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Black paint

I should know.

Ordinary man, ordinary life, until something happened, blah blah blah. You've heard it before. Half the stories in the world start off that way. This story isn't unique, I won't kid myself about that. It just happened to me. They're all just stories, that's all. Even the true ones. Until they happen to you, they won't really mean anything. Not that I'm writing this down for anyone but myself. It's sort of a... diary, I guess. Or maybe not. Let's assume that someone else is reading it now, because me, I don't need to read it again. I remember it all.

So, you. Unknown unnamed reader. This story is true, if it doesn't matter. This story is false, if it matters. This has happened. It'll happen again. Just get to the goddamn story, already, all right?

Where are we going? Back a few years. It finished just last night, but it started a few years back. It's 2002 now, January 31st. Then, it was '95. Had trouble getting to work because of the snow, so it must've been... November? I know people who can say down almost to the second when a certain woman walks into their lives. I'm not one of those, though the moment was memorable enough.

I'm Carl, by the way. In case this falls into someone official's hands, I won't give any last names. This is supposed to be a story, not a confession. And she was Emily.

I'm married, did I mention? Have been since '86. I'm 52 years old, now, from which you can figure how old I was then. Old enough to have a kid. Clara. She's at school right now, which is why I've got the free time to write this. My wife's name is Wanda, which I thought was a nice name when I met her. After I fucked her her name was less important to me. Once we found Clara was coming, though, we settled in nicely. Married in church, belly wasn't showing much, though everyone knew. But we knew eachother by that point. It wasn't love, it was never love, but we were comfortable together. Worn away at eachother's rough edges. I'm never going to show her this.

Sorry. I'm kinda new at this. Just, whoever you are, you aren't reading this because of the literary value, because there isn't any. You're trying to find out what happens next. So I was at work, and Emily walked through the door. This was before I knew she was Emily, of course. Anyhow. I work at a P.I. agency, it doesn't matter where, which sounds a lot more glamorous than it actually is. I'm not a P.I. myself. I'm a manager, but you need management at an investigation service like you need it anywhere else. More, if you want to know the truth. None of which really has anything to do with the story, but I'm stalling. This is hard to get down. Bear with me.

So Emily comes in, I find out later, in order to get paid for a small piece of acting she did when a client wanted to find out if her husband would cheat on her given the opportunity (the answer, it turns out, was yes, and usually is, which helps explain why I'm so cynical). I looked up and saw her go by, and something deep inside my heart told me that this was it. This was the one. My other half. And all that other romantic garbage you keep hearing about. Which just goes to show you that in a chess match between your heart and a retarded chimpanzee you should always bet on the chimp.

I tried to say something to her. I wanted to say something suave, something which would make her take notice of me. What I actually said was something like, "Guck!" She noticed me, though. I wish she hadn't.

Now I'm going to take this opportunity to tell you that I'm not one of those smart-but-socially-dumb people you see so much out in California these days, all right? I've been around the block a few times. More than a few, tell you the truth, and I never got no complaints, neither. Still, she was... you know how at a party, you have the loads of attractive girls, but then you have the one girl who you look at, and at a glance, know that she's out of your league? At a party full of those girls, she'd be... yeah. More than just looks. Her whole attitude screamed, "You'd sell your soul to get me, but you'll never have the chance."

Anyhow, you can picture the scene if you want. I'm at a desk near the front of the building. I'm kinda hefty - I do some working out, but on me it looks like fat. Brown hair, graying now. A few gray hairs then, but nothing major. My wife keeps me cleanshaven. And a blonde woman, looking 21, with her hands on my desk, leaning forward in such a way that her blouse hangs forward and I can, if I look, see her belly button. I'm looking a bit upward of that, though. No bra. I don't even think she's wearing panties. And she says, "Like what you see?"

And I swallow, and say, "Yeah."

And she says, sweetly, "Take a good long look now, because the only chance you'd have at me is if you killed me and fucked the corpse, you moronic limp-dicked cocksucking pathetic mound of flesh."

I kinda hazed over for a while. She kept talking, telling me all the reasons why she could never be interested in me, in detail, all the while showing me exactly what I was never going to have. Shifted a bit, in fact. No panties. Basically taking me entirely apart, the way a friend can if he really wanted to, though she'd never met me before. I swear, she was a mindreader, or maybe she was just really good at reading men. Eventually, she paused. I looked up at her, hoping she had finished. She hadn't, quite.

"Now, I'm going to turn, and I'm going to walk away, and you are probably never going to see me again. You'll tell yourself that you hate me, and you'll go home tonight to your wife. And you'll masturbate while fantasizing about me, and come harder than you ever have before. And you'll remember me until the day you die."

And then she walked out.

She was right, too, except about the never seeing her again.

Time passes until about three weeks ago. In that time, I quit my job. Couldn't stay where that happened. I go to work for a small financial company, which somehow manages to become a big financial company, which I'm comfortably placed in. Not at the top, but not anywhere near the bottom, either. My marriage goes through a rough time for a while, but we work through it, though I never tell her that I'm comparing her to Emily. Three weeks ago, then.

I'm sitting in this restaurant, a fancy place, hundred dollars a plate. I'm supposed to be meeting a client, who I will hopefully be talking into an investment deal which will make us a lot of money and possibly him some as well. He's a bit late, and I'm reading over the wine list, looking for something that'll get him as drunk as possible without him noticing. And I feel a hand on my shoulder. I turn around, and Emily's there. Looking not one day older than the last time I saw her. And she says, sweetly, "Hi, handsome. Buy a girl dinner?"

I'd kinda made plans, in the years in between. Plans about what I was going to say, if this actually happened. They tended to start out by me saying, back to her, the kind of things she said to me. and me watching her crumple. And they tended to finish with me, and her, and a sleazy motel room, as she meekly removed the last of her clothing, and you can imagine the rest yourself. I hadn't known whether she'd remember me or not. Sometimes she'd have tormented herself over what she'd done. Sometimes she'd laugh about it to herself late at night. Sometimes it hadn't been important enough to her for her it to register with her, this last being the idea that made me maddest, and apparently the right one. So I was prepared for the situation. And I opened my mouth.

And I said, "Gack!"

She sat down, and we fell to talking. I didn't tell her we'd met before. She hung on my every word, and nodded in all the right places, and looked me right in the eyes, and basically made all the right gestures to ensure that I wasn't paying any attention to anything but her. When the client actually showed up, I blew him off. After dinner, she gave me her phone number.

I call her the next night, from a payphone down the street from my house.

We don't actually go to bed together until last night. We went out a lot, going to a lot of nice restaurants, and somehow the nicer the restaurants we go to the more revealing her clothing is, and it's a short step from that to gifts, and from gifts to expensive gifts, and yesterday evening, I give her a diamond necklace that I can't afford, or, rather, not that _and_ the house. It doesn't matter, though, I tell myself. She's changed. I still hate her, somehow, but I hate myself too, so that's all right.

So we're in a sleazy motel room, and she's removing the last of her clothing, and she's still not wearing any underwear. And she looks at me, and says, "Like what you see?"

And I say, "Yeah."

And she says, sweetly, "Good, because you're still a moronic limp-dicked cocksucking pathetic mound of flesh, and your chances with me are still less than nothing, and this look is gonna have to last you another seven years."

And she turns to get her clothes.

Everything goes hazy again.

I open my eyes, and her face is right in front of me, and her eyes are staring right into mine, and my hands are around her neck. I want you to know, I was in full command of my senses.

When I finished strangling her.

So I sold the gifts I got for her. I can afford to pay for the house, now, though I'll have to scrimp for a bit. And the funny thing is, though, the funny thing is, and the reason why you're going to find this somewhere, and the lesson I want you to learn from it is this.

Even though I hate her. Even though I despise her.

I can't live without her.