Work-a-holic

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Wrote this a little bit ago . . . slightly adult in nature. Nothing nasty! Just warning ahead of time tho.
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Work-a-holic

The room was an absolute clutter, I noted the moment I walked in. A very small hole in the wall with cheap prints of famous paintings, cobwebs on the walls, a dusty statue of a black Jesus, of all things, and candy wrappers littered around the computer on the desk. The trademark of the obsessive person she was. I have never met someone more focused on what she “loved”. When was the last time she had stopped writing long enough to clean this place? Even the bed was bare and the sheets unchanged. Clean laundry and dirty laundry mixed together, too.

“Dusting once in a while and throwing the garbage in a bag isn’t going to damage your creativity, Bree.” I lounged against a wall inches away from her. There wasn’t enough room to be chivalrous and keep safe distance between myself and her bare back.

“Nonsense Elias,” she muttered from her chair, eyes still on the computer screen. “I have no time to be distracted, ‘Crimson Genesis is progressing greatly”

“And how do you even get to your bed, with a machete? Christ, at least open a window.”

“The air conditioner is on, its not hot in here.” She never stopped typing once.

“But that thing is full of dust and cobwebs, you are going to get sick like a dog.”

“Am not.”

I sighed deeply, I wasn’t at all pleased with how she got every time an idea took hold of her or when her stories where progressing smooth like clockwork. She forgot about the world and herself completely and only the words in the screen mattered. Even I didn’t seem to matter. I was lonely.

“Sweet heart . . .leave your study just for today? Lets have dinner in that restaurant you like, the one in front of the plaza in the center of town . . . Or lets go swimming, its only around 15 minutes away and we can walk . . You can get some sun . . .”

“I would be distracted all the time,” she said, this time turning around in her desk chair to look at me in that fashion I always have hated. The You know I am just going to end up wanting to come back home to my story before the plates are served look that meant she rather spend time in front of her COMPAQ than with me. “It wouldn’t be fair to you.”

“And this is fair to me?” I asked, my temper getting the best of me. “That I eat my dinners alone and fall asleep in front of the television with the cat on my lap when I should have your warmth in my bed? Your voice in my ear?”

“Darling---”
“Darling nothing.” I grabbed her by the shoulders, howled upright and kissed her. “You are my wife, and I miss you.”

I felt her loosen up against me, and it was great. My own muscles relaxed while I wrapped my arms around her waist. “Forget about work, for a little bit?”

“Mmmm.”

I steered her our of her study ready to wrestle with the devil and get her to relax and stop thinking about work for at least an hour. To once again be the center of her universe.

***

I wrestled with her shirt while she rubbed her hands over my chest. Her skin smelled like soap and cardboard boxes. I tried not to chuckle; I didn’t want to spoil the moment. She finally got my shirt unbuttoned as I cupped her breasts with my open hand. I loved to feel the weight of them and to hear her suck in her breath when I touched them.

Somehow we ended up tangled up at the foot of the bed. I hoisted her up and dropped her with a bit less grace than I should have, but she didn’t complain. She looked beautiful laying there half-dressed and aroused. I ate the sight up like a good steak and climbed into bed with her, toying with her. While in the back of my mind I knew she would wake up after all was said and done and just shower and go back to her filthy little corner and ignore me.

The thought alone almost made me go soft. Almost.

***

I stroked her hair and she beamed a smile at me.

Gorgeous.

“Hey there, goddess.” I kissed her forehead. “You make the bed look like a life-time investment with positive increase in market value.”

“Cute.” She nudged me and yawned, flashing perfectly good teeth; best money could buy. I made sure of that. She smelled of warm skin and baby lotion. I liked her scent in the morning. “I got to get back to work, seriously.” She slid out of bed and started towards the bathroom, steps still unsteady with sleepiness that had not quite left her bones.

“Have dinner with me tonight, please.”

“Hun I---”

“No restaurants, or walks. Just you and me sitting at the dinner table with something good and warm. It might inspire you!” I groped for all the slivers of hope I could get and flung myself into the roaring waters of her imagination. “We can even discuss your book. I mean; insight from an outsider may be good, like a sort of consultant.”

“You mean it?” She said dubiously. I didn’t blame her, her stories always worried me and our worst fight through our four-year-old marriage had been over her writing. I wanted a family; she wanted to create nightmares.

I planned a simple dish of soba noodles dipped in Aurugula pesto sauce, toasted some bread and even opened a bottle of wine. It wasn’t a very expensive brand or anything, however.

“Ah . . .” She looked at the two poorly arranged dinner plates and the old emergency candles light on the table and let out a roaring burst of laughter. “What did I tell you? Cute. Just cute. Are those soba noodles?”

I gave her a shrug and a smile, pretending to be smooth.

“Cheap wine . . . Toasted bread . . . I swear half the time you do this kind of thing to guilt me, and the other half well . . .” She laughed again and took a piece of bread, dipping it into the sauce and taking a big bite.

My eyes where stinging and my knuckles white as I served her some wine. It was red and fruity; I could smell the sweetness without taking a sip. I watched her mouth work on the bread slowly, indulgingly; her pink lips puckered just a little as she chewed.

“More wine?” I asked, holding the bottle up.

“Hmm? Oh please, thank you. You know, I am thinking that the main character should meet her end at the hands of Jeremy. He is the gardener after all and he has all the tools in the shed that he could play wi---”

The blood was everywhere, like in her books. I was holding the bottle in my hand, gripping it so tight that it hurt. Oh god it hurt to breathe. I don’t remember swinging the bottle, just the sight of her pink lips, chewing the bread, laughing. Oh Bree! Brianna, my hellish fiend!

“Oh god, oh god oh god! Bree talk to me!” I held her close, blood on my clothes, my hands, the table. But she was breathing, so softly, that I cried.

You see, while she tasted my food, I was already planning it all. I was going to kill her like she was killing me, every day.

“I liked Jeremy! He was NORMAL Bree! Just a decent guy that mowed his lawn and pruned hedges. His wife worked at the local income tax agency, and she baked cookies for the soccer team of their daughter Tracy. Why not leave them at that, Bree? Why does Tracy have to disappear and be found dead . . . found abused! The husband shoots himself, Arlene is prostrate with grief and you wanted her to be tortured in the shed of the gardener?”

I lay her head back on the table. I paced, I ranted and raved.

“Now what do I do, Now what do I do?”

I killed my wife! But you understand don’t you?

Don’t you?

She couldn’t keep destroying lives. Destroying me!