Demons!!!!!

Instinctively, I paused, I had tried my best to sneak in without being seen or heard. I somehow knew that I had awakened her at 3am by the sound of her breathing, it changed from deep rhythms to normal slow tempo. She could hear me creeping in guiltily from my unholy tryst. I have no idea why my inner demons make me hurt her so. Maybe it is this unrelenting passion fueled insanity between us, this thing called love. Ours is a flame which ignites in heated clashes of pure rage and ends in the heavenly bliss of making up. But not yesterday. Yesterday the fire had raged with God awful intensity from which I needed external succor, now the price would be hell to pay.

Yet, I was very pleasantly surprised when she woke up, stretched her languid sultry form and reached out her arms to me.

"Hey honey, how was your night. Come, I have been waiting for you".

No you weren't, you were fast asleep. I was careful to not say that out loud as she arose and hugged me close. Was I naive to feel that all was well with the world. Was the perfume of another still lingering where lust had waxed sinful. Extricating herself from our embrace, she walked to the dresser where champagne always waited after a fight. Ephemeral, seductive and radiantly beautiful was my siren in the betraying, accusing glow of moonlight. Two glasses poured, lips drinking from the unholy cup of guilt. I finished mine in one awful gulp, failing to notice that she had not sipped.

Almost instantly, the floor started spinning, fingers reaching, reaching up slowly to pull me down. The world went black!!

It is dark in this place which I now find myself trapped, lost and unable to speak. My mouth is bound, my body encased in what feels like dough, but please Lord, let it be not concrete, for I am by the minute being squeezed tighter and tighter. I know that she is near, I can feel her presence hovering, we have always been able to sense when we were in sync with our feelings.

We were in sync with a palpable rage burning simultaneously through our enjoined psyches. Where in the name of God was I. What have you done Malani.

She waited five days, keeping me updated, then called the cops. By then I was too weak, almost dead. We had fought, she said. Yet it was not like me to not return and beg for her forgiveness, or vice versa, we did that all the time. He would have made sure to call if something were wrong. She cried inconsolably, the neighbor saw me leave the house around 3.30am, they were sure, yes the person was dressed in male clothing. She had dressed as me and drove the car to God knows where. It was never found.

No trace was ever found of me either. I died in that dark evil place with only hell's demons as my company. Yet I could still hear her. Months later, I could hear the child crying, and a new man's voice soothing our child, she had whispered that in my ear as the last words from her murdering lips echoed with the Judas kiss. How many pieces of silver had it cost her to lose her soul. Honestly, I had betrayed our trust many times, maybe I was getting what I deserved. Yet, did I push her to this insanity, or was this always her, this cruel death being the her that I never knew.

The years passed, my son became a man. My architect partner lived a happy life on the outside. For strangely, from time to time I could hear her crying from very close by, as if we were separated by only a thinly veiled wall. My spirit vainly wished that it could comfort her, despite it all.

Forty-five years later, our son sold the house. His mother had firmly forbidden him to sell it while she was alive. The new owners decided to extend the nursery into room for twins. The workers broke through the nursery wall and construction was abruptly halted. They called the cops and exited the house.

Finally, too late for me, light shone into my entombed home. Yet, I felt free, I could now rest in peace, my soul reunited with my body. Careful, I wanted to yell, I have grown old and brittle.

Malani had gotten away with murder, lived a prosperous life and passed away peacefully in her sleep, her heart had just given up they said.

My son Djak was devastated.

The police went back over the case from years ago. They recalled Malani saying that she had repurposed the newly remodeled nursery for the new baby on the way. That seemed somehow enough to explain the freshly painted wall. No one had ever suspected that there could have been foul play involved. Being an architect and proficient builder, she was more than capable of bricking me up inside a wall.

How had she done it though. At what cost to her sanity? Was it for the money, I had been heavily insured, so was the business which was in both our names.

My son has laid me to my final rest next to his mother.

I found that quite satisfying. We will be picking up exactly where we left off that fateful night.

She had been safer in life, now she was in my neck of the woods.

The demons of hell have surrounded her. How she screams!!