Monster

Greg checked the room over one last time. He wanted everything perfect for the guests who should be showing up in a matter of minutes. He double checked the seating...yes, everything was precisely correct. As he clapped his hands together, the doorbell rang, which seemed to portend a positive outcome to the days' events.

Greg went to the door, straightening the throw rug with his toe just as he reached the doorknob. Turning it, he opened the door wide, showing Tom, his former best friend, and Karen, his former wife. Both had bewildered if somewhat optimistic expressions on their faces.

"Please, come in," Greg said. He offered them something to drink, which they both accepted, water for both. Neither wanted alcohol for this first meeting with Karen's ex-husband. Since the day that Karen had told Greg that she had fallen in love with Tom, he had refused to speak with her. If it didn't have to do with the kids, he didn't say a word to her or her new husband. Not one word. So when he called after 5 years of silence, they were simultaneously bewildered and pleased and concerned. Karen had hoped that they would be able to remain friends or at least get to a level of friendly civility, but Greg was having none of it.

Greg showed them into the living room and gestured for them to sit on the loveseat. Tom found that curious and a bit disturbing -- as upset as Greg had been over the divorce and the subsequent marriage, Tom was sure that he and Karen would have been sitting apart.

Greg sat down in his seat, an old brown leather wingback chair. He crossed his right leg over left, his ankle atop the knee. His right arm on the arm of the chair, his chin resting in the palm of his hand, Greg seemed completely at ease. Relaxed. None of this was going the way either Karen or Tom expected.

Greg sighed, paused, then started talking. "So, first, I want to kind of lay out some ground rules. First, I know I told the two of you that I never wanted to speak with either of you again. For today, for this conversation, I want that set aside. I want you to be able to speak your mind. Secondly, I want to get this out of the way, uninterrupted. It'll just be a couple of minutes, then either of you can jump in. Good?"

Tom and Karen looked at each other, shrugged, then Karen said "Sure, please. We are so happy that you are talking to us...." Her words died in her throat as Greg held up a hand.

"I get the idea," Greg replied, stopped her from trying to get five year's worth of discussion done in one sitting. "Just let me get this out first." Karen smiled at him and nodded. "Carlie is growing up. Our daughter," nodding his head to Karen, isolating Tom, "is graduating this year. And someday, she will get married. But here's the thing -- I still don't want you two to talk to me. And I don't want to talk to you. But I also don't want to be painted as the bad guy, the one who can't move on. That hardly seems fair, does it? You fuck my best friend, you take my child with you, you take money from my paycheck until you two tie the knot...no, I am the injured party here, not you. Therefore, I have come up with a solution. You two won't even try to talk to me. If we are in the same room, neither of you says one word to me. You don't lay the blame on me, you just don't say a thing to me."

Karen's previous optimism disappeared. She was heartbroken all over again that her ex-husband couldn't or wouldn't move past what he saw as her betrayal. He just didn't understand that Tom was her soulmate, the one she was supposed to spend her life with. "Greg, you know that there will be times when it can't be helped..." again her voice trailing off as she watched Greg's right hand move slowly from his chin to a hammer standing next to the chair, the head on the floor, the handle pointing straight up to the ceiling. He touched the handle, tapped it twice, then moved his hand slightly away, still dangling close to the black tape covered handle.

"No, there won't be. You won't say a thing to me. Ever." His voice had dropped low, almost to a whisper. His hand tapped the handle again, just twice.

Karen saw the gesture and let out a raspberry, a small smile touching her lips. "What? I'm supposed to believe that you're going to hit me with that if I talk to you? Come on, I know you better than that."

A slight grin creased his face. Greg pointed out "No, you don't know me. At all. But you are correct. I won't hit you." His gaze shifted to his left. "I'll hit him. Every time you talk to me, I will take this maul and I will break one of his bones. There are 206 bones so I won't run out of targets before the first one start to heal and I can start all over again." Tom's face turned slightly pale, but he couldn't believe that Greg would do that.

"Come on, man, I grew up with you, you couldn't do...THAT," Tom threw out. "It's just not..."

"Gene Mulcavey"

"What," stuttering, the interruption - and the subject of the interruption - breaking his chain of thought.

"Gene. Mulcavey."

Tom stared at Greg, unsure what his point was. For his part, Greg just sat in his chair, right arm still dangling terribly close to the handle.

"I don't understand," Karen said, looking from man to man.

"Go ahead, tell her."

"Tell her what," Tom exclaimed. "I don't..." The last word died on his tongue, as he watched Greg tap the handle twice, slowly, sensuously. Just two taps, but those taps made a suggestion, and the word "understand" fled, because Tom DID understand, and as the awareness entered the front of his brain, he saw Greg's eyelids drop just slightly as a grin split his face. There was no humor, no warmth, in that grin, just a malevolence that promised that Greg would, in fact, break a bone for every conversation Karen started. As the grin turned into a rictus, Tom wondered whether he would break a bone for each word, for each syllable. Sweat appeared on his forehead, and it was all Tom could do to stop staring at Greg. He reached out with a shaking hand, drank down his water as he found he couldn't speak as all the water had apparently left his mouth and moved to his hairline. He then gasped, stared at the glass, then his eyes moved to Greg, who slowly shook his head no. No, you don't get off that easy, no poison for you, is what that look said.

"Tom, she's waiting," Greg said, his voice lower than Tom had ever heard it.

"Um, Gene Mulcavey was a supervisor at one of the local businesses. He had a reputation for going after married women, and getting them. There were rumors that some needed persuasion, but nothing was ever proven and no one ever came forward with an accusation. Then, one day, he disappeared. Just gone." Tom took a second to look at Karen, to make sure she was following him, then snapped his eyes back to Greg, who still sat with that same grin on his face. "About a week later he showed back up. Well, most of him. He had been abducted and tortured and...he was never able to talk about what happened as his tongue had been removed. And wasn't able to write it out as the same had been done with his eyes. There were no forensics, no witnesses, no motive they could establish. He was a shell of a human. He had...no matter what he had done, he didn't deserve..."

"Sarah Franklin."

"What," Tom gasped, thrown off by the apparent non sequitur.

"Sarah Franklin. Secretary to the CEO. Married. Two kids. Gene was smooth, the alcohol at the company party helped too. The guilt at what she had done drove her to confess to her husband, who couldn't stand to be around her after that. The family was destroyed. Children without their father, a wife without her husband, a man without his home or family. Because one guy decided that he wanted a little married pussy."

"I don't..."

"Sarah was my cousin. I saw everything she went through. I overheard how this was something that Gene had done, over and over again, leaving a trail of wrecked relationships behind him, like a tornado going through a trailer park."

Tom looked carefully at his former friend. He had known Greg from elementary school through college. He was like a brother. Tom felt horrible about what happened with Karen, but she truly was his soulmate. That word gets bandied about, used so often it loses its meaning, but without her, without Karen in his life, he had just been existing.

Greg allowed Tom to stare at him, to try see the truth in his eyes. Greg wanted Tom to know. He slowly touched the handle again, tapping twice, all the while locking eyes with his former best friend.

"Karen, we should leave."

"No," she said. "We need to get past this. The man I loved, the father of my child, couldn't..."

"Didn't exist." Greg took a breath. "Here's what you don't understand. THIS is who I am. Underneath that façade that I wore day in and day out, I was always this person. I just hid it well. Do I love Carlie? Of course, absolutely. And I would kill for her. Happily." A lazy grin formed on his face. "Well, I think we've already established that I would happily do that. Because she is my blood. You," here the grin left his face, "not so much."

Greg looked pensive for a second. "I think that I wore that mask so long that I actually started to believe it. That I was the same as everyone else. That I could love and be loved. That I could have and deserved to have friends. That I could have someone that I could rely on and believe in and trust." He suddenly leaned forward, "That's what you destroyed. That's who you killed."

Greg leaned back. "Maybe it's best this way. Maybe leaving behind the false faces is best. Perhaps I should do as Don Juan did and just admit that I am a 'plain dealing villain'. I always did like him best." Greg fixed his guests with a look. "What you did burned away the Greg you knew. And burning hurts, badly. And I will never forget nor forgive the pain you brought him" -- the fact that Greg was referring to his old self in the third person was not lost on Tom -- "nor the disrespect. But, in deference to Carlie, I will leave you alone if you both leave me alone." Greg looked at his watch. "Time for you to go."

Tom and Karen were out of their seat quickly, needing to get away and discuss this. As they went through the door, Greg grabbed Tom's shirt pulling him back a step, and slammed the door on Karen. He spun Tom around and got close to him, so he could be heard over Karen's yelling and beating on the door. "I want you to think about Gene, the next time you and Karen are in bed. The next time that you go down on her, and your tongue is about to slide into her slit, think about his tongue being ripped out of his mouth. That's gotta put a crimp in the old pussy eating, huh? You have a good day now, okay?" Greg was inches from his face, that soulless grin on his face again, the grin that said that he almost hoped that Karen would try to talk to him. The grin that said that somewhere in this house was a beloved pair of pliers. The grin that said they were going to have so much fun together, he could just feel it. And inside that grin was a cold that could freeze a sun. Tom felt his bladder let go for just a second and then he threw open the door and charged through it. As they hurried to their car, Tom and Karen heard a laugh that held no warmth and no humor, and made Karen think of a cold wind, blowing dry leaves across a freshly filled grave.

EPILOGUE

Tom and Karen stayed married for the remainder of their long, natural lives. Tom was never abducted in the middle of the night, no bones were broken. They both stayed very far from Greg at Carlie's wedding. And the birth of their first grandchild. And all the subsequent events that filled their lives. On the surface, Tom and Karen looked the quintessential perfect couple.

But Tom. Tom never forgot what Greg had said. Or the way he said it. Or the fact that his best friend was no longer alive, and in his place was a monster. A monster of his own creation. No, I monster of his own unveiling.

And the first time that he and Karen had attempted to make love, the memory of that last conversation caused his once proud erection to die. Not fade or wilt, because those imply that it might have come back. But Tom could never function sexually again. No amount of Viagra, or therapy could help. He couldn't get Greg out of his head. Eventually, he moved down the hall to the guest bedroom and the couple just moved around each other, watching television together or going to visit friends. It was a comfortable, courteous relationship. But the marriage?

Greg killed it. Much as Tom had killed his.

I wrote this, initially, as a response to some of the authors on this site who have severely wronged husbands treating their spouses with some level of kindness on their way to their final retribution. I mean, I get it if you plan on getting back together with your spouse, but if not? Screw it, scorch that earth.

This was going to be a 750 word project, but Greg took over and said he had to make a confession. So this went a bit longer. Thanks for reading, and if you made it this far? Y'all have a good now, okay?