This intentional experience was akin to Dorothy stepping out of Kansas’s gray prairies into the vibrant Technicolor world of Oz. Daydreams never captured the feel of tense flesh, the scent of nervous sweat, or the truly rapid rise and fall of a woman’s chest. The mind had nothing on reality.

He liked this new world, and he did not want to return to the black-and-white realm. This journey was a one-way ticket, and this experience needed to be repeated. The risks no longer mattered. What mattered was duplicating this high.

He straddled the woman and angled her face so that their gazes met. She strained her head up, pressing the soft white skin of her face against the thin plastic. The gag in her mouth made it impossible for her to speak, so she moaned her one last plea for her life.

“You and I are the same in many ways. As much as we try to convince ourselves we’re in control of our addictions, we’re not. It’s just too powerful,” he said. “You understand, right?”

She shook her head, attempted to scream, and expended the last of her oxygen. He tied the drawstring in a bow, double knotted it, and rose on his knees. He lifted her and laid her on a large piece of plastic. He rolled the bottom edge of the plastic over her feet, wrapped the right edge over her, and tucked it in under her body. As she groaned and moved her head from side to side, he gathered the opposite section, tucked it under the other side, and tightly swaddled her. Next, he covered her face, muffling her waning screams.

He reached for a roll of packing tape and yanked a length of it from its spool, the firm jerk echoing in the abandoned room. She flinched. Her struggles resumed, but they were slower and sloppier.

Round and round the tape went, encasing her thin body around the midsection, feet, neck, and finally her face.

Her moans had softened to a dull mewing, and her muscles spasmed only involuntarily now as she consumed the last traces of the oxygen. Like a flickering light bulb, her filament glowed red with the last relics of energy before going dark.

Rising, he wiped the sweat from his brow and stepped back. The cool-night-air temperatures would rise back to the unseasonable nineties tomorrow, and the heat, combined with the magnifying effects of the plastic, would melt her flesh and sinew at an accelerated rate. Left alone here in this old house, she would turn to mush in a matter of weeks. Of course, there was the risk she would be found sooner rather than later. This old house, chosen for several sentimental reasons, had been sold, and the new owner planned a renovation and flip. Given the growing market in Southeast Austin, crews would arrive within weeks.