relationship between the three of us was getting stronger. In fact, people said so… they said we were like a three-way relationship, and of course we were — only, the only one who was supposed to share the relationship with my beloved was me.
They had each other, they had me, but I didn’t have the two of them with the sincerity the whole thing deserved.
Three years went by like that, and they looked happier and happier.
I can’t tell you whether I was really happy, though seeing her radiant, pleased and vibrant was something that drew me in and confused my existence.
The sex was always intense, never routine; our moments alone were always short, but long enough to make love and be satisfied.
She never complained that we spent the vast majority of our free time with “our best friend.”
She never apologized for feeling unwell certain days of the week; and when I turned my back, she ended up rolling around with my friend.
I knew it, I knew they were together, so I left them alone. I never tried to catch them, check their phones or emails… much less followed them to see where they were… I let them be… I let them live what they wanted to feel, because from my point of view, I was feeling things too, which I apparently also enjoyed having.
I wasn’t unfaithful, and neither were they, between them. I never saw my “friend” going out with another woman, or talking to me about another woman. I was sure it was just the three of us.
The relationship, if you compare it with yours, may be very different, even crazy, because maybe I didn’t love myself enough back then. But I’ll tell you, I did learn to love myself. When the time came to act, I did, and to this day, it comforts me.
When “she and I” had already been together for five years, I remember one day she told me that in a week she’d have a business trip.
As an accountant for a company, she needed to go to another state for a meeting with a branch of her company. She had to be away for five days. I saw no problem in that; we didn’t live together yet, and her absence would bring me a few good days with my friend, “her other boyfriend.”
The thing is, I ended up disappointed, because less than twenty-four hours later my “friend” confirmed he was going on a trip with some coworkers, on the same dates she would be traveling too. It was the first time they were pushing me away from them, and I was well aware it was time to act.
The day came, and I let them go. Their cynicism knew no limits; they both decided to leave in my friend’s car, with the excuse that he would drop her off at the passenger terminal so she could catch her bus. And of course, they bought the ticket and showed it to me to back up their lie, both to me and to their families. As always, they kept making fools of everyone.
What they didn’t know is that three days before they left, I looked up where they’d be staying. It was very easy to take my friend’s phone and check his email, where the hotel had sent him the payment confirmation and the room number. I knew he’d pay; I never doubted that behavior of his.
After a day went by, I kept up conversations with them from time to time by text message. Back then there was no WhatsApp; the messages weren’t very fluid, and replies came one or two hours apart, but that didn’t matter. They were answering me, and that was what I needed; it gave me peace of mind and kept my plans — and above all, my sanity — in order.
When I had everything ready, I headed to the hotel where they were, about an hour from my house. Two days before, I had studied the traffic and the weather; my car had enough gas, and I spent the whole drive to the hotel thinking about how I should confront them. Maybe I should turn back and keep playing this game… no, no, the best thing was to stand my ground and face them with the fact that I knew the whole truth.
When I reached the area where the hotel was, I parked the car two blocks away, and, a bit anxious, decided to walk. I needed some fresh air, to ease a little the discomfort I was beginning to feel in my chest over the decision I’d already made.
I walked in without much fuss; it wasn’t a hotel known for its security, and for some strange reason, that cheered me up.
At that hour, the place had only one receptionist, whom I greeted without raising my face, and he didn’t even flinch as he smoked a cigarette and watched television.
I climbed the four flights of stairs; I wasn’t ready to take the elevator and get there much faster. The reality waiting for me wasn’t encouraging, and I remember I wasn’t exactly dying to face it either.
I knocked on the door several times, and no one answered.
For a few seconds, I was glad to have been wrong, and that inside there were only a few unknown idiots, coworkers of my “sincere and inseparable friend.” But no — she opened the door, and when she saw me, her whole face went so pale I thought she’d faint in front of me. I only had enough strength to give her a half-smile.
I still remember that unforgettable conversation, which ended up bringing out the best in me.
“Will you let me in?” I whispered, to be discreet.
“What are you doing here? No, you can’t come in!” She went on the defensive; her jaw trembled, and the words came out almost stammering, but I gave her no choice.
“Let me in; I don’t want to make a scene here. There’s no need,” I said, as I held a gun to her stomach. As soon as she felt the threat, her eyes went wide and she shook her head several times.
“Come on, love, go. Don’t do something you might regret.”
I smiled again, put a hand on her shoulder, and with all the gentleness I could manage at that moment, I insisted:
“I assure you, I won’t regret this.” She understood the message and took two steps back to let me into the room; that’s when I got to see the scene.
My friend was lying down, asleep; he looked like he’d had a great time. I nodded several times in approval — an ironic gesture — while my girlfriend’s face filled with tears; she’d been holding back her emotions for several seconds, but shame was stronger, and her emotional control was minimal. That’s how she showed it to me.
“Forgive me, I love you, this is just something that happened; it was the alcohol’s fault, and it won’t happen again.”
The damn bitch kept lying to my face.
“Put that gun down, please, love, you don’t have to do anything; we can get through this.” By then she was already hiccuping through her tears, looking at him and at my gun, with what I sensed was a certain wandering nervousness, because she couldn’t control herself.
“You’re right about that: I don’t have to do anything. In fact, I didn’t do anything for years. I admit it — I just let myself be carried along by the situation, so they’d push my patience to the limit.”
My words woke up my only friend until then.
“Hey, what are you doing? What are you doing here?” he asked in a surprised tone, noticing the gun in my hands.
As soon as she saw him awake, she did what hurt me most in life. She ran into his arms and shielded him with her body.
There it was, our truth… my truth. She protected him and loved him, not me. And I was sure that the fact they’d kept it secret until now was his fault — to spare me pain, or to keep our relationship from breaking.
“What am I doing here? The real question should be: what are you two doing here?”
He started to get up from the bed, and I threatened him with the gun.
“Don’t you dare move from where you are. I’m the one in charge now in this three-way relationship, and you’ll do whatever the hell I want.”
“Friend, calm down, please, lower that gun; you don’t need to hold it. We can talk… we’re friends, right? Let’s talk like friends!” That enthusiasm was appalling in that situation. Did he see me as a manipulable idiot? I suppose so; that’s what I made him believe for a long time.
“I can’t stay long. I need you to do something for me, because I never want to see you again in my life.”
She kept looking at me as she wiped her tears with the sleeve of her shirt. My friend, for his part, just nodded and waited for me to speak.
I looked around and found the utensil I was missing, which I was sure they’d have at that moment. Then I took a small bottle out of my pocket.
“I’m going to tell you what I want you to do, but if you scream, I’ll shoot you both in the forehead.” They both stared wide-eyed, astonished by my words. “For years you slept together and had a relationship alongside me; you took me for an idiot, you betrayed my trust, and I just wanted to see how far you could go… As you can see, my patience lasted a few years; it was all, hmm… I suppose, nice, until you decided to go on vacation together. That… I’ll never forgive you for that.”
“I can explain it to you,” my friend insisted, but I said no with the hand holding the gun.
“Don’t explain anything to me; there’s absolutely nothing you owe me an explanation for. I know everything; I always knew, and as of today, nothing matters to me anymore… I just want one thing… just one thing!”
“Wh-wh-what do you want?” answered the woman who was now my ex-girlfriend, sobbing, her face worried.
“I never want to see you again, and for that, you must fulfill one last request, as friends.”
“What is it?” the traitor answered, with more confidence than necessary.
“Simple: you both have two options, and the result will be the same.”
“What is it? Just say it already; I only want you to stop pointing that gun at me.”
“I’ll stop pointing the gun at you when you decide what you prefer: the knife or the pills?”
They looked at each other and frowned. Apparently, they didn’t understand my question.
“What do you want to do? What do you want to commit? Suicide or murder?” When I asked the questions, my ex-girlfriend covered her face with the pillow and began to cry even harder; it didn’t bother me — the sound was muffled by the cushion.
My ex-friend got up, intending to walk toward me, but I threatened him in an even more authoritative voice — one I was sure he was hearing from me for the first time.
“I’ll shoot you in the head if you don’t do what I say.” I didn’t raise my voice; I just looked at him with determination and faced him so he’d realize who was in control. “Take the damn knife and decide — but decide well, because it will be the last thing you decide in your life.”
“They’ll know it was you. That revolver is your dad’s; if you kill us, they’ll know it was you.”
“Me? My dad? You’re wrong. This gun…” And a dry sound rang out between us, making him fall to the floor, howling from the pain of the bullet impact in his knee. “It’s not my dad’s; it’s mine. I spent a long time saving up to get one on the black market. No one can trace it to me, because no one knows I have it, and no one knows I’m here. Besides, you’re forgetting one detail: no one knows you two are a couple.”
“Please, just leave us alone,” insisted that stupid woman, crying on the bed, covering herself with the pillows, all nervous, as if that could protect her from a bullet.
“I’m not going to repeat myself… What do you prefer? The knife…” And I stopped; I stopped talking right away. I’d just realized that my plan — for one of them to kill the other the way I’d planned — could no longer work, because I’d shot the wretch in the knee, and now I’d have to leave my precious gun in this place.
I sat in the chair and thought it over, thinking about how to get back to the original plan, which only included the knife and the pills. How was I supposed to make the scene look the way I wanted? And I had to think fast, because the idiot would bleed out, and the stupid bitch wouldn’t stop crying. Besides, I couldn’t be away from home much longer, or my alibi wouldn’t work.
It was right there, in my urgency, that I apparently realized I thought much better under pressure.
I took the knife and walked toward the young woman; I grabbed her by the hair, threatening her with the blade at her neck, focusing on holding her tight while I whispered in her ear:
“You’ll have to shoot your beloved boyfriend. Come on, tell me you’ll do it right now.”
“No, no, I can’t.”
“Do it. If you do it, you’ll stay alive; I won’t hurt you.” I handed her the gun. “If you refuse to do it, you’ll die… and I’m warning you, if you get any clever ideas, you’ll die too.”
The silly woman wouldn’t stop crying, but she still took the gun. At that moment, I pressed the knife harder against her neck. She wouldn’t stand a chance; I was taller, I was stronger, my body could practically cover her entirely if I wanted.
“Shoot,” I demanded. “A single shot to the forehead,” I concluded.
She started shaking her head and dropped the gun. All she did was cry; she had me on edge.
“Don’t do it, love,” my ex-friend begged her — by then he was lying in a large pool of blood. “Let the bastard kill us.”
“Ohh… But how selfish you turned out to be. See, love?” I said ironically, looking at her. “I just told you you’ll live if you kill him, and he’s telling you to let me kill us both… Doesn’t that sound like pure, hard selfishness? Wasn’t it always like that? He told you what to do, and you, like a good bitch, accepted it.”
She nodded; she was caught between a rock and a hard place. Poor thing — in all these years, I never saw anyone cry so much over a mistake.
“If you shoot him, you’ll stay alive. Come on, do it. End his pain, and the pain you caused me all these years,” I insisted, keeping the knife from hurting her; she was so full of fear she didn’t even notice that. I just held her tight by the chest.
“My love, nooooo…” He was about to say something more, but she shot him right in the heart. His lifeless body fell with a dull thud that felt like glory to me at that moment; for a few seconds, it carried me to an incredible feeling of power.
It was thrilling to know I’d won, that now she would be only mine. But no — the betrayal was already there; she lied with unimaginable ease, and I had no time for that.
“Now I want you to take the pills. The whole bottle.”
“B-b-but you told me I’d stay alive if I did it.”
“I didn’t tell you how long you’d stay alive, sweetheart. Do what I say. You made me live a lie for four years. Are you going to get intense and complain to me about this first lie? Are you fucking kidding me!?”
“Idiot!” she shouted at me. “You lied to us too, by not telling us you knew what was going on! Are you some kind of sick bastard? Who does something like that? Who puts up with five years of lies?” She seemed to have found strength where she had none; I put her behavior down to adrenaline.
I threw her onto the bed and kept pointing the gun at her.
“Shut your damn mouth. Am I the bad one now? When you were the one who cheated on me. I just decided to stay silent while I watched you wear out my patience. I’m not a damn sicko.” I fell abruptly silent, thinking over her accusation; a few seconds later I finished telling her: “Whatever it is, I liked what I just did. I have no reason to deny it.”
“You shouldn’t have forced me to kill him. You’re a sick son of a bitch; I don’t know how we didn’t realize it before.”
“Admit that you liked having your whole affair in secret. And I understand you — feeling things in secret is always more exciting. Look at me, look at how I feel. Do I look sad or unwell? I feel powerful, and I love it,” I laughed as I admitted that out loud.
She shook her head and started sobbing again.
“Stop the drama and take the pills; I’m running out of time. If you don’t, you’ll die in pain, a lot of pain. I’m getting the urge to pay you back for the hard times you put me through… I think — I’m not sure — I can match the bad feeling you put me through.”
“O-okay, okay.” I gave her the bottle, and for the first time, she noticed my leather gloves.
“Did you plan this? Are you covering your tracks?” She sounded incredulous.
“Yes, I thought of more than ten ways to carry this out, to make them pay, and I’d do it on the day they were reckless enough to leave me looking like a victim in front of all the people they lied to. This was the perfect moment; that’s why I didn’t act before. That truth, I think you deserve it.” I handed her a glass of water.
She was resigned, docile; she knew she was going to die right then.
“How many do I have to take?” She looked me in the eyes, and I remembered how many times she’d been mine — but that had only been sex; she’d never loved me the way I wanted. Or maybe, being what I was, I didn’t deserve it either. I don’t know, and I didn’t care at that moment.
“All of them.” The bottle had around fifty pills of a powerful barbiturate, which I’d taken care to fill with that patience that characterizes me.
She nodded and filled her left hand with all the pills she could hold; I saw a few fall to the floor, but I didn’t care — just fifteen would be enough.
“Swallow them all and come here.” I motioned for her to walk toward the traitor’s body. She took the pills and walked slowly to where her lover’s body lay.
As soon as she was in front of him, she collapsed, unconscious, beside him. It would only take a few minutes to make sure she was dead.
I dropped the gun beside them both and closed the door behind me.
That pleasure in what I’d done, that adrenaline, lasted until I got home. I was gone for an hour and a half, and in the end, no one noticed — only two people asked me where I’d been… my sister and my mom, and I just told them I’d been in the bathroom throwing up. They never remembered anything, because I made sure they drank a lot before and after my absence.
My ex-friends’ bodies were found two days later. And the news went with the theory of a murder and a suicide. I was the victim; I was the one everyone supported most. No one suspected me… because more than fifteen people confirmed I never left my home around the time of their deaths. It was an unforgettable party, with a sad ending for the cheaters.
Five years of lies, reduced to just twenty minutes of honesty. Now that I think about it, I don’t think it was enough.
Did I kill again? Of course I did. Once you see how life fades from a victim’s eyes, and hear the dull sound of their body hitting the floor, you only live for the chance to witness it again.
What do I do for a living now? I’m a hitman.
The End
Don’t let other people’s behavior bring out the worst in you; don’t feed your inner monsters.