I AM
NOT
THE MANIAC WHO FILMED A HOME VIDEO STARRING
HIMSELF KNIFING A WOMAN TO DEATH. I do know the victim, which makes my
incarceration even stickier. Her picture hangs on the wall of my bedroom and
get this; she is wearing a wedding gown. I am a heartbreaker, not a killer, a
deceiver, not a liar. Yeah, there is a difference.

Handcuffs blister my wrists. The cops will be here any
moment to torture me into a confession. Officer Big Boobs will smother me with
her chest. She calls me her
psycho lockup
and flirts. How sick is that?

Some men laugh when they are nervous; I recite music lyrics.
The group
Pulp
has a raw edge that grates my soul. “You’re the body
hidden in my trunk. You’re the last drink I never should have drunk. You are
the cut that makes me hide my face. You are my secrets on the front page every
week.”

According to the
Bible
, I am an adulterer—my alibi is
another man’s wife. The
Book of Exodus
quotes that
the sins of the
father are visited upon the son
. Well, my father, whoever he is, should
have kept his pants zipped up—like father, like son!
Exodus
, right—I
should have fled across the border to Canada earlier but wanted to protect her.

Running away was cowardly, abandoning her unconscionable,
and there are enough sins on my plate.

Do not trust anyone—above all her, my sweet alibi! If she
ever finds out how many lies I have told…no, make those untruths, a kinder,
gentler word.

My trouble started at a bar in Philadelphia and one too many
drinks of AMF.

Hell, my snake pit really began on the day I was born.

Sh! There are footsteps outside the interrogation room.

* * *

Part One:
The Game

May 23rd; Austin,
Texas 13 Weeks Earlier

Chapter 1

Glaring from the screen of my ebook-reader was the cover of
a book downloaded at Kennedy airport—
How to Be a Good Husband for Dummies
Whose Wives Are Clueless about What Kind of Shits They Are Married to or just
how Far the Cheats Will Go to Get what They Want
. I must have been smashed
while waiting for the plane to Austin to agree to a scheme so distasteful,
illegal, immoral, so…

I yanked out a prescription pad with the name
Dr. Brad
O’Boyle
, and scribbled with a shaky hand.

Note: Call in the morning and tell him I want to back out.
The scam is too risky. We will be caught!

Note: Call in the morning and tell him I want to back
out. The scam is too risky. We will be caught!

Crap! He would call me a weak pussy for changing my mind. He
might laugh in my face as he did when he first proposed the conspiracy at the
medical conference in Philly. He talked me into treachery by drowning me with
liquor and his words “we should be best friends. Long time no see!”

My nerves rattled so much I could not remember the wife’s
name.
Think! Think, you moron! Jackie Daniels? Ginny Beam? Cherry Brandy?
Sherry Wine?

Well here goes, one foot in front of the other, only about
20 steps from the car to the door. Empty miniatures rattled in my suit pockets.
Wheeling a suitcase helped my mobility, like pushing a wheelchair.

Damn keys would not open the frickin’ garage door! Maybe
this last key, the one shaped like a guitar could open a hole like a rock star.

The light sensor of the laundry room blasted my eyes like a
Star
Wars
lightsaber. I hummed two verses of the Darth Vader Imperial Death
March. “Dum dum dum, dum dee dum…what what is the wife’s name?”

Oh, God, why did I consent in Philly to such a wicked
scheme? I grabbed a paper sack near the sink and breathed into the bag to avoid
passing out from hyperventilation. A picture of a bridal couple leered in the
harsh light of the den. That mousy brunette in the picture was my wife, but at
least she was temporary. Like mother, like daughter, her mom had been a
stripper. In the wedding photo, she appeared the opposite of her mother, more
like a nun dressed in a simple wedding gown of bone-colored satin with jet-black
hair pulled back from her pinched face. She resembled a Mormon wife from a
polygamist compound or one of Charlie Manson’s girls with eyes wide open like a
zombie.

I sang some drunken notes to the Rolling Stones song,
Sympathy
for the Devil
.

Speak of the devil; she shuffled into the den. “You’re
home,” she said in a flat voice.

How very observant of you, my dear. One would think you
had a brain.
I was too chicken to voice my sarcasm. I guzzled the rest of
my martini, choking on onions, olives, and maybe toothpicks. Quick, I flipped
through mail on the kitchen counter and glared at the name
Ronni O’Boyle
stamped across a department store bill. Right, Ronni was a short, masculine
name for Veronica, a shopaholic who sucked a man’s credit cards dry. The woman
was a ball buster, born on the wrong side of the tracks. She dropped out of
high school at 17 and recently earned her GED. She was now attending college to
become a dental assistant. Whoop-de-do! Trailer-trash Ronni won the lottery
when she married a doctor.

Well here goes, now it begins, a devious plan concocted in
Philly. “You look nice, Ronni.” Wow! My voice had gone up as if she clenched my
balls because the wife looked unbelievably sexy. In soft light, she appeared
almost pretty with her hair mussed. One strap of her t-shirt drooped over her
shoulder.

Okay, down boy! Quit picturing how she would look with
pointy nipples tingling with excitement, and legs spread wide, hips humping. I
cursed the desire welling inside my dark soul. I must not sleep with her—ever!
That was our agreement. “Ronni?” I said in a eunuch voice.

“Well, who were you expecting, Brad? Fool!”

Next to the wedding picture was a photo of a child,
supposedly my daughter. The oldest trick in the book was to trap a man with
pregnancy.

“No one calls me a fool and gets away with it!”

She ran towards the stairs.

My legs were longer and I grabbed her arm, laughing at her
kicking and missing.

I spun her around, trapping her with my arms. Our bodies
touched everywhere and I held her even tighter. “You smell of jasmine,” I
moaned, lowering her to the stairs and raining kisses across her neck. Her
wiggling aroused me beyond belief. I throbbed, pounding with such pressure; all
I could think of was easing my pain in Ronni. My blood rushed to that one spot
where my need was desperate. At this moment, the act was worth any price. Guilt
could come later. I closed my eyes, and muttered, “God, I promise to say ten
Hail Marys later even though I’m not Catholic.”

I shoved her hand on my pants, rubbing her palm against me.
“Please, I need you, Ronni. Feel how much I want you. I need you so much,
Ronni. Please, stroke me, pet me. Yeah, that’s it. More!”

She quit struggling and groaned.

I removed my hand and she continued rubbing. Squeezing.
Pulling. Caressing.

My breath came in deep gasps. “Unzip me,” I panted and
tugged at the zipper of her pants, my fingers clumsily poking her.

“Ouch, get off me you oaf!”

She slapped my cheek hard, sobering me, making me remember
who we were and that bed was out of the question between us. “Again, Brad?
You’re raping me again?”

I stood, straightening my pants and feeling rather sheepish
about the rape thing. I plunked down on a step to conceal my throbbing arousal,
looking like a petulant child. Any moment now, I might have a temper
tantrum—Ronni really should give out to her husband. She was a tramp, just as
her mother had been.

“I wish you stayed in Philadelphia permanently, Brad, or the
plane crashed,” she snapped.

I never struck a woman in my life and clenched my hands into
fists, resisting the urge to punch her. It took a minute for my pants to
deflate. I then stumbled up the stairs, banging my ankle against the last step.

At the end of the hallway was a view of a woman’s room,
decorated with flowers and all that female crap, the sanctity of the wife’s
four-poster bed.

Ronni narrowed her eyes and hissed. “You know you can’t
sleep in here, Brad! Drop dead, sucker.” She slammed her bedroom door, shaking
the rafters.

I made a jerking off motion at the closed door. “Far be it
from me to invade the sanctity of your bedroom!” It was the liquor else, I
would never have attempted sex with Ronni. Nor would I be having a conversation
with a door and flipping off the wood. One more drop of liquor and I would try
to have sex with the door.

I dropped to my knees poking my eye at the keyhole.

She peeled off her pants, revealing long sexy legs and
muscles bulging from still wearing heels. Ah, she was wearing black boyshorts,
a woman confident enough with her own femininity to wear a girly take on snug,
tiny boxer shorts. Mm, instead of a bulge the panties showed her slit.

She yanked off her blouse revealing a pink lacy bra.

Oops, my knees creaked and my breathing had gone sex heavy.
Damn, she quit undressing!

A soaking wet washrag flew across the bedroom, connecting
with the doorknob and splashing my eye, startling me so much, I fell on my ass.

I staggered down the hallway trying to find my room.
Have
to honor our agreement of no sex with the wife. Must honor our agreement.

I yanked off my tie but then the sports decor of the other
master bedroom, engulfed me with warmth. I hugged each of the trophies of
soccer, basketball, football, and even baseball, rubbing my cheek on the cold
statues. The trophies went all the way back to Little League and up to high
school.

This room was
the
coolest man cave.
Star Wars
paraphernalia
and posters of playboy bunnies surrounded the room.

I lay on the
Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Bedspread
Edition
bare-chested, rubbing my nipples. Desire still heated my blood, and
I drilled against the sheets, imagining rubbing inside the wife even though I
pushed against Miss January’s luscious, wide-open, cherry-red lips.
Yeah,
baby, right there where my body throbs with need. Faster. Yeah, move, virgin.
“Oh,”
I groaned.

Ronni’s bedroom door opened and footsteps padded down the
hallway, and then pounded down the stairs.

I threw the covers over my head, wondering if the wife heard
me acting like a horny teenage boy. Maybe my moans turned her on and she would
come to my room.
Please. Please. Please.

The refrigerator door closed, followed by the garbage
disposal grinding up my dick.

What in all that is unholy came over me to attempt to seduce
Ronni? At a bar in Philadelphia, I had drunkenly stared at her wallet photo,
wishing I never made a deal with…I was no husband, more like an unwanted guest.

Misgivings once more churned my stomach, making my stomach
growl with nervous hunger. The kitchen was off limits because Ronni was in her
dungeon mixing poisons or doing whatever it is wives do when they plunge their
hands into the garbage disposal. The only food in the bedroom was a bag of
stale airline peanuts, the salt causing an unbearable thirst in my wine-dried
mouth.

There was a bathroom off the bedroom and I shoved my head
under the faucet. The mirror reflected water running down my chin. How pathetic
to be holding a dirty tissue smudged with semen from having screwed the
bedspread. In this light, I appeared ominous—no wonder Ronni acted afraid. Damn
Philadelphia, I never should have gone along with the plan! I punched the
mirror; shattering the glass and making my reflection appear jagged.

You deserve to have your face cracked, fool!

With a shard of mirror, I sliced my neck, just a scratch, to
remind me to leave Ronni alone. I can get through these weeks if Ronni keeps
her distance, yet my hands shook as I dried them on a towel with the initials
BO. An egotist puts his initials on his towels. Once more, I loathed myself for
what I plotted for the next weeks.

I lay beneath the covers shivering, dreading going into the
office in the morning and pretending that nothing was different and that I had
not changed since Philadelphia.

I pulled at my face, feeling the imaginary cracks I had seen
in the shattered mirror.

Footsteps pounded up the stairs and Ronni’s bedroom door
closed.

There. She turned in her sleep.

I closed my eyes, imagining Ronni wearing a pink airy thong
sliding up the crack of her butt.

Okay, get some sleep. Quit walking in quicksand.

What the fu…? A jarring noise screeched from a radio on the
night table followed by a voice blaring, “The National Weather Service in Austin
has issued a tornado warning for Travis County, Williamson County, and Hays
County. There are multiple tornados headed your way! Blow away butthead!”

Goddamn it was dark like the devil’s assholes—Ohmigosh, I
passed out wearing a Darth Vader helmet!

I ripped the helmet from my sweaty head and felt a stirring
in the center of my universe—ah, the force awakened. I slammed the off button
of the weather alarm radio, groaning about that part of my body. I had done
stupid things in my life, but this fiasco was the most idiotic venture.

The National Weather Service in Austin issued a tornado up
my rear, twirling my insides, causing stress burps, and a ball tightening right
below the ribcage.

For a short time, I could bluff my way into being a good
husband. After a couple of weeks, I would be rid of Ronni for good and never
have to see her accusing eyes again.

What a roaring start, nearly raping the wife, idiot!

It was only two in the morning, still time for a good
night’s sleep to help me face the patients in the morning.

I dreamt of chasing my shadow, which was completely detached
with a mind and personality all its own. My shadow laughed wickedly as it ran
through a dreary ally punching women, kicking the homeless, and breaking a few
necks.

I finally caught up with my shadow, and we jogged on a
Philly street alongside a garbage truck littered with stinking corpses.

We ran up the steps of the Museum of Art and bounced,
punching each other. (Have you ever done shadow punching and lost?) My shadow
raised its fist in triumph like Sylvester Stallone in the film
Rocky
.

The music to the
Rocky
movie played in the background
as my shadow and I both swung by our necks beneath a tree in Philadelphia,
across from the south facade of Independence Hall.

Odd, no bystanders had cheered our jogging like in the
movie, but everyone cheered our hanging. The pigeons were dead in the park.

The weather alarm radio went off again, waking me from the
nightmare.

Thank God for tornados!

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