He woke up startled and looked at her, she was sleeping peacefully. The noise that he had heard had to have come from someone else. There was no one else in the room but the two of them, so it had to be from him. He did not remember the dream, he did not remember he had been dreaming at all. He could not think of any reason why he made that weird noise that sounded like a sob.
He stared at her for some time, she was sleeping on her side and facing towards him. Her face so calm, her breathing regular. It sort of lulled him back to sleep.
He was sitting on his knees on his bed, knife in his hand and blood dripping from the edge of it. He was looking towards at what lay in front of his eyes, white linen stained with red – white linen stained with blood, her blood.
Her half naked body lay sprawled on the bed, her hair a tangled mess.
He screamed.
“Hey, it’s okay you are having a nightmare. Relax.” She whispered in his ear as she ran her hand through his hair. He calmed down immediately.
She looked at the bedside watch, it was almost her waking up time. She switched off the alarm and climbed out of the bed, put on a shirt and walked out of the bedroom.
She was in the kitchen making coffee when he walked up behind her and wrapped his arms around her.
He kissed the nape of her neck and rested his chin on her shoulder.
“You were having a nightmare again” she said. He nuzzled her hair.
“Want to talk about it?” she asked trying to turn in his arms so that she would face him. She preferred looking people in the eye when they spoke to her.
“You know you cannot have family members as patients, right?” he teased her
“I know, but I am not asking as a professional, I am asking as a wife.” She replied.
“Ex-wife” he said as he took a sip of the coffee from her mug.
“I thought we got rid of the ‘ex’ part months ago when we started having sex again and you asked to move in.” she said.
“Don’t flatter yourself, I am using you for sex” he said
“Oh thank God, me too…” she said and then continued, “And here I was, getting worried that you are falling in love with me again.” She took her coffee mug from his hand and walked out of the kitchen.
He smiled as he saw her leaving the kitchen, wearing nothing but his shirt.
He thought about their little conversation and wondered whether he should tell her about the nightmare. Perhaps not, he did not want her to be worried. She was a psychoanalyst and would read too much into it, which he did not want.
He thought how well they connected, how easily they fit into each other’s arms and life. The sex was good, had always been until…
He pushed the thought aside.
The thing was, it was never only about the sex with her. It was about how much they understood each other. No one ever understood him the way she did.
Why had they got divorced in the first place? He thought
Only because he had been a fool to choose a younger woman over her, a little voice inside his head said.
She got ready to go to work and he walked to the gym. She worked and he worked out.
She drove out of the driveway and looked through the rear-view mirror, there he was as expected; at the gym window waiting to wave her goodbye. She slowed down the car and returned his wave.
I have him wrapped around my little finger, she thought and smiled and then she drove away.
She knew there was something bothering him. The nightmares, she knew it was his subconscious yelling for help. He said family members were not to be treated! That worked just fine for her.
She loved him, she had always loved him but he had left her for that younger bitch, she thought bitterly as she slowed down at a red signal.
Red, she thought and went deep into the abyss of her own mind until she was brought back to the surface by the honking of the cars behind hers. The signal had turned green.
She reached her clinic and saw the waiting area full of patients. She walked in through the side door and prepared her desk for the first patient. She was exhausted by the time she finished the last one. She decided to take a nap lying down on the patient’s couch. It felt good to just close her eyes and relax, block all the thoughts that nudged the back of her mind all the time. But that was momentary.
The thought attack started almost immediately. She looked at the ceiling and her thoughts went back to the day when he told her that he was in love with another woman and wanted a divorce.
She had tried to change his mind but in vain. Finally she had agreed to let him go but she knew he would come back to her someday. And – he had.
A couple of months later he had come, begging her to take him back and she had willingly accepted him back into her life because that is exactly what she had wanted. He belonged to her.
He got on the treadmill after waving her goodbye. His thoughts running as fast as his feet ran on the treadmill. He re-lived the nightmare with open eyes.
The knife in his hand, blood dripping from the edge. A half-naked body sprawled on bed, covered in blood, dead.
He stepped down from the treadmill as his heart rate increased.
He walked out of the gym and went to the kitchen. He took out a bottle of orange juice and drank from it. As he wiped his lips with the back of his hand, he remembered doing the same a couple of months ago. Only then, he had not wiped the orange juice but blood. He still remembered the taste of it on his lips.
They had been arguing earlier. The dead woman had accused him of getting back with his ex-wife. He had tried to make her understand that it was not true, but the damn woman was not ready to listen.
It was the first time they had taken their fight to bed. Somewhere in the middle of the night she had come closer to him and had initiated the sex. He remembered waking up all of a sudden, his body ready for action. He had then taken her, the act much fiercer than ever before. All the frustration of being misunderstood poured into the sex.
Then he had come and rolled over to his side of the bed, satiated and spent. He remembered falling asleep. He remembered waking up knife in his hand but he did not remember killing her.
He must have blacked out, he thought. He knew he had killed her, there was this voice inside his head which repeatedly told him that he had killed her because she had asked him whether the sex with his ex-wife was as intense as the sex they just had. He did not remember walking to the kitchen and bringing a knife to the room but the same voice told him that he had gotten out of bed, walked to the kitchen and returned to the bedroom and then he had butchered her.
He remembered feeling the chill run down his spine. He remembered cleaning the mess and getting rid of the body. He remembered crying. He had not wanted to kill her, he loved her – but the foolish woman had infuriated him. She deserved what she got, the voice told him.
He remembered driving back to his ex-wife, begging her to take him back in her life and he remembered how kind she had been to accept him into her arms, into her life.
He took out his mobile phone and texted his ex-wife, making up his mind that soon he would get rid of the ‘ex’. He was meant to be here with her and no one else. Earlier when she had jokingly said, “And here I was, getting worried that you are falling in love with me again.” He had wondered how she would react if she knew that he had really fallen in love with her again.
“I love you” his text read. He waited for a reply, telling himself that he would propose marriage to her if she replied before he finished counting 10. He smiled as his mobile beeped at the count of four.
“I love you, too.” She had replied.
She looked at her mobile, he had texted her “I love you”. She smiled. She knew this would happen. She also knew what it meant. She replied immediately “I love you, too” because there was no doubt in her mind whatsoever that she still loved him, loved him very much. So much as to make sure he came back to her.
She got up from the couch and walked towards the window. Dark clouds had started to form in the sky. It would start raining soon. It had been raining that day, too. Pre-monsoon rains. She had been following the woman who had ruined her marriage. The woman would pay dearly, she had thought. She’d managed to ‘accidentally run into her’ outside the shop the woman worked at. She’d successfully put on a mask on her face that read guilt and secrecy. She had managed to plant enough doubt in that stupid woman’s mind that her lover and soon-to-be-husband had gotten back with his ex-wife. A simple slip of tongue, followed by a lot of apologies and a guilty look on her face had been very convincing.
That night she had followed the woman to where she stayed, to where she was sure she would find her ex-husband. She had seen them fighting and then she had seen them going to bed. She had assumed they must have fallen asleep and she had sneaked into the house through the window and picked up a knife from the kitchen and tiptoed towards the bedroom when she had heard the sounds of love-making. She stood frozen just outside the bedroom door and watched the tangled mass of bodies, her own body reacting to the action. She’d been furious because he had never made such intense love to her. It had always been mechanical with her. He had never allowed her on top the way he allowed this bitch. She'd visualised herself straddling her husband and she had an orgasm.
She’d waited for them to fall asleep and then she had drugged him to render him useless. With all her anger and the unsatisfied sexual desire, she butchered the woman and as the woman had screamed she had another orgasm. She placed the knife in his hand and climbed out of the bed and removed her gloves.
And then –
He had come to her house begging her to take him back in her life and she had willingly accepted him. She took him to their bedroom and unleashed the desire. She kissed him, confident that he would not be able to resist her. She was right. She unzipped his jeans, while still kissing him, her tongue moving leisurely inside his mouth, as if marking her territory. She felt his erection against her hand and she gripped it. She saw him peak with pleasure. She undressed him and took him, straddling him for the first time. And as she moved above him she saw the look on his face; he was in awe of her - just the way she wanted him to be. They changed positions and he came into her screaming her name. She came at the same time. He collapsed on top of her and she wrapped her legs around his waist and held him tight, forcing him to stay inside of her for longer than he had to.
After that –
As he lay in her arms, his head resting on her breast, she had ran her fingers through his hair and lulled him – pulling him carefully into the state of hypnosis and planted false memories of the night into his vulnerable mind.
Each night as he had the nightmare after love-making and hypnosis, she came a lot better than she had during the sex.
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