Killer Women (12 page)

Bill snapped out of his trance. He had to get Lori out of that house somehow. He was not prepared to risk losing Lisa for a silly one-night stand. In any case, that was not the way Bill Buss ran his life. He was an honest, decent citizen who just wanted to lead a perfectly normal, trouble-free existence.

‘I am going to bed, Lori. You can stand here all night if you like. But I’ve got to get up early.’

Bill stomped away towards his bedroom. He was seriously pissed off but he could not think of any other way of handling the situation other than physically throwing her out of the house. And Bill was far too much of a gentleman to even consider that option.

Maybe now I can get some peace, he thought as he slipped back into bed. He was convinced she would let herself out of the front door and leave him in peace for a few hours. Lori Esker had no such intention.

She had been thinking through every moment of her great seduction scene for the three hours it took to get to Bill’s home. She had her own masterplan and she was about to put it into action.

She had to act swiftly. She did not want Bill to fall asleep – then he would be useless. She craved
physical satisfaction as well as that long-term aim to be his wife and mother to his children.

Standing there in the hallway of the tidy bachelor house there was only one thing for it. A plan that no man would be able to resist.

Lori hastily unbuttoned her blouse. It dropped to the floor. Then she wriggled out of her tight-fitting skirt. Anticipation flooded through her veins. It was just like earlier when she changed her outfit at college, but this time the object of her desires was just a few feet away.

Wearing just that dark blue silk teddy and those high white heels, Lori walked slowly through the darkness towards the bedroom she had once got to know as well as her own.

She opened the door silently. It was as if she were a burglar desperate not to be heard. The truth was that she was an intruder and she had plans to steal Bill’s body. Not surprisingly, Bill was already drifting off to sleep and did not hear a sound as his seductress crept into the bedroom.

Lori stopped momentarily and looked at Bill’s broad, naked shoulders as he lay curled up like a young child in the double bed. She had to have him. Still ever so quietly, she lifted the sheet that covered him from the waist downwards and knelt over his body.

Both his legs were caught between her thighs
now. She had him trapped. She could even feel the points of her stilettos sticking into her own buttocks. It was a pleasant, if slightly painful, sensation.

Bill was shocked. He knew exactly what was happening. But he could not actually comprehend what Lori was trying to do. She must be crazy, he thought to himself. He lay there, too stunned to move. In any case, she had him firmly trapped between her thighs. There was no escape. But then how many men would want to get away from this?

‘I am going to have you, Bill. Nothing will stop me.’ Lori’s hand darted down between Bill’s legs and grabbed at his penis. She started to stroke him. It was virtually impossible – even for Bill – not to start getting an erection.

‘I cannot stop wanting you, Bill. You have to satisfy me.’

Bill was wriggling now. Trying to loosen her
vice-like
grip on him. While one of her hands continued caressing him, she began to stroke her own nipple through the midnight blue silk teddy.

Lori was telling Bill in her own inimitable way that if he did not return her passion she would still satisfy herself. And there was another, almost as strange, aspect to this as well. For she started to talk in fantasies – to tell him about her innermost thoughts.

‘I love watching you on the tractor. It makes me
excited to watch you with that thing between your legs.’

Bill was astounded. He had never heard a woman talk like this. Lori wasn’t shocked though. This time she was the one driving that tractor, in a sense. And the sexual excitement was going through her body like a rush of adrenalin.

She closed her eyes and remembered how months earlier she had watched Bill on his tractor. She recalled how she would focus in on his buttocks as they jigged up and down slightly in motion with the movement of the vehicle.

She watched transfixed for ages. She kept speculating that maybe he had an erection as he drove the tractor. But then Bill was not really the type of guy you asked those sort of questions. Instead, Lori kept it stored in her memory bank for those lonely moments when she was lying on her own in her little single bed at college.

There was something about the tractor and the way Bill would sit astride it. She kept imagining she was that seat. She would fantasise that he was sitting on her, dominating their love-making. The reality of the situation was that she was always the one on top.

And, as she sat firmly on his naked body that night, she was reminded yet again of those sexual preferences. Bill, meanwhile, was dumbstruck. He did not know how to handle the situation.

A beautiful blonde, dressed in a silk, partly
see-through
teddy complete with white stilettos was trying to force him to have sex against his will – and better judgement. And Lori’s enthusiasm knew no bounds. She was gently rubbing her body against his chest in a desperate attempt to get him aroused. Her left hand was still stroking his groin. Squeezing and then pulling at it. Never letting up. She would not let go. She wanted him to keep a full erection.

Then Bill snapped. He could not stand it a moment longer.

‘Get out. Just get out and leave me alone. I don’t love you. I love Lisa.’

Lori ignored Bill for a few moments still. She continued her desperate efforts to arouse him.

‘Get off me. Just get off me.’

Bill’s final outburst actually worked. Lori stopped in mid-stream. She clambered awkwardly off her former lover and walked out of the bedroom without saying another word.

Minutes later, he felt a great surge of relief when the front door slammed shut.

Bill hoped he had finally got Lori permanently out of his life.

‘I’ll pay cash. It’s just that my grandma needs me to help her move house.’

Lori sounded desperate to the rent-a-car woman
at Wolf’s Auto Centre, in River Falls. She was really one year too young to qualify for a hire car but Kassandra Hotchkiss felt sorry for this
well-mannered
, attractive young girl. After all, she was going to help her granny.

‘Just this time, we’ll make an exception. But you make sure you don’t get in any trouble.’

It was typical of Lori really. She had that sweetness and charm that almost always got her precisely what she wanted. She used to love twisting her mom and pa around her little finger. At the family’s 450-acre farm in Hatley, Wisconsin, it was no surprise she ended up being crowned Marathon County Dairy Queen in 1989. She wanted that title badly, so she went out there and got it. Butter wouldn’t melt in Lori Esker’s mouth, they all used to say. And all the boys at Wittenberg-Birnamwood High School used to worship the very ground she walked on.

Back at the car rental office, Lori was delighted and relieved that she had managed to hire a vehicle. She had got a very important errand to run that evening. It was something that she was sure would change the whole course of her life. Lori wanted to be certain the lady in the rent-a-car office knew precisely why she was hiring a car. It was all part of one of those master plans that Lori was so fond of having.

She also wanted a car that would definitely get her the 125 miles from college back to Birnamwood, where she aimed to make a very important rendezvous. The journey between River Falls and Lori’s home area was mainly one long quiet interstate freeway much like many of the motorway routes that dominate the United States.

There was never much traffic on the road and that meant it was not the sort of place a young single girl should drive alone in a less than reliable car. Hence her decision to hire a vehicle.

The drive was fairly monotonous. The car had a radio but no cassette deck. Lori had to make do with some less than endearing radio stations blaring out rather dated 70s hits like the Eagles and Steve Miller. Next time, she thought to herself, I must make sure I ask for a car with a cassette machine.

But the easy drive did give her an opportunity to think about Bill. Even the way he had rejected her seduction attempt did not put her off. She convinced herself he was just a shy kind of guy and, in any case, it was Lisa’s influence that was making him less responsive towards her. But Lori was going to do something about that.

Then Lori began thinking about the good times – the moments she was determined to re-live when he became her husband. Her mind began to drift once more towards her own private fantasy – his tractor driving.

Now she was nearing the moment when she could really influence their future together. That determination was in itself a pleasant sensation for Lori. She liked to be in control. She did not like losing at anything. She nearly lost Bill. Now she was going to win him back – whatever it took.

Lori’s rented Dodge saloon car hardly stuck out amongst the other vehicles parked outside the Rib Mountain Howard Johnson Motel in Birnamwood. This was the sort of place where travelling salesmen make overnight stops during their high-mileage trips from town to town in middle America. And the majority of them drove cars very similar to Lori’s Dodge.

Lisa Cihaski had just finished her late shift at the motel and was walking towards her own car parked just near the Dodge.

‘Hey, Lori, what you doing here? I thought you were at college?’

Lisa was surprised and edgy. There was only one possible reason for Lori to be there.

‘I must talk to you, Lisa. Now.’

Lori’s voice was cold and unemotional. She was virtually barking an order at Lisa.

The two girls got into Lisa’s car. There was no one else anywhere in the car park that night. No witnesses to the horrors that were about to occur.

‘You’ve got to stop seeing him,’ said Lori. ‘He’s
mine you know.’

Lisa was astounded. She had always known about the existence of Lori. After all, her love affair with Bill the first time around had long fizzled out when he met and fell for Lori. There was no suggestion of Bill two-timing one girl for the other. But Lisa was also painfully aware that Lori had been very upset when Bill had broken off that romance to go back to his former love.

There had been incidents in the previous few weeks. Like the time Lori had called her a ‘bitch’ and a ‘slut’ when their paths had crossed in a local bar. It was humiliating in public but Lisa did not really think twice about it. She put it down to a bit of
old-fashioned
jealousy. She could not believe that Lori would take things any further.

Bill had not dared tell her about the midnight visits. The silky teddies. The high heels. The demands for sex. He probably knew she would find it difficult to believe that nothing had happened on those fateful nights.

Now Lisa was facing Lori alone. It could end in trouble but nothing she couldn’t handle. Or so she must have thought at the time.

Lori had one great advantage over Lisa: she had been planning this moment for quite a while. She knew exactly how she was going to handle the situation. She wanted Bill back. She believed he was
rightfully hers.

‘You know I may be pregnant by Bill, don’t you?’

Lori’s outburst was deliberately timed for maximum damage. She had caught her rival off guard. Lisa was stunned. She did not believe Lori. She knew how obsessed she was. She was not going to give up her husband-to-be that easily.

It was a shock for Lori. She had calculated that Lisa would be knocked sideways by this revelation. She had convinced herself that it would destroy any love Lisa might have for Bill. But she could not have been further from the truth.

‘I don’t believe you. You’re lying because you want him back.’

This was not all going according to Lori’s carefully staged plan by any means. Lisa was showing the one characteristic that Lori did not know how to handle – unswerving loyalty.

Lisa believed in Bill. She had also known him for much longer than Lori. She knew he would have told her first. He was an honourable, simple kind of guy. He just did not deceive girls. That’s why she wanted to marry him so badly. In Lisa’s mind, that was precisely the reason why she would end up being Mrs Bill Buss, not Lori.

‘I tell you it’s true,’ said Lori.

It was a last desperate bid and it was falling on deaf ears. Lisa knew it wasn’t true. Lori’s plan had
backfired. Now she had to think fast. She had no intention of just letting Lisa walk off with her man. She had thought she could warn her off with the pregnancy story. It was not enough.

‘Get out of my car,’ said Lisa. ‘I never want to see you again as long as I live.’

She never would.

Lori looked around inside that car. She wanted to do something to Lisa. She wanted to punish her for stealing her man. She wanted to leave Lisa with something she would never ever forget.

In the back seat of the car, Lori saw a blue belt. If she could somehow get to that belt then she could teach Lisa a real lesson.

Lisa, meanwhile, was getting impatient. She wanted Lori out of her car … and out of her life.

Something snapped at that moment. Lori leant over and grabbed at the belt.

Lisa could not fully comprehend what was happening. She looked quizzically at Lori at first. Unsure what the other girl was doing by taking that belt from the back seat. Within seconds, Lori had wrapped it around Lisa’s neck. Now she had the upper hand. Now she could make her rival squirm, apologise for muscling in on her man.

The shock and surprise of what was occurring combined with the sheer brute strength of the heavier-set Lori was too much for Lisa to contend
with. With a soft cry of terror, she tried desperately to pull the belt away from her neck. But she could not even get her fingers around it. The inside of that car felt icy cool as the belt dug deeply into her windpipe. She tried to grab at it but she could not summon the energy. Already, all that life was being drained away from her lithe young body. Her heart felt swollen by the sheer terror of what was happening. It was pumping furiously. She could feel it hitting her chest each time.