Click

CLICK:

"Don't fucking lie to me, you coward." Spittle flying from the flung expletive.

"Dianne, wait. Just wait!" The pause was introspective and deep, but fleeting. Nothing had been yelled. In fact, the voices remained little more than harsh whispers. It was the thickness of her words and the shrill desperation of his that elevated.

In his mind this had been beautiful. Beautiful like opening your door after a four mile drunken walk home from the bar. Beautiful like walking out of work on Thursday knowing you wouldn't be coming back tomorrow, you were going to the beach. Beautiful like the clip sliding into the butt of a gun with that satisfying "click".

"It wasn't supposed to be like this."

"Oh, God. That's what you come up with to say? No shit it wasn't! We're married!" This last remark she actually used her vocal chords to say. He hadn't heard her, though, he was thinking. It pissed him off that he had had it all worked out, and it still went to shit, just like it always did. He had fucked the blonde from down the street, and he had fucked her good. Maybe not well, but good. He had relished every thrust, every grunt that escaped her throat.

His hands moved almost unconsciously. Her back was still turned to him. He couldn't see her very well, but the moon was bright enough that the darkness had two shades: dark solitude, alone and empty, infinite, and Her.

"You piece of shit." Snarled Dianne, "Of all the vows you've made to me over the years, this is the one you decide to break? Do you feel good? Do you?" The pause was too long, evidently, because the shift in grayness showed that she had rolled her torso left towards him and was now looking up at the ceiling.

"I have no face, Dianne." His voice was steady and calm. "You say it's my spine, but it's a face I don't have. You don't either, but at least you have a mask. I don't even have that. Blank." He sniffed, an uninterested careless sniff; very matter of fact. He sat up with his back against the headboard. "Well, that's it for that guy. Fuck'im." Obviously coming to a conclusion in the darkness.

"What? What guy? What are you..." Her mouth gaped. "You fucking bastard! Put that out. You don't smoke!" It was true, he didn't. But it was also true that he had lit a Red. And it was true, too, what he had said last. It was all over for that guy. "What in the hell are you doing? Who the hell are you?" She was now sitting as well, staring at him. Casually he pulled his left hand up from the side of the bed where it had been dangling. He dragged off his cigarette then set it on the bed stand. Leaning to his left he bent over and reached to the floor. When he straightened back up his left knee and back popped simultaneously. Leveling off, he unloaded six rounds from his .44 revolver, picked the cigarette up, dragged, flicked it to the floor at the foot of his bed (not their bed, anymore) got up and left.

"Fuck you." And he closed the door, on a lot of things.