3
Johnny drives down the road in his luxury pickup truck, sweating and blinking rapidly.
Johnny steps out of the truck in his driveway, when he hears his neighbour call out across the way "Hey ya', Johnny.
Johnny swings his head toward his neighbour, who is taking a happy beagle for a morning walk.
"What were ya', night-fishing again?" the man asks "You catch anything?"
"I caught a little somethin', yeah."
"No kids?"
"No, they are spending the summer at a bloody Summer Camp. The wife sorted it with her bloody brother" Johnny walks inside his house. Johnny looks around the foyer.
Johnny creeps into the bedroom, looking around. He can hear the shower running. He spots his face in a mirror above the dresser. He moves in close to the mirror, and stares at his own image. He pulls on his face a little, his eyes brimming with excitement. He smiles at himself. Johnny looks toward the open bathroom door, where he hears the running shower. He creeps toward it.
Johnny peeks around the doorway. Rhiannon is in the shower, soaping herself. She looks beautiful there. Johnny tilts his head to the side like a dog. He watches her, mesmerized, even moved.
.
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Rhiannon is wearing a white towel and brushing her wet hair in the foggy bathroom mirror when she hears Air Supply's Every Woman in the World coming from the bedroom. She's struck by it.
She moves toward the door. Opens it. The shades are drawn, darkening the room. A few candles have been lit. Johnny is standing there, mostly in silhouette. He's silent, and he doesn't move.
"Hey there, sugarplum."
Rhiannon looks at him, stirred. "Haven't heard this for a while."
Johnny walks toward her. He takes her hand in his own, lifting it beside him. He wraps his other arm around her waist. And he slow dances with her.
Rhiannon dances too, a bit hesitantly, a bit shy. "I never danced in a towel before."
"Wearing white, just like on our... wedding day. I remember it."
Rhiannon nods.
"I'm sorry about last night. I get a little insecure sometimes, want
to hold on too tight. It's just 'cause you're precious to me, Rhiannon." Johnny sighs "But I swear to God, baby, I'm turning over a new Goddamn leaf. Okay?"
Rhiannon nods, touched. Johnny's eyes are teary.
"I love you, sugarplum."
Rhiannon and Johnny kiss, tenderly.
Johnny falls to his knees in front of her. He runs his hand over the curve of her hip, her thigh, her buttock, with as much fascination as lust. He pushes Rhiannon back onto the bed. He lifts her leg, and kisses it, nibbles on it a little, scrapes his teeth on it. Rhiannon is surprised by this, but enjoys it too: it's probably the most foreplay she's had in years. Johnny crawls on top of her, runs his hands over her breasts, her face. Rhiannon's hand moves over Johnny's back, and to his stomach.
When she stops, startled. "Johnny, what's that?"
She gazes down at the wound between them, on Johnny's bare abdomen, where the spore entered him. The wound is yellowish and surrounded by veins.
Johnny, embarrassed, pulls his shirt down. "Just a little bug bite is all."
Johnny kisses and munches on Rhiannon as she lies back on the bed, enjoying it.
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..
TEACHER'S LOUNGE
Rhiannon is humming Every Woman in the World as she drops coins into a soda machine and chooses Tab.
Ianto notices this. "What are you so smiley about, Sissy?"
"Oh, nothin'" Rhiannon grabs her soda and sits down with Ianto. just stares. "Just, Johnny and I had a nice morning. It's been a while. With the kids off to that music camp you sorted, he is like a teenager again. Once we finish high school here this week, who knows."
Oh! You got that fresh-fucked glow, don't you?" her brother laughs.
"Ianto!" she gasps with fake shock.
"You slut."
"Hush." She slaps at him.
"No shame." he chortles "You're a married woman."
Rhiannon giggles as she confides "He was... considerate. Maybe this is the start of a real change in Johnny."
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Johnny is holding up his shirt in their bathroom and looking at his torso.
The wound on his side is blackened and gangrenous and is starting to puff up into a veiny little spout. A fuzzy bluish moss is growing in the crevices around the spout. A pus oozes out. He looks concerned. He squirts some Neosporin onto his fingers. He massages it slowly into the wound.
Johnny enters the kitchen then opens the refrigerator door and rummages around inside. He pulls out some bread. Some cheese. He opens the meat drawer. It's replete with cold cuts. He pulls out some Oscar Mayer baloney. Turkey. Pastrami and salami. He grabs every type of meat there is.
Johnny assembles a sandwich at the table. Two pieces of bread and some cheese. He starts putting the meat on. But he can't stop, piling more and more on until he has a little sandwich tower. He looks at it. Something seems off about it. He removes the cheese. Better. And then the bread. Even better. He stares at what is now simply a tower of cold cuts.
"Meat." He grunts as if surprised by himself.
After contemplating it for a moment, Johnny stands and carries off the pile of meat.
Johnny enters the garage through a door from the foyer. He flips the lights on with his shoulder. He looks around. He spots an old file cabinet. He sets the tower of meat down on the oily floor and opens a drawer. It's filled with files. He closes that drawer and opens another. It has manila file folders, but no files.
Johnny takes out the folders. He uses a Sharpie to write out "BALONEY" on a folder. Then he stuffs all the baloney into the folder and files it away.
He starts writing out "PASTRAMI"
Later Johnny flips through his alphabetically-filed meat: from BALONEY through TURKEY. But he doesn't look satisfied.
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Johnny stands beside the butcher's counter with a shopping cart. He peers dreamily in through the glass at the rows of steaks, pork chops, and so on.
"Meat." He grunts softly.
"Howdy, Mr. Davies. You going' to the Deer Cheer this weekend?"
Johnny snaps out of his reverie. "Sure thing, killer."
"What can I do you for?" the butcher asks.
"Thinking 'bout getting me a couple of these big ol' rib eyes." Johnny points.
"How many you need?"
Johnny stares at the steaks. "Well... having us a little dinner party... I'd say... eight. No, no... fourteen..."
The Butcher nods, starts to grab steaks. Johnny chuckles. "Hell, what am I holding back for? Why don't you just give me everything you got here?"
"All the rib eyes?" the butcher freezes, looks at the large man.
"Yep. And while you're at it, get me a few of them chicken wings...
some pork loins... and, ooo, what's this here? Osso buco?"
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Johnny backs his pickup toward the garage. Meat is piled into the bed. Wrapped packages of meat fill the seats around him.
Johnny stands in the garage, tearing open the packing, and letting the loose meat slide into piles onto the floor, muttering "Meat."
Johnny rolls slabs of beef over the dirty floor and into a pile. Something skitters across the garage and around the pile. Johnny peers around the pile and sees a RAT nibbling on some ribs. He realizes something. "You're meat."
The rat moves away from Johnny. But Johnny snaps out his arm with alarming speed, snatching the rat. It SQUEAKS and wriggles in his grip, tearing and biting at him, trying to get free. Johnny snaps its neck and tosses the dead rat onto the pile of meat.
Continues.
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That night Rhiannon pulls into the driveway. She presses the button on her garage door opener.
The door SHUDDERS but stays closed. Rhiannon's confused. She gets out of the car and examines the door. She looks down and sees a new padlock, locking the door to the cement driveway with bolts on both sides.
Rhiannon enters the house. She heads toward a door along the wall that leads to the garage. There's a shiny new lock on that door as well. She touches it, baffled. She turns to see Johnny standing at the end of the foyer. He's in shadows, a little spooky in the darkness.
"Welcome home."
"Johnny? Why are there … did you put locks on the garage?"
Pause. No answer.
"You drilled into the driveway." She adds "Ianto is gonna complain, you know he owns this place, my parents left it to him not me."
Johnny walks into the light. "Yeahhhh. I'm sorry. I just got so excited about... your present. He will never notice."
"My present?"
"You're my princess, aren't you?" he purrs.
"Okay." She frowns.
"I got a super-special birthday present for you this year. I couldn't risk you finding it, so I had to put them locks on the doors." He explains.
Pause.
"All right... I must clean up before dinner."
Johnny smiles at her. Rhiannon confused, tries to smile back, then turns and heads up the stairs. Johnny watches Rhiannon's fine form from behind, somewhat lustily. But his leering gaze gradually turns into something darker, and he has a realization. "You're meat."
Rhiannon turns. "What?"
Johnny snaps himself out of it. "Oh, nothing. Nothing. See you in a sec."
Rhiannon smiles uneasily, and heads on upstairs to call her brother and apologise as she knows damned well that he will notice those holes. It is embarrassing enough that he refuses to take rent for the place let alone the fact he pays for the upgrades every now and then.
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Johnny steps onto the front porch to get some air. He's blinking and seems a little dizzy. He gazes around the neighbourhood. Down the way, a boy in a little league uniform and his mother get out of their car and walk toward the front door.
Across the street, though a kitchen window, a fat man and his wife are eating dinner.
At another home, a short man steps on a stepladder, changing the dome light on his porch.
Johnny stares at these individuals, looking like an animal ready to lunge at its prey, fighting the urge.
"Meat."