Double Life

I kneel with my eye pressed to the little circle of light, watching. On the old formica countertop there are two glasses of wine, a couple of paper plates on which cold pizza sits, congealing. There's low music playing from a record player. It's out of sight, but from the way it skips, making that whispering, slithering sound every third turn, I know it's the old one you used to have in your office, the one you said you sold to a work friend. To think it was here all this time, regaling the nights you spent without me! Didn't your mother ever teach you not to lie?

My knees start to ache from kneeling on the hardwood floor outside the door, but I don't get up. This is my ritual, and I always see it through to the end. For several nights now, I've come here, tailing your headlights thirty miles south over desolate highways. For all you know, I go to bed promptly at ten every night, your boring, dependable wife. For all you know, I'm there right now, blissfully unaware of your absence. Secrets in a marriage are not good, my therapist once said. They'll destroy you if you let them.

But you started it.

For the past fifteen minutes, I've been listening to the sound of the couch creaking, her breathy exhales and your grunts of effort, but now, just as the glowing face on my Apple watch switches to 0:00 military time, the room beyond lapses into silence- except for the record, still whispering, spinning. It's jazz, which you know I hate. Though you're not aware of my presence, it feels like adding insult to injury that I have to listen to this drivel in addition to the sounds of your betrayal. Now you're talking to her, your voice pitched low and sexy, like you used to do with me back when you were still trying to impress me.

I'll bet she's impressed, too. It's not every day that some darkly handsome man brings you to some old-money mansion in the woods for a discreet fuck away from the old ball and chain. I wasn't right behind you when you pulled up the white stone driveway, or when you guided her inside, a hand on the small of her back, flirting over her ass, but I can picture it. Is this yours? she would have asked, and you probably smirked and said, It's in the family.

Which is the truth when it comes down to it, isn't it? You've never had to do anything much to get what you want in life. The proverbial silver spoon and all that. Whatever you wanted to manifest, your trust fund could buy. Whatever you wanted to disappear, it could buy that too. It was the tragic, untimely death of your grandmother that gave you this rambling, outdated castle in the woods. For months, it sat empty before you started bringing them here. It used to be a mystery to me why you never wanted to go there, why you weren't more interested in fixing it up for us, but now of course I understand.

You could have just told me.

My therapist told me he thinks we have an uneven relationship, as if I don't know already. I knew from the beginning I loved you more than you loved me. Getting you to give me a chance to begin with took so long I almost despaired. You were always so entertained by appearances, so blinded by superficial things. You couldn't see deep beneath the skin, to the pounding heart and viscera of a thing. If you had, you'd have seen from the beginning that we were one of a kind, made for each other by the hands of tender gods.

But no. You never had to struggle like I did. You were born with the looks, the money, and the charisma. You never once wanted, and found the object of your want beyond your reach. But me? I've spent the entire time I've been with you determined not to lose you.

So, my love, if I haven't told the truth as much as I should have, if I haven't been exactly transparent with you, well. It's for that very reason.

I have reason to be cautious. It was your duty to go first. I tried to coax it out of you, all the while playing the perfect wife. We'd be out at a restaurant, and you'd see someone, get that glint in your eye, but when I asked what you were thinking, you'd only look down like I caught you doing something illicit. I'm insulted, if I'm going to be honest. I'm not that common, not that easy to offend.

But here we are. You inside with her, me out here on the floor, thirty-year-old knees aching, the smell of old wood and mothballs making me feel like I've entered a church, like I'm observing a holy moment. I wonder if she knows she's not your first. I wonder if she knows she's not special at all. How many times, my love, can you say, 'Oh, I'm just going to be out a little late' or 'I have to travel this weekend for that conference' before I text your coworker, before I check the flight logs? Before I figure out you're lying to me? And you never had to, that's what gets me.

You. Never. Had. To.

The woman's voice changes suddenly, and I lock in. She's speaking louder now, panicked, and I edge closer. I don't want to miss a thing.

"What are you doing? Emory, stop- ahh!"

She shrieks, and I hear a scuffle, plates knocking over, the chink of silverware hitting the ground. Her footsteps pound towards the door, and she wrenches it open. Her hair is still tousled from sex, but there's an open gash bleeding on her cheek, and one of her wrists has a set of cuffs dangling from it. Her eyes widen upon seeing me, and I see hope in them. Hope that she's saved. I take the knife from my back pocket, unsheathing it, and drive it into her stomach, twisting for good measure. For a while, she only stands there, that hopeful smile frozen on her bloody face, and then she falls back on the floor, dark hair fanning around her.

I have an unhealthy attachment style, my therapist said, right before I slit his throat and left him in his car alone, air leaking out of his ruptured esophagus.

You don’t have the right to be mad- in an ideal world, I would have committed my virginal murder with you. You would have confessed to me what you were thinking of doing, what you were tempted to do ever since you were young, and I would have looked at you and said, 'Me too, my love.' But you had to doubt me, to think I wouldn't understand, and you know? Maybe I bear some of the blame for that.

Look at us, liars and killers both.

Speaking of you, there you are, standing on the other side of your latest victim's body. I wish I could say you look dumb, but you still look handsome, even with your mouth hanging open halfway to the floor.

"That one was exceptionally poorly executed," I tell you. "You never had an eye for detail like I did, baby."

"Rachel," you say.

That's my name, don't wear it out! I think half-drunkenly, though I'm stone cold sober. This is the best night of our marriage, though I can see you don't know it yet. Still won't trust me.

You look between me and the body. "Are you...?"

"Offended that you never invited me?" I purr, beginning to unbutton my shirt. I finally have your attention. Your eyes are on me like there's no one else in the room. And I guess there isn't anymore, I think wryly. "Yes, I was darling. But you know I can't stay mad at you for long."