Honeymoon Phase Page 3

Outside, spires extend upward as though reaching for the heavens, sturdy masonry walls fortify themselves with jutting buttresses…the design boldly surpasses your conceptualization, initiating enhancements that draw from some unknown abyss underlying even your deepest desires. Your aptitude in projecting your will here is limitless; your jubilation at your sense of near-omnipotence boundless. Just then, it dawns on you that this malleable domain is but a reflection of your liminal and subliminal minds, like a telepathic playground dispensing an infinite supply of all for which you yearn…all, that is, except for someone with whom to share in its glory. Once again, though, you refuse to submit to disappointment, instead taking supreme comfort in the multitude of things to occupy you, and in the confidence that your loneliness is only temporary; that, soon enough, I'll be there to join you at your side. There's much to do until then, and you're anxious to get underway…preparing our home for the imminent time when we'll begin reveling together in its paradise–born of your fondest dreams–for the rest of eternity.”

  Marion now resided exclusively inside the make-believe world that, itself, resided exclusively inside her fine-tuned imagination…and she wouldn't be coming back. This was mercifully so, as her happiness there was absurdly ecstatic, the recollection of which would likely make any return to dismal corporeality unbearable to a level exceeding clinical depression. Frank had been painfully aware from the very beginning that this would be the case, but, by his questionable reckoning, no price was too high in the acquisition of perfection. Everything about their relationship had been a carefully orchestrated escalation toward this end, and it wasn't until the ascent seemed threatened that he decided the time had come to force its culmination.

  The honeymoon phase had been showing signs of waning since well-before the advent of the honeymoon, itself–the latter, in fact, owing its existence to the gradual dissolution of the former–, and Frank, having finally found the closest thing to a genuine soul mate after a lifetime of searching, lacked the capacity to adjust to the loss. The changes, though discrete to the point of near-absolute obscurity, were glaringly obvious to him…a careless break in routine here, a neglected mini-custom there; as unremarkable a part of the familiarity process as they were, every such instance stabbed through his heart like a rusted blade, and concealing the severity of his frequent consternation had become quite the insurmountable chore.

  Their elopement had helped to invigorate things and their enchanting getaway immediately thereafter was doing a fine job keeping them going, but even the mere thought of what would inevitably follow inflicted Frank with a dread tantamount to the fear of death. In his opinion, no physical pain could match the lingering intensity of its emotional counterpart, and he hypothesized that no horror would be greater than a slow, agonizing demise…what, then, could be more unimaginably tortuous than a gruesome amalgamation of the two? He couldn't bear the idea of experiencing that, himself, and, with only his own warped mindset to reference in fathoming that of another, the very concept of his only true love being forced to endure such intolerable suffering appalled him to no end. An abrupt conclusion–however unpleasant–was always the better choice. Thankful as Frank was for his uncanny ability to transport Marion to that utopian place where, he believed, she would perpetually indulge in unadulterated rapture and be spared any future psychological distress, he was no less appreciative of the technique's real-world anesthetic side effect.

  Frank climbed onto Marion's reposed form, the only impulse driving his actions an indomitable purpose unparalleled in its apparent insidiousness. He might have lacked the fortitude to follow through were it not for the apathetic self-hypnotic state that now animated him; a slightly milder, notably dissimilar version of that which he'd just administered, allowing him to maintain not only full motor function, but also some depraved semblance of self-esteem by dulling his long-term memory to the specifics of the heinously necessary thing that had to happen next. He shamelessly penetrated her–for reasons more diagnostic than anything else–, then wrapped his arms tightly around her upper torso, pressed his right cheek to hers…and squeezed with almost inhuman strength.

  Marion at first emitted only a pitiful groan caused by forced exhalation, but that was quickly followed by a deep, guttural retching that sounded in unison with the crunching collapse of her chest cavity. Shattering ribs sent shards of solid bone into the tender tissues of her lungs, which, in turn, sent a surge of bloody fluids shooting up her trachea, the eruption from her mouth creating a veritable fountain of ghastly crimson. Her body twitched and seized wildly for the next several seconds as its fatally damaged life-sustaining functions sequentially failed, her powerful yet tellingly abating vaginal spasms conferring a morbid pleasure to Frank beyond any that could be acquired through even the most vivacious conventional sex act. His eyes rolled back behind their closed lids as he savored her draining vitality, climaxing with deranged exhilaration as the liberation of her spirit prompted him to intensify his maniacal embrace. There he held her, unrelenting and unopposed, enjoying their intimate proximity until her mortal throes subsided and her precious final sparks of neural activity dwindled away to nothingness.

  For the first time in a very long while, Frank experienced an all-consuming, consummate relief whose startling blow of contentment was truly–albeit only temporarily–debilitating. He dismounted Marion's corpse and plopped down on his back beside her, then, like a heroin addict who'd just gorged on his poison after an extended withdrawal, basked in the calm-storm that engulfed him. At last, he knew to an irrefutable degree of certainty that their love had been as perfect as any love could be, and that nothing would ever be able to change that now. It would never know the arguments or the broken promises or the plethora of other detestable behaviors that had robbed Frank long ago of the fairytale concepts he once cherished, leaving little more in the wake of their plunder than an emaciated shell of a once impassioned man who'd pursued a fallacy into the realm of madness. Ensuring to the best of his ability that amorous feelings never faded, while unorthodox in the way he went about it, seemed no less logical to him than choosing an acute coronary over a prolonged bout with terminal cancer. Accomplishing that goal at any cost had overshadowed all else…and not even the collateral element of Marion's passing could trump the elation bestowed him by its successful execution.

  Doing his best to keep melancholy thoughts at bay, Frank spent a majority of his short-lived incapacitation in reverie, pondering only the most joyful of times; the courtship, the emergence of affections, and all of the inconsequential wonders that had made every moment with Marion a privilege of the highest order. Mostly, though, his mind dwelt upon the quixotic region to which he'd dispatched her, wondering if the nirvana he'd concocted did, indeed, transcend life, or at least if she'd moved on from there to another place of comparable extravagance. Whichever the case, he truly did aspire to reunite with her on the other side someday, and he deeply hoped she'd welcome him with open arms when he did…if she wasn't too pissed off at him for having killed her, of course.

  Frank snickered at the thought of that, shortly thereafter mustering enough mobility to get out of bed, gather up his essential possessions, and promptly disappear on foot into the exquisite mountain dark.