Read an excerpt from Kill For Love by Laura Picklesimer

Laura Picklesimer’s writing will knock your socks off. Her debut novel Kill For Love is a visceral thriller bursting with satire and through-provoking commentary. It follows a sadistic sorority girl who has one desire: kill the hot boys at her school.

The book is dark and twisted in all of the right ways. Her debut is a pitch-perfect riot.

Prior to writing Kill for Love, her writing has appeared in the Santa Ana River Review, Bookwoman, Gold Man Review, the Pomona Valley Review the California Current Writers Series, and elsewhere. She has also won numerous writing contests including Enizagam Journal’s 2018 Fiction Contest

Kill for Love is available on September 12. You can read an excerpt below.

On Tuesday, I missed a morning fitness class at Elite Elegance, a Beverly Hills workout studio that combined belly dancing, yoga, and trapeze work performed with an aerial hammock. Instead, I had to settle for a standard spinlates session all the way over on Fairfax Avenue, the type of simplified, modifications-heavy class that attracted still-tubby new moms and the over forty set. Out shopping, the new outfit I wanted for the black-and-white party on Thursday failed to materialize, and I returned to my Mercedes with just a pair of Louboutin heels and a Prada clutch. I felt dejected driving back into Westwood with only a couple of accessories.

“I need you to record me,” I told Emily when I returned to my room. Maybe playing back my figure, watching the likes stack up, would brighten my difficult day.

“Make it look spontaneous,” I instructed her as I pivoted and blew a kiss.

Emily’s appreciative gaze would help soothe my nerves. The assurances mothers gave their daughters, that those blondes in the magazines had been photoshopped into impossible sizes or that Barbies couldn’t anatomically exist because women couldn’t support that hip-to-waist ratio—those were lies. I could prove it.

I paired the Louboutins with a white strapless cocktail dress embellished in black. It was a month old, but I hadn’t worn it in public yet. I hoped that Emily’s hungry gaze over my curves would be enough to boost my spirits, get me excited for another weekend of the typical drinking and slutting.

“You look amazing,” Emily said, handing back my iPhone. I’d post the video across three platforms and get at least a few thousand views in the next half hour.

I grabbed the white clutch and held it against my outfit. “I’m going to wear this combination to the party. What do you think?”

“That’ll be perfect. Who are you going with?” Emily asked.

“Tristan.”

“Tiffany and Tristan. That’s cute.”

“Sure,” I said. Other than being about 95 percent certain I had slept with him once during freshman orientation, I didn’t know much about the dude.

I didn’t bother asking Emily about her date; she wouldn’t be going. The prude didn’t even drink.

I had picked up a bakery item on the way home, a doughnut-type pastry with an explosion of confetti and pastel frosting. I untied the twine around the box and slid it open, careful not to disrupt the decorative collage inside. After I had taken it to the spot in the hall with the best natural light, I shot a dozen photos from different angles and then smashed the thing in the trash.

I went to the kitchen and grilled up some soy blocks, cutting them into tiny fourths and counting to ten between each bite. I looked at my watch. It was only 4:00 p.m.

In the common room, Mandy and Amy were sorting through a pile of fashion and style magazines. The sorority had a mail subscription to all the major publications that had never been canceled over the decades. I usually joined them at the beginning of each month: we liked to pore through the magazines and rip out advertisements for must-have products or fashion items, stopping occasionally if an intriguing title like “25 Naughty Uses for a Q-tip” caught our eye. We’d wait until we accumulated a fair number of ads and then order everything on our iPhones, sending a customized tally of our transactions to one another.

Amy looked up from her Cosmo. “Did you know that fifty-seven percent of five thousand men polled would rather undergo brain surgery than submit to anal penetration during foreplay?”

“Not Dan,” said Mandy. “He loves it.”

I grabbed an issue of Allure and flipped through it.

I had at least ten products from every major designer listed in the thing. I felt a sudden weightlessness, like when you’re slipping off to sleep, only to be jolted awake by the certainty that you’re free-falling, that nothing around you is real.

I realized that I’d be sitting on this couch again next month, when the winter issues were mailed, and I’d have every single item in those magazines, too. And I’d still have time left over because a two-hour workout and a four-store shopping spree weren’t enough to fill up an entire day. My hunger was back, and I wouldn’t eat again for hours.

My phone vibrated: a text from an unknown number, this time a 323 area code. I opened it, and a curved cock filled the frame of my screen.

I threw my phone down and felt for my throat, finding the pearl-drop necklace I’d worn every day since I was seventeen. My life coach called it my “force center” and encouraged me to touch it and count backward with slow, steady breaths any time I felt alone or anxious. I usually didn’t need to be calmed. I liked being alone, and I was rarely anxious. I felt numb most days, unsurprised, bored. Today, though, was different. I resisted the urge to put the necklace in my mouth and feel the smooth pearl against my tongue.

When I returned to my room, Emily was eating from a tray of celery and carrots. She smiled and held it out, proud of herself.

“Nice try,” I told her. “But that ranch dressing contains more saturated fat than a cheeseburger.”

I grabbed a pile of celery sticks and fell back on my bed. I began snapping them in two.

“Have you ever had an existential crisis?” I asked her.

“Would all of middle school count?” 

“No, being awkward and unpopular isn’t what I’m talking about. Do you ever feel like you’re not acting like your true self?”

“No.”

“I mean, is there more that you wish you were doing than just living in the sorority house?” I asked.

“Of course. I’ve always wanted to visit Cambodia. And I dream all the time about finishing med school, maybe starting my own clinic.”

What would happen when I was forced to finally graduate? I’d live alone, that was for sure, no more roommates. As relieved as I would be to no longer sync my menstrual cycles with a dozen other girls, I wondered what I’d do with my time every day. People got jobs, I supposed, but wage earning wasn’t exactly my vibe.

“Seriously, that’s it?” I said.

“Well, what do you want?” Emily asked.

I didn’t have an answer. The soy blocks had failed to fill me, and I was already feeling the familiar pangs of hunger again. I scrolled through my phone, past the hearts and likes and confirmation emails from the day’s purchases. I looked through my photo library of sunsets and tiki drinks, uneaten buffet feasts, hollowed stomachs, that perfect triangle of emptiness between my inner thighs and the sky. I stroked the soft leather of the Prada purse I had bought that day and thought about the carcass it had been peeled from.

“I want everything.”

On Thursday, I wrapped up my daily activities early, giving myself two hours for makeup contouring and hair. Tristan was picking me up at ten. Thursday was the night of the week that the frats hosted their biggest parties and everyone got the most wrecked. We’d spend the remaining weekend in recovery mode.

As I got ready, I thought briefly about canceling. I’d barely slept the night before. Tristan wasn’t worth all this primping and plucking. I wondered if any guy I had slept with was. The alternative, though, was sitting in bed for the night, trying not to sabotage my diet on Emily’s arsenal of junk food.

Tristan arrived in a Corvette, which was pretty annoying, since it practically skimmed the ground. My legs sprawled out under me, and I could tell my dress was starting to wrinkle on the drive to the party.

I caught a glimpse of Tristan’s outfit. He had chosen the exact same color distribution that I had: a solid white base with accents of black. We looked way too matchy-matchy, especially since our hair was pretty much the same shade of blond. I entered the party with him praying that no one would think we had coordinated.

The party was typical, held at a rented space about a mile from Greek row. A cheap wooden stand served as the open bar, stacked with midrange liquors, and the dance floor was already inundated with a bunch of Sigma Nus. About a half hour into the party, a dozen Delta Gammas stumbled in. My house had pre-partied heavily. I usually laid off the alcohol because it made no sense to spend the day limiting my intake to 800 calories and then go ruin it with a bunch of cheap frozen margaritas.

An hour into the party, I had downed only a vodka and Diet Coke. Tristan was pretty drunk. I pulled him away from his frat brothers, and he took it as a come-on.

He slid his hand from the small of my back over my ass and kept his hand huddled there like a moron. Then I had a sudden vision of Tristan screaming. The image was brief: a guttural yell equal parts pain and satisfaction. I felt a burning urgency, like a shot of Bacardi 151 fanning out through my system. I suddenly knew that tonight, something worthwhile was going to happen. And I would be in control every step of the way.

“Do you want to ditch the party and go back to the frat house?” I asked.

“We just got here,” Tristan said. He grabbed my wrist and leaned closer. “There’s a back room that we could use.”

He pointed off the dance floor to a small lounge area. A girl was puking into a trash barrel nearby.

“I want to go back to your place,” I said, twisting away from his grasp.

“Let’s stay here,” he said.

I went ahead and revealed the plan half solidified in my head: “I’m interested in exploring more deviant forms of sexual expression tonight. I think a private room would be best.”

He looked at me for a second. “I’ll get the car.”

“You don’t need to tell anyone else we’re leaving,” I said, and pulled him toward the exit. “You good to drive?”

“It’s only a mile away,” he said.

On the car ride, my stomach tightened, intestines knotted. I had eaten only a veggie cauliflower rice bowl and some kale chips that afternoon, which put me at about 600 calories for the day. I clutched my abdomen as hunger pains sliced through me. Reaching for my phone out of habit, I counted the views from the videos I had taken at the party. Then I turned it off. I stared at the dark of my eyes reflected in its blank screen.

 “Do you have any gum?” I asked Tristan.

“Look in the passenger-side door. I’ll take one.”

I pulled out a pack of peppermint Trident and popped three pieces in my mouth, then gave one to Tristan. I chewed for the entire car ride over, but the gum only further roused my appetite. I swallowed it when we got inside. The smell of the frat house was welcome after a long summer at the sorority, the stifling scents of competing perfumes, all too fruity and candied. Here there were notes of piss and beer, a trace of vomit, and the overriding ripeness of fresh boy.

Tristan’s room was on the top floor of the empty frat house, away from the main hall. The space was bigger than I remembered. Next to his bed were a small wet bar, a table, and chairs. I sat down at the table and motioned for him to do the same. He was reluctant.

“Why don’t we relax on the bed?” he asked. “These chairs are pretty uncomfortable.”

“Sit here first,” I insisted.

Tristan approached the bar and poured a shot of Jack Daniel’s. “You want something? I’ve got Malibu,” he said.

I liked to set up a bottle of Malibu behind me when posing for selfies—it always lent a carefree, Californian mood to the occasion, but I never actually drank the stuff. I let him pour me a glass and didn’t touch it.

“Why are you attracted to me?” I asked, after he had taken a seat next to me.

He sighed and took a drink. “Because you’re hot. And seem interesting. And popular.”

I didn’t know exactly what answer I was expecting from a fuckboy like Tristan.

“Popular?” I asked.

“You know, well liked.”

“I’m popular, but I don’t know about liked.”

He shrugged. “Well, being beautiful is more than enough.”

I smiled. It was true, I was beautiful. I’m also smart, I wanted to add. But that had never gotten me likes. Or laid.

Tristan’s hand reached for mine—only for a second, though—then slid down my thigh and under my dress. I could foresee the usual course of events. If he could even get hard at this point, there was probably no way he’d be able to finish in a reasonable length of time.

“Let’s go to the bed,” he said again.

I looked at his bed—it wasn’t even made—and back at Tristan. Behind him, I caught a glimpse of a knife, serrated and about six inches long, resting on a cutting board next to a chopped lime. Such a simple tableau, and yet I suddenly saw the possibilities, the promise. The knife could do so much more than service drinks for frat boys.

“I want to play a game first,” I said.

I took his hand and placed it palm-down on the table.

“Keep it there,” I said.

I went over to the bar and grabbed the knife. The weight of it felt good in my hand, appropriate.

“What are you doing?” he asked.

“Put your hand back on the table. I want to play that game where I try to get it in between your fingers.”

“No,” he said, pulling his hand away.

“I’m not going over to that bed until you play.”

“Fine. But you don’t even know how to fucking play. I place my hand on the board,” he explained, putting his palm down, “and I get the knife.” He reached to take it from me.

In one fluid motion, I swung it down as hard as I could over his hand. He pulled back with lightning speed, and the knife stuck into the wood of the table.

“Dude!” he said, jumping up to his feet. “You almost got my hand!” 

“You have amazing reflexes,” I said, feeling my first flash of attraction toward him. I stood up.

“That was not cool.”

“Calm down,” I said, touching his shoulder. “I was playing around. It’s just a game.”

But I was anywhere from calm. In that moment, I recognized the developing desire that had been circulating unnamed in my head for the past few weeks, that had been slowly crystallizing inside me over the course of the night. My heart beat against my chest, and I felt a rush of anticipation, a new energy. I was a predator. And Tristan was prey. I wanted to see blood, to feel the same fire that fanned across the streets in my dreams.

“Calm down,” I said again. I stroked the pearl on my necklace, my hands trailing lower down my body. I pulled my phone out from the hollow between my breasts, where I had stored it earlier for safekeeping, and I threw it on Tristan’s bed. I grabbed the hem of my dress and pulled it up my thighs and over my hips, revealing the La Perla lingerie set that I had bought over the summer. By the time the dress rounded over my chest, Tristan was beside me, helping lift it over my head.

I pushed him back into his seat and straddled him. As we began making out, I eyed the six inches of knife, still stuck in the wood. I’d need to keep him distracted for another few minutes, long enough for him to miss that one of my hands was reaching away from him. Tristan tried to pull down my panties, but I widened my legs and made him take off his shirt instead.

He was a blank canvas. The perfect masculine equivalent of me physically, only I noted that he didn’t regularly tan, so there was a discrepancy between the skin tone of his face and chest. I ran my hands over his pecs. He shaved his chest—I had never decided exactly what my opinion on this matter was, since aesthetically, it helped display muscle tone, but practically, it scratched like hell and could produce unsightly rashes. 

This wouldn’t be an issue, though. We weren’t making it to Tristan’s bed tonight.