“Sure.” I forced a smile and then we left on our date.
Later that night I lay in bed unable to sleep as I monitored the L.E.D. readout on the digital clock on Melanie’s nightstand. The minutes turned slowly while I stared at the clock but time seemed to accelerate whenever I turned away and minutes passed in blocks of ten and twenty. Before I knew it the hour was past three a.m. and Melanie still wasn’t home. All the while I jealously pictured her dancing naked on a stage rocking her pelvis in the faces of strangers and parting her legs in open squats as they tucked dollar bills inside her garter. As the hour passed three I imagined that she was naked on a hotel bed, a line of half dressed men trailing down the corridor waiting to fuck her for twenty dollars apiece and the joyless pleasure that it gave her. I began to cry quiet tears at her imagined defilement and my projected betrayal. When I heard the back door squeak open I quickly dried my eyes and turned my body to the side of the bed and feigned sleep.
I heard her undress. I listened as the silk of her shirt slid across the tiny invisible hairs on her back as she pulled the garment over her head; as she unsnapped her lace bra and the weight of her breasts tugged at the fabric as she removed it; as the cotton of her tight jeans glided across the flesh of her thighs and the nylon of her socks slipped across her smooth delicate feet; and as the shimmering fabric of her panties shimmied down to her ankles and she stepped out of them one foot at a time. I felt her weight, light as she was, as she sat on her side of the bed. I listened as she opened the safety cap to her sleeping pills and laid one on her tongue and I pictured her open mouthed with her tongue sticking out, wincing at the taste of the pill as she rushed to poor the liquid from her glass into her mouth to wash it down. The sound of glass on wood as she set her drink down on her nightstand made a brief muffled clunk; then she resealed the lid to her pills and placed them next to the glass and laid down facing away from me…being careful not to touch any part of her flesh to mine as she shifted beneath the covers seeking a comfortable shape.
As I lay stewing in my jealous brew I consoled myself with the fact that Melanie had not bathed upon her return. If she had slept with another man she would have bathed to wash away his scent. I realized too that despite my anger and my jealousy that I still loved her very much and I didn’t want to lose her. I wanted to find some way to salvage our relationship. It wasn’t just that she was all I had. I had truly grown to love her and to appreciate what we had. I reached over and even though I knew that she would not know that I had visited her in her sleep I kissed her and then turned on my side and I wept in self- pity until I finally fell asleep.
We didn’t share a wakeful moment together as Tuesday through Friday night Melanie was gone when I arrived home from work and I left before she woke. I pretended, for Sarah’s sake, as though all was well between us and that Melanie had simply found a legitimate job. I listened each night as she undressed (pretending that I was asleep) and took her pill and slipped into bed. Each night my pain grew exponentially as wild thoughts riddled my subconscious filling me with an ugly resentment. In my mind, whether true or imagined, I was a cuckold to the woman I loved. I was inextricably tied to Melanie through a bond of an inexplicable emotion and yet I was as tortured as a boy in the throes of unrequited love. My soul was wounded and I hardly slept at night and my strain was showing at work, as I became a worthless broken tool to Tony, plodding through my days in one continuous yawn. By weeks end I was exhausted and I slept soundly for the first time Friday night until I was awakened by what I thought to be the clicking sound of my bedroom door being shut. I wasn’t sure but I thought I heard the patter of tiny footsteps trotting away down the hall. I sat up and looked around the room but in the dark of night I could see nothing out of place.
Then a horrible thought crossed my mind. I quickly jumped up and backed away from the lump that occupied the other side of my bed. I stared at the lump which was Melanie. The pink quilted blanket we shared covered her body and her head. There was no sign of blood but she appeared too still, as though she were not breathing. I was too scared to pull the covers back for fear that she was dead. I just couldn’t take finding another lover dead in my bed. I couldn’t stand to lose Melanie. I loved her so. I needed her so. I vowed at that moment that I would put up with her behavior no matter how agonizing the pain if only God would let her be alive when I lift the covers.
I crept over to our bedroom door and I felt for the latch. It was undone. Melanie had forgotten to secure the lock when she crawled into bed. I crept over to Melanie and I slowly lifted the quilt. Her face was pale and her breathing seemed shallow but to my great relief she was alive. I placed my head to her breastbone and I listened for a pulse. I felt the slightest rise and fall of her chest but I could not hear her heart beat. I lifted my head and I tried to gather my bearings. My eyes were still adjusting to the dark so when I looked at the nightstand and saw that her pill bottle was open I thought at first that I was seeing things. Melanie sealed her pill bottle religiously every night. I picked up the bottle and verified that the lid was missing and I tilted the bottle but it was empty. At first I supposed that she had left the lid open because it was empty, but then I noticed that there were six broken capsules on the nightstand. The glass next to the bed was empty. I picked it up and I walked over to the closet and I switched the closet light on. I swirled the backwashed contents of the glass and noticed a powdery residue mixed in with the remnants of her beverage. I turned my head toward Melanie as I realized what had taken place. Sarah had struck again. She had split Melanie’s sleeping pills open and emptied them into her glass after Melanie had fallen asleep. Melanie had drunk from the glass to quench her thirst in the middle of the night. Melanie had overdosed on sleeping pills.
I bolted to the bed and I sat Melanie up and I slapped her face, “Melanie…Melanie…can you hear me?”
Melanie just barely opened her eyes but then she closed them again and she fell back against my arm. Her face appeared bluish in the dim light of our bedroom. I pulled her back up.
“Melanie…Melanie…did you do this?” I thought perhaps, hopefully, that she had tried to end her own life…that Sarah had not plied her craft yet again. Not that that would have been good either, but not as horrifying as the alternative.
“Whaaaat?” Melanie eyes fluttered open but then floated back into the top of her head.
“Did you do this?” “Whaaaat?”
“Did you put sleeping pills in your drink?”
Melanie did not respond.
I panicked. I lifted Melanie from the bed and slung her bare-assed over my shoulder and flung open the door and started to carry her to the car. Then I thought better of that idea and I returned and laid her back onto the bed and I scrounged through her dresser drawers and found and slipped a sweatshirt over her head and pulled her arms through the sleeves and I grabbed a pair of sweat pants and pulled them over her legs and I lifted her, as though I were dressing a child, and I pulled the sweats up to her waist; then I hoisted her once again and I carried her through the house and down the steps and through the darkness and into the back seat of my car where I dumped her with less care than I aught.
Driving to the hospital I pegged the accelerator to the floor making a rushed pause at each stop sign until I reached the main road. I realized then that I didn’t know where the nearest hospital was located, or for that matter where any hospital was located, so I turned right onto the strip hoping to locate a hospital sign or to see someone who might be able to direct me. I cruised through red stop lights, slowing just enough to see that no car approached from the sides. I had gone several miles and I had not passed a single car or a living soul. I looked over my shoulder at Melanie. She didn’t look good. The knot in my stomach grew to the size of a bowling ball and felt just as heavy. Tears were streaming down my face. I couldn’t let her die. I couldn’t’ let it happen again. I punched the gas and I sped down the road no longer slowing at red lights. I was hoping to pass a cop; to have them spot me rather than I having to slow to look for them. I needed help if I was going to save Melanie. I could not bear to have her death on my conscience. I could not bear to lose her.