When Sarah entered the room she was clutching a cuddly blond-haired doll to her chest and she was smiling as though pleased at the sight of Melanie and me in an embrace. Melanie pulled herself suddenly away from me and looked up at me with a fearful expression.

I could tell that the thought had struck her that to embrace me in front of Sarah could result in her demise. But I also knew that Sarah didn’t feel that way. I forced a smile before bending down to Sarah and hugging her.

“Were you crying?” Sarah’s said to

Melanie as she looked up at her, her voice a little distressed.

“No, honey.” Melanie sniffled, “I was just peeling onions and they made my eyes tear up…remember how they made you cry when you helped me cut them last time.”

“Yes.” Sarah smiled, relieved.

15

Despite the lock on the door Melanie had trouble sleeping at night. All through the weekend she seemed to be groggy and tired. The next week wasn’t any better. She tossed and turned through the nights to the point that I couldn’t sleep. Our lovemaking had ceased completely. Melanie was far too stressed; far too edgy to think about intimacy. “What’s the matter?” I asked as I tried to initiate the act.

“I keep thinking of Sarah…cutting Amber’s throat. I can’t get the image out of my mind. I’m sorry.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about. I’ve lost my share of sleep over it too. Maybe you should see a doctor; maybe get some pills; something to relieve your anxiety or to help you to sleep.”

On that Monday night Melanie slept quietly with the help of her doctor’s prescription. She took a pill about an hour before we went to bed and she began snoring in the middle of making love to me for what would have been the first time in almost two weeks had we completed the act.

The male ego is such a fragile thing. I was actually a little wounded at her having been able to fall asleep while I tried to make love to her despite my knowledge of the reason. I found it interesting how uninviting her body became, warm and supple as it was, as she snored through my effort to copulate. It was like screwing a corpse. Her body lay flaccid beneath me and her listlessness killed my mood, but I was pleased to see her sleeping. I knew that she must have been exhausted. I hoped that she was dreaming of better things.

Melanie said that the she didn’t like taking the sleeping pills. She said they made her wake up in the middle of the night feeling dehydrated so she started to keep a bottle of water or a glass of iced tea on her nightstand. She would fill it at night and in the morning she would not remember waking up but her glass would be empty. She said the pills also made her groggy in the morning. Too groggy to get up and make my coffee and breakfast, and apparently too groggy to pack my lunch. I felt bad for her that she needed a pill to fall asleep. I knew that it was partly my fault. But I didn’t see why she couldn’t pack my lunch the night before.

Melanie tried her best to maintain her loving relationship with Sarah but I began to notice subtle differences in the way she behaved when they were alone. From the living room I watched as they worked together in the kitchen and while Melanie was just as helpful in teaching Sarah to prepare new dishes she would seldom touch her. Melanie used to put her hand on Sarah’s head and muss her hair a little after Sarah had performed a task particularly well. I would sometimes come home to find them nestled together on the sofa watching television; but no more. Melanie used to kiss the top of Sarah’s head before she sent her to her room where as now she would simply lead her to her room by the hand and close the door behind her; and Melanie used to ask Sarah to sit next to her sometimes just to cuddle while we watched television at night but now she was content to have me be a buffer between the two of them. I knew that Sarah noticed Melanie’s unintentional rebuffs and I could tell that she was hurt by them, but what does one say to console a sociopath? I was hoping not to draw any extra attention to the matter. I was hoping that it was a phase; that Melanie would slowly return to her loving ways.

But over a month passed and the subtle slights grew greater instead of fewer. Melanie would send Sarah off to bed early with some silly excuse like “Come on now, we have a big day tomorrow. You need your sleep.” rather than to invite her to snuggle with us before bedtime. If this had been the norm I would have understood. If Sarah were back in school, again it would have been justified. But Sarah was used to staying up with us and there was no good reason for Melanie to change our routine. She was deliberately pushing Sarah away.

I tried hard to feel the same way about Melanie as I had before our little secret had been revealed but those subtle indiscretions, I felt, were the difference between love and cohabitation. To love Sarah was to love me; and after all, despite her homicidal tendencies, Sarah had never given any indication that she might harm Melanie. In fact Sarah got upset when Melanie and I bickered with each other. She wanted Melanie and me to be happy together and to get along. She knew that we slept together with the door closed at night and she never once complained about being excluded from the intimacies that we shared. Melanie had nothing to worry about. I wondered why she chose to poke the bear.

* * *

One night as we undressed for bed Melanie approached me with an unusual question.

“How would you feel about it if I went back to work?” she said.

“Why not?” I said, “Sarah will be going back to school soon. Why should I mind if you got a job?” Melanie had run into a friend who she knew to have helped a Mexican dancer to obtain a false birth certificate and driver license. She inquired about getting some false identification for both Sarah and I. Through a friend of a friend of a friend he had come through for Sarah with a birth certificate from a girl who had died some three years previous. It seemed that getting Sarah a new identity was a much simpler task than creating a new me. In any event I had registered Sarah at the local public school and she was scheduled to start back in the fall. I was to remain Mohamed Assad.

“I meant…working at night.” Melanie averted my eyes.

“Doing what?”

“Well…I only know how to do one thing.” She looked up at me but closed her eyes as she spoke.

“And what would that be?” My voice was purposely calm and monotone.

“Dancing of course.”

“That’s not dancing!” I felt the blood rush to my face but I forced my voice to remain cool. She was deliberately pushing my buttons. I didn’t like the way it made me feel but I also didn’t want her to know how upset she was making me.

“It was okay with you when we first started seeing each other.” She looked away from me again, “And besides, we sure could use the money.”

“You said you didn’t need to work anymore…that you had saved enough money to live on for a long time.” I kept my voice placid once again but inside my chest my heart was pounding like a like a sledgehammer and I felt the muscles in my wrists clench.

“I know, but you wouldn’t want me to use up all of my savings would you?”

“You can’t have had to spend much. I give you my whole paycheck every week. Isn’t that enough?”

“No, it’s not.”

I drew a long pause, “You’re a big girl. If you want to prance around naked shoving your cunt in the faces of scum-bags…if that’s what does it for you, then who am I to stop you. It’s not like we’re married.” I knew that I was losing it, but what was I supposed to do? I was of course opposed to my girlfriend prancing naked before men and grinding her pelvis in an undulating simulation of intercourse. I felt threatened and jealous. Who wouldn’t?