An Unfortunate Chain of Events Pt. II

Jim answered the phone with his usual afternoon buzz making his thoughts a little fuzzy.

“Hello”, Jim said.

“Jim, you son of a bitch!” said the voice.

“Who is this?” Jim asked, a little annoyed.

“It´s Frank. From the firm. Don’t tell me you forgot about us already! It´s only been a few months.”

“Hell no Frank! I just wasn´t expecting you. I thought it was my damn in-laws. They call all day long”, Jim said with half a smirk. It was all he could muster because his mouth muscles atrophied from months of a lack of smiling.

“Sounds like you are loving domesticated small town life”, Frank said.

“You fucking kidding me? I hate this shit”, Jim always swore more when he was drinking. He swore a lot.

“Then I have great news for you. Stan wants you back. He didn´t really specify why he wants you so bad but he does. I think it´s because it has been so hard to find decent consistent people with half a brain. Plus, Stan always liked you.” Frank said.

“That sounds great,” Jim said, with a million things flashing through his head. “What´s the offer?”, he asked.

“What you were earning plus twenty percent, some more benefits and a larger profit share”, Frank said. “Plus, all of your moving expenses paid to come back and a company rent controlled apartment with a lease for three years”.

“Oh my god! I´m in!” Jim said with wide eyes.

“You think you can convince Francine?” Frank asked.

“I don´t care if can or not. I´m going with or without her”, Jim said.

“Looks like little Jimmy has finally grown a pair! Good to hear. Look, my secretary will call you to make flight arrangements. You´ll need to come to New York ASAP to sign a few things before we get the ball rolling”, Frank said, then he added, “Hey, take it easy on Francine, will ya? She´s a good girl. Let her down easy. If you can´t convince her to go, I mean. You know, she was close to my wife and she´s convinced Francine won´t go for it. Her dream is the picket fence in small town USA with the kids and all. She hated NY.”

“Don´t worry about that. We´ve been growing apart since coming here anyway. Might even be a relief for her”, Jim said.

*     *     *     *     *     *     *

Francine was driving home from the supermarket when her cell phone rang. “Hello”, she said.

“Francine?” the voice asked.

“Yes, this is she”, she said.

“Francine, this is Charlotte from Dr. Spengle’s office. The results of your blood work are in. He would like you to come in to discuss a few things”, the secretary said.

“Is everything ok?” Francine asked with worry in her voice.

“Yes, but I am not at liberty to divulge information over the phone but the doctor does need to speak to you in person” the secretary said.

“If you can´t tell me, can Dr. Spengle?” Francine asked.

“Actually, he is free. I´ll transfer you over”, the secretary said.

“Thanks”, Francine said.

“Francine?”, Dr. Spengle said.

“Yes?” Francine said with her heart racing.

“Francine, you’re pregnant”, the doctor said.

After a long pause Dr. Spengle heard from a distance as if the telephone had fallen to the floor “Oh my God! Thank you lord! I am so happy!”

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• An Unfortunate Chain of Events Pt. I (ryanimpink.wordpress.com)

An Unfortunate Chain of Events Pt. I

(note from the author: This will be a multiple part story written in 500 word sessions. Please enjoy and stay tuned.)

Francine was the motor behind her beloved husband’s success. Jim was the type of person that was very intelligent and full of potential, but left to his own devices would never see that potential realized. Until his senior year of high school he was a C+ student but without even opening a book. When Francine entered his life he almost instantly became an A Student and continued to be one through college. She never told him to do better. She made him want to do better. And it wasn´t even to impress her. It was to make him feel like he deserved her. People always wanted to be their best when they were around Francine.

Jim’s intelligence and tendency to buck the system are what attracted Francine. He never accepted the status quo. He questioned everything. The fact that he was extremely handsome did not wane Francine’s desire either. They met at a protest against the drilling of oil on a Native American reserve. Although Francine self-identified herself as African American, she still reveled in the fact that she was of Comanche ancestry. Jim was there because he could not give up an opportunity to poke the eye of the man. The fact that Jim was white brought a lot of attention. The majority of the protesters were either Comanche people or ancestors so Jim stuck out with his polo shirt clad six foot four frame.

That protest was almost 6 years, a few degrees between them and many moves around the United States ago. They decided to settle down and get married in the small Texas town where they started their relationship. Francine wanted to start making a family of their own and wanted to be closer to her parents. Jim was reluctant because this meant giving up a fledgling, yet promising, career in finance that he had started in New York. After many nights arguing, sometimes arriving on the verge of violence, Jim acquiesced. But knowledge in finance was not the only thing Jim brought to Texas from New York. His Wall Street colleges introduced him to some new vices. Some were mild, like single malt scotch and cigars and some were not so mild like cocaine and high end escorts. Of course, Francine knew nothing of this. He always showed his best face to Francine. Francine was so focused on the prospect of her new family that she didn´t notice slight changes in Jim.

In Texas, far removed from the hustle and bustle of New York Jim actually forgot about his new found fondness for cocaine but not for drink. Again, Francine unconsciously turned a blind eye with her future family the star of her thoughts. Jim started drinking more and more as Francine nested. He drowned himself in whiskey as Francine drowned herself in bags from Ikea and Tok and Stok. Jim started to resent Francine´s happiness. He started to regret coming back to Texas. One sunny afternoon, with half a buzz on, Jim answered a call that would change both of their lives forever and so did Francine.

 

The Number

As they lay in their post coitus embrace, Bruno sensed that something was awry with Alexandra.

“Is everything all right?” he asked.

“Yeah” she said without conviction.

“No, really, tell me. What´s wrong?” he insisted.

“You really wanna know?” she asked.

“Yeah, you can tell me anything” he said.

“Ok, well me and the girls were talking the other day about our boyfriends. The subject of the number came up” she said

“The number?” he asked.

“Yeah, the number. How many people you’ve been with, the number” she said almost irritated by his ignorance of the matter.

“That´s what you girls talk about when you get together” he laughed.

“What’s so funny?” she said with a twisted face of anger and disgust. “It´s serious stuff.”

“Easy babe” he said while running his finger down her arm affectionately, trying to get her to calm down. With this she jerked away created a space of at least a foot between their naked bodies.

“Don’t touch me. I gotta know. You are the only guy that I have ever cared about. I need to know. What´s your number. I need to know how many girls the first guy I ever fell in love with slept with!”

Bruno’s head was spinning. Though he felt highly attracted to Alexandra and enjoyed her company, it’s only been three months that they have been seeing each other. The L word had not even entered his head.

“Slow down, babe. Where is all of this coming from?” he asked.

Alexandra was now crying. “I never loved anybody so I never cared before. It bothers me so much to know that someone I love fucked a bunch of dirty whores”

Bruno was already making plans in his head to delete Alexandra from his phone and block her from his Facebook. But first, he needed to think his way out of this very moment.

“What if I told you, that you were the only one” he trailed off and came back with “that I cared about? Huh?” he thought a little humor would lighten the mood.

“TELL ME! How many whores have you fucked, Bruno?” she screamed.

Bruno stammered, “I really don´t know, I haven’t kept a real count.”

“Oh my god! You’ve fucked so many girls you don’t even know how many there were?” she said.

“No, it’s not like that, I just don’t know. I’d have to think about it” he said.

“Get to thinking” she said.

Bruno thought of a number that he thought she would except and calm down. “I think five”.

“It can’t be only five! If it were only five you would not have to think. You would have known five without thinking!” she said.

“No, five. I just never stopped to think before, that’s all” he said.

This seemed to calm her a little. “Only five? Really?”

Bruno saw that it was working. “Really” he was frantically thinking of how he could extricate himself from her bedroom without bringing on another wave of rage.

The Alexandra said “Do you love me?”

This caught Bruno completely by surprise. He saw that she wasn’t stable and he didn’t want to raise her ire so he lied “Of course. These past months have been some of the happiest of my life”

“Do want to be with me forever?” she asked.

“Of course I do” Bruno said hoping that she couldn’t sense how far from the truth this statement was.

“Then you know what we have to do to be together?” she asked.

“No” he replied.

“We have to kill those dirty whores who you fucked” she said as she stared at the ceiling, mascara staining the sides of her face making permanent black tears.

Bruno’s mind went blank.

Love in a Hopeless Place

Betty’s life had been so bad up to this point that her death sentence was almost a reprieve from life. Abuse was the only human contact she had known. Rape was the only intimacy that she had experienced. Once a victim gets marked early, other victimizers sense this with some sort of sick radar and pounce. Healthy people tend to shy away from such people. This isolates a victim and sets them up to be a victim for life.

Her marriage to Jimbo was what she thought was a chance to escape a life of abuse. He was so good to her, in the beginning. She didn´t mind the sneers that they received as this tall handsome white boy was hand in hand with a poor, yet beautiful, black girl. The comments from the women were far worse than those from the men. Women already do not deal with competition so well. Now they have to deal with another race of women, women with more curvaceous bodies than themselves.

Things worsened when they moved from Plano, Texas to Lewisville, Texas. Plano was a liberal metropolitan city in comparison to Lewisville. In Plano, they only had to deal with sneers and comments. In Lewisville, they had to deal with vandalism to their home. Jimbo almost immediately lost the factory job that brought them there. Neither wanted to go back to Plano. Jimbo’s family rejected him for his relationship with Betty and Betty didn’t really have a family to go back to. Jimbo started drinking. Jimbo changed. Betty was stuck.

Jimbo and Betty didn´t have much of a sex life before they were married. Betty had no idea how to be intimate with a man. The only men she knew sexually were her own father and his brothers whom he let have a turn with her when they got together to play cards and drink. Actually, playing cards was a ruse to drink. Drinking was the principle activity. After Betty’s mother left them, in Betty’s infancy, that is just about all he did. Jimbo was raised a fire and brimstone evangelical Christian and was so afraid of hell and the devil that he would burn his penis with a sewing needle that he held over a lit match when he felt the urge to masturbate. Even though he was now married to Betty, he was still afraid of his carnal urges. The drink erased those fears but not the shame.

When Jimbo drank, he felt the need for female companionship but had no idea about how to go about getting it in a polite way. These shameful feelings disgusted him. Betty was no better. Before Jimbo, she had never even been hugged lovingly. She didn´t know the first thing about how to coerce some loving touch from her husband. What ended up happening was that Jimbo would work himself up into a rage and start to hit Betty. Betty knew this role well and went along with it. Jimbo would beat Betty until he felt his erection pulsating through his entire body. All he could feel was a burning shortness in breath and the throbbing of his member. Then, when Betty was as limp as a cadaver entering into emotional shock, Jimbo would enter her and in a few short strokes would finish.

*Note from the author: He shall continue the story if anybody wishes. Just leave a comment that you wish to read on.

Melting

Everybody knows what happens at the end of the life cycle of an ice cube. It does not die. It just retreats closer to the ground. It becomes not a different thing; it is indeed the same thing just in a different state.

If we can concur on the above, then it is true that the same is true for a cat. At the end of its life cycle, its matter retreats to the ground. A different kind of melting occurs. Some things are created, such as foul odors. However, are these odors truly created? Do they not exist the whole time only being released upon the animal’s biological demise?

These are the type of thoughts that helped Brad justify his odd hobby. He thought to himself, he is not just taking life, he is putting it back into the ground from which it came. He was like a social vulture but instead of waiting for his clean up job to die before commencing, he would just go ahead and clean up. He would take messes, deep into the woods, retire them to freshly dug holes, spread lime, cover up said mess and go home to have supper.

Society does not seem to agree with Brad so he must sit in a cage for the rest of his natural life and many more for his sentence far exceeds the years of the average human life.

Jane loved Dick

*Note from the author, though this is categorized as adult and despite the suggestive title, this work is not crude pornography. It may be crude, but it is not pornography. Thank you.

Jane loved Dick the way an addict loves their drug of choice. It was not a healthy love. Much like the addict knows what they are doing will not end well, Jane knew this too. But Jane created Dick in her mind before he ever spoke a word. When she saw him, like what she saw and created the human behind the good looks. Jane didn’t know Dick.

Dick loved Jane like a person loves a warm place to go in the wintertime to escape the cold. That’s all Jane was to Dick. A warm place to go. Dick was a loser. He never held a steady job for more than a couple years and when he was working he didn’t make much money. He was restless and never really knew what he wanted in life. He bought cheap guitar and dreamt of performing it on stage in front of screaming crowds but he never even practiced. The problem was he never dedicated himself to anything. He didn’t realize you have to work at things to get good. He was good looking so life came easy to him. People always praised his mediocrity as though it was greatness so he felt he was great. He never loved anybody but himself. When he told Jane he loved her he was really talking to himself. Because Jane gushed love on him he saw her as weak.

Jane had serious bouts with manic depression. The mood swings lasted months. She came from money so that protected against the lows. She was able to get by in a respected state college so she was able to obtain good jobs during the manic periods. She lost them during the low ones. She met Dick in a state required anger management class. She was there for hitting a boss one day when he told her that she was dressing inappropriately. Dick was there because of a drunken bar fight. Dick wasn’t a fighter unless he had the sauce in him which was often.

For Jane the obsession was immediate. She saw this handsome guy sitting across from her in her group therapy session. He was stylishly dressed, though in cheap clothes and had a swagger about him. She wanted him. Their eyes met from opposite ends of the semi-circle they were sitting in. Dick asked Jane out for a drink after the group dispersed and a relationship was born.

A three month whirlwind romance ended up in a simple marriage performed by a justice of the peace.  Jane felt complete and Dick felt trapped, yet comfortable. He thought it was a just a little better than prison, three squares, a roof over his and money in his pocket.

After six months of playing house Dick’s eyes and other parts already started to wander. Jane was in a manic mood so she was gainfully employed by a financial firm downtown.  Dick wasn’t working.

One night Dick came bumbling through the front door with his head down as to not let Jane see that his eyes were red from smoking weed on the corner with his so called friends. Being high in front of sober people always made him fell dirty.

“Dick, you’re not high again are you?” she asked.

“Just a little.”

“Why do you act like you’re all ashamed or something when you’re high. You always keep your head down and don’t look at me. You know I don’t even care.  What’s that all about?”

“I dunno.” He was hoping the questions would end soon because he could not think strait. He didn’t smoke a little. That was a lie. He smoked a lot. The dirty feeling increased when he could not give coherent answers to simple questions.  He was very uncomfortable right now. He knew he should have stayed on the corner with the guys. But Jasmine was coming and he didn’t want her to see him this burnt. He would rather expose this side of himself to Jane than to Jasmine.  With Jasmine he had what he thought were real feelings. She was much more like him so the love projected into her that was really towards himself was stronger.

After a strained silence Jane said “You know honey. I heard that Frank and Sandra in Apartment 245 are splitting up. Apparently Frank was banging the Mexican girl that cleans the house. Sandra found a condom under the covers near the foot of the bed. Frank admitted everything. Sandra is devastated. She loves Frank.” She was looking into nothingness and asked “Did you know anything about this.” The question was innocent. She was just gossiping and not accusing Dick of knowing anything but it caught Dick of guard.

“Naw. I didn’t know that Frank was getting down like that.” That was a lie. He knew. He knew sordid details. He knew that girl was a third input girl. He knew that she; in the throes of passion would say things in Spanish and that Frank would cum gushing explosions to the exotic words coming from her mouth. He knew that…..well, he knew. Dick was even planning on convincing Jane to hire the girl to clean their apartment. What Jane said next shocked him. Shocked him even through his weed induced stupor.

“I think Sandra should have acted like she knew nothing. Let the girl come do the weekly cleaning. Then when she arrived, I don’t know, hit her on the head with something…”

“Wooh….”

“I’m not finished, let me finish.” Her tone got dead serious. She was not talking to Dick but to the ether. Her face changed. She looked different. “Then I would tie her up on a chair next to Frank. Oh yeah, Frank would already be tied up, I would have got him while he was still sleeping. Then I would cut Frank’s dick off. I’m not sure how. Knife? Scissors? That’s not the point. Then I would shove it down the little Spic’s throat as far as I could. You know Frank’s got a big one, Sandra told me.” Dick nodded. He had heard. “Then I would pinch her nose as to not let her breath. With my two little fingers I would slowly take her life away…”

Dick’s drugged out mind was spinning. He thought of Jane as this sweet pliable little thing. After hearing these words and seeing the severity in her eyes and her twisted face when she said them, Dick’s image of the little push over Jane changed.  Now he started to go over in his mind all the shit he has been pulling off behind Jane’s back. If she was saying this, was she capable of doing it? Seeing the look in her eyes he didn’t have many doubts.

“Is something wrong, dear? You have a strange look on your face”. Jane asked.

“Naw, I’m just a little smoked out. That’s all.”

She continued “But Frank. What to do about Frank? After all, the little whore was just after some dick. Maybe the dumb little bitch thought there was a possible Green card in it. But Frank, he knew he was fucking with someone’s heart. Him and Sandra are married seven years.” She paused “SEVEN YEARS!” Dick was almost sober now; his high came crashing down with the transformation of his meek little wife.  She continued “Well, Frank would probably die from the loss of blood soon, because of the loped off cock and all, so I wouldn’t have a lot of time to work. I couldn’t let the bastard off that easy. Dying from blood loss is too easy. Too easy for a piece of shit like that.” Jane rarely used foul language.  “You know, I’m not sure what I’d do next. What do you think, honey? How could I make him hurt before he dies?”

Dick was stunned by the question. His face showed a little fear. He hesitated too long for Jane’s liking and she said “What, you think I’m crazy. You don’t think Frank should pay for his sins?”

“Uh, well, not like that. Maybe Sandra could, like, take him to the cleaners, you know? He’s got a little dough in the bank. She could get like a lawyer and just take his money and she could just live her life.” He was stammering.

“No.” She paused and her face returned to quasi normalcy. “No one can live their life after something like that happens.” She sat quietly now just thinking. Dick stood stupidly in the doorway scrambling for something to say. He came up with “Well you ain’t got to worry about shit like that with me.” He lied “I love you too much to fuck around on you.”

She said “I better not have to worry.” She paused. “No, I mean, I know I don’t have to worry” Then she added “I love you.”

“I love you too. I’m gonna hit the hay. I’m kinda tired. You wanna go to bed?”

“Yeah, I have to wake up early tomorrow. There’s a meeting at the other office.”

As they crawled into bed Jane started to kiss Dick. “You it’s been a while.” She said.

At first Dick’s mind was elsewhere. Was this fantasy that she just told him a warning? Does she know something? As her deft mouth started kissing down his chest his mind came back into focus. The kisses felt good. As she made her way past the treasure trail of pubic hairs just north of his manhood he started imagining that Jane was the little Mexican girl. That night Jane made love to the idea Dick that she had created and Dick made love to the little Mexican girl. Their relationship changed forever that night.

*             *             *             *             *             *             *

After a session of rough sex, Dick and Jasmine lay on the bed, sweaty and staring up at the once white now slightly yellow ceiling.

“I have a job interview on Monday, Dick, isn’t that great?” Jasmine said.

“Yeah?” he replied. Dick generally didn’t pay attention to anything that didn’t grasp one of his primal senses. This comment didn’t, so he was paying much attention.

“Yeah, it’s for a good financial firm in the city. Finally Dick, I might have some steady income and we can get out of this dump. You can leave that bitch wife of yours and you can come with me. We could, like, get a cute little apartment in the city. It’ll be great.”

“Yeah, great.” He said. Again, he wasn’t paying much heed to what she was saying.

*             *             *             *             *             *             *

It was a sunny Monday morning as Jane and Jasmine stepped out of their front doors. And the sun was shining real bright as they climbed onto the exact same train heading into the city. They sat two cars apart. The train arrived in the city and Jane climbed up to her office and Jasmine ducked into a deli for a cup of coffee and to practice her interview questions that she printed out from the internet.

At 10:00am sharp Jasmine was sitting in the reception area waiting for her interviewer. The door opened and a well shaped and well dressed women came walking towards her with an outstretched hand.

“My name is Jane, nice to meet you.”

“Very nice to meet you, Jane, my name is Jasmine.”

“Please, come into my office so we can talk.”

“Absolutely.”

The usual questions were asked and the interview lasted for 45 minutes. Jane really liked Jasmine and Jasmine like Jane. Jane felt that Jasmine’s prospects of being hired were quite good.

“Come to this side of my desk, there is something on the company web-site I want to show you. My monitor can’t swivel enough for you to see it from there.” Jane said.

“Sure.” Jasmine answered.

As Jasmine turned the corner of Jane’s long glass top desk she saw something that gave her a start. Her faced must have showed it because Jane asked “What’s the matter, you’ve never seen a desk this messy before?” she said playfully.

What gave her the start was a picture of Dick and Jane taken on their honeymoon in a sleek modern frame. Jasmine always knew that Jane existed. But she asked few questions and Dick offered even less information. She didn’t even know Jane’s last name. Now she did. Now she had to think of something quick. She knew she displayed shock on her face but she surely couldn’t tell Jane why.

“No, I was just admiring your desk.”

Jane’s bullshit detector went off. She casually took her eyes from Jasmine’s face to follow the trail of her stare. It led right to the picture for Jasmine never took her eyes off it. “Why is she looking at that picture wearing that face? And why the lie about the desk?” Jane thought. She momentarily pushed it out of her mind.

She went to the company website and showed Jasmine what is was she wanted to show her. Jasmine was now acting differently. She was aloof. They ended the interview with niceties and Jasmine left Jane’s office. Jane knew that something happened.  She looked at the address on Jasmine’s resume and saw that they were practically neighbors. Jane got to thinking.

Jasmine went to the ladies room and cried. This was the moment she knew she was in love with Dick.

*             *             *             *             *             *             *

As Jane cleared the dinner plates from the she turned her head to Dick and asked “You know almost everybody who lives in a two mile radius of our house, right?”

“Yeah, pretty much” he said.

“You ever heard of a Jasmine who lives on Spring Street?”

A pang of fear flashed behind Dick’s eyes. It showed. “Uh, I don’t think so” he stammered.

“But you know everybody. You don’t do shit with your life but hang around the block with all them losers, smoking and drinking.” Her tone was mean and condescending.

“Yeah, but I never heard of any Jasmine.” He said. His cell phone rang. The caller I.D. lied and said Ray. Dick was frozen in his chair. “I told her never to call” he thought.

“Who is that, dear?”

He looked at the caller I.D. “Ah, it’s just Ray.”

“Who’s Ray, dear?  I never heard you talk about any Ray. Is he a business associate?” She said facetiously.

“Just a guy I know.”

“Well, aren’t you going to answer it?”

“Nah, it ain’t that important.” He was hoping with all his might the incessant ring tone would die off.

“Answer the fucking phone, Dick!” she said.

He nervously flipped open the phone. “Yo, Ray, I can’t talk right now.” A feminine voice was speaking on the other line until Dick closed the phone and placed it on the table.

Jane was staring right through Dick. “Why couldn’t you talk, Dick?”

“We’re like in the middle of something here.”

“No we weren’t, Dick. So, Dick, Ray is a woman?”

“Nah, he’s a guy that new to the neighborhood” Dick was cut off by Jane screaming “Stop fucking lying to me. I heard the voice. It was a woman. Why are you lying to me?” She picked up a large knife and walked towards Dick and repeated “Why are you lying to me?”

Dick scrambled to his feet, knocking over his chair. “I’m not lying to you, I swear. What are you going to do with that knife?”

“Get the fuck out of my house, Dick. Now!”

Dick burst through the small room that leads to the front door, fumbled to get it open and with that he was gone. Jane heard his heavy frantic footsteps running down the stairs. She went to the window that looks down upon the street and saw Dick running towards Spring Street. She pulled out the business card that she had scratched Jasmine’s address on.

*             *             *             *             *             *             *

Jasmine heard panicked pounding on her door. She looked through the peep hole and saw Dick hitting the door as if he thought he could he could make a hole in it with his fist to jump through.

Jasmine undid the puzzle of locks and let Dick in. “What was that Ray bullshit about?” she asked.

Dick was out of breath “I told you never to call me.  Jesus fucking Christ, I’m fucked.”

“What are you talking about? You said you’d be at the bar by seven. I just wanted to see you to tell you what happened today.”

“Jane got home later than usual and she made us have dinner together.” He paused to catch his breath. “ Look, Jane started asking if I ever heard of you. I said no, but it was like she didn’t believe me. Then, you called. I have you as Ray in my phone so if she gets to snooping around she won’t think anything about it. But she heard your voice. Then, she came at me with a knife and told me to get the fuck out the house.”

“She knows you came here?”

“How the fuck would I know?”

“Look, Dick, this is what I wanted to tell you. Remember I told you I had an interview today?”

Dick lied “Yeah, I remember.”

“It was with your wife!”

Dick’s eyes opened so wide he thought they’d fall out. He saw his comfortable stability crumbling around him. “What the fuck you do? You tell her about us or something? Cuz she knows! I swear to God, she knows.”

“No, I didn’t say anything but when I saw a picture of you two on her desk I guess I started to act a little weird. I just couldn’t help it. See you two together…”

“Shit.” He said.

“Look, let’s just get out of here. For good. I have family in Florida. We could start over clean. Together, they way we talked about sometimes. You know I don’t even like it here. Never have.” The notion of leaving the city and going to a new place made her happy. Jasmine liked new starts. She has made so many of them.

“You know I ain’t got shit, right. No money, no credit cards, nothing. And I can’t even go back to the house and get any of my stuff.”

“Why not, it’s yours!”

“I think Jane is crazy. She told me once about a neighbor who was cheating on his wife. She described what she would do to him and, fuck, she was dead serious. Her face changed and shit like in the movies.”

“But I met her today. I can’t picture her being able to do much.”

“She can. And if given the chance I think she would. She’s got another side I ain’t never seen in nobody.”

“Well, look. I have some money put away. Enough to buy plane tickets and get you some clothes. Nothing fancy, but enough to hold you over until you start working.”

“We got to do this soon because I don’t have a good feeling about any of this.”

“You know, it’s better any way. My lease is up in a few days and I can get the deposit money back.”

“All the extra cash will help.”

“You know something, Dick? I love you.”

Dick felt uneasiness in his stomach. He was being trapped again by another one. He lied “I love you too.”

*             *             *             *             *             *             *

Jane sat in the kitchen staring at the wall. Behind her placid face her mind was anything but. She had no control over her thoughts. Blood. Blood would clean this mess she thought. Jane was relieved by this thought. Just imaging Dick’s spilt blood calmed her, even intoxicated her. She felt gay. She skipped into the bedroom and retrieved a dusty shoe box from the depths of her closet. She blew the dust off the lid and opened it up. There lay a Grendel .380 auto that her father had given to her for protection before moving into the city. Daddy loves me she thought. She struggled to remember her father’s instructions on how to use the thing. Insert the clip full of bullets into the opening in the handle and push until it clicks. Then pull back the metal part on top all the way back and let it go. There. On projectile of death was awaiting his orders from the trigger and eight more that couldn’t wait to follow. Jane put the gun in her purse along with a few other items and went off towards Spring Street. She had a grin from ear to ear. Between the streaked make-up from crying and the gleeful look in her eyes she looked like a demented clown.

*             *             *             *             *             *             *             *

Dick is completely propelled through life by his natural urges and impulsive behavior. Less than one hour ago his married life practically ended with his wife chasing him out of the house with a knife. Now, he was sitting on the toilet with his head thrown back in ecstasy while Jasmine’s large wet lips pleasured the part of him that does most of the thinking. Dick felt the eruption coming and as his toes curled and his eyes went into the back of his head the door of the bathroom was kicked in.

A demented clown stood above the degrading love scene taking place on the toilet. Jane was outside of her mind. She was watching the whole scene from behind a distorted camera lense.

“Sorry to interrupt, the front door was open so I let myself in.” She had the gun pointed at Dick and Jasmine.

“Mmmmm, that looks good, mind if I have some.” While still training the gun on Jasmine’s head she took Dick’s member in her hand. She squeezed tight. “So, I wasn’t enough for you, huh? Because I’m not a little whore that would suck your cock while you’re on the toilet?” She squeezed tighter, yet. “I can be a little whore.” Dick looked deep into Jane’s eyes but Jane wasn’t there.  While Dick and Jane were locked at the eyes Jasmine went for the gun. The gun fell from Jane’s hand. In the dimly lit bathroom it was hard to see what was going on. There was a scramble for the gun.  First Jane had it, then Jasmine. Dick just sat on the toilet, naked and dumbfounded. Jasmine ended up with the gun and had it pointed at Jane.

Jane leaned against the wall and slowly went to the floor. She was whimpering.

“Call the police, Dick.” Jasmine said. Dick didn’t move.

She repeated “Call the police, now.” Dick still didn’t move. He was in a trance. All he kept thinking about was how he drove this women, a good woman who he knows loved him and took care of him, to this point. He felt sick. He hated himself. He needed to fix everything.

“Snap the fuck out of it and call the police” Jasmine said.

Dick slowly stood up. He legs were weak. He took the gun out of Jasmines hand. He looked at Jane and whispered “Sorry.” He looked at Jasmine and said the same. He then put the gun to his temple as he had seen in the movies many times and pulled the trigger. The hollow point tipped bullet responded with a loud bang. It first broke the skin of the temple and as it penetrated the skull the metal that encases the lead center peeled back like a banana as it tore through his brain. All of this took place over an eternity for Dick. For Jane and Jasmine, Dick hit the floor with a naked thud before they could even compute what he was doing.