It was such a blast- getting the Blooms to like him, sucking them in, making them think he was this great guy. Meanwhile, only he knew the truth, the game plan, what was really going to happen. Only he knew that they all had only a few hours left to live. He felt so powerful, like God must feel- in total control, totally messing with their lives.

Johnny helped Dana clear the table and load the dishwasher, and then he helped her reset the table for coffee and dessert, blackout cake. Adam had an after-dinner drink- a shot of brandy and was officially smashed. Dana and Marissa were a little tipsy, too, but Johnny wasn’t even buzzed.

After helping Dana with the dessert dishes, Johnny returned to the living room. Adam must’ve gone to the bathroom or something; Marissa and Johnny were alone for the first time all evening. Marissa came over and put her arms around Johnny’s waist. Her breath smelled like chocolate and wine.

“So how’d I do?” Johnny asked.

“You did amazing,” she said. “My dad was just telling me how much he likes you, and he’s never said that about any guy I’m dating.” She pulled herself in close to him and looked at his lips, whispering, “You want to come up to my room?”

“Yeah, I’d love that,” Johnny said. In the foyer he added, “Can you just get me my jacket? I need something in there.”

“Sure,” Marissa said, smiling, probably thinking he had to get condoms.

She brought him his jacket, and then they went up to her room. As she went in ahead of him, he looked down the hallway, figuring that was her parents’ room down there at the end.

She put on Enya’s Watermark- did every woman in the world have this?- and then locked the door and took him by the hand and led him toward the bed. Like yesterday, when they started kissing her hand moved toward his crotch, and this time he didn’t move away.

“Can you turn the music down a little?” he asked. “It’s distracting me.”

Actually the music wasn’t distracting at all- nothing ever distracted him when he was in the zone- but he wanted Adam and Dana to be able to hear all of the sex noises loud and clear.

Back in bed, Johnny gave Marissa the full Johnny Long lovemaking treatment. He took his time with her, using all of the techniques he’d mastered over the years. He worshipped her body, paid attention to what turned her on and what didn’t. Finally, when she was practically begging for it, he went down on her. She was moaning softly at first, but when he really got into it, she lost control, probably forgetting where she was. He stayed down there for a long time, pleasuring her again and again.

When he was through with her, she was so blown away, so thoroughly satisfied, that it took her several minutes to recover, to be able to speak.

“My God,” she said. “That was amazing. I’ve never come like that before… ever.”

Maybe women always said things like this to men in bed, but in Johnny’s case they meant it.

“There’s more where that came from,” he said.

They had sex, and Johnny got her off in a way no guy ever had before. After all, what was his competition? She was only twenty- two years old. She’d probably been with, at most, ten guys in her life, and they were probably all immature, unskilled lovers like that dork Darren. Yeah, like that weasel really knew how to satisfy a woman. She’d never been with a real man before, a true Casanova, and she couldn’t get enough of him. As he built toward his own orgasm, he grunted louder and louder, until he was practically screaming, so Adam and Dana would have no doubt what was going on in their daughter’s bedroom.

Lying in bed with Marissa afterward, Johnny was waiting for her to fall asleep so he could shoot her, put his plan in motion, when she whispered, “I think I’m falling in love with you.”

Whenever Johnny heard that word, “love,” he wanted to laugh. Love was such bullshit. It was just a word that people said to each other because they thought they were supposed to say it, because they’d heard people in movies say it.

“Really?” Johnny said, playing along. “Don’t you think it’s too soon?”

“No,” she said. “I know how I feel. It’s different than it is with other guys. I feel really attached to you.”

Wow, Johnny was impressed- with himself. He’d really pulled this thing off perfectly. It was one thing to pick up a woman at a bar and screw her- practically any guy could do that- but how many guys could get a random girl to say “I love you” in only a week?

“I feel the same way,” he said sincerely.

“You do?” Her eyes got big.

“Yeah,” he said. “I mean, I know we haven’t known each other very long, but I feel a really strong connection with you. I didn’t think it was possible to fall in love with somebody so quickly.”

He didn’t know how he was able to say all of this without throwing up. She was so excited that she started kissing him and rolling around with him on the bed, saying things like “Oh my God” and “I’m so excited.” Johnny didn’t get it, how one word, “love,” made people so happy. Sometimes he felt like he was the last sane person on the planet.

Johnny was pretty excited himself, but not for the reasons Marissa thought. He was just getting off on this whole situation- getting a girl to say she was in love with him and then killing her and her parents, ending all of their stupid, meaningless lives; it just didn’t get any better than that. The only bummer was that very soon, within an hour or two at most, it was all going to end. He’d get away with the engagement ring, other jewelry, and whatever else he could carry out of the house, but he’d put so much work into this, getting Marissa to fall for him, getting her family to fall for him, that it felt like a waste not to get more. Johnny figured Adam Bloom had to be worth millions; the house alone had to be worth at least a couple of million. It seemed crazy to just walk away.

One thing about Marissa, she loved to talk, and she was so happy and “in love” that she wouldn’t shut up. She kept yapping away about all this boring stuff, about how she wasn’t sure what she wanted to do with her life, how she loved art but she wasn’t sure she wanted to work in a gallery, yadda, yadda, yadda. She’d been thinking about moving to Prague, but now that she’d met Johnny she wasn’t so sure about that anymore. She was thinking of just applying to grad school if a job at a museum didn’t come through. Johnny acted like he was interested, occasionally giving her suggestions like “You should do whatever makes you happy” and “You have to follow your heart.”

“So what do you think of my parents?” Marissa asked.

“I think they’re great,” Johnny said.

“Yeah, I don’t know,” she said. “I mean, they’re good people, and I love them, but it’s so hard to live here with them sometimes.”

He nodded, like he felt so sorry for her. Yeah, right.

“It was funny,” Marissa said, “when you talked about them being happy, because they’ve been so miserable lately, fighting all the time. I mean, it’s been pretty stressful, with the shooting and all the media attention, but they’re definitely not the world’s happiest couple.” Suddenly she looked like she had a big secret, and she said, “You won’t believe what I found out the other day.”

“What?” Johnny asked, looking across the room at his leather jacket, on the chair by the desk.

“My mom’s cheating on my father,” she whispered.

“Really?” Johnny said like he was surprised- yeah, right. He’d spotted her right away as the type who played around, who was always looking. Johnny Long was never wrong about a woman, ever.

Marissa told him she’d heard through a friend that Dana was cheating on Adam with this guy Tony, some trainer at her gym. So she went for the jocks. That wasn’t very surprising to Johnny either. Cheating women always went for the opposite of what they had at home.

Marissa wanted to screw again, and Johnny thought, Jesus, what was it going to take to make this girl fall asleep? Another mind- blowing orgasm seemed to do the trick. Marissa was curled up into Johnny, her head resting on his chest, starting to doze. It was almost midnight, so Johnny figured Adam and Dana were probably in their bedroom, asleep or falling asleep.