Monster in the closet

"Oh, honey, you'd never guess who my new case is on," Allyca's husband grinned, leaning back in his chair. He looked at her expectantly from his kitchen chair. His name was Paul, and he was a laywer. He wasn't the best lawyer, but nonetheless he was in high demand.
Allyca turned around and facing him, she put the cloth she was using to dry the dishes with on the white marble countertop.
"Who?" her soft voice was unsuited to the life she led. She was a doctor at the local hospital. She loved it there. The only thing that she ever actually wanted to go home for was a more peaceful reality. Something that didn't involve car crashes and overdoses.
"A couple of fucking dykes. married. They want a divorce." Paul shook his head in disgust. "Jesus, i didn't even know that was legal." Allyca instantly took offence, she didn't bother to mask this.
"Well, Jesus, Paul. I didn't know you were such a fucking bigot." she spat coldly at him.
Paul laughed nervously, obviously shocked. He put his hands up, mocking defence.
"Wow, honey! Hah, I didn't know you were into chicks!" Allyca threw the wet dishcloth at his face. Hard. She stormed out of the room, his laughter echoed in her ears even as she picked up the phone.
"Hi. Yeah, Lisa...I'm good, uh, listen...yeah, its about him... being an ass, can I come over?...Thanks, I'll be there in a bit...Yeah, thanks again."
She grabbed her purse from the bedroom and came back into the kitchen.
"Listen, honey." Her words were ice. "I've had a day from Hell. I come home, cook you dinner, clean up after your sorry ass, I listen to you bitch and whine every day - without complaint, and now you sit here and you feed me this macho homophobic bullshit." Allyca headed for the door.
"I don't need this. Thanks, but uh, yeah, no. No. I can't deal with this right now. I'm going to Lisa's. Clear the table."
As she slid behind the wheel of her black Miata, she leaned her head against the rest and laughed. Talk about overreaction! She hardly ever acted like that, and never for something so small and petty.
"Whatever. I'll get over it, and so will he." She spoke to no one, and her words seemed to split the air. She shook her head, and started the car, peeling out of the driveway.
On the way to her friend's house, she couldn't help the feeling of riding guilt overcoming her like a bad dream. She did love Paul, more than life itself. He was smart, intelligent, charming as hell, and he was like the other half to who she was. She had seen that side of him before, on rare occasions, and she didn't like to bring it out of him. Paul was never a bad person. He was never rude, or impolite, always smiling, and laughing. Not to mention, that was completely irresistable. He had this way of smiling at her as if she were the only girl he had ever seen, every since they met for the first time back on Birch Lake. She smiled on that memory every day of her life. She wouldn't be the same person without him, and she knew it. She smiled even now, thinking about it. She blushed and stepped harder on the gas pedal of her small sports car as an angry horn sounded from behind her. She had been lifting her foot, daydreaming again, and was coasting at around thirty miles an hour in a seventy zone. The street was empty so she hadn't noticed just how slow she was going. She decided she should concentrate on only the road the rest of the way to Lisa's.
When she got there, Lisa was sipping tea in the den, curled up in a soft green blanket on the couch watching T.V. She glanced at Allyca quickly before returning her gaze.
"Over it already?" Lisa tucked her shoulder length hair behind one ear. Allyca smiled and sat down.
"I should have known," Lisa laughed, "you always get over fights before you get here, why do you even bother coming? Get out of my house!" She joked.
"It wasn't a fight," Allyca replied, beginning to focus her own attention on the televison's bright screen, "I blew up this time."
"You? Okay I'm afraid to even ask, but what was it about this time? What did the ass do to upset you?" Lisa shifted to face Allyca, and Allyca knew she was interested for real. It was true, what Lisa said. Allyca was always complaining about how Paul was upset, or Paul got angry, it was always serious when she was the one affected to that point.
"Just...him. being the homophobic asshole that he was born as." She spoke after a moment. She didn't like the reactions that she got from him in the house, and so she was reluctant to speak about the sensitive isssue, to anyone, even her best friend, who happened to be a proud lesbian.
"Oh! that shit! Well, you know, when he realizes he can't beat them, he will be forced to join 'em!" Lisa joked with a wink. Allyca laughed at the thought of her husband with another man. He was so...awkward in bed,to say the least. Anyone would be humored at the thought of such a confident man put in a situation where he really didn't know what was going on. Of course, Lisa knew all about him, whether she asked for the details or not.
Pretty soon the two women settled in to comfortable conversation, and far into the night, Allyca was about ready to leave. She was comforted by the thought that she knew the table would be cleared and her husband would be in bed, and would have forgotten all about the fight, except to apologize profusely to Allyca, in hopes of falling asleep on a good note. Something they tried to do no matter what.
When she pulled into her driveway though, she noticed that Paul's car was gone, and all the lights in the house were on. That was odd because she knew that he had a meeting early in the morning. She checked her watch. It was quarter to three.
"what the hell are you doing, Paul?" She said in a low voice. As soon as she got in the house, she tried his cell. She let it ring about twice before she noticed that the upstairs was trashed. The table wasn't cleared either, but she thought nothing of it until now.
Not only trashed, but she could have sworn the house was robbed, if she hadn't checked about four times to see if anything was missing, which it wasn't. There was a huge hole in the mattress in the spare room upstairs, a clean slit top to bottom, right in the middle. Chairs were tipped over, some broken, things were moved away from walls and thrown into the middle of the room, and drawers were spilled out. Something told her that Paul had to do with it.
She tried Paul's cell once more, letting it ring through. He answered.
"Paul, what the fuck happened to our house?" Her eyes blazed.
"Nothing, I made a bit of a mess, I was looking for something." He seemed to know how bullshit that sounded to her, but his voice was shaky.
"Are you alright? What happened to the mattress?" For now, it was the only thing she could think of, was why the mattress was cut in half.
"Nothing, honey I will be home in a couple minuites, and I will explain it all then."
She hung up the phone, slowly bringing it away from her face. She made her way into the kitchen, stepping over things that had been strewn about to make a cup of tea for herself and Paul when he got home. He was going to sit down with her and give her every detail of what happened before he fell asleep tonight.
By the time he got home, she was reay to go to bed, but didn't dare let him. She stayed up, swaying with fatigue, and demanded answers when they were both sitting down on the hard, modern orange sofa which thankfully, hadn't been touched.
Somewhere in his fumbling for an explanation about robbers or something, he realized he wasn't gettinig anywhere and decided to tell the truth.
He looked her in the eye, and told her something that she could never have expected to hear if she had been told about it in advance.
"I cheated on you. I tried to call it off, but they wouldn't take no for an answer. I have also been doing coke with this person, and now not only does this person want to hurt me, they think I stole a great deal of drugs and money from them. " Allyca stared at him, eyes wide. He continued.
"They came here, looking for me, to hurt me. There was a fight, I got away. They are tied up in the basement in the furnace room closet as we speak." Paul somehow managed to give her the same expectant look as he did earlier, sitting at the table after dinner. But this time, he looked a bit more nervous.
Allyca took a deep breath. Let it out. She took another one, and looked like she was about to say something, didn't, and let her breath out again. Then she spoke.
"You love me." it wasn't a question, she knew the answer.
"Yes." Right answer.
Allyca got up, and walked down the white staircase that led to the basement. Paul made no move to follow. Calmly, and without hesitation, she opened the door to the furnace room closet and looked at the man seated on the floor in the eye. He was big, spanish, with many tattoos, swearing in another language at her and laughing.
"Did you fuck him?"
"Better than you ever could," he laughed again.
Allyca brought her boot to his forehead, and lightly nudged him onto his side.
"He doesn't love you."
The man smiled, and she drew her foot back above his head and stomped down on his face. He screamed loudly, and when she drew her foot back, she saw that she had transformed his face into an unrecognizable pulpy mess. He was still screaming, verging on tears,and in the back of her mind, Allyca remembered learning in elementary school that men don't get used to pain. they feel the initial shock and pain the entire time it ails them. After putting her boot back down on the floor, getting it dirty and gritty, she raised it to his face again.
"You are going to lick it, asshole. Until it's clean." her voice seethed with raw fury, but it was calm and relaxed and quiet.
"Don't you fucking touch me, you filthy cunt!"
She was grinding her shoe in his face.
"Don't you fucking touch my husband, douchebag."
He was screaming again. This time, he was screaming God's name.
After shutting the door on him, Allyca stood outside of the room for a moment, shaking. She could still hear him, but she didn't want to, so she turned the corner of the basement hallway to head upstaris. Behind the corner, she found her husband sitting in a chair.
"kay, paul? what the hell is going on?"
He motioned to a chair beside him.
"baby you remember the blow we bought from that guy then we ran into his sister later that night at the club?" She did. What a night. It was the week after her birthday last year and they had still been celebrating. Paul told her about this awesome weed he had been getting, and she had smoked it, and it was definetly better than what she had been getting back then, and then paul mentioned to her that he sold cocaine, too. Allyca had jumped at the chance, and bought a couple grams that day after trying a couple lines and finding it good.
"Is that him? Seriously? That guy is such a pig! Why would you have sex with him? No wonder you're in the fucking closet to begin with!" Allyca didn't care that he had been unfaithful to her. She loved him and he loved her, and it was all good. All she could think of right now was that this guy tried to hurt Paul, and had trashed the house and slit the matress open, and she really couldn't get past that last bit. Obviously it wasn't in there or the matress would have been opened up already.
This guy was obviously not too bright and had been watching too many movies.
"I'm not in the closet baby, i just wanted to know if guys were better, you know? It was a mistake, and well, you know what I mean, right?"
"yea," she knew what he meant, and she knew he was telling the truth.
"what is his name? I nicknamed him douchebag though already."
"It's Anthony, but I call him Prick." He smiled. Paul's nickname for him fit better than hers. Allyca smiled back. 1

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