Voulant du Mal chercher la crème
Et n'aimer qu'un monstre parfait,
Vraiment oui! vieux monstre, je t'aime!
"Le Monstre", Charles Baudelaire
You're not happy.
This isn't something you want me to see, but something I understand from the way you turn over onto your side facing away from me after fucking, hugging your pillow like a lonely kid. Like I'm the husband who shares a bed with you each night but will never know who you are.
Why do you keep on seeing me? At this point the only thing I can think of is that you see me as a kind of human punching bag, stress relief after a long day at the office. Someone you don't have to be nice to, don't have to pretend to love. You practically said as much last week, when I asked you straight out why, and you shrugged and said, I don't know, I guess I just feel relaxed around you. Then I said, aren't you going to ask me the same question? You snorted and said, I don't have to. I know your wife, remember? Look at her and look at me, I think the answer is obvious.
I lean over to get a better look at your profile as you lie there, eyes closed, waiting for me to leave. You look older than you used to, features sharper, last vestiges of teenage baby fat gone, etched out as if by acid. And god, Kathryn, you're more beautiful now than you ever were. What will you be like at forty, fifty? Your beauty is inhuman, monstrous. I should kill you now, as a service to humanity. Can't do it—I'd die too. And surely you must know this as well, and laugh inside at my weakness. What did either of us ever do but laugh at other people's weaknesses?
And the really terrible thing is, we could just go on like this. We could easily spend the rest of our lives like this.
I see my life stretch out. It is cold. I did this once before, and the solution was Annette. Because she was perfect and brave and good, and would save me from everything evil and cold in my life including myself if I could only just manipulate her into loving me enough.
I push your hair from your face and gently stroke your cheek. It feels wrong, sick, a sacrilege. Funny how fucking you and slapping you around never felt like a sacrilege but this does. Your eyes twitch and suddenly my stomach lurches, I can't stand it anymore.
So I speak into your ear the only words I can think of that might change it.
You yawn and mutter "that's nice, now please go away" into the hotel pillow.