Sinister Shorts

She would die believing in the integrity of their love. Didn't this ending do proper justice to their incredible romance?

Excited, he decided it would. He would serve up a lovely di

Clea awoke at eleven, a terrible time. If you had nightmares, eleven was too early to provide a useful buffer from a night of misery, and too late to promise simple sleep. Lucy was gone. She tried to maneuver herself into her chair, a daunting, if not impossible, proposition. She could not turn over at night, worrying that she might end up facedown on a pillow and unable to shift, but sometimes she could find the strength to haul herself out of bed. Moving the covers off her body, she scrutinized her lower legs, wasted-looking, and dragged herself into the chair. The effort took several minutes, in darkness, without support. She wheeled herself into the bathroom and applied the unusual blackberry-colored lipstick and blush he had brought her recently while on a business trip to France. She needed to look her best for tonight. She required feminine courage. She listened for something from the study but if Claude was in there, he was very quiet.

Primed, minutes later, she appeared in the study.

“Hi, you,” Claude said.

“Hi, you, too.” Somehow, he didn't notice she had put herself into her chair. He missed seeing what strength she had, and that, more than anything, had finally decided her. He saw her as weak and helpless and he seemed to love her more daily. She was his weakling patient, his darling small child, vulnerable being.

She had to put a stop to all this… nonsense, even if it broke his heart.

She settled near the fire. She felt tuned. Once, years ago, she had taken speed with an aspiring actor and stayed up all night, clearheaded, doped to the gills, unreal but blazing with sensation. That was how she felt now. The only uncontrollable thing was the way her heart shuddered in Claude's presence these days, never relaxed or steady, ever alert to the tiniest change in the size of his pupils, or the distance between his brows. She didn't know when that had started, but it affected every thing about every day. He came into her placid pond and stirred up a swirling maelstrom.

“Clea,” he said.

Preamble to what? She didn't want to deflect herself from her own thoughts by reading something into his tone. “Um,” she said. “Got any whiskey?”

“Is it okay for you to drink?”

“Das machts nichts,” she said, an old joke they used to share, that's irrelevant, who gives a damn no matter how serious the situation.

He poured her a minuscule whiskey.

“More.”

He poured another dollop.

She picked it up and drank. “Ah, now that's a drink.”

He cleared his throat raucously, something he did more often now, kind of like her old grandpa used to do. Living with her was aging him prematurely. He didn't deserve that.

An image of herself in black stockings and nothing else, Claude astride her, both of them drunk as skunks, music loud, bed rolling on castors across the floor, assaulted her. They hadn't made love properly since before the accident. When she tried to talk about it, he sloughed her off. “I love cuddling,” he would say, his eyes guileless. “It's enough for me.” She didn't know if he believed the kind white lies or merely wanted her to believe them.

She drank some more, letting the liquid ooze down her pipes, heating her insides. “So, you had a good day.”

“Yes.”

He sounded surprised. She didn't know how to get to the topic at hand. Sober and not seriously doped-up at this point, she entertained the brief delusion that he would understand and accept her decision without argument.

“These ladies from Taipei,” he said. “Shit. They do spend. Coming back later in the week, too. They want something exotic. Challenging. I told them I have a new shipment coming in. You have such a nose, Clea. Any suggestions about what might arouse them?”

She wanted to say, we have enough money. You don't have to kowtow to anybody, but the words stuck in her throat. The money was hers. Naturally, he took pride in what little the shop contributed. She put excitement in her voice for his benefit. “Big money?”

“Ummm,” he said, as if savoring a particularly delicious slow-melting chocolate.

The sound unaccountably brought up a moment from the first night they had shared. Confessing to a failed relationship, he had kissed her on the nose. She had wondered what the hell. Why her nose? Endearing, she had decided. A small, touching gesture that reached into her in a way a more expansive move would have pushed her away. Only later did she realize the fundamental nature of the nose in Claude's world, and only now did she see that kiss for what it was, sensorial, not sensual, as mindful as his reaching down to pet a cat.

“Claude?”

“You know what I would like,” he said, reaching over to hold her hand.

“What?”

“Simplicity.”

Before she could react to that mysterious sidetrack, the phone rang.

Claude picked up the phone and looked at the display. “Your doctor.” He pushed the button. “Hello?”

She rolled over and pushed the button down.

“Why'd you do that?”

“Because… I want to talk to you. Right now.”

He put the phone down, looking puzzled but patient.

“Do you remember?” Clea said, getting ready for the next line, which would tell him something was happening, and he didn't know what it was.

Did he, Mr. Claude.

He pulled the lines of his mouth up into a sort of smile. “I remember. All of it.”

The full force of his words stopped the torrent of her thoughts momentarily. They both remembered the good, but how well did Claude recall the bad and the ugly? He seemed to frolic in a yellow glaze of sunshine while her days alternated between gray, the bad, and bloody red, the ugly.

Why was this so hard? “I was going to say, do you remember Lucy said the doctor was trying to call?” she said.

“Oh? Well, we can call him back tomorrow. Unless it's an emergency?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Why won't you talk to him?”

She said honestly, “I get so tired of focusing on my health. I like to think I'm normal.”

Sympathy flickered in his eyes. Just what she didn't need. “But… Clea. Darling. Of course.”

“No, you don't understand, do you? I just saw him yesterday, and I'm sick of seeing him and talking to him and chewing over every word he says. All this attention on my body saps me. I want to be strong.”

She could read it in his eyes, the patronizing flicker of pink-cheeked health as he reflected upon her afflictions and the hopelessness of her case. That's the way he saw her, a drowning kitten, helpless in a bag, scratching and biting her way all the way to the mucky bottom of the pond. Hell, sometimes she thought he actually liked her weak! He enjoyed taking the lead and having all the control…

No, stop this, she commanded. You are trying to get yourself mad enough to do this thing you have to do, and it isn't necessary, and it isn't fair. He doesn't deserve this anger. “I've been thinking about us, Claude.”

“It's been so beautiful,” he said, his face suffused. “And I hope you know, my feelings have never changed. In spite of everything that's happened, I love you with all my heart. You believe that, don't you, Clea?”

Oh, this was her fault. She had set herself up for this. To punctuate his statements, he leaned down for a kiss, which she gave without hesitation, leaving a slight berry stain beside his mouth. Then she remembered she hadn't brushed her teeth since the medications she had taken earlier, and how they must smell to him.

Oh, God, she wanted him gone. He made her uglier and more miserable than her circumstances ever could.