Jenny

CW: misogyny, stalking, femicide

Up-down. Up-down. The man’s knee was trembling, shivering as if to a high up-beat. With his worn-out sneakers and his green hoodie, the guy in front of officer Mile couldn’t be older than twenty. His jet-black hair was sticking to his sweaty forehead, his eyes not darting around the room, as most one’s do, but instead fixed on an imaginary point somewhere in the corner of the small office. Maybe he was looking at the huge black spider that made it into the office a few days ago and that officer Mile just couldn’t do any harm.

Another stance towards harm had the guy in front of him. Apparent in the amount of blood his hand was covered in, still dripping on the floor and leaving tiny red drops.

“So, how did you get to know Jenny?”

The man’s eyes shot upward, quick as a squirrel. Still no sound from him. “Can you tell me about her?” Of course he could. But even more obvious that he didn’t want to. It was always the same. Men killing women and then not even bothering talking about her, just shutting up as if there was nothing behind it. Not the first encounter with someone like this for Mile. But such guys just don’t care about the women they murder, rape or even torture. They only care about themselves.

“So let’s forget about Jenny. Can you tell me something about yourself instead?”

The man’s eyes lock on Mile’s. “There is nothing interesting about me.”

Sure, man. Mile found it quite a challenge not to roll his eyes. Nothing interesting, but still something that made him a murderer.

“Think about it. I’m coming back to you and then I demand a story of yours.” Then he left the guy to his thoughts.

Mile closed the door behind him more softly than he intended, as if any sudden sound might shatter the thin membrane holding the room together. He rubbed his thumb over the indentation of his wedding ring, a habit he’d picked up since his daughter turned thirteen and started walking home from school alone.

He told himself he wasn’t thinking about her now. He was lying.

Weeks before, Jason prepared the grill. “How long have you been working here?” his colleague asked. Jason didn’t even remember his name, but that’s probably because the guy is new. “For six years now.”

“Six years?” The guy’s eyebrows shifted. “Do you want to flip sausages all your life?” What a question to ask. Why not? Jason didn’t want to do anything else. He started when he was just old enough to and after school he just stayed. Took more and more shifts and didn’t even notice how this slowly became his whole life. “Sure, I just love to grill.” The guy grins. “You look like it.”

What did this man even want from him? Jason mustered him. Brown curls, wide glasses, an earring in his right ear. He couldn’t lay a finger on what this guy looked like for him., but it was nothing only partly sympathetic. But before he could answer his weird colleague, someone took his attention.

A woman was entering the “Fries 4 Life”. The way she looked she probably called it “Fries before guys”, as some people do, especially the ones who come here often. But this one Jason has never seen before. She wore a long colourful dress, patterned with many different flowers. Jason loved flowers. More than anything else probably. As a Biology student, he not only learned about them, but also collected them when going on walks or finding some in the small gaps between stones on the streets. Still, the woman also captured Jason through her beauty: long, blond hair, made into two braids, falling over her shoulders. Her skin so pure and smooth, he dreaded touching it.

“Forget it.”, someone whispered. The guy from before. “She’s out of your league.”

What an idiot. Though he was probably right. What was he? A lonely student, flipping sausages and collecting flatly pressed plants. There was no slight chance that he was one of those 20% that literally 80% of all women chose. Woman never liked guys like him. Were they not so fucking picky, he would maybe have a chance. But it never mattered that he worked out like hell, tried to get yoked. Working on a sixpack, he stopped eating anything at his workplace, only bringing his own food. Damn, he even considered places to go to in summer, places he could be shirtless to get attention from females. Only that they kept playing their own game. It wasn’t long ago that he decided to stop this, to not be a figure anymore, but the player instead. But anyways, time for a break.

Donning his apron on the bin, Jason entered the smoking area, making it through the steaming clusters of people. He found her right away, at one of the tables. Alone. Great, great, great. Approaching her, he thought of something to say, but as he was right before her, seeing that she had registered him, her eyes deep brown and looking at him, the only thing he could think of was: “You don’t smoke?”

She laughed, but it didn’t seem amused. “I cannot eat my fries while simultaneously smoking, right?”

Ugh, the way she chose such words to appear educated disgusted Jason. But only temporarily, because the way her skin was visible at the top of her fine breast was doing the exact opposite. “Well, have you tried?”, he asked.

“You want me to eat, smoke and talk to you at the same time. I think that’s too much for me.” What does she want? It didn’t make sense for Jason. Was she mocking him?

Well, he didn’t know what else to say, but luckily she was faster anyway.

“My father used to smoke and that was enough for me.”

How do you respond to this? Tell a father-story in return?

“Well, my father didn’t. He wasn’t even there much. I only remember me drawing a picture in kindergarten. I though of different colours for different ice cream flavours and painted a giant ice machine. Only that my father told me that ice cream is made in pots.”

“What an odd thing to say.”, she responded, kind of without any emotion. Jason was about to agree when it struck him that maybe she didn’t mean his father but instead that he even told her this story. “I need to get back inside. See you.” But she didn’t respond. Instead, she took her now empty plate and Jason watched her walk away, her dress swaying like a field of flowers disturbed by a sudden wind. Something tightened in his chest – not longing, not exactly. More like a hook catching on soft tissue. A pull.

At night, Jason stood in his apartment, surrounded by the only things that ever made sense to him. Sheets of pressed plants lined the wall like trophies. He ran a finger along the lavender, one of his favourites, though a classic as well. Representing strong devotion, this flower indicated his grant devotion to his collection, maybe even to his studies. The woman had worn lavender on her dress, right next to dandelions and pink roses. The pink ones he never liked. Too sentimental and soft, they reminded him of his mother, so he skipped them quickly on his collection. Then he reached the one that mattered: Arum maculatum. Known as lords-and-ladies. A single, enormous petal – green, thick, shaped like a blade. He had taken it from a forest in France. People from his biology lecture always laughed nervously when the professor explained how it worked:

the plant trapping insects inside its chamber, holding them there with its tiny hairs until they were dusted with pollen. Only then it let them go – just long enough for them to carry the pollen to the next plant, where they’d be trapped again. It was such a smart way to reproduce and this he couldn’t have thought about it.

He stared at the pressed petal, feeling something tighten in his chest. Women weren’t so different, were they? They lured men in with softness and smiles, then trapped them with expectations, with games, with their stupid pickiness. And when they were done, they moved on to somebody with broader shoulders and a better jawline. It was just the same. And while people in his lecture found the lords-and-ladies “behaviour” kind of rude, they should better thing about the girls they know. Jason would bet that many of them had girlfriends, but who knows what girls do. Getting a relationship to trap harmless men, only then to turn to other guys, the ones that have bigger biceps or a sixpack.

But Jenny? Well, something about her told Jason that Jenny was not that kind of girl.

He traced the outline of the pressed lavender with a fingertip, the paper crackling softly. The sound reminded him of her voice – light, dismissive, slipping away from him before he could catch it. He hated that. Hated how easily she had walked back inside, as if he were nothing but background noise. He wasn’t background, he wasn’t invisible. He just needed her to understand that.

There she was again. Just a few days later, on Jason’s next shift. His apron already in his hand, he was about to open the back door to start to work as he spotted her. Minding her own business, with headphones in her ear, she wandered around, a bag from the next supermarket in her hand. Probably about to go home. Perfect. His boss liked him anyway, so there was no trouble awaiting him when following her.

From the movies Jason watched it always seemed that following somebody was difficult. That the one being followed always knew that something was up, so they turned around. But the woman didn’t. She just went home, not even far away from Fries4Life. But not alone. Unknowing.

Jenny, meanwhile, felt the faintest prickle at the back of her neck – the kind that comes when a shadow moves where it shouldn’t. She paused at a crosswalk, pretending to adjust her headphones. People passed her, the usual crowd. Still, the sensation clung to her like static.

Saturday afternoon. The town was buzzing with people. Families enjoying their weekend together. Children using the free time from school, hanging out with friends and playing Smash Bros with a huge ice cream cone in their hands. People going on coffee dates. And right in the centre of it: three young women looking for a dress. Michelle was about to marry the woman of her dreams and so she took her favourite people to go look for what she will be wearing. For Tashi and Jenny it was almost as exciting. Especially for Jenny, who was working her fingers off on her new project, mostly sitting inside her small apartment, lights dim, only illuminated by her laptop. She started writing when she was ten and was about to actually publish her very first thriller. A feeling so deafening, that sometimes she felt as if something was lurking out there, even though it probably just was the serial killer of her book that just couldn’t exit her mind. Every morning, when she went for a run at 6 o’ clock, when it was still dark outside, she had to check her surroundings. Too afraid she was of the people that were out there. No wonder people write so creepy stuff like her. Somewhere the fear had to be stored in. But today it was different anyway.

“How are you feeling?”, Tashi whispered.

“I don’t know. I’m probably paranoid, right?”

Both looked at her with unreadable expressions. “Well, you haven’t imagined the flower, right?”, Michelle asked.

No, she hadn’t. Just today, there was something on her doormat. She almost missed it, had she not stepped on it and almost slipped. Sweating and panting, she didn’t even put it into memory, but minutes later, when she finished showering, it came back to her. There was something at my door. Something I almost slipped at. So she found it. A flower. Not even beautiful, so to say. It had just one petal, but a huge one. Being completely green, without any other colour, this plant didn’t even look anything special. Google told her it was a lords-and-ladies. Something she never heard of before. As it was with flowers, some of them had special meanings. And this one, probably had one too. Since someone cut it and there was no chance it went there by accident, it was probably some kind of message. But what Google told her, left her breathless. Beginning to feel dizzy, her vision blurring, she stared at the search bar, telling her that lords-and-ladies stand for one thing: copulation.

“Are you sure you don’t have any admirers out there?”

She was. There were no guys she was dating at the moment, no past lovers for the last months. “There was only one guy I actually interacted with.”

“Uhh, Jen. Tell me.”, Tashi exclaimed with a curious voice.

“He was working at the Fries4Life and he was honestly really weird.”

“Weird is never good.”, Michelle said. “What did he do?”

“Don’t even remember.”

Then they started laughing. It felt painful. But laughing about something was still better and actually having to deal with it. How beautiful would it be if we could should laugh off all the creepy guys out there?

“Oh, you’re always so picky, Jen.”, Michelle laughed. “No guy is ever right for you. You always find something creepy about them and then you move on.”

“But they are all creeps, I tell you.”

Jenny forced a smile, but her fingers tightened around the fabric of her skirt. She didn’t want to be the paranoid one. The girl who jumped at shadows. But the flower had been real. The weight of it in her hand had been real. And the silence of the hallway outside her apartment had felt too thick, too expectant, as if someone had just stepped away. She tried a fake laugh, which seemed to please Michelle, since the expression of sadness vanished from her face. It was a special day for her, after all.

What Jenny didn’t know was that someone else was there with her. Lurking behind the section of dress shirts, someone was watching them. Someone with such a crooked view on women, that their last remarks on Jenny’s pickiness stirred something inside him. Jason watched her laugh with her friends, the sound bright and careless. It scraped against something raw inside him. She wasn’t supposed to laugh like that. Not when she hadn’t answered him. Not when she had walked away. Not when she talked about him like that, not even recognizing his flower as something beautiful.

He felt the same hook in his chest again – sharper this time, tugging hard.

Jason didn’t sleep that night. He lay awake, staring at the ceiling, tracing the faint cracks like branching stems. In his head, he replayed the conversation with the only person he thought about recently. Adjusting her tone, her expression, it began to match what he needed it to be.

She had smiled at him.

She had openly talked to him.

She liked him. It was obvious.

When the sun finally rose, he felt something settle inside him. Not calm or peaceful, but forceful. A point of no return.

At the end of this point, there was Officer Mile. He opened the door to the interrogation room, a cup of coffee in his hand. Already gone cold, he let the heat seep into his hands, not daring to take a sip.

The young man had stopped bouncing his knee.

Sitting at the desk, Mile opened the file. There was enough in there. Photos, statements. He didn’t push them across the table. At least, not yet. Instead, he said: “Tell me about the moment you decided to go to her apartment.”

Jason swallowed hard, his throat bobbing once. “There wasn’t a moment.”, his voice sounded rasp, like a speaker losing connection. “It just… happened.”

Mile felt a cold thread wind through his chest. Things like this never just happened.

“Do you remember killing Jenny Calmer?”

He looked up, his eyes watery. “I remember.”

“You went inside.”, Mile said softly. “And then what?”

“I just wanted her to listen.”, he whispered. “I didn’t mean to.”

Mile’s jaw tightened. “Jason.”, he said with force. “She’s gone.”

Jason flinched, a sharp movement, like a venus flytrap closing her leaves. “I’m sorry.”

It were these two words that terrified Mile the most. Unable to speak, he glanced at this young man before him. A murderer. Killed off a person. Somebody’s child, somebody’s friend, somebody’s life. And then he was sorry. As if this small sentence could do any good.

Rubbing his thumb over the indentation of his wedding ring, he thought about his daughter, now being in the age where he started to actively worry. How could he ever do something in a world where young women always had to watch their backs?

“I’ll keep her safe.”, he whispered. He didn’t even know who he meant. His daughter. Or Jenny. Maybe all of them.

And meters away, a strip of police tape sealed a door to an apartment where a young woman had lived. Her computer still open, the cursor blinking on the last sentence she had written: Sometimes danger doesn’t knock. Sometimes it waits.

Because sometimes danger just waits for the author to open the door. To find another flower. Sometimes a lavender, sometimes a calla lily. Or, just like today, someONE.