It was worse this time, because I knew what was happening. It's that scene in the slasher flick where you know the killer is in the house preparing to jump out at any moment. But from where? The closet? Behind the refrigerator door? There was nothing I could do but watch.
I was in midtown, and I felt like I was at home. The moon brightly lit the living room on this clear night. I enjoyed the way the blue light changed the way it all looked. My padded velvet robes felt rich and clean against my otherwise naked body, and I was proud of myself for some reason. Accomplished. I heard the clinking of ice which aroused my attention.
'I didn't anticipate you'd be wanting another, my love.' My Irish brogue was intentionally alluring.
Then I saw her. What I was so proud about. A beautiful young woman in a lace nightgown, who was shaking martinis behind the kitchen counter. She smiled with a sweetness that comes with intimacy.
As she poured the martinis into each glass, her ginger bangs fell in front of her face. Instantly inconvenienced, she shook her head to clear them away. I loved it when she did that. I would marry her simply for the way she never had a solution for those bangs.
'Here... we... are,' she says softly, hanging me my martini and using her newly freed hand to rub the small of my back. 'What shall we drink to? My new, sparkling ring?'
I pulled her hand off of my back to look at it. The brilliance of a diamond is unmistakable to even the unknowing eye. I kiss the ring on her finger an say, 'To unions.'
She looked at me with that reproachful look. I must have said something too archaic for her. Being young, she always wanted things done simply, and I always complicated them. But we completed each other in a way that I had never anticipated with the life I lead.
She repeated, 'to Unions, weirdo,' we clinked glasses, and we sipped. Or at least, I did. And when I noticed she didn't, I immediately tossed my drink aside and shoved my finger down my throat. I couldn't bring myself to gag, my throat felt paralyzed.
'You violated your first rule, mage.' I was kicked back and onto my side. I felt stiffening and swelling in my neck. A million spells flashed before my mind, but they would required my voice. I resigned myself to death, and looked to my killer.
She had gone into the kitchen after kicking me, and was returning with a knife in her hand. The silver hilt glistened in the moonlight. 'Never imbibe what you have not prepared.' She knelt down to show me the hilt, that it had my name on it. She meant for me to know this murder was intended, and how long she had been waiting. Years.
'I wanted to break your heart,' she whispered into my ear, 'before splitting it in half.'
Barely able to breathe at this point, I closed my eyes and experienced the sensational pressure of a blade stopping up my body.
I didn't startle awake this time. I laid in bed and knew with a helpless indecency about a murderess in Manhattan changing out of her lace nightgown.
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