Triplets

Among all groups of people, there are a select few who don't quite fit. Not in the way that they cannot or refuse to, on the contrary, they are almost so ordinary that is seems unusual. They hold hobs, treat their friends and carry out their affairs much like everyone else. But just as one’s eyes are the windows to the soul, there are some houses with only concrete walls. The front lawns are meticulous, the picket fence bland and white and the flowers, if existent, are quietly pruned unobtrusively.

You would think that once your relationship with an individual progresses, the depths of their ocean would reveal itself layer by layer. It becomes easier to immerse yourself into their moods, faults and desires, once you have placed trust in someone and have chosen to attach the pronoun "friend" to their name floating in your mind.

It might be possible to fill libraries with shelves upon shelves proclaiming titles simply discussing the nature of humanity and the intricate makeup of a person’s character, but none would be able to explain this elusive and ever changing topic. There is no way to look at a face, really look into it, and understand the ins and outs of all the connections they make in a minute or even a second. How can you then presume to comprehend the deviants, sociopaths, apathetic atheists, or the clean cut mister from next door whose smile may be wide but never enhances the deep but stoic marble of his eyes?

Rebecca James Henry was a quiet child who grew into a perpetually calm but always calculating adolescent. She had soft dark hair, thin, tapering fingers and solid, cold brown eyes. Her strong points were maths and basic science and her writing always followed a strict pattern. An English teacher once noted that a tale written by the pupil would always have a defined beginning, middle and end which were measured like a haiku, not equal but regimented.

Structure is important in anyone's life, but if she was honest, Rebecca's doctor would have recommended she seek help for her extreme obsessive compulsive behaviour. Of course to reveal her rituals would be a thought quickly eliminated as it might add to the clutter.

Everything had to be perfect and pleasant, whether it was her appearance, relationships or dinner plate. As a kid, her parents were surprised at Rebecca's distaste for fast food. of course, to her it was very simple; the meals could not be cut into equal pieces without a mess, tended to get stuck under her nails and the napkins and decor always seemed garish and out of place. She detested the little packets of condiments that came in takeout bags and sometimes finished their journey in her friends’ fridges. Their contents could never end up in a unified mass, the Heinz ketchup bags would always hold onto remnants of their charges in a maddeningly messy episode of passive aggression, which left her with an intense loathing of McDonald's, Kentucky Fried Chicken and Taco Bell. Pizza she could occasionally handle because of its measured slices and consecutive toppings, but burgers with their lopsided meat and half-heartedly uneven vegetables were a no no, especially followed by a mottled array of French fries. The way the potatoes were cut could only be described as having been hacked with a meat cleaver by a one eyed dunce with no thumbs.

when she was eleven, Rebecca arrived home from school one day, and as she changed out of her regulation pleated skirt, knee high socks and starched white collared shirt, she noticed that there was a rusty crust of blood on her thighs. One would think that she might be horrified to discover that a slow trickle had travelled down her left leg and just barely stained the top of her sock. Her response was to make a soft clicking sound with her tongue and crouch down to assess the damage. Curiously, she reached out a finger to place it hesitantly against the rivulet of red. Once the contact was made, she pressed until she could feel the skin of her calf and dragged her index finger up the crimson track all the way to the v of her thighs. She stopped at her stained panties and then moved to the opposite unmarked pale skin of her other upper leg. The accumulated liquid hovering on her fingertip she then smeared in a symmetrical design, all the way down to her right cotton sock.

As she carefully removed all offensive garments from her body, Rebecca smiled and hummed a tuneless ditty, proceeding to bag and toss her knickers and footwear. The shower that ran for two hours until the water was ice cold, took place straight after and was finished before Mr or Mrs Henry returned to the home.

She scrubbed herself until her skin was raw and protesting and then stood shivering in front of the full length mirror with toilet paper bunched between her legs until she was dry.

When her mother returned to the house at seven thirty to prepare dinner for her husband and cut a separate sandwich into four triangular pieces, Rebecca was already at the library. The internet was too unruly and you could never map out the route you had taken to reach a conclusion. Books had the exact phrase you were looking for, with clear black markings on solid paper telling you page number, author, publisher and place of printing. Later in life, even if her essays were lacking zest, their footnotes and bibliography held power just by their infallible perfection.

Rachel Henry was confused when some of her hygiene products mysteriously disappeared, but remained clueless until she became worried her only daughter might not be receiving adequate information at her school. When Rebecca smiled and laughed at her mother’s obvious lack of intuition, Mrs. Henry felt her heart sink a notch lower as she realised her child would never share her hopes or open her heart as she herself once had in days that seemed so long ago.

Studious and responsible as she was, Rebecca had always played tennis on a regular basis, and once she trained competitively there was another shade lowered over her dark irises and fathomless pupils. Her games were ruthless, generally victorious, and the handshake that followed, notably limp.

If touch was required in a situation, it would be mute, using the least amount of contact possible without appearing overly standoffish. Sometimes the recipients were surprised her skin wasn't cold, lacking blood pumping towards a diamond heart.

Nevertheless, miss henrys friends were always appreciated to the best of her ability as she was also notably generous. Neither was she unattractive, although she appeared awkward to the opposite sex, or maybe just too contrite.

As the age of fifteen approached, Rebecca was slowly walking home from a school dance and caught the eye of an eighteen year old boy named Michael Santon, driving a brown Pinto. He'd had two beers but was only mildly buzzed as his friends had elected him designated driver. The other two boys were almost shit-faced as they passed a joint laced with angel dust back and forth between the passenger and middle back seat. Their names were Cameron and Pet Wrengle and while they were not fully boisterous, their voices were loud and slurred. The brothers’ eyes were also glazed and bloodshot and their movements were beginning to take on a nervous and semi frantic quality as they bantered.

The car slowed to a crawl as Michael eyed Rebecca's jean clad ass. His companions noticed his renewed lack of interest in their antics and while Pete chose to smack his hand against the back of the driver’s headrest, Cameron was beginning to feel his heart race as she rubbed sweaty palms into his shorts.

"Fucking pervert," he said, his voice taking on a choppy quality as he continued, "What haven't you been laid this century shit-head?"

Michael turned quickly to his friend and merely sneered.

"Whatever punk, at least my mom doesn't suck me off as a bedtime story."

Cameron punched him in the arm as his brother guffawed and the car swerved. They were inching closer to Rebecca and Michael rolled down the window to rest his forearm on the sill.

"Hey baby, want a ride?" he called and leaned further into the night air.

Rebecca sped up her pace but made no move to round her shoulders or appear in any way intimidated. Her cell phone was at home in its cradle, its blue light blinking in the blackness as it charged in her silent room. Her uncreased bedspread that had never encountered a stuffed toy she felt affection for remained unruffled, and would until five thirty the next morning.

The memory would always feel blurred while the images it conveyed were stark and permanent. She would match the two instances where there was blood leaking out of her, and compare the imprinting lines of fluid. The colours were different, the hue of the second batch lighter and clumped with semen. Both times she rectified the problem and returned equality to both legs before erasing both markings with soap and scalding hot water. Although this time, the older version of Rebecca removed her black thong and placed it in a plastic Ziploc bag that hid in a shoe box under an ordered house of playing cards.

"Black means you're a whore you goddamned slut."

After that comment she wore nothing but black and red undergarments. It was a symbolic act of defiance reminiscent of the screeching tires as the brown Pinto swerved and pulled onto the pavement blocking her path, but opening a small door in her brain.

That weekend, Rebecca cleaned her room twice a day and cooked dinner for her parents. She finished all her homework and studied for a test she would take the following Tuesday. When she got to school on Monday, the only thing that could have been considered unusual was that her mood was almost chipper.

The summer was close at hand, and the report card that arrived a few months later at the Henry home was stellar. Her parents were never disappointed in their child and that year was no exception as her exam results exceeded the yearly average.

Rebecca's fifteenth birthday had been a few weeks before, and it was a nice occasion as the family went to dinner with several of the birthday girls' close friends.

Exactly four weeks, one day, three hours and twelve minutes after the last day of examinations, Miranda Wrengle knocked on her eldest son’s door, entered the room and started screaming. The shrill keening sobs eventually reached the ears of her four year old daughter who ran into the room adjoining hers where her older brother, the middle child, slept.

The floor by his bed was wet so she tiptoed over the sticky carpet and pulled the hand hanging off the edge towards her. It slipped out of her grasp and she fell into the puddle she hadn't wanted to let her whole foot experience.

"Petey?" she whimpered and stood up to look into his face.

When the first officer found tiny Lauren Wrengle in the smallest room of the house with blue shutters, there were tears still careening down her cheeks. Her lower lip was trembling as her mouth opened and closed, her right cheek pressed against her brother’s forearm as her little hand clutched his large one. She was crouched beside his bed wearing a white nightgown with pink and purple flowers that had become soaked with blood and urine.

Michael Santon's cold and lifeless body was found three days after, naked and castrated in an unused meat freezer in the bowels of the warehouse where he worked. His mother and father gave away his golden retriever after it continued to sleep at the foot of his bed.

eventually, a police officer was shocked for ten minutes as Rebecca j. Henry described to him with relish in intimate detail what she did the night it was determined all the boys had stopped breathing. He asked if she required a lawyer and was further surprised when she replied that it was "unnecessary".

A month later miss Henry stood trial for the murder of three youths. Their families sat dumfounded, horrified at her testimony and when she finally reached the description of the night she had been brutally raped, Mrs. Wrengle made a noise of outrage. She gasped as Rebecca showed the court the transparent bag containing the soiled black thong.

After the accused finished speaking, she pulled out a plastic syringe filled with oxygen, and before she could be stopped, inserted the point into the artery in her neck. Her face contorted briefly as she pressed the stopper and the needle remained rooted in her jugular. It was over very quickly.

The autopsy performed on Rebecca showed that she was pregnant with triplets and that every foetus was determined to be male.