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“The teeth are the hardest part to scrub out of the floorboards.” Green says this while staring at the ceiling, his voice a flat, dead monotone.
He is forty-eight, though the last few hours have aged him into something skeletal. Beside him, Plum—thirty-seven and vibrating with a frantic, jagged energy—doesn't even blink. They're standing in the foyer of the Tudor Mansion. A few feet away, Yvette, the singing telegram girl, lies sprawled face-first. Her chin is skewed at an impossible angle, the result of the waist-height drop Plum and Green had executed with clinical precision earlier. There is no blood anymore, just a leaked, dark syrup staining the Persian rug.
The other guests drift in. They walk out of the hallway, stop before the corpse, and stare. Mrs. Peacock, sixty-three and smelling of mothballs and gin, looks at Yvette’s twisted limbs with the same interest she might give a smudge on a windowpane.
After ten seconds of silence, the guests simply turn around and walk back the way they came. No screams. No calls for the police. The horror has become a background hum, like the ticking of the grandfather clock. The air in the room is thick, smelling of old wax and copper.
“I’m gay,” Green says suddenly. His voice is raw, scraping against the silence. He doesn't look at the others; he just looks at the void. “And I’ve been married to Plum for twelve years.”
Plum lets out a sharp, wet laugh, his chest heaving. He reaches out, his fingers gripping Green’s shoulder with a bruising intensity. “It’s an open arrangement on my end,” Plum adds, his eyes darting toward Scarlet. “Because I’m bisexual, and I’ve been fucking Scarlet for six months.”
Scarlet, thirty-three and radiating a cold, predatory heat, steps forward. She doesn't look at the dead girl on the floor. Instead, she grabs Plum by the lapel of his suit, pulling him in. Her mouth crashes against his—a desperate, bruising kiss that tastes of desperation and iron.
She pulls back just enough to glance at Mrs. Peacock, who is staring blankly at a painting of a hunt. “You’re my biological mother,” Scarlet whispers, her voice a serrated edge. “And I’m going to bed.”
As the room descends into a confused, muted murmur, Plum’s hand shoots out. He grabs Green by the wrist, his grip iron-tight, and yanks him backward into the room with Yvette. The door slams shut, cutting off the light of the hallway. The room is freezing, but the heat between the three of them is suffocating. Plum backs Green against the wall, his body slamming into the older man’s with a visceral thud.
“Nobody can help us,” Plum shouts toward the door, his voice cracking with a manic edge. “None of them can hear us, and half of them might be dead by dawn! We’re having sex!”
Plum’s hands are frantic, tearing at the buttons of Green’s waistcoat. He reaches into his pocket, producing a small glass jar of petroleum jelly—a relic of his obsession with meticulous preparation. He coats his fingers, the slick lubricant glistening in the dim light, and forces Green’s legs apart. Green lets out a choked sound, half-sob, half-moan, as Plum sinks into him with a raw, wet intensity. Scarlet is there, her hands clawing at Plum’s back, her breath hot against the nape of his neck. They collide in a tangle of limbs and desperation, their bodies slamming together in a rhythmic, frantic desperation, oblivious to the corpse lying just inches away on the cold, hardwood floor.