He had always been able to brighten the darkness that
occasionally overtook him in bed by reciting his first love's name over and
over in his head. Even now, thirty years later, he'd sometimes repeat her name
to himself to escape the dark thoughts, just like he did when he was 17 and
lying in bed waiting for more beautiful dreams. Every night for those final three
years of high school when they were together, her name had rocked him to sleep.
Sandy, Sandy, Sandy. He now sometimes had trouble picturing her, but it wasn't
her image that comforted him. The name alone was enough to take him back to the
warm feeling, to the healthier kind of obsessing that led to the beautiful
dreams.
This time was different though. As he lay in bed, he recited
the name in his head, even said it out loud a few times unexpectedly, quiet
enough his wife couldn't hear him but loud enough to worry himself he might be
going crazy.
No matter how many times he repeated the name to himself
this time, he couldn't get past the image he'd imagined earlier that day, his
wife with another man. Maybe what he'd overheard wasn't anything more than a
phone call about work, but he couldn't help but notice the agreeable nature
with which she responded to this co-worker's every sentence. But what really
did it, what really cemented the image of her bent over her desk at work as
this motherfucker entered her from behind, her pencil skirt hiked up and panties
pushed to the side, his khakis on the floor around his ankles, his hairy ass
clenching with each thrust, the veins and muscles in his wife's neck
constricting and standing out like taut wires as she turned to stare him in the
eye and mouth "harder," what really made him sure this affair was
real and not his imagination, was the uptick in her voice when she said
good-bye, the second syllable softening as her mouth stretched into a smile,
just like it used to when she'd say good-bye to him after those long
conversations that stretched into the early morning hours, the ones before they
lived together, when they always had something to say to each other.
From this good-bye, he knew they were fucking. And he knew
he'd have to do something about it. Something real. Something unmistakable.
Something dark.
Yowch! This is such a vivid piece and not just the imagined sex scene either -- the description of the sound of the wife's voice as she says goodbye on the phone, the sadness about the time when they always had something to one another. And it's scary too at the end.
ReplyDeleteOkay, this is rad. The transformation of this guy in such a short space is incredible, how at the beginning he's trying to rid his mind of thoughts he knows are obsessive and worrying that "he might be going crazy" but by the end "he knew they were fucking" and it has become a fact.
ReplyDeleteI am totally blown away by that one long sentence in the second paragraph (If only it were about something else, I'd use it in my classes as an example of a long sentence that isn't a run-on). That long interjection, "what really cemented the image of ...." and then the long image, so awesome!
This is awesome. Not sure how I missed it when you first posted it (sorry). I had to go back in time and find it after reading the second half you posted this week. What a powerful transformation you were able to convey in such a short excerpt!
ReplyDeleteI loved how you began the piece, explaining how the the repetition of his first love's name calmed him, and why that was necessary. I loved how this piece unfolds, how the reader finds out the reason he's repeating his first GF's name is because of his wife's affair. Ouch.
The little details you included about how he knew his wife was fucking someone else were so right-on. My fave - " the uptick in her voice when she said good-bye"