Another Brief Conversation

"Thank you, Lewis, but this is all so unnecessary. Cha..."

"STOP, Blaine. Don't ever mention that piece of shit's name in my presence!"

"Lewis, he is a nice guy, he isn't..."

"No, Blaine, he isn't. He is...oh hell let's just cut to the chase. Whose idea was it to tell me about the two of your relationship?"

"It was his, Lewis. He said it wasn't right to cheat on a good man like you..."

Lewis laughed caustically, as he interrupted Blaine. "Bullshit, Blaine. He did it to ensure he would get the exact reaction from me that you did. Has he asked you when he can move in with you yet?"

Her eyes shot wide open at the same time her mouth did. Lewis thought she looked exactly like one of her favorite emojis she liked to use. Blaine was silent. She looked down at her hands that she was wringing furiously. Her posture was so stiff and brittle, it looked as if she was afraid that her slightest movement, would cause her to turn into a pillar of dust.

"I thought so, Blaine. It's all in the report there in your hands." Lewis stabbed the papers in her hands with his fingers. You aren't his first, and you won't be his last. His track record is included in here."

"H-h-he's not like that. He really loves me." She spoke so softly that Lewis had to strain to hear her pitiful utterance.

It caused him to smile knowingly. He exhaled slowly as a peaceful tranquility swept over him just as another gentle breeze off of his beloved lake washed across his face. It was almost over. He knew he had chosen the right path. Oh, he understood there were risks involved, but he was in control now. He was confident that things would fall into place as he desired.

His voice softened considerably. "Look at me, Blaine. We're almost done here. It's important that you pay very close attention."

She looked up at him. Her tear-stained face was a mask of confusion, ruined mascara, and fear. Her perfect world had been shattered.

When she finally made eye contact with Lewis. She saw a stone-cold menacing face with eyes black as night boring into her. "Take good care of my girls, Blaine."

"They're our girls, Lewis." She weakly protested. Her timidity made it sound more like a question.

"No, Blaine, they're not. They are my girls. You betrayed them and threw them away, just like you did me because you are weak and couldn't keep your legs closed. I need you to take care of them for me, for just a couple of years."

"What are you talking about?" You could almost smell her fear. "I'm never going to give them up."

"You already did. You just don't realize it yet. One way or the other, your boyfriend will make sure of that." He spoke matter-of-factly. "Has he used this line on you yet? 'Oh, babe, just take a little of this, it will make our sex so much better. Our lovemaking will have an intensity you could never have imagined. Your every nerve ending will be on fire! Here, just wash it down with a little of this.'"

She looked sheepishly at her hands again. "Soon, he will be sharing you with his friends. 'Oh, come on babe, Justin is such a nice guy, don't you want to just once, see what it's like to be loved by more than one man at a time?'"

Blaine was slowly shaking her head, staring blankly, as she mumbled. "He wouldn't do that to me. He loves me."

"Fuck you, Blaine. That asshole will be pimping you out in his favorite dive bars in a matter of a few months." Lewis was on a roll now. "But, the good news is, I only have a couple of more years before I complete the classes I need for my bachelor's degree in Fire Administration. After that I can apply for the Fire Marshall opening when Frank retires. Then I will almost have bankers' hours. That should be just about the time you start to crash and burn. That's when I will petition the court for full custody. You'll probably be so stoned by then you won't even care..."

"You're wrong! He's not like that at all. Please, Lewis, I really do love you. I love our family. Why can't you see..."

"No, you don't!" Lewis snarled at her. You never did. Frankly, I don't think you're capable of loving anyone but yourself. I was just blinded to that fact by my love for who I thought you were. I was just a convenient grounding rod for you. The girls just cemented your hold on me. When your asshole boyfriend and his magic dick came along, you played right into his hands. You threw your family away like yesterday's sour milk."

"M-m-maybe we, ahh, we can start over?" She tearfully suggested.

"No, Blaine, we can't. There is nothing left to start over with. Besides, you won't give him up, because then your failure as a wife, mother, and human being would be exposed for all the world to see. No, you will keep up the façade that you and shithead are happy and in love. You will knowingly walk down a path of self-destruction because you don't have a choice. Because if you did, deep down you would have to admit to yourself what a piece of scum you are. If you dared to do some self-evaluation, you wouldn't be able to live with what you discovered. You have no choice now but to live with what you are for the rest of your miserable life.

"But hey, if I'm wrong on all this, and you two are actually in love, I'm pretty sure it won't be long before your magic dick starts to drop little hints about how having to babysit the brats is really cramping your style. He'll probably start with, 'why don't we just let Lewis have them more often.' Something along those lines anyway. You won't fight him because you won't want to give up the fantastic sex. That's what you said to me when you told me I had to share you with that parasite.

"If he eventually threatens to leave you after suggesting, cajoling, and finally promising that he will leave if you don't give the girls up to me...well...then...you're back to square one, aren't you?" He smiled at her confusion. "In either case, I win, you lose. It's only a matter of time. And I'm a patient guy."

Lewis surveyed the lake's azure surface again. For a moment the breeze had quieted. The water was like glass in the closet inlet. Time to go now. He vowed to himself that he would return here often with his daughters. His girls liked it here, but that wasn't good enough. He wanted them to love it as he did.

He stood, not because he was finished with her, but because there was so much adrenaline coursing throughout his body that his central nervous system would no longer allow him to remain seated. He had one last consequential detail to address with her.

Lewis walked stiffly around behind the bench. He placed one hand on either side of Blaine's shoulders on the smooth varnished teak and gripped it tightly. He slowly leaned down to whisper in her ear. In a quiet voice filled with malevolence, he spoke with a calm fury.

"Tell your piece-of-shit boy toy, that if I get just a hint, or even a mere suggestion of him being inappropriate with my daughters, I will kill him. It doesn't matter what. If it's drugs, sexual innuendo, a simple voyeur-like stare at them in their nightgowns. I will kill him. Tell him he won't have to sneak around or look over his shoulder for me because I will come at him head-on. I want his last mortal realization to be that it was me who ended his miserable fucking existence on this earth.

"The same applies to you, Blaine." His voice began to shake, his throat aching from the strain. His grip pressure was increasing as the epinephrine did likewise with every word he spat at her. "You...tell...him...that, Blaine." With that last statement, there was a loud snap as the hardwood succumbed to Blaine's death-like clench. Blaine flinched sharply. Blaine looked down curiously at the shattered lattice piece. It must have been dry rot?

For her part, Blaine never looked at him. She never stopped sobbing or whimpering. Her body was trembling as it would if she were suffering from hypothermia.

"Remember, Blaine, thirty-six hours. Not thirty-seven. I'm leaving now." He looked at his hands. His fingernails were broken, his hands bloody and filled with splinters. Hmmm. That's odd. It doesn't hurt at all.

He stared quietly for a moment at Blaine. All he saw was an empty shell of something that used to be a human being. He took one last look at his surroundings, inhaled a deep breath of the pristine mountain air, then turned and left.

Don't know if it's day or night...

Is it tomorrow or just the end of time?

Jimi Hendrix, Purple Haze, 1967