This was a good group. Raoul and James – his best bud – and Louise from Samantha’s office and Some Other Woman, who’d arrived on James’s arm. Was her name Katrina or Katharine or Karina? Jamie’s blonde of the week. Samantha had dubbed her Text Girl.

The men continued their discussion of politics, as if they had money on the outcome of the election, Louise was now trying to discuss something serious with Samantha and the K woman texted some more.

‘Be back,’ Samantha said.

She rose and started along the antique floor, which was – after the three glasses of anti stress wine – not as even as it had been when she’d arrived. Easy, girl. You can drink fall in the Hamptons, you can drink fall in Cape May. You don’t drink fall in Manhattan.

Two flirts from the tiny bar. She ignored them, though she ignored one less stridently than the other. It was the fellow sitting by himself at the end. He was a slim guy, pale – only goes out at night kind of skin. Painter or sculptor or some other artist, she guessed. Handsome, though there might be a weak chin factor if he looked down. Piercing eyes. They offered one of those  glances. Samantha called them ‘laps’, as in a dog lapping up food.

She got a chill. Because the look went on a little too long and then got scary.

He was undressing her, looking over her body.

She regretted tapping his eyes with hers. And continued quickly to the most challenging route the restaurant offered: the narrow stairway down to the restrooms in the basement.

Clunk, clunk …

She made it.

Dark and quiet down here, clean, which had surprised her the first time she’d come to the place. The people who’d renovated had spent plenty of time making the dining rooms rough edged rustic (yeah, we get it: French and American countryside ), but the bathrooms were pure SoHo. Slate, recessed lighting, ornamental grasses for decoration. Mapplethorpe on the walls but nothing too weird. No whips, no butts.

Samantha walked to the W , tried the door.

Locked. She grimaced. Provence2 wasn’t big but no fucking restaurant in the world should have a single occupancy women’s room. Were the owners crazy?

Creaks overhead, from footsteps on the sprung wood flooring. Muted voices.

Thinking of the man at the bar.

What was  I doing, looking back at him like that? Jesus. Be a little smarter. Okay? Why flirt? You’ve got Elliott from work. He isn’t a dream boy but he’s decent and dependable and watches PBS. Next time he asks, say yes. He has those sweet eyes and he’s probably even pretty decent in bed.

Come on, I’ve gotta pee. One damn restroom?

Then, with a different pitch of creak, footsteps were coming down the stairs.

Clunk, clunk …

Samantha’s heart thudded. She knew it was the flirter, the dangerous one.

She saw boots appearing on the steps. Men’s ankle boots. Out of the ’70s. Weird.

Her head swiveled. She was at the far end of the corridor. Nowhere to go from here. No exits. What do I do if he rushes me? The decibel level in the restaurant itself was piercing; nobody would hear. I left my cell phone upstairs, I –

Then: Relax. You’re not alone. There was the bimb in the restroom. She’d hear a scream.

Besides, nobody, however horny, would risk a rape in a restaurant corridor.

More likely it would be just an Awkward Incident. The slim guy coming on too strong, pushing the flirt, growing angry, but ultimately backing off. How many dozens of times had that happened? The worst injury would be branding her a cocktease.

Which was what happened when women glanced at a guy. Different rules. When men did the glancing, oh, it was all right. With men, oh, that’s what they do.

Would things ever change?

But then: What if he was a real psycho? With a knife? A slasher. The man’s piercing eyes had suggested maybe he was. And there was that murder just the other day – some girl in SoHo killed in the basement.

Just like here. Hell, I’ll hold it–

Then Samantha barked a laugh.

The boot wearer appeared. A fat old guy in a suit and string tie. A tourist from Dallas or Houston. He glanced at her once, nodded a vague greeting and walked into the men’s room.

Then she was turning back to the door of the W .

Come on, honey. Jesus. You got your slutty makeup on just right? Or are you puking up your fourth Cosmo? Samantha gripped the knob again to remind the inconsiderate occupant that there was a queue.

The handle turned.

Hell, she thought. It’d been unlocked all along. She’d probably turned it the wrong way a moment ago.

How stupid can you be? She pushed inside and swept the light on, letting the door swing shut.

And saw the man standing behind it. He wore coveralls and a stocking cap. In a flash he locked the door.

Oh, Jesusjesusjesus …

His face was burned! No, distorted, mushed under a latex hood, transparent but yellow. And rubber gloves, the same color, on his hands. On his left arm, a sliver of a red tattoo was visible between the end of the glove and the start of the sleeve. An insect, with pincers, spiny legs, but human eyes.

‘Ahhhh, no, no, no …’

She spun about fast, grabbing at the door, but he got to her first, arm around her chest. And she felt a sharp pain as he punched her neck.

Kicking, starting to scream, but he clapped a thick cloth over her mouth. The sounds were absorbed.

And then she noticed a small door across from the toilet, two by three feet or so, open onto a blackness – a tunnel or passage to an even deeper basement, below the restaurant.

‘Please!’ she muttered but the word was swallowed by the gag.

Growing limp, growing tired. Hardly afraid anymore. And she realized: the neck punch. He’d injected her with something. Before sleep took her completely Samantha felt herself being eased to the floor then dragged across it, closer and closer to the black doorway.

She sensed warmth, felt the trickle down her leg – fear and the lack of control as whatever drug he’d stuck her with took effect.

‘No,’ she whispered.

And heard a voice in her ear. ‘Yes.’ The word was drawn out for a very long time, as if it weren’t the assailant who was speaking but the insect on his arm, hissing, hissing, hissing.

The Rule of Skin …

As he labored away on his new victim’s very nice belly with the American Eagle, Billy reflected on his fascination with the substance, God’s own canvas.

Skin.

It was Billy’s canvas too and he’d become as fixated on it as the Bone Collector had been on the skeletal system of the body – which Billy had found interesting reading in Serial Cities . He appreciated the Bone Collector’s obsession but frankly he couldn’t understand his fascination with bones. Skin was far and away the more revealing aspect of the human body. Far more central. More important.

What insights did bones give? Nothing. Not like skin.

Of the integumentary organs, which protect the body, skin is the most evolved, far more than hooves, nails, scales, feathers, and the clever, creepy arthropod exoskeletons. In mammals, skin is the largest organ. Even if organs and vessels might be maintained by some alternative Dr Seuss contraption, skin does so much more. It prevents infection and is an early warning system against and protection from excessive cold and heat, from disease or invasion, from ticks to teeth to clubs and, under certain circumstances, even spears and bullets. Skin retains that vitally precious substance, water. It absorbs the light we need and even manufactures vitamin D. How about that?

Skin.

Delicate or tough as, yes, leather. (Around the eyes it’s only a half millimeter thick; on the soles of the feet, five millimeters.)

The epidermis is the top layer, the beige or black or brown sheath we can see, and the dermis, into which a tattoo machine’s needles must penetrate, is below. Skin is a master at regeneration, which means that the most beautiful tattoo in the world will vanish if the needles don’t go deep enough, which would be like painting the Mona Lisa on sand.