FRIDAY AM, THE DAY OF...
He sleeps beside me, his arm draped over me like the cover on a book. I feel the hair on his arm grazing the bare skin of my stomach, which rises with each
labored breath I take. This has happened exactly this way a hundred times. I've woken up before him, feeling his hot breath billowing against the back of my neck. He is so close to me, so physically close.
Yet, I feel we are miles apart.
The feel of isolation does strange things to my mind, and though I know this, I am no less a victim to my own madness. Danny, especially at strange times in the
mornings, doesn't seem to exist. And if he does, he's a mere ghost of his former self, a holographic sliver of the man I fell in love with.
Always, a hundred times at least, I lay in bed, beneath the weight of Danny's possessing arm. I lay in bed and think betraying thoughts, as if to validate my grim reality and justify my future behavior.
But this morning, something's different. I can feel the other body in the room. She's a forceful presence, as forceful as I wish I could be. Gazing at me, she
knows I'm not asleep, though my eyes are tightly shut. When I open them she is closer, standing near me, staring at me with that way she has of tilting her
head back and sizing me up. As if to give me a stronger sort of relevance. As if her seeing me is the proof I need to know I exist.
She bends down to whisper something in my ear. She's oblivious to my nudity. The backs of her fingernails brush my chin. And I'm strangely aroused.
"We need to do it now," is what she whispers. Her breath is warm like her faint touch. Her words are tiny breezes on the arm draped over me. Can he feel her too?
Before the sentence is punctuated in my head, she's gone.
Danny shifts beside me. "Honey," he says, rubbing his eyes. "What time is it?"
"It's dawn," I tell him, but I can't be sure myself.
"Shit," he says, because he has to get up. Rolling off his side of the bed, he stretches his arms and yawns. I continue lying there, staring hard at the empty doorway like she were still there.
"You getting up?" he asks, running his fingers through his hair.
Danny doesn't wait for me to answer. He walks around to my side of the bed and leans down to kiss me on the cheek. Pausing slightly, with a look of pity in his
eyes, he adds, "Make me breakfast, baby." And with a slap of my thigh he heads for the shower.
Sunday AM, five days before...
I was in the garden when she drove up in a white convertible, wearing dark shades to match her hair.
"Excuse me," she called but I knew she was the type who never needed excusing. "Is this Hickory Street?"
I shook the dirt from my hands. "No." There was a slight quiver in my voice, like that of a child in front of the classroom. "This is Maple Lane. You want the next street over." I pointed with a dirty finger.
"Next street?"
"Yes," I said, thinking in my mind, Please don't go.
She didn't listen. Within moments, she was gone.
Like she was never there at all.
Monday PM, four days before...
It was a cold autumn night and I was curled under a blanket in my favorite chair with a book when I heard the doorbell ring. Instantly my heart dropped. The doorbell wouldn't normally evoke such a feeling of unease, but I was alone this night, as Danny was in Minnesota on business. I crept to the door and spied out the peephole.
"Who is it?" I asked, even though I didn't need to. I recognized her instantly.
Her voice rang out. I recognized that as well. "We met yesterday. You gave me directions. Remember?"
How could I forget? I opened the door, but only a little. "I remember," I said, my words peeking out of me as shy as I peeked out from behind the door. "Are you lost again?" Such a stupid thing to say, I thought, even as I said it.
"Always." She smiled at me and laughed a little. "Actually I just wanted to thank you. I was late yesterday and rudely sped off without thanking you."
"It's easy to get lost around here. I'm just happy I could help. I'm Vicki, by the way." I reached out, almost hungrily and she held out her hand to me.
"Stella."
Our fingers fumbled in the partially open door and then pulled away much too soon. "Well, I should be going. Have to be in Chicago by morning."
Such a mystery, she was. What or who was waiting for her on Hickory Street yesterday and Chicago tomorrow morning?
"Are you sure? Why don't you come in and have some coffee? You'll need the caffeine. You'll be driving all night." I opened the door to her, but really I was
opening a lot more.
She then officially stepped into my life.
"You have a beautiful place," she told me, the same way a burglar might. I pointed to the couch and headed for the kitchen. When I came back out, armed with two cups of coffee, she was sitting comfortably, legs separated just enough for me to notice.
"I interrupted your reading," she said when she saw my blanket and book near the fireplace.
"Oh no. I kept reading the same page over and over anyway." When I handed her the coffee, our hands briefly touched, the cold of our skin contrasting with the warm mugs of coffee. "Cream or sugar, Stella?" It was the first time I'd said her name and I saw her smile when it rolled off my tongue. She shook her head and I took a seat next to her.
"Do you live alone, Vicki?" She said my name as if to repay the favor.
"No. My husband Danny, he's in Minnesota on business."
I was slightly aroused by the danger of not only allowing a stranger into my home but also telling her I was alone. Strangely, I did not fear her, but she did make me uncomfortable.
She touched the hand that held my coffee. "You don't wear a ring." She gazed deep
into me, not in distrust, but in curiosity. Her dark eyes seemed to penetrate my soul and I worried that she could see into my thoughts and read everything I was thinking of letting her do to me.
"I don't wear it at night," I told her, which was true. My wedding ring was currently on the table near my bed, in my empty bedroom. "I started taking it off at night when Danny wanted to pretend to be with another woman."
She rolled her eyes. "Does he wear his?"
I tried to think of Danny. Where was he now? Was he really on business? Or was he in a hotel, wearing nothing but his wedding ring, beside a woman wearing not even that much?
My silence was answer enough. An awkward pause followed, in which we both fondled our coffee cups a bit too much.
"May I use your bathroom?" she finally said.
"Of course. End of the hall."
She stood and languidly walked out of my sight, my eyes fastened to her every move.
I have to be crazy, I told myself, for thinking what I was about her. I have to be severely out of my mind.
But I went on thinking it anyway.
Several moments passed and she didn't return. I was beginning to doubt her existence. Did I dream her up? I waited until I couldn't wait with a clear conscience any longer and finally I went down the hallway looking after her. On my way to the bathroom I passed my open bedroom door. I always kept it closed, but Danny must've left it open before leaving for Minnesota.
Leaning in and reaching for the doorknob, I noticed Stella standing near my bed, gazing at a photograph on my night table.
I cleared my throat to announce my presence.
Something fell from her hands and made a clang against the floor.
Embarrassed, she struggled with an apology as I walked in behind her. "I'm sorry. Your door was open and I... I was being nosy."
I didn't respond, not quite sure if I felt violated or seductively probed.
"Is this uh..." she looked to the framed picture by the bed.
"Danny, yes."
Her fingertips traced the image of his face. "He's handsome," she said, and turned her attention to me. "And lucky."
Both flattered and made uneasy by her compliment, I looked to the floor for something to break our gaze. The shine of my wedding ring sparkled up at me from beneath the nightstand. I bent down to pick it up, but couldn't quite reach far enough under the table.
"Here, let me," Stella said, lowering to her knees as her slender fingers danced over the dusty floor. When she handed me the ring, our fingers touched, but for a longer moment this time.
"Thank you," I said, looking directly at her. She didn't let go of the ring right away, so as to prolong our closeness near the floor.
"You're welcome." And with her words, and the gaze of her dark brown eyes, I was locked to her.
Locked willingly with her.
Our lips had nowhere else to go.
They leaned in together.
Tuesday AM, three days before...
He slept beside me, his arm draped over me. The hair on his arm tickled my naked stomach as it rose with each labored breath I took. But it was different this
time. His arm seemed lighter. Softer.
As my eyes began to adjust to the morning sun shining through the window, they caught the glimmer of something gold on my night table. Slowly I recognized
it as my wedding ring.
The body beside me rolled over, awake enough to ask me, "What time is it?"
"Dawn," I said but couldn't be sure.
"And this isn't Chicago," she mumbled back. And she wasn't Danny.
She crawled out from beneath my sheets, completely naked, and asked to use my shower.
At first I thought I was dreaming. It had to be one of those dreams you have about waking up when you're still fast asleep in bed. So I tried waking up all over again, this time for real, to the sound of water running in the bathroom.
Danny wasn't home and when I investigated, I found a naked woman in my shower. A naked woman, who, last I remembered, was picking up my ring off the bedroom
floor.
Memories are funny things. I remember some things very well, like yesterday's grocery bill: $43.38. As if that has some special meaning to my life. And yet I couldn't remember spending the night with the woman now in my shower. I couldn't remember how we got from the floor to my bed.
The water turned off and if I listened hard enough I could hear her dressing. The smooth fabric of garments brushing her sleek skin. The clip of her bra. Slowly
and vaguely, I remembered helping her out of those clothing restraints the night before. But I couldn't be sure that I wasn't making it all up. And that's all there was - vague clips of memories, what seemed like segments of a dream that comes to you periodically throughout the day. They seemed neither real nor logical.
"I don't mean to run," she said, quickly stepping back into the room, "But I have to go." Her white blouse was unbuttoned, seductively exposing the tan bra that covered her small breasts. She moved across the room, grabbing shoes and a purse as if it was her room and she knew by instinct where everything was. "I left my number on your night table." But before I could look, she kissed me quickly on the lips and sped out the door.
As quickly as she'd come, she was gone.
All she'd left was her taste on my lips.
Friday PM, the night of...
How long ago that seems. How innocent it all now seems.
Three desperate days later and everything has changed.
After I cooked Danny breakfast this morning, bacon and eggs and three strong cups of black coffee, I sat quietly and watched him eat. I shouldn't have been watching him eat but I couldn't bear to do much else. I was supposed to be getting the gun out of the bathroom but I couldn't. So I didn't. I just watched him off to work and then was alone.
Alone, again, with my thoughts. Not that I can remember any of them.
Hours passed. The whole day, almost. Before I know it, he's coming home.
His car pulls into the driveway shortly after six. Suddenly, as if this is my last chance, I hurry into the bathroom and lean against the sink. There, I catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and am shocked at how awful I look. I barely recognize myself. There's something familiar about the wounds I see, but they seem worse now. My lip had ballooned up. My eye had almost swollen shut. The monster staring back at me reminds me of my mission. I lean down and pull open the drawer. There, inside, is the metal shine of a gun. I don't know whose gun it is but don't care.
Picking it up, it feels like it fits my hand, and that's more than enough reason to go on holding it. My actions seem somehow familiar, as if I've practiced them many times, although I don't remember doing so.
Also familiar is the urge I feel inside of me. It's knocking on my brain something awful, daring me. I want to put my finger on the trigger.
The woman in the mirror is watching me. She also has a gun, a shiny one like my own. She puts her finger on the trigger, so I do too. And when I do, we both
smile. What is it about holding a loaded gun that makes you feel so powerful?
Loaded? I check and it is. Of course it is. You certainly can't kill someone with an unloaded gun, now can you?
The front door opens and closes. "Vicki," Danny's voice rings out. "You home?"
Silent, I count his steps to the bedroom. I know his entire routine without even seeing him. I know he's thrown his briefcase on the bed, and is loosening his
tie. He's taking off his watch when he steps in to the bathroom.
My finger is still on the trigger.
Tuesday, three days before...
Our TV showed football. He wanted another beer and sent me to get one. When my head was stuck in the refrigerator, the phone rang.
"It's me," she said as soon as she heard my voice. "I want to come over."
"Not tonight," I whispered even though I desperately wanted to see her again.
"Tomorrow night then. Will he be home?"
"He'll be gone."
"Where's he now?"
"Watching the Steelers."
"I want to be with you tonight," she said, louder now.
"I already said-"
"Touch yourself for me."
I was both shocked and turned on by her forwardness. "Stella-"
"Please. Pretend it's me."
I slid up on the counter, and spread my legs.
"Are you?"
"Yes," I answered, a bit flustered and embarrassed. The fingers of my free hand found the insides of my upper thigh. They began a circular motion, first outside of my panties and then beneath them.
"I need to see you."
"Tomorrow night. Late," I said, between hurried breaths.
"Faster," she whispered and I obliged, moving my hand back and forth in almost a chaotic fashion.
"Baby, what the hell are you doing?"
I dropped the phone at the sound of Danny's voice. He'd walked into the darkened kitchen, a sly smile on his face because he'd caught me doing something dirty.
When he saw the phone, the smile fell from his face.
"What the hell?" Angrily, he picked up the receiver and stuffed it to his ear. "Hello? Hello, is anybody there?" He slammed it down. Turned to me. "Who was that?" I didn't answer him. I couldn't.
"Who was on the goddam phone, Vicki?"
I stopped remembering the moment before his hand met my face.
Wednesday, two days before...
I didn't see Danny off the next day. He left, for Wisconsin this time, around mid afternoon and I busied myself with outside gardening and housework. Before I
knew it, the sun had set and night had fallen. I routinely looked at the clock, not because I couldn't wait for Stella, but because with each passing minute I was relieved she hadn't yet arrived. It wasn't as if I didn't want to see her, but rather I didn't want her to see me.
The bedroom was almost completely dark, and silent except for the ticking of the clock beside the bed. The sheets were pulled up to my chin and beneath them I was fully clothed. I knew I was sending mixed messages, but I didn't care.
A car pulled into the driveway. I could hear the beautiful hum of her engine. Then the shutting of the car door and quiet footsteps coming up the hall. They stopped and although I could barely see her, I knew she was standing in the doorway. She reached to turn on the light.
"Leave it off," I said urgently.
She obliged, walked in, and sat on my side of the bed.
"What's wrong?" she said, and I pulled the bed sheets a little closer to my chin. "You seem mad." She touched my cheek the way a mother might. "Or scared."
"Confused. About what happened between us."
She seemed short when she answered. "What's confusing about it?"
"I don't know. I just... I can't remember any of it."
This was only partly true. Since she arrived I remembered, little by little, making love to her, but my memories seemed fabricated. And while alone, I remembered nothing.
"You can't remember or you won't remember?"
I couldn't explain it to her. I could barely explain it to myself. I seemed to exist on two separate planes of reality. When Stella wasn't there, I doubted everything. When she was there, I doubted nothing. But it was as if my mind could not accept what my body knew to be real.
"I'm sorry," is all I could say. She seemed rejected, with a faraway look in her eyes, eyes I now remembered kissing as her fingers floated down my naked body the night before last. "It's like you're not real. It's like I'm dreaming," I said, but I knew I wasn't.
She pulled the covers down to my waist and saw that I was dressed.
"I'm real," she said, starting to unbutton my shirt. "I'm more than real."
I remembered more this time. The feel of her clothes, the touch of her skin seemed briefly familiar underneath my hands. She kissed more with her lips than she did with her tongue and they were soft and wet. She whispered little commands in my ear, as if it was my first time with her. "Lay back. Relax. Open your legs. Don't be scared." All the while, I was scared. I was scared I was dreaming. I was scared I was crazy. I did what she asked me, completely trusting her and totally seduced. I was like a rag doll in her arms and beneath her probing hands. The light touch of her fingers was especially pleasing, teasing the insides of my thighs before they plunged between my legs.
Thursday AM, the day before...
When I awoke she was facing me in bed, eyes wide open and staring. I smiled and leaned in to kiss her but she pulled away.
"When were you going to tell me?" she asked coldly.
"Tell you what?"
She paused and looked away. "What he did." I didn't understand and my confused look must've shown it. "What he did to your face," she said, now with a hint of sympathy.
I suddenly realized what Stella was talking about. I'd completely forgotten that Danny had hit me and why I didn't want the lights on the night before. "It really isn't that bad," I told her as she reached out and touched my cheek. "I'm surprised you even noticed."
Something in my words riled her up, because she immediately rose from the bed and pulled me up with her. After dragging me into the bathroom, she pushed me hard into the bathroom sink. There I stood, in front of the mirror.
The first thing I noticed was that we were both naked, but that wasn't what Stella intended me to see. She put her hand underneath my chin and with a rough
lift, made me look at myself.
My jaw was swollen, my lip was fat and my left eye was a seductive shade of purple. Had I not known better I would have thought I put on too much dark eye shadow and had gotten stung by a bee on the cheek. I did remember that Danny had hit me, yes, but I didn't remember the damaged he'd caused. It was like I was looking at someone else in the mirror. Someone weak and broken. Instinctively I reached up to touch my wounds, almost surprised at the tenderness of my own skin. Yes, it was me. I winced more than once.
"I'm gonna kill the fucker," said Stella, but I was hardly aware of her presence. I was too busy trying to remember how it happened, how my husband had beaten my face to a bruised pulp without my remembering it.
Barely aware of her hands on my shoulders, moving down around my stomach, my own hands moved around my face, traveling my wounds as if they were a roadmap to my memories. Stella was peering down in the mirror at my reflection. At what was she looking - my injuries, my body? - I couldn't tell. From behind she held me, the bangs of her dark hair stabbing the eyes that peered at me so. This time she whispered it. "We're gonna kill the fucker."
Friday PM, the day of...
"Whoa, Vic. What are you doing with that?"
He doesn't seem to take it too seriously, my holding this gun. So I point it at him, and fear falls into his eyes. He takes a slow step backwards. "Put that down, baby. It could go off."
"That's what I'm counting on," I said in a voice I barely recognize as my own. I step towards him and he steps back, like we're dancing.
"What are you doing?"
My voice is calm and cool. "I'm gonna kill you for what you did." I rub the trigger of the gun under my fingertip, lightly as I could, as if to tease it.
"What'd I do?"
"Are you blind, Danny, or just stupid?" I start waving the gun now, like it's a wand and I'm a magician who's about to make her husband disappear.
"You mean your face? You think I did that?" Danny's really nervous now. I've backed him all the way onto the bed and he's nearly sitting on his briefcase.
"Vicki," he says, almost stuttering. It's amazing how a loaded weapon makes him choke on his words. "Vicki, you fell in the bathroom two nights ago. Don't you remember? You hit your head on the sink."
"Don't lie to me, Danny."
"Baby, I got home from Minnesota and you were unconscious on the floor. The sink was all bloody. Don't you remember?"
The gun is shaking in my hand. "Stop it, Danny. I didn't fall. You did this, after you caught me on the phone with her."
"Who?"
"Stella."
"Who's Stella?"
"The woman who's gonna bury you," and again I didn't recognize my own voice.
"Vicki, you're talking out of your head, baby. I don't know anyone named Stella."
I scream at him. "She was on the phone, Danny! The other night in the kitchen. She's... I've been sleeping with her."
He laughs but stops when I inch the gun closer to his head. "Vicki, honey, are you trying to leave me for another woman?" I can hear the meanness in his tone. The way he says woman sets my blood boiling.
"No darling, I'm killing you for another woman."
He has nowhere to go. He can only swallow hard, trying to speak as he realizes I'm serious. I'm dead serious.
"Wait Vic. Listen to me. There is no other woman. There was no one on the phone the other night. You haven't been having an affair with anyone. You hit your head on the sink and now you don't know what you're saying. You need to see a doctor."
"You need to see an undertaker," is my witty comeback. But what he said troubles me. His words are circling my mind, buzzing against my brain in the most annoying way. I know they aren't true. In a desperate attempt to save his life, Danny's doing what anyone would. He's sitting there feeding me lies.
"Why would I lie to you, Vicki? Because you're holding a gun? Put the gun down and I'll tell you the exact same thing. I'm not lying to you."
"Bullshit, Danny. Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit," I say because it's the only word in my head that makes sense. And with each time I say it, my finger tickles the trigger like a lover. He reaches out his hand.
"Baby, don't you know that I love you?"
I pull the trigger and a bullet rips through his chest. I fire again. There is no sound. No bang from the gun, no scream from his mouth. I fire a third time and watch the light leave his eyes and his body falls off the bed and against the floor with a dry, muffled thud. I don't remember how many additional times I fire. I just remember that the gun eventually runs out of bullets.
Blood is everywhere. Mostly on the bed and on the floor, but a good amount of it's on me too. I've managed to splatter myself quite well, in fact. I'm a walking wardrobe of bloody murder.
In the bathroom, the full stream of cold water wakes my ears to the sounds of the outside world. No longer are my own thoughts so piercing. I run my hands and forearms under the water and wash my dead husband's blood from my skin. From out of the mirror, I study myself. My swelling has gone down and my eye seems to look closer to its normal shape. I almost recognize myself again.
"It's over," I say aloud in the room, to no one in particular.
Moments later, she's cleaning up at the sink, washing the arms that buried him in the garden, drying the fingers that moved his trash bag body into the freshly
dug hole and covered it with fertilized soil.
"Fill out a missing person's report in three or four days," she tells me while splashing cold water on her face and wiping away smudges of dirt. "When they ask why you didn't report it sooner, tell them he's done this before. They'll think he's found another woman and probably won't even bother to investigate." She grabs the bloody towel from beside the sink as I stand behind her with my arms around her waist.
"You know what he told me... before I shot him? He said you weren't real."
She shuffles the towel from one hand to the other, furiously rubbing away the evidence from her body. "Did you believe him?"
"I didn't know what to believe. For all I know, I made him up."
"Now you're thinking. He never truly existed, except when you thought he did."
I look down at my arms and notice a patch of black dirt. "Stell, did I help you bury him?" I ask because I honestly can't remember.
"You said you couldn't." I rub at my dirty arm but the color won't come off. Seeing me doing this, she takes my arms in her hands and shows me it isn't dirt
I'm trying to rub away, but bruises. Dark and patchy bruises extending up my forearms that I haven't noticed before. They're positioned where gripping fingers once grabbed me. She doesn't have to say anything. I know I've been held like this before and not by her. I know the guilty fingers were now planted in my garden.
Overwhelmed with the confusion of reality, I kiss her, as if to confirm my own relevance to her. My body presses hers against the sink. I feel her still dirty fingernails scratch against the back of my neck as she pulls my mouth further into hers. Without really knowing it, my hands work their way beneath her shirt and spider around her flesh like the insects inside of Danny's mouth by now.
She eases me onto the floor, just beneath the sink and works her way down my body. Pushing aside my shirt still stained with Danny's blood, she rolls her hands
up and down the length of my neck while licking a trail to my stomach, the ends of her dark hair tickling my skin.
My back arches. I moan. Almost instinctively, my body lifts itself up and down off the bathroom floor and each time I feel her enter me deeper and deeper until
her whole body is almost within me, as if we're one person in the same. The rush of orgasm flutters through my body and she holds me there until it's gone, until I fall back on the tile floor, exhausted and breathing heavy. My eyes close.
****
It's the light I notice first, the bright light on the bathroom ceiling. I'm lying on my back on the cold, hard floor, the sink is almost directly above me. On it, I see a dark line, possibly dried blood that had dripped down the sink and out of sight. I reach up to touch it but I don't have to. I already know it's mine. Not fresh. But still mine.
Pulling myself up from the coldness of the floor and into the brightness of the room, I notice a glimpse of myself in the mirror. It's me, all right. Nothing's
changed about me. The sex doesn't show. The betrayal doesn't show. Not even the murder shows.
Murder? It feels like a dream, pulling that trigger. Danny's blood had splashed just like it does in the movies.
The bedroom is dark and quiet, but not vacant. Even in its stillness I can vaguely make out the shape of the body in the bed. It's a body I know well, with
shapes my own body has memorized. If I don't breathe, I can almost hear the faint airy whispers of her breath as it passes her immobile lips. Stella is very much asleep.
I stand near the bed and let my clothes drop to the floor. Then I slide under the covers, hugging the sheets around me and as my eyes close my mind immediately starts to drift. Barely aware of the arm across my waist, caught in between the waking world and sleep, I begin to dream. In this dream, someone's standing in the doorway, mouthing words to me. At first I think it's Danny, saying, "We have to do it now," with furtive glances to the female arm across my stomach. I blink awake and he's gone. Stella stands there instead, half dressed and sexy. Somehow I know she's leaving. She leans down to me in bed and whispers in my ear. Then she kisses the side of my mouth as my eyes close again. When they open, she is gone. Like she was never there at all.
My fingers touch my mouth, where I can still feel her soft lips.
"Now you're free," were her whispered words, echoing inside my mind in the empty room.
I barely recognize my own voice when I say, "Now I'm alone."
As always.
Originally published January 2006 - "Spanked!"