David arrived home from his business trip late Friday evening. Oddly, his wife wasn’t there to greet him. However, there was an envelope on the kitchen counter with the words “Open Me” written in Monica’s handwriting. Opening the envelope, he found two thumb drives taped to a sheet of paper, with “Play me first” written next to one of the drives. Intrigued, he removed the thumb drive and, pulling his laptop from its case, plugged in the thumb drive.

“Good evening David. I hope you know how much I love you. We’ve talked about my darkly erotic suffocation fantasies. I understand your reluctance to help me experience them in real life, so I went to the dark web and found a serial killer, who, for the right price, was more than willing to help me fulfill my darkest erotic fantasy.”

Pausing to glance at the wall-mounted execution countdown timer, “Several minutes ago, I tightened the noose around my throat, carefully positioning the hangman’s knot just in front of my right ear. Then, pressing the ‘Start Timer’ button, I locked my wrists behind my back and started this ultimately fatal monolog.”

Glancing again at the wall-mounted execution countdown timer, “I see that my time is almost up, so I’ll be brief. The second thumb drive contains an unbreakable alibi for my disappearance. I’ve emptied our checking and retirement accounts and maxed out our credit cards. Then, using a series of untraceable wire transfers, I moved everything to a numbered account in the Cayman Islands. The account number will appear at the end of this video. Just promise that you’ll be careful spending it.”

As the timer counted down the final seconds, a faint smile appeared on Monica’s face, “The serial killer promised me that after I die, he’ll dispose of my remains so that no evidence of my death will ever surface. I also asked him if I’d struggle, and he assured me that it’s instinctive, that all women struggle. So, enjoy watching my dance of death. He also assured me that I should last almost thirty painfully torturous minutes before I finally strangled to death for your amusement.”

Helplessly watching the video, David felt his heart skip a beat as the timer reached zero and the overhead hoist activated, pulling his wife brutally upward by her neck.

It turned out that Monica’s hired serial killer was correct. She desperately struggled against the inevitable, her long shapely legs kicking and stretching in a hopeless attempt to escape her tortuously unpleasant fate. In the end, Monica’s erotic dance of death lasted almost thirty-five minutes. Then, with one final convulsion, her body hung lifeless from the noose.

As he watched, the screen slowly faded to black as a brief message appeared on the screen, “David, your wife hired me to arrange her suicide and to dispose of her remains after her death. I waived the fee for my services since Monica also agreed to go to her death starring in one of my snuff films. Expect royalties from her performance to continue to accrue in that numbered account in the Caymans for the next few years.”

Setting aside that first thumb drive, David inserted the second and tapped the play button, “David, I know we’ve had our problems, so I’ve decided to leave you. I’ve emptied our checking and retirement accounts and maxed out our credit cards. I’m sorry about taking all our savings. I’ve decided to start over somewhere where you’ll never find me, with a new identity and life. So, this is goodbye, and I hope you’ll move past this to have a wonderful life. Monica”

David played that second video twice, amazed at the air-tight alibi Monica had fashioned for him. Once the authorities watched this video, he’d play the innocent victim to the hilt. Shredding that envelope and note, he carefully hid that first thumb drive before calling the police. After all, Monica’s dance of death was far too diabolically erotic not to watch multiple times...