“I think you spent too much time around Amber!” her expression was terse; “Her dirty language seems to have rubbed off on you.” that.”

I drew a long breath, “I’m sorry I said

“I was just asking. I don’t have to do it.” She waived her hand at me as if she had just suggested something as innocuous as taking a walk. “Forget I asked.”

I knew what Melanie was doing. She had been slowly distancing herself from Sarah and now she was trying to finish the job by pushing me out. Perhaps the stress of living with a murderess was just too much for her. But she didn’t have to go to such lengths to get rid of me. I would have rather she had asked me to leave. She’s the one who wanted me to move in with her. I felt betrayed by her asking to go back to dancing. If she wanted me to get out of her life I felt that she should have asked me in a more direct way.

She took her pill that night right before going to bed. We slept side by side deliberately not making contact with each other. No effort was made by either of us to couple or to reconcile; and it wasn’t easy to sleep together so deliberately avoiding even the slightest touch since we had grown accustomed to sleeping with our bodies intertwined either at the feet or the waist or spooned and cupped or sometimes still attached like a pair of knotted dogs. I tossed and turned and did not sleep well at all and to be honest I found her quietude annoying. Her pill had, as was the norm, knocked her out cold and she snored provocatively.

After several hours of sleeplessness my agitation with Melanie welled up inside of me like a volcano seething to eruption. Melanie’s tranquility vexed me. She had riled me up and then dissolved her tensions with a little pill and a glass of cherry Koolaide. I laid in the bed fuming until I fell into short fitful spurts of sleep only to awaken again.

The next evening when I came home from work Melanie was gone and Sarah was sitting on the couch watching television. I felt a dull ache in the pit of my stomach as I sidled up next to Sarah and hugged her.

“Where is Melanie?” I asked.

“She went to work.” My heart was broken but I did my best not to reflect my pain.

“What’s for supper?”

“Melanie said that you were going to take me out to get something to eat.” I felt that Melanie was sending me a final message. She had gone back to stripping and she had left us to fend for ourselves for dinner. My heart could not sink any lower. Her message was clear.

“Come on, let’s go.” I said and I pulled

Sarah by the hand.

“Is this a date?” she smiled up at me. We had not dined out alone for quite some time. She had not called me lover or suggested a date since our little humping incident. I didn’t want to encourage her. I certainly didn’t want to resume espousing her, but her smile indicated that she had missed our little playful intimacy and in my weakened emotional state I caved.

“Sure.” I forced a smile and then we left on our date.

Later that night I lay in bed unable to sleep as I monitored the L.E.D. readout on the digital clock on Melanie’s nightstand. The minutes turned slowly while I stared at the clock but time seemed to accelerate whenever I turned away and minutes passed in blocks of ten and twenty. Before I knew it the hour was past three a.m. and Melanie still wasn’t home. All the while I jealously pictured her dancing naked on a stage rocking her pelvis in the faces of strangers and parting her legs in open squats as they tucked dollar bills inside her garter. As the hour passed three I imagined that she was naked on a hotel bed, a line of half dressed men trailing down the corridor waiting to fuck her for twenty dollars apiece and the joyless pleasure that it gave her. I began to cry quiet tears at her imagined defilement and my projected betrayal. When I heard the back door squeak open I quickly dried my eyes and turned my body to the side of the bed and feigned sleep.

I heard her undress. I listened as the silk of her shirt slid across the tiny invisible hairs on her back as she pulled the garment over her head; as she unsnapped her lace bra and the weight of her breasts tugged at the fabric as she removed it; as the cotton of her tight jeans glided across the flesh of her thighs and the nylon of her socks slipped across her smooth delicate feet; and as the shimmering fabric of her panties shimmied down to her ankles and she stepped out of them one foot at a time. I felt her weight, light as she was, as she sat on her side of the bed. I listened as she opened the safety cap to her sleeping pills and laid one on her tongue and I pictured her open mouthed with her tongue sticking out, wincing at the taste of the pill as she rushed to poor the liquid from her glass into her mouth to wash it down. The sound of glass on wood as she set her drink down on her nightstand made a brief muffled clunk; then she resealed the lid to her pills and placed them next to the glass and laid down facing away from me…being careful not to touch any part of her flesh to mine as she shifted beneath the covers seeking a comfortable shape.

As I lay stewing in my jealous brew I consoled myself with the fact that Melanie had not bathed upon her return. If she had slept with another man she would have bathed to wash away his scent. I realized too that despite my anger and my jealousy that I still loved her very much and I didn’t want to lose her. I wanted to find some way to salvage our relationship. It wasn’t just that she was all I had. I had truly grown to love her and to appreciate what we had. I reached over and even though I knew that she would not know that I had visited her in her sleep I kissed her and then turned on my side and I wept in self- pity until I finally fell asleep.

We didn’t share a wakeful moment together as Tuesday through Friday night Melanie was gone when I arrived home from work and I left before she woke. I pretended, for Sarah’s sake, as though all was well between us and that Melanie had simply found a legitimate job. I listened each night as she undressed (pretending that I was asleep) and took her pill and slipped into bed. Each night my pain grew exponentially as wild thoughts riddled my subconscious filling me with an ugly resentment. In my mind, whether true or imagined, I was a cuckold to the woman I loved. I was inextricably tied to Melanie through a bond of an inexplicable emotion and yet I was as tortured as a boy in the throes of unrequited love. My soul was wounded and I hardly slept at night and my strain was showing at work, as I became a worthless broken tool to Tony, plodding through my days in one continuous yawn. By weeks end I was exhausted and I slept soundly for the first time Friday night until I was awakened by what I thought to be the clicking sound of my bedroom door being shut. I wasn’t sure but I thought I heard the patter of tiny footsteps trotting away down the hall. I sat up and looked around the room but in the dark of night I could see nothing out of place.

Then a horrible thought crossed my mind. I quickly jumped up and backed away from the lump that occupied the other side of my bed. I stared at the lump which was Melanie. The pink quilted blanket we shared covered her body and her head. There was no sign of blood but she appeared too still, as though she were not breathing. I was too scared to pull the covers back for fear that she was dead. I just couldn’t take finding another lover dead in my bed. I couldn’t stand to lose Melanie. I loved her so. I needed her so. I vowed at that moment that I would put up with her behavior no matter how agonizing the pain if only God would let her be alive when I lift the covers.

I crept over to our bedroom door and I felt for the latch. It was undone. Melanie had forgotten to secure the lock when she crawled into bed. I crept over to Melanie and I slowly lifted the quilt. Her face was pale and her breathing seemed shallow but to my great relief she was alive. I placed my head to her breastbone and I listened for a pulse. I felt the slightest rise and fall of her chest but I could not hear her heart beat. I lifted my head and I tried to gather my bearings. My eyes were still adjusting to the dark so when I looked at the nightstand and saw that her pill bottle was open I thought at first that I was seeing things. Melanie sealed her pill bottle religiously every night. I picked up the bottle and verified that the lid was missing and I tilted the bottle but it was empty. At first I supposed that she had left the lid open because it was empty, but then I noticed that there were six broken capsules on the nightstand. The glass next to the bed was empty. I picked it up and I walked over to the closet and I switched the closet light on. I swirled the backwashed contents of the glass and noticed a powdery residue mixed in with the remnants of her beverage. I turned my head toward Melanie as I realized what had taken place. Sarah had struck again. She had split Melanie’s sleeping pills open and emptied them into her glass after Melanie had fallen asleep. Melanie had drunk from the glass to quench her thirst in the middle of the night. Melanie had overdosed on sleeping pills.