He was always a light sleeper.

“I like this hotel better than the last, the curtains compliment the carpet. Very few of the rooms we’ve been in have been able to accomplish that.”

Lust attempted to make conversation since she had already woken him up, but he seemed already distracted by the fact that she was completely naked. Engulfed in only the patterns of smoke flowing upward from her cigarette, she poured some rum into a glass.

He grabbed his sketch pad and murmured, “You’d make a great corpse” as he scratched the surface of the paper with his worn out HB pencil.

“You’d make a great man whore. Oh wait, you already are.” she replied as she laid in front of him smirking.

He put down his sketch pad.

“I want a massage, I had to lift a cadaver earlier and I strained my back. Be a doll and get to it.”

She laughed at him and began to put her clothes on.

He grabbed her arm, and held her down firmly.

Her pupils dilated and the hairs on the back of her neck stood at attention.

She nearly wanted him once more.

“You’re the only broad I’ve ever met who needs to be told twice. Does it entertain you when I put you in your place? I believe it does, because you constantly provoke my authority.”

She downed the glass of rum and told him what he needed to hear.

“You creatures, males as they call you, are creatures of habit. You hunt, catch, and devour. Well, I’m the antelope who makes you run your little lion heart twice over. My speed, different from the rest, attracts you. Although you could catch another, much easier to subdue kind of prey, you want the one you can’t have. You are right. I provoke you. I challenge you. And I damn right make you put me in my place because by doing that I remind you that you are the roaring lion, and I am the graceful antelope. Yet sweet confusion, does the question then not arise? Am I the one keeping you in your place or are you putting me in mine? Is the man the head and does the woman turn the neck every which way she pleases, or does the head move the neck only when needed? You can answer that Thursday. We’ll meet back here, I like their curtains.”

She grabbed her holster and slammed the door on her way out.

He looked toward his lab coat and sighed, there were three more days until Thursday.

“Levator Labii Superiorus. Don’t tempt me, you know we’re on the clock.”

She brushed her hand up against her gun and was reminded of the tasks at hand.

The lights flickered as she watched his shadow disappear and reappear.

He flowed as he worked, like a king in his throne, he was right where he needed to be.

The perfect temptation.

“The only way to get rid of a temptation is to yield to it.”

She remembered seeing that on one of her victims mugs one time.

She began to recite this, but he interrupted:

“Don’t speak.”

Like a doe in the forest, her eyes spoke of caution, her body swayed only slightly.

“You speak of your cages, yet you provoke the lion in his den. Do you not see that your beauty is your only protector? If it were me out there playing cats and dogs, in an instant the games would cease. With you, it’s flawless. It’s unexpected. They look at you and see magazine covers, not realizing that you hold army knives in your garters. It’s a psycho-potential mockery of every male out there who’s life you end. Yet you sit here, provoking the very man who cleans up your messes.”

Lust is red with fury, her fists itch and her spine rattles.

“What if I decide to no longer colaborate with you? Just one day, up and decide that I’m no longer your anatomical janitor. Hm? What then sweet princess?”

She grabs her duffel bag and an extra pack of ammunition.

“You’ll get a psycho-potential mocking and a goodbye kiss like the rest of them, sweet prince.”

“Oh aren’t you sweet.” he mumbled as he turned around to zip up the rest of the body bags.

He didn’t have time for her provoking, and she was already late.

Lust contemplated her answer as she listened to the sound of the food crushing in her mouth.

“I think its a contemporary lack of self control. We refuse to deny our true beings. We realize that we are animals, and that the predator will always seek its prey. Murder is a feeling, and so is rage and happiness. You and I do not separate the three among them. You see just as much beauty in a painting as you see in a dry corpse. I see just as much beauty in the first breath of a child, as I see in the last breath of a victim. It’s in all of us, we are just the ones who choose to unleash it.”

Vinnie took a deep breath. He had to control himself from ravishing her right then and there.

“You’re somethin’ else you know.”, he spoke in a muffled tone so she would not hear the desire in his voice.

She smirked as he turned his back and remembered that one night where his self control was not as ingrained as it was today.

The sound of the gloves snapping on his hands awoke her from the entrancing day dream. She watched as he dug his hands into the bubble of fat that laid on the examination table and thought,
“Those same hands have been all over me.”

He threw the over-sized liver into the weighing bin and began humming an old french song as if he was in a welcoming cafe, not a cold and sinister morgue.

This is what Lust enjoyed about him.
He too saw the beauty and the macabre elegance of being elbow deep in things most people fainted only thinking of.

They were both the anomalies.

The rejected elite.

She continued to elaborate her theory. Knowing full well that she would reel him in with her every word.

“You see my dear, it is like a beast. Most choose to contain this beast, deep into the cages of the soul. We choose to let it breathe. We choose to let it roam free. A calm creature that feeds only ever so often. The others harness it, and just as any encased beast does, it tears at the walls of its confinement. The struggle translates into curiosity and soon the people find it harder and harder to deny the fervor. That is when you hear the bimbos on TV say:

“A middle aged man was arrested today and is being investigated in the murders of three women. Friends of the suspect say that the event was completely out of character and that they would have never expected a good man like him to commit such horrendous crimes.”

And so you see my sweet pea, they burn the candle at both ends until the cage no longer holds and the beast no longer folds.
We are the lucky ones. We are made of flesh and the omnipresent talent to allow ourselves to be the creatures we truly are. The predator will always seek its prey.”

He unbuckled his belt and she knew her words had reached their goal.

The predator will always seek its prey.

“I need new tires”, Lust says as she slams the door and closes the garage.

Advertisement panels leaning onto a wall read:
“Visit Clean Crematorium Today! We offer financing!”

Lust takes a last breath of clean air and enters, “Oh peaches, this smell will never get old will it? Looks like we got a full house tonight, can you fit me in?”

Vinnie turns around with a smirk on his face, he removes his mask and tightens his lab coat.

“No, silly goose, it will never get old. Neither will you, and yes, I’ll postpone the old dame in the right corner and do your burn instead. Did ya have a good time with her at least?”

Lust ignored his question and went to the garage to get what was left of Miss Plastic 101.

She never shared that kind of information. Her missions were not only her job, they were her hobby.

To her, the screams were beautiful melody’s, the blood drops were trickles of art, and the memories were her own personal art gallery.

“Vin, you know how this goes. I do my job, I bring the job to you, and you finish it by destroying anything and everything I give you. Now hurry up, doll. We were gonna have lunch weren’t we?”

Their relationship was riveting. Both challenged each other intellectually, and found themselves smirking at each other many a time.

Lust enjoyed his company, and to Vinnie, Lust was the only company with a heartbeat that he could find pleasure in being around and conversing with.

Vin emptied the remains into the bin and pushed them onto the retort, “I’ll do these at 1600°, not much left of her to burn anyway.”

Lust shrugged and went to grab some sandwiches from the back, “You want turkey or ham?”, she asked.

“Turkey. You know I can’t stand that damn swine.  Now, your meat on the other hand, I wouldn’t mind looking under.”

This flirting was primordial, morbid, and down right offensive, but Lust fathomed in his lack of shame.

“I’ll enjoy some swine then just fine, and as for my meat, that you shall never greet.”

Lust smirked and they both laughed as the smoke from the body slowly crept its way up the chimney walls.

She had sealed the deal and done the job.

A bag of incriminating DNA samples laid next to her Vogue magazine.

Lust was gonna read up on the latest fashions before bagging up what was left over of the bimbo’s plastic infused corpse.

There was a reason she was the best in the business. A reason her methods left nothing behind.

“To make them dust, is a must” was what she always mumbled to her predecessors.

She picks up her phone, the black latex of her glove sticking to the phone like bees to honey.

“I’ll be bringing in the smoke for the fire soon, would you like to grab lunch after?”

The male voice on the other end chuckled and said “Yeah, perfect, I’ve been meaning to get out of this place all day.”

Lust joined in the laughter and hung up knowing full well that he never wanted to leave the crematorium to begin with.

She closed page 74 of Vogue and decided that she would incorporate the themes of the Spring Collection in her exit.

The bio-hazard bags she filled had much texture to them, her walk out the door had flow, and her soul, colorfully transparent.

She filled the trunk with all her tools and changed clothes.

The drive to the crematorium was somber, typical, and overall nondescript.

Perhaps Lust was getting too good at this.

Perhaps she cared less.