Johnny sat splayed on the bathroom floor, fed up with this world. The party was over. Lisa, the betrayer, jiggled the locked doorknob and tried to coax him out. This was her final performance: she knew they were through, but she wanted to be the victim.

"In a few minutes, bitch!" Johnny retorted. Lisa smiled secretly. That would do. She protested weakly as she walked over to the telephone sitting atop the dresser. She felt nothing as she dialed the number of her next plaything.

"Hello?"

"Hi, Mark? I need to talk to you." She shifted her voice until it was perfectly distraught.

"What's going on?"

"Don't worry about Johnny. He's just being a big baby." She glared at the bathroom door. "You know I love you very much," she lied. She searched her frozen heart for the most romantic phrase she could muster. "You're the sparkle of my life," she continued. "I can't live without you. I love you," she concluded.

Mark quickly processed her confession. He had hoped he would be free of Lisa by now. His first plan had been to reveal their affair, invoking Johnny's wrath and causing him to be cast out of their circle. Johnny would stay with Lisa, surely, because of their covenant. His life depended on it. And Lisa would stay at least long enough to find another man to support her. A clean break, and he would know not to cavort with avid rejuvenators next time. Perhaps he would take up the cloth.

But Johnny knew. Mark recalled the sneering, molten face seconds before their fight. He knew more than Mark thought he did...

Johnny was much more dangerous than the she-devil. It was important, now, to separate them. Deathly important.

"Why don't you ditch this creep? I don't like him anymore." Mark said. His heart pounded.

"I know, he's not worth it. Why don't I come up there and be with you?"

Mark was washed with nervous elation. "Sure baby, come on up. I want your body." He froze. Was that too much?

"You got it," Lisa replied. She turned to the bathroom door and raised her voice. "I'm on my way. Bye."

"Bye."

Johnny was eager to build his case. Perhaps he could appeal if he could prove there was adultery. They might even refund him the time.

"Who were you talking to?" he demanded as emerged from the bathroom.

Lisa looked away. "Nobody."

Johnny smirked. "We'll see about that," he said as he descended the spiral stairs. A minute later, he returned with the 186th cassette that had been placed into a tape recorder attached to their other phone. During the day, the housekeeper turned over the tapes or changed them every half hour. At night, Johnny took on the task himself, sleeping in short bursts to ensure complete coverage. His drooping eyelids were a testament to his vigilance.

"We'll see about that," he repeated blearily. He placed their second tape recorder on the bed and inserted the cassette. Lisa nervously started packing during the encore of her steamy exchange. She tossed a pile of clothes on the foot of the bed and began folding them. She had begun to tune out the sound of her voice when the tape suddenly stopped. Before she could react, Johnny snatched her by the wrist.

"You little tramp. How could you do this to me?!" he screamed. He looked wild, demonic. A vein bulged in his forehead. Lisa was stunned. His eyes bored into her.

"I gave you seven years of my life." Johnny spoke this thought aloud, then imploded into agony.

Lisa was reawakened. Her spirit was reanimated with fury, much like her body had been restored by their ritual.

"You little prick!" She was incredulous. All the hard work she had done for their relationship, all the anger, all the doubt, boiled to the surface. She supported him through it all; he had even said she was the only one who loved him.

And she never asked for anything. She was no fucking charity case. She stood aside gracefully as Johnny rejuvenated Denny in their bed just so he could lure younger prey. She had never asked for a day of his essence until her cancer forced her hand. And then Johnny came to rescue her, to be the angel. The perfect man.

"I put up with you for seven years!" she screamed. She knew she had earned every last second.

Johnny poured out his grief as the tape continued. He cried, pleaded, lamented. But Lisa was resilient, reborn. She waited, unflinching, for a break in his self-indulgent drivel.

At the first silence, she spoke the incantation. "I'm leaving you, Johnny." And she walked away.

Johnny raged. He trashed the apartment, swatting aside furniture and treasured artworks. Ornamental fruit littered the floor as he heaved the television out the window into the alley below. In a brief lucid moment he hurled a large decorative stone at a mirror in their bedroom. He shattered the thin glass, cursing the years she stole from him. He whirled about in a destructive trance as he demolished the ruins of their life.

Johnny emerged from the haze locked in a post-coital embrace with Lisa's red dress. He heard his heavy breath as he stared, unbelieving, at the timer in his wrist. The amber number had vanished: in its place was a stark red zero.

"Why is this happening to me?" he asked aloud. The disheveled room responded with silence. He spotted a solution on the floor a few feet away. He would never let the Ministry take him.

He lifted the hinged boxed slowly and gently opened it. The reprobate's gun glinted invitingly. A silver bullet for a monster.

Johnny invoked a comforting ceremony from a distant memory.

"God, forgive me."

The gunshot echoed through the ravaged bedroom. Then, silence again.

They found him the next morning. They wailed and cried together in a sickening pretense. Mark was relieved: his secret was safe. Lisa executed the next phase of her plan.

"I've lost him, but I still have you, right?" She embraced Mark lustfully over Johnny's unbreathing body. "Right?"

But Mark seized the advantage. "You don't have me. You'll never have me. You killed him." His best friend.

Lisa's fake tears were washed away by real ones. She would have to start over. To find a new beloved who would give his time to her. A man who would save her; heal her. Maybe this time it would be different. Maybe she would find someone she truly loved. She knelt on the bloodstained floor and shook with the force of her sobs.

She had seven years.