Cheating – Part Four (of five)

Part Three is here

As he opened it and began to flick it across the body and room, she realised that it wasn’t water. Moments later, he pulled matches from his pocket, lit one, then stuffed it back into the box, and as the packet went up, he tossed it onto the body. Bright yellow flames leapt toward the ceiling, and she stepped back, eyes narrowed.

She hesitated at the exit to the garden. What if they bumped into each other? She crouched down, staring at the front door, all-too-aware of the heat beginning to come from the house. She was about to step out when the front door opened and he came out, pulled his bike from where it stood, and pedalled speedily away, not once looking back.

She waited another minute, then ran to the car and drove away. She made it out of the housing estate, and to the nearby drive-through before she parked, and the shaking started. She sat staring up at the golden arches through a haze of tears. How could he? How could he after everything he had promised her? What else wasn’t he telling her? Should she get a Big Mac, or chicken burger?

 

That had been the start of it. They’d kept going out together, finding fat old businessmen to throw off bridges, and old ladies to tie up and torture, but she knew his heart wasn’t in it. She trailed him, more than once, and enough to know that his choices were always the same, young, attractive women. So she tried to make it work, finding equally hot girls for the two of them, but although he seemed to enjoy it more, still, he went out on his own.

Eventually, she confronted him.

“David, we need to talk.”

“’Kay, what’s up?”

She hesitated. Despite going over and over this in her head, she still didn’t believe she was actually saying it, still didn’t quite know how to.

“You’ve been killing, on your own, without me.”

He stared at her, mouth open and face reddening. She hadn’t needed proof, but at least he knew it was wrong.

“Why, David?”

She heard, and hated, the pleading in her voice.

“We had such fun. I’ve never made you kill in a particular way, I’ve never cramped your style, so why?”

He was looking at the floor now, his hands opening and closing. Her eyes were stinging, but there was no way she was going to cry, not now. Finally he looked up at her, and gave her that crooked grin, and she nearly threw her coffee at him.

“Don’t do that, don’t be an asshole.”

The grin went and he looked pissed all of a sudden. He sounded it too.

“We have to do everything together. I mean, everything. I go to watch the rugby, you have to come too. I go shopping, we have to make a day of it. I wanna chop someone up, suddenly it’s a road trip. I need my own space, sweetheart, I always have.”

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