The Inspector

I am an inspector. I inspect women’s drawers (both kinds), their clothing, their hairbrushes and toothbrushes, their soaps and shampoos. I inspect the inside of their mouths, their ears, their privates, searching for elusive answers to their enigmatic nature. I inspect their credit reports, their receipts, their recent purchases: shoes, coats, hairclips. In short, I inspect anything that begs to be inspected. That is my job. That is what I do.

Take, for instance, my most recent case. Twenty-six years old. Hazel-green eyes. Sharp tongue. Was a stripper in a nightclub for two years. Currently works as a checkout clerk at a bookstore specializing in Crime and Mystery novels. (Never read any of them myself; I prefer Proust to Poe, Chekhov to Chesterton.) Dumped her last boyfriend after he got her pregnant, and extorted money from him for an abortion by threatening to call it rape. Cute.

Yes, a real cutie. Bumped into her at a party of a mutual friend, a guy who knows everyone worth knowing in this shitty town. Got to know her over a drink or three. Said she was “available,” but only to men who weren’t interested in anything apart from sex and conversation. Told her I was her man, that I was only interested in exploration, not in engagement rings. That night, we explored each other. In the morning, I explored her stuff.

I sniffed out more than just her cheap bottles of perfume when I got up to use the toilet; there was cash in the till, a safe I discovered hiding behind a large painting of a pot of melting flowers in the living room. I wanted to inspect more, inspect the pile of papers on the floor, where the combination might be found, but she was calling me from the bedroom, and I had to go back. What do you do? she asked, startling me. I’m a journalist, I said. A writer, of sorts.

Oh, a writer! she exclaimed. What kinds of articles do you write? Journal-istic things, I replied. I cover murders, mostly, though occasionally I also do write-ups on restaurants in the area. Interesting, she said, as she stroked my naked back (we were sitting in bed now). What made you decide to write about murder? Just simple curiosity, or…? Oh, I don’t know, I lied. I suppose it’s human nature to be interested in such macabre things. It’s a job.

We were silent for some moments. She stopped stroking my back abruptly and said, I have something to show you. Come. I followed her into the living room, where I had seen the safe and the stack of paperwork. Can you keep a secret? she asked. Yes, I said, though I had no idea of what she was getting at. She smiled at me then, a conspiratorial look in her eye. OK, turn away for a moment. I heard the sound of the large flower painting being moved.

I admit that I contemplated seeking out some sort of object — anything heavy would do — and clobbering her over the head with it once she had opened the safe. I wished to inspect it, you see, for what I imagined was inside, and then make off with my reward. I was slow on the uptake, however, and when the smell hit me I nearly fainted. Look inside, she said, inviting me to poke my head into the dark, smelly hole. I took a deep breath and put my head in.

Inside the safe I could make out the faint outline of some object, but it certainly wasn’t money. No, it was something I hadn’t expected. A rotted human head. The head of her ex-boyfriend, the one who had gotten her pregnant, she said, without any hint of emotion. I pulled my own still-intact head out and gulped a mouthful of air. She was still smiling at me, wondering, apparently, what I was thinking. I tried not to show any emotion.

That’s not all, she said. Would you like to see something else? I nodded, despite myself, as she closed the safe. Come back into the bedroom, she said. I obeyed, despite my better instincts. I was shivering, and also feeling nauseated by what I had seen in the safe. Sit down, on the edge of the bed, she told me. Again, I obeyed. She handed me a brown, rectangular package with brown string tied around it. Open it, she said. I want you to inspect it.

My unsteady hands began to untie the string. I paused for a moment. Where had I seen this brown package before? I was filled with a sense of foreboding. I dropped the package on the bed. Tell the truth, I said, I lied to you before. I’m not a journalist, and I’ve never covered any murder cases before. None of this is my business; it’s not my gig. I mean, thanks for sharing your secret hobbies with me and all, but, actually, I must be going, as I’m late for an…

She hit me over the head with what she later referred to as a “blackjack,” and I went down. I awoke tied up and naked, a gag in my mouth, lying beside the pseudo-Surrealist painting of flowers, which once again hid the safe from view. I wanted to inspect so many things, for this woman was truly a mystery to me, but with my wrists and ankles tied I could do no such thing. I lay there for hours, waiting, watching a tiny spider wend its way up the wall.

Occasionally she unties me, beds me, then lets me sniff at her hair, her armpits, her feet. She even allows me to inspect her wardrobe, to sample her skin salves and to smell her stockings. She says that I am a good slave, and that if I continue to be a good slave, she will let me live. (She has assured me that the head in the safe isn’t the first.) I don’t object to this arrangement: I am still an inspector, she still an enigma. Everything is in its proper place.

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Marc Lowe is currently pursuing his MFA in fiction at Brown University. His work has appeared in various journals, including 580 Split, Big Bridge, Caketrain, elimae, Farrago’s Wainscot, >kill author, Retort, The Salt River Review, Sein und Werden, and Storyglossia. His novelette, “Girl with Smear,” appears in issue 3.4 of Prick of the Spindle, and in early 2010 a collection of 23 short fictions will be published by ISMs Press as an e-book. Visit www.malo23.com for more information.