One Wife Too Many

"Please, just humor me. What do you look like, tall and thin?"

"Yes, tall, a small waist but curvy, with wide hips and a shapely bum. You want to know what attracted him to me, is that it?" she spat out angrily. "You want to know what I have that you don't have?"

"Something like that. And your hair, blond like mine? Blue eyed as well."

"Us black women don't come with blond hair or blue eyes."

"Ah, a black girl. Really dark? Like chocolate?"

"Like chocolate. I can't believe he did this to me, made me fall in love, got my hopes up on getting married, and probably got me pregnant. Damn that slime."

"It's not the first time he's done it. But it's going to be the last. Bye Cassie. I have to go now."

Stacie clicked the 'end' button, cutting the conversation dead in its tracks. She was mindless in her approach, turning off John's phone so Cassie couldn't get through again. Stacie then put it back into John's pocket.

She could hear his bare feet tap against the wooden floor as he began to mount the steps. No doubt he had found the ginger ale.

She took out the metal lock box she kept in the bottom drawer of her night table. She then fumbled through the top drawer looking for the key. Where did she keep the fucking key? John was bounding onto the top of the landing, acting as though he were pure as the driven snow, only Stacie knew better.

"Hon, would you mind going back for more ice?"

"There's lots of ice in the thermal dish," he said, mere feet from the door.

"No. I accidentally knocked it over. Can you get some more?"

"Okay, hon. Will do," he said as she hid the box under a blanket. Her faulty mind, coupled with his inadvisable cheating, had sent her to the asylum once already. She was not any longer in control, but merely letting her insidious rage move her egg shell of a brain forward.

He plopped the bottle of ginger ale onto the dresser and turned back out into the hall. "Be back in another flash," he said, as his footsteps echoed around the upstairs hallway.

She pulled the box back onto her lap and began fumbling at the lock to get it open. "The key! The damn key," she whispered, lunging back into the top drawer, desperately trying to locate it as her entire sane mind began to have a gut wrenching meltdown. And then she remembered. They had put the key high up on the closet ledge so that Marcie couldn't possibly get her hands on a loaded gun. Their house had been broken into once before and John had purchased it just in case, locking it safely away in the metal lock box.

She dove off the bed and then ran to the closet, edging up on tippy toes and slapping her hand along the ledge of the closet top. She still couldn't find the damn key. She grabbed a chair that was in front of her makeup vanity and dragged it over quickly, then stood on it, gazing frantically as her purposeful eyes scoured the ledge. A glint of silver caught her eye under the cobwebs. She reached for it. The damn, fucking key at last!

His footsteps began to methodically plod back up the wooden steps. He was perhaps thirty seconds away.

She dove back onto the bed and began to fumble at the lock.

He was twenty seconds away.

The key slid in easily. She whipped open the lid and rummaged through the papers, finding the gun underneath.

"You cruel, cold hearted bastard," she whispered in a rage, tossing the box onto the rug and pointing the gun at the door.

He was now ten seconds away. And then it dawned on her. Was the gun still loaded? Bullets! Where did they keep the bullets? She flipped the cylinder open and breathed a sigh of relief. There were six bullets available to fire.

He was now five seconds away. The safety. It wouldn't fire with the damn safety on. Where the hell was the safety latch on it? She suddenly found it and switched it off.

He was now two seconds away. Just two seconds left to live, she thought to herself, her hand steady and calm and her nerves not frazzled by the adrenalin. Why wasn't she nervous? She immediately knew the answer. She was having another full blown episode like the one that had put her into the asylum the last time he had cheated. Only now it was worse, much worse. She had clawed her way back to a fully functional mind and set all her hopes on a new baby. Only he had apparently been out trying to make a new baby with someone else. The thought ate up her insides and filed her with bone crunching rage. Her mind was crumbling and her thought process a useless, twisted batch of fleshy wires that had become disconnected and destroyed from the realization that her world was coming crashing down on her shoulders. He knew how fragile her mind was after the last time his thoughtless, selfish cheating had set her off kilter and plunged her into insanity, and yet...an yet...

He was now one second away. No wonder he had chosen not to fill her with his sperm, she thought. He was probably planning to run off with this Cassie woman. But not if she could help it! Not if she could fucking help it!!

Zero. There was no time left. No time to think. No time to do anything but pull the trigger. Her eyes were now lifeless, her heart exploding with so much unfettered grief that the tears flowed like a river. He had utterly destroyed her fragile mind once more, only this time without remedy. She would never be the same, but then neither would he.

"Hon, I thought you said this ice dish fell, it's still on the countertop, still full, still-"

He suddenly saw the gun and for a moment thought she was going to play some kind of crazy sex game. And then he saw her eyes, lifeless yet eerily dancing and wild, her whole body twitching as though she was no longer in control. She whimpered as her broken heart imploded.

"Cassie might be pregnant," Stacie muttered. "Did you know that?"

"Where did you hear about Cassie?"

"Does it matter, you swine? Does anything matter anymore after what you've done?"

"Just stay calm and give me the gun."

"Come and take it from me," she dared him in a creepy whisper. Her voice was different, almost as if she were possessed or had a sudden split personality. He was now scared shitless!

He stood motionless for a moment, not wanting to set her off. She was starting to drool, coming apart at the seams as an irretrievable basket case who was desperately trying to hang on to perform one more function, just one more task before sinking into the oblivion of total loss of mind.

"Cassie might be pregnant," Stacie muttered again, only this time in a drone, monotone voice that told him she was no longer playing with a full deck. The doctors had warned him about that last time, telling him she couldn't withstand another bout of cheating by him. Every woman was different. Some just sucked it up, took all the husband had in a divorce, then moved on. Others had a good cry and then took their man back for one more kick at the can of fidelity. But for Stacie it wasn't so simple. Her entire world was wrapped up in John, and her existing mental illness would only remain in the shadows as long as he gave her his full support. Instead he had now delivered a blow from which she was unlikely to ever recover. And she was the one holding the gun, a loaded gun.

John was stuck in between the far side of bed and the door. Even if he dove past the bed, he would be hard pressed to make it to the door.

"Was it because she had dark skin, like chocolate? You always were a chocolate lover."

"Stacie," John pleaded. "Put the gun down. Don't pull that trigger. Think of your daughter, Marcie. Do you want her to grow up without a father?"

"You would love me to put the gun down, wouldn't you Johnny, so you could run off and taste her chocolate skin with your lying, cheating tongue. Only she doesn't like you anymore. But I'll let her get her own gun. You've destroyed me for the last time."

She squeezed the trigger, and then kept on squeezing it.

XXX

Detective Arnie Waxford handed the coffee to District Attorney Josephine Talond.

"Thanks."

"A real sad case if you ask me."

"The most pathetic I've ever handled in my ten years as a Texas D.A."

"Hmph! How's the victim doing?"

"Which one? They're all victims if you ask me?"

"Whatcha gonna charge her with?"

"Nothing. He's not pressing charges and she's in the asylum, twiddling her thumbs and drooling down her chin most of the time. The doctors say, with extensive treatment, she will snap out of it in a year or two, similar to the last time she was in there."

"And him?"

She shrugged. "Still no change."

"And that other girl? The one he was cheating with. Casey I think her name is?"

"Cassie."

"Right. Well, maybe those two will wind up together in the end."

"Maybe. Who's to say? She might not want him after he lied to her like that, claiming to be single and all."

"When you said earlier no change in him. What do you mean?

"Two bullets to the arm, and one glancing off his hip. Just flesh wounds really. He's going to be fine now. He's not any worse off than he was before the shooting is what I meant to say."

"Damn! Poor fellow. But then, with you being a woman, you probably think he got just what he deserved?"

"I don't know if I'd go that far. Let's just say that any man of mine would be headed for trouble if he were caught trying to have one wife too many."

"I'll keep that in mind," the detective said, chuckling.

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She sat under the moonlight, the stars like a billion saucy diamonds turning the blackness into a blaze of brilliant sparkles.

"It's so beautiful out here. And I have so many dreams."

"I really am sorry to have brought you into all this, Cassie."

"I'm not," she whispered. "I mean it tears me up inside that you lied like that. Obviously you weren't going to be able to marry me if she hadn't of did what she did. Now you can file for divorce and get one fairly quickly."

"In six months to a year."

"And your daughter, what's her name?"

"Marcie. She's with her grandparents right now. I've agreed to let her spend more time with them. From now on I'll be bringing her over to their place every weekend. I guess, if you like, I can meet your folks?"

"Not a chance. Not for a while anyways. The gossip mills in Tuscola are churning now like you wouldn't believe. But when things calm down in a few months, then sure, that would be nice."

She turned to face him. "You're not keeping more things from me are you? More lies? More ladies in the shadows that I should know about?"

"Absolutely none," he said truthfully.

He put his arm on her shoulder, fully expecting her to push it away like last time. But she reached up and clutched it with her hand, even pressing his fingers to her cheek.

"I'm over the hurt now," she explained. "It took a couple of weeks of crying buckets of tears and hours and hours of blubbering. Then, these last few days, I've been just sitting around all numb and confused. But in the end, my heart is dictating what my mind should do. I still love you. I suppose I will always love you. I'm willing to give you another chance."

"I see. Well in that case. Take this."

She gasped as he flipped open the box.

The twenty thousand dollar engagement ring stared back at her. "Wow! It's beyond amazing."

"As are you," he reciprocated.

She kissed him passionately. As angry as she still was and as hurt as she still was, the love was even hotter and her need to have him hold her even greater.

"Up here on the roof, no one can see us," she said softly.

He kissed her neck as her buttons popped open at the front. She wore no bra, and her scintillating breasts greeted his eyes and his rabid lips.

"I simply adore you," he whispered.

"I know," she said, "which is why I can't stop loving you."

"I never knew it was possible to love someone so much," he said, also truthfully, his eyes blazing with desire as they scoured her stunning, voluptuous body.

"You know, as it turns out, I'm not pregnant after all."

"Wow! What a knucklehead I am. With all that was going on I forgot to ask about that."

"One day, when things calm down, and I'm your wife, we can have a child, but for now, wear these," she said, handing him a condom.

"So for now, I'll be making love to the most special 'wife to be' in the entire universe."

"As long as you remember that more than one is one wife too many."

"I've learned my lesson," he promised as his hungry mouth lowered onto her smoldering breasts. He was determined to make all her dreams come true.

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