I have to admit it's a strange feelingto blow your wife away,he said and kind of smiled.The words hooked me -- they reeled me in.Something in a woman loves a murderer.Sex is the bargainwe always arrange to lose.
He plotted the murder for yearsout in the desert with a hand gunsnapping necks off empty Perrier bottles.Each one was human.He was back before darkfor a round of golf with his kids.
I was the witness listeningfor coded messages from the long-distanceabsence where he lived."I'm going out now," he'd say.This may be the night. Stick aroundbefore he slipped on his orange wigand slid behind the Oldsto cruise the streets.Once he shot through the window.He laughed after.Hadn't gauged the thickness of the glass;the bullet a slain thing in snow.The police forgot to check him,forgot that a man always wanted to kill his wife.
I laughed with him.The sex was good that night.He was charming.And deadly.I'd learned the art of those moods.Sex is death;the hot sticky sinking that makes and breaks you.Loved like death.I watched the bruises swell on the facethat wasn't my facebut a child's cowering in a cornerwaiting for the rip of love.In that violence at leastI knew I was owned.
I tried to kill myself once with 292sbut that was silly.He reminded me of the rules:I was the weak one.If I left I would die more quicklythan if I stayed.Things made sense that way.He was the man in the silk suitwho came first-class.He'd crawled into my bodylooking for his life.If he lashed out like a wounded thing,he was the hurt one everyone failed.Maybe I could save himstaring out at the worldacross his need.But my body was useless.Inside something sad was loose.It listened and feared and thoughtbut was never enough.It was ashamed to show itself.It deserved to die.
Then I saw the woman's picture in the newspaper.He'd held her like a dog by the collarand slashed her face.Her broken wrist and handtwisted at her side.I was outraged.Death should be clean not vulgar,the necessary deathof love.
When I called the policeI said onlyI never lied. I did nothing.Anyway, he wasn't the kind of manworth dying for.
