Tap tap tap tap tap, said the typewriter.
“Excuse me?”
Tap. The determined sound of the last period punched in was like a needle piercing an eyeball, final and a little moist.
“Yes?”
She looked at me from behind horn-rimmed glasses with eyes like iron nails. You could have balanced an apple between her shoulderblades. Her skin had a wrinkled, worn-out look, like paper that has been folded and opened too many times. Her lips were blue and her gums were as pale as her skin, barely hugging the coffee-yellowed teeth when she opened her mouth in a rictus that was not a smile. Her mahogany desk was an orderly kingdom of documents and stationery. Her sticklike fingers rested lightly on the keys of the typewriter, a black, polished Underwood. Somehow it reminded me of a throne, the seat of some invisible king.
“They sent me from upstairs,” I said. The air down here was humid and hot and I could feel a droplet of sweat running down my spine, like the teasing finger of a dirty old man.
“Ah,” she said. “One of those.”
“The, uh, manager said that you’d type up the contract.” I waited for her steely gaze to soften a fraction. It didn’t.
“That’s my job,” she said.
“So…” Tap-tap-tap — “… do you need any extra information or do you have it all there?”
The carriage of her typewriter had started moving again even though her eyes were still fixed on me. A slightly pained look appeared on her face.
“It’s perfectly fine,” she said. Tap-tap-tap. “Take a seat, please. This will only take a minute.”
As I waited, she attacked the typewriter with an intensity that approached fury. The sound of typing rose to a machine-gun crescendo, punctuated by the little songs that the carriage return sang. Droplets of sweat appeared on her forehead. An errant lock escaped from her tight bun but she did not stop to brush it away.
When she was finished, she leaned back in her chair and sighed. Then she stood up, pulled the document from the typewriter’s maw and handed it to me. As she leaned over the table, we were very close for a moment. I could smell moisturiser, a tang of bitter sweat and something more putrid beneath. Then her lips brushed my ear, dry as paper.
“Please,” she whispered. “Kill me.” She pressed something cold in my hand. It was a paper knife, terribly sharp. Her eyes pleaded.
I looked at her. Her hands rested on the table. The fingertips were red and raw, mottled with dried blood and thousands upon thousands of scars, the marks of tiny sharp teeth.
Only when I looked at the document I was about to sign and saw the wet crimson words slowly seeping into the bone-white paper, I understood.
Tap-tap-tap, said the typewriter.
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