Gynophagia Chronicles: Samantha
Friday, September 11 2218, 2 A.M.
1120 Alsatian St. San Ramon, CA
Narative Reconstructed by Peter Howard
From the exterior the one hundred fifty year old home appeared like most others in the neighbourhood: wide front porch, low peaked roof that gave the illusion of a single story.
It had two advantages. First, its position. Second, it’s single inhabitant, an ancient man in failing health quite unloved by his offspring.
Ten years ago, Michael Gianni had found out, the immediate neighbourhood had been filled with such men, mostly. They had dutifully produced thirty or more children then roasted the wife in a celebratory feasts for their neighbour and sent their children off to the butcher shop with the occational, if rare, marriage for the most comely daughters. In the process, few of them produced any sons, and that was their downfall. Sons were expensive. Sons were not a tax write off. Sons did not, normally, end up on someone’s dinner table.
Messy, though it was, the system worked for the public at large. Mother’s might cry oceans at watching their daughters culled before they, themselves could be roasted. Mostly, husbands tried to replace Mom before such a thing happened, but it did not always work out that way. A roasting license, even in California, was quite an investment. Husbands, unlike wives, wept in silence for their daughters, if they wept at all.
“Did you weep, Mr. Amaral?” Gianni asked the corpse on the bed. The young man with the too beautiful yet manly face turned back to the linen closet and returned the pillow that had smothered Mr. Amaral to it. He then went to the window, parted the drapes, and gazed out the back yard.
Outside this home’s yard was expansive and generous as the rest in this neighbourhood, surrounded by a twelve foot high fence and hedge for the best privacy, but it also hid the neigbours’yards most inconveniently. Children and wives could sunbathe nude with complete privacy. The home did, however, sport a nice upstairs deck area that looked out over the rest of the yard complete with gazebo and hot-tub.
“Very quaint,” Gianni praised the corpse.
Outside Gianni found a staircase going down to the yard, which was practical enough. Inside the Gazebo he found it to be well appointed with orange cusions of polyester on benches surrounding the hot-tub and something he did not expect to find: a ladder that led up to the gazebo’s attic.
Above, inside the attic area, he found that not only was it spacious, that he could stand upright, but that there was a station complete with comfortable cushioned deck chair and a four to twelve x telescope that looked out over the surrounding yards. Barely any part of the neighbours’ back yards, except for what lay immediately next to the fences/hedges, lay exposed.
“Why, Mr. Amaral… I do wonder what it is you witnessed here… you old pervert!” Gianni smiled. “Perfect… just… perfect!”
Between two homes across the way Gianni noticed a figure shuffling down Beagle Street. Gianni focused the telescope onto the figure. He could see her perfectly now. The streetlamp revealed her flaming red hair, and crying as if she’d lost her best friend… perhaps she had. Then he stood thunderstruck as he recognized her as one of the Wells girls. Jenna Wells, if he remembered correctly. It was quite late for the Wells girl to be out. Even if she was technically no longer veal, she was still ostensibly her father’s property, and it was quite dangerous. It was also an opportunity missed. Few police would be bothered to look into the disappearance of a woman child out so late. Gianni would have to watch in case that one put herself out like this again.
What a missed opportunity… Gianni fretted. But no matter. The plan was still sound. Within hours the body would be discovered and the county, which had levied a tax lean on this property only weeks before would list it. The home would be placed on the market and Gianni’s new laptop back in Santa Cruz would alert the factor of a dummy corporation in Houston, which would make the purchase within seconds of the listing being made.
Gianni made a note of the brand of the Telescope. Bushnell. It was not likely it would be here when he returned, and it was of quite nice a quality… he’d purchase one after the sun came up…