Chapter Forty-nine
New York, 2010
The woman was tall and skinny like Sheila’s mom had been, and she also had a similar longish, thin face, but otherwise she really didn’t look much like the late Mrs. Proops. Her long, brown hair fell well past her shoulders, while Mrs. Proops had worn her blonde hair in a short bob cut. Her nose and chin were completely wrong also, and her lips in contrast were far plumper than Mrs. Proops’ razor thin ones. She was also younger than Mrs. Proops had been at the time of the fire—as with Professor Levine, this woman was more around the age of Mrs. Proops when Sheila was banished from the Proops’ family home. Still, as Sheila spotted this woman unlocking the door to a small boutique, she knew this was the woman she’d been looking for even if she hadn’t been consciously aware that she’d been looking for anyone.
Subconsciously, though, she had to have been out searching for a replacement for her mom, even if she hadn’t realized it until right then. That had to be what sent her to this quiet street in Queens, and it also had to be why she had brought a dose of succinylcholine in her ridiculously large pocketbook, as well as the hammer and chisel that she had wrapped up in a hand towel.
The fact that this woman had just unlocked the door to this boutique and flipped the sign from closed to open at 6:45 P.M. must’ve meant three things: (1) she was coming back from dinner, (2) nobody else was working there, and (3) nobody else was in the store. This woman who was meant to be a substitute for Mrs. Proops so that Sheila could have a do over was all alone in there.
Sheila gave a quick look around before crossing the street and entering the store. The woman had started folding blouses, and she looked up to smile at Sheila. Sheila smiled back at her and picked up a blue-and-green patterned shirtdress. She held it out in front of her, and the woman commented that it would look nice on her.
“If you’d like to try it on, there are dressing rooms in the back.” The smile the woman offered Sheila was much nicer than any she’d ever seen from her own mom. “That would be very pretty on you. It would bring out your blue eyes, which are lovely.”
That almost ruined it for Sheila. Almost. For a brief moment she saw this woman very differently than as a substitute for her mom. Even her voice had been nice, with none of the shrill hysteria that her mom’s voice had always held. But then she turned from Sheila so she could continue folding the blouses, and the light hit her in such a way that everything went back to being perfect.
“I think I will try it on,” Sheila said.
The woman smiled again at Sheila and told her to give a yell if she needed any help. Sheila promised her she would do so.
Sheila found herself trembling in anticipation as she stood in the back dressing room and removed her clothes. She hadn’t realized just how much she needed to do this until right then. Bringing a hypodermic needle and wearing only her bra and panties, she left the dressing room and stuck her head out of the back area so the woman could see that she was mostly naked and also to make sure that nobody else had entered the store.
“The dress was a little too snug on me, could I try a medium?”
“Of course.”
The woman dutifully searched through a stack of the shirt-dresses before pulling one out and bringing it to Sheila, again a warm smile stretching over her lips. When she held out the dress, Sheila grabbed her by the wrist and yanked her forward, jabbing her in the arm with the hypodermic needle before the woman could otherwise react. As with Mr. and Mrs. Proops and Professor Levine, the woman’s body went slack within a second of being injected with succinylcholine. Sheila lowered her to the carpeted floor, then pulled her fully into the back area so that nobody passing by the store’s front window would be able to see her. She then took a deep breath to calm herself, put her clothes back on, and went back to the front of the store so she could lock the door and flip the sign back to closed again. If anyone had entered the store before she’d been able to do this, she would’ve killed this person too. Nobody was going to stop her from having her do over!
With the store locked up and the substitute for Mrs. Proops paralyzed and helpless, Sheila again removed her clothes. She had been careful with Professor Levine and didn’t get so much as a drop of blood on herself, but it wasn’t worth taking any chances. Besides, it was exhilarating doing this naked. At the end with Professor Levine, she had actually obtained an orgasm for the first time in her life. If she bothered to examine the psychological reason for this, she knew it would be mixed up with how her parents and Penelope would always strip her naked before her punishments, but she didn’t care to delve any deeper into it.
She used the hammer and chisel and said all the things to this woman that she had always wanted to say to Mrs. Proops, and at the end she obtained an orgasm that was so powerful that she almost blacked out. As it was, it left her whole body throbbing with pleasure, and it was minutes before she was able to put her clothes back on. Also, as with Professor Levine, at the end of it she felt freer than she could ever remember feeling.
The store had a locked door in the back dressing room area, and Sheila found a key on the woman that unlocked it. The door was to a stockroom, which also had a bathroom and a door that led to a back alley. Sheila was glad about the bathroom, both because it gave her a chance to wash off the hammer and chisel before wrapping them back in the hand towel, and that unbeknownst to her she had gotten several blood smears on her face. After she washed her face clean, she slipped out the back door.