******

�Have you heard?� Carla asked Simone over hospital cafeteria coffee. �There were two more last night.�

�That makes what, four, five?�

�Seven. Two more came through the morgue last night, but it hasn't hit the press yet.�

�Jesus. Seven people.� Simone ran a hand over her leg clad in peach colored scrubs. It couldn�t be true, the hospital rumors about the victims, that they had all died in the throes of passion; had, in fact, died from an excess of pleasure and that each and every one of them had been alone when found. It made no sense to Simone, why her coworkers seemed to relish perpetuating the horrible story, or how it could possibly be true...

******

�Davis, get your ass to 366 Townsend, we have another one.� Ben Davis cursed and pressed the end button on his cell phone, the chief had already hung up. He hightailed it to the crime scene and found exactly what he hoped he wouldn�t- it was just the same as all the others.

This made the tenth death in less than a week, Davis knew they wouldn�t be able to keep things under wraps for long. The media would have a field day with the details: No forced entry, no signs of a struggle, nothing missing from the victims houses. And while every one of them, six females and four males, had died during or seconds after a climax, they had all been found alone in their locked houses. They all lived alone, none of them were seen in the company of another person recently and no one suspicious was seen in any of the areas before e or after the approximate times of death. The most puzzling and infuriating thing of all was the prints. Davis gnashed his teeth as he walked through the apartment and saw all the white dusting powder, same as all the other locations. Fingerprints covered nearly every surface of the room, including the bodies. It was maddening. They had lifted matching prints from all nine previous crime scenes, but the prints weren�t on file in any database they had searched.

�Damn. Do you believe the balls on this guy? To waltz in pretty as you please and put his mitts on damn near everything before he...what? Fucks these people to death? Shit, this is one sick fucking weirdo we�re dealing with.� Jacobs shook his head in disgust.

�We don�t know the suspect is a male.�

�What?� Jacobs stopped bagging the scarf he was holding and gave Davis a �where are you going with this� look.

�Well, none of the men are known homosexuals, for that matter, none of the victims seemed to have much of a social life at all. It could be a woman, we shouldn�t rule out the possibility. After all, what do we have to go on? Nothing but those goddamn prints.�

******

Tabby Wendover checked the temperature of the running water with her fingers. Warm, but not too hot. She poured in a generous amount of bubble bath, the good stuff her sister Beth had given her last Christmas. White foam began to cover the surface of the water filling the tub, she watched the tiny bubbles grow and multiply for a minute before adding another dollop of the liquid.

She dropped her robe but avoided looking at her flabby reflection in the not-quite-steamy enough bathroom mirror. Her fleshy boobs hung low on her chest touching the first roll of fat that folded over her stomach as she splashed down in the floral scented bubbles. Her girth and natural buoyancy made it difficult to maneuver in the small space, but she sank down until she was submerged to the neck, her knees bent and pressed against the sides of the tub. She let her right hand wander steadily over her wet skin, not lingering on any one part but moving with intent to the juncture between her cottage-cheese thighs.

Tabby closed her eyes and thought of �him.� Roger. Her boss down at the Stop & Go. She thought of his dreamy blue eyes and sandy blond hair, his thin-lipped smile and big, muscular body hardened by years of high school sports, showing no signs yet of going soft. She forgot she was easily ten years his senior, forgot how he routinely called her Tubby instead of Tabby, forgot that in real life he wouldn�t spit on her if she happened to be on fire; because in her fantasy he was different. He was perfect. He was hers. She could do as she pleased with him in her mind, and she called all the shots.

She toyed with her clit as she played out her favorite fantasy of Roger, the one where he calls her into the refrigerated storage unit on some pretense and takes her wildly, wantonly from behind while they peer out through the milk cartons in the case at the customers standing impatiently by the register.

She was so engrossed in her lust she never heard the bathroom door creak open or the tiny splash of something falling into the water. She was shocked to feel herself being penetrated as she rubbed her clit faster and faster. The digit was joined by another. Tabby moaned in rapture, so lost in a world of sensual sensation that she completely forgot the strange hand pleasuring her.

Tabby Wendover became number eleven.

******

�What exactly are you telling me, Carl?� Davis looked at the forensics expert over a stack of files.

�Just what I said. Five fingers, one hand. Believe me, we�ve gone over this twenty times and what it boils down to is that out of all the fingerprints lifted from every scene, the perp only touched things with one hand, the right one.�

�Damn, this case just gets weirder and weirder. Why the hell would this freak be that careful? I mean, why do you go to the trouble of only touching shit with one hand? Do they wear a glove on the left hand, and if so, why?�

Carl Jenkins shrugged and looked at carbon of five perfect prints all the fingers close together in sort of a circle, as if the person who left them had been leaning on that hand. Only, these particular prints were found on a magazine on the bottom shelf of a night stand by the victim�s bed. Carl was puzzled as to how, much less why, a person would contort themselves to lean in such a position.

�Maybe the perp only has one hand,� Davis said as the thought came to him.

�That would explain one thing,� Carl said, tossing the paper down on the desk between them. �But it would also open a whole new can of worms. The lack of bruising and marks on the victims is hard to account for already, but with one hand? I�d have to say that�s highly improbable.�

�I really hate this fucking case,� Davis said with a grimace.

****** Stuart Brock sat in his computer chair with his pants around his ankles while a busty brunette with freckles and a cock in every hole bounced and bobbed on the monitor. Stuart�s skinny chest rose and fell with his rapid breathing and beads of sweat rolled down his pimply face. It was a bitch to be without air conditioning, but when it came down to choosing between cool air or a new mother board for his PC, it was no contest. He couldn�t imagine how much more miserable his miserable life would be without internet porn. Sometimes, he thought he might actually die without it. The women were so beautiful, so willing, so hot for it. They were the closest thing to real he was ever going to get, they even made Stuart forget he was still a virgin at thirty five.

He was close, so close. He threw back his head and squeezed his eyes shut tight. He thought he felt something brush against his thigh, but ignored it. However, he couldn�t ignore the feel of fingers closing around his balls. He sucked in his breath and moaned, it felt incredible. He tossed his head from side to side as the hand moved up to replace his own. No one else had ever touched him there, he knew he had to be imagining it, so he never opened his eyes to see the hand that ended at the wrist wrapped around his dick. When he came it was the best orgasm of his life, and also, the last.

Stuart Brock made number twelve.

******

�We got a match on the prints.�

Davis thought his sleep deprived brain must be playing tricks on him. He could�ve sworn he heard Jacobs say there was a match on the prints, but the look on his partner�s face didn�t make sense.�

�Yeah, so what are we waiting for? Let�s go pick this fucker up.�

�I�m afraid it�s not that simple, buddy. See, the prints match a corpse.� Jacobs didn�t crack a smile as he said it.

�What the fuck are you talking about?�

�The guy they belong to was a patient at Meadow View Sanatorium.�

�You mean the old mental hospital off of highway 180? That place has been closed for years.�

�Yep,� Jacobs said. �It closed in �85, but the kicker is our guy died in �74. And you�re just gonna love this story. He was a chronic masturbator. They tried everything from lithium to a straightjacket, to shock therapy, but nothing stopped him for long. FInally, some less than scrupulous doc decided on a more permeant solution...he cut the guy�s hands off. It worked like a charm, but two weeks later the dude died from infection. But get this, not an infection from his stumps...the infection was in his dick.�

�You�re joking right? I�ll bet the chief put you up to it.�

�Man, you have no idea how bad I wish I was joking. As crazy as it sounds, all the evidence points to our perp being the severed hand of a guy who died thirty years ago.�

�Have I mentioned how much I fucking hate this case?�

******

Barney Wimple hated his name. He hated the Barney the Dinosaur jokes, he hated the Barney Fife jokes, he especially hated the Wimpy-Wimple jokes, he hated his dead-end job at the paper mill, he hated that he hadn't had a date in three years, since Betty Meyer had gone and got thousands of dollars worth of plastic surgery and told him to take a hike. Barney hated a lot of things, but he had something going for him that made life worthwhile: the promise of a future. All he had to do was wait on his dear old ma to kick the bucket, which the nursing home doc assured him could be any day now, and he�d have enough insurance money to live like a king.

Just thinking about all the poon he would be able to buy made him hard. he grabbed the phone and dialed his favorite chat line, not giving a good gosh darn about all the credit card debt he was racking up. He knew the soft female voice on the other end of the line would make up for a lot of the shit he went through on a typical day at work. Live sex chat was the next best thing to banging a real chick, and it made him even more excited to think about how one day soon, he would be able to go out to Carson or Monroe, or one of the other nearby cities whenever the urge hit and pick himself up a hooker.

Barney made the chick on the line treat him like a john, that was his favorite way to get off. He stroked his cock while she gave him a run down of all the services she offered and how much they would cost. He picked a straight fuck this time and she began to describe the scene for him. He was groaning into the receiver when a hand suddenly hopped up onto the couch between his spread legs. The groan turned to a scream and Barney swiped at the offending appendage, knocking it to the floor.

It landed on its back, the fingers wiggling madly as it worked to flip itself over. Stuart watched in mute horror as it turned onto its palm and drew itself up, using the fingers like legs to crawl towards him like a giant, five legged spider. He threw the cordless phone at it, but missed. The thing kept advancing. Stuart looked around in panic, keeping one eye on the hand at all times. He reached for the table beside him, felt his fingers close around a cold, hard object. Perfect.

He waited until the hand was almost on him before quickly lifting his right foot and bringing it down on the creeping fingers; the satisfying sound of crunching bones was reassuring as he ground his heel down hard. He slid off the couch and drove the flat head screwdriver through the back of the hand on the floor. The thing writhed soundlessly in pain for a few seconds before growing still.

Stuart picked up the hand impaled on the screwdriver as he fought back a wave of nausea. Not knowing what else to do, he called the police.

******

�Well, I guess it�s really over then,� Jacobs said with a frown at the bodiless hand floating curled up in the jar of formaldehyde in the evidence room.

�I guess so,� Davis agreed. The last couple of weeks had felt like being trapped in a bad episode of the X-Files to Davis. No one in the department knew what to make of it all, so no one talked about the case except to say how glad they were the strange shit was over and done with.

�Come on, let�s get out of here, that thing gives me the creeps.�

�Yeah. Let�s go to Kelsey�s, first round�s on me.� Jacobs slapped his partner on the back as they stopped to lock the door behind them. �Great, sounds good. Hey, don�t forget you and Alice are coming over for dinner Saturday. Linda�s making pot roast.�

�Wow, what are we celebrating?�

�The end of the freakiest case we�ve ever had the misfortune of getting landed with.�

�I hear ya, man. I hear ya.�

******

Simone folded the last of her scrubs and poured herself another glass of wine, glad to be done with the chore of Monday night laundry. She swirled the dark ruby wine around the glass, feeling sad that her life was so easily reduced to a clockwork list of tasks. She went to the bedroom and studied herself in the mirror; she had never been a beauty, but she didn�t consider herself a total skank either. �So why can�t I get a date?� she asked herself out loud to her reflection. Maybe it was time to start thinking about a vacation. She had some time coming from the hospital, maybe she should go on a singles cruise, or just go somewhere romantic, like Paris or the Bahamas, for a week. She sighed at her flight of fancy, there was no way she could afford such a lavish vacation. Maybe she would just break down and place an ad in the newspaper�s lonely hearts section.

The wine was making her feel warm and tingly, so she decided to break with her normal Monday night schedule and skip cleaning the bathroom. She stripped off her baggy flannel gym shorts, oversize T-shirt and plain cotton bra and undies, her normal wash day attire. Simone stuck her index finger in her mouth and sucked at the tip with a pout, performing for herself in the mirror. Then she took her wet finger and traced circles around her nipples, blowing on the moist skin, making the little nubs hard and erect. She cupped both breasts in her hands, squeezing and kneading before moving her hands down to pull apart the pink lips of her pussy. She gazed at her open sex in the mirror, already slick-looking and already damp from her excitement.

She didn�t see the disembodied hand inching towards her crab-like from behind with the thumb jutting out from the palm on the right side, indicating the hand was a lefty.