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Confession, by Jeanne Dininni

Short story By: jeannedininni
Flash fiction

A wife lets her unfaithful husband in on a murderous little secret...

Submitted:Feb 7, 2007    Reads: 188    Comments: 3    Likes: 0   

Hello, Darling.

You'd better sit down. I have something to tell you.

I went for a walk tonight...to your mistress's house. Yes, Darling, I've known about her for weeks. And, you know, it wasn't as difficult as I'd imagined it would be.

She didn't utter a sound when it hit. I hadn't really expected her to. Her eyes merely took on a fleeting expression of...shock--as if she couldn't comprehend what was happening and was absolutely petrified by it all--and then...it was over.

All it took was one shot. It was what a pro might call "a real clean job," though now I know that pros don't mean the same thing when they say "clean" as we amateurs are likely to think.

Actually, it was quite messy. You know, Darling, people like me--average, everyday folks, who've never had occasion to handle firearms (previously, that is)--tend to think of them as instruments that drill neat little holes into people and that's that. For some reason we visualize no blood; we imagine no gore. How naive we are, Darling!

That's not at all the way it is! In fact, it's terribly shocking the first time you look down at that...corpse...covered in real, red, blood--the kind you could never stand the sight of--and staring, like something out of a horror movie, at...nothing. And it's eerie the way it lies so still, exactly the way it fell. You keep expecting it to move, to look up at you and say something...but it doesn't. It just lies there...staring.

Well, Darling, I stood there looking down at her...at it...for a while--a few minutes, perhaps--to be sure that she was dead. But, no, that wasn't the reason. I knew she was dead. I suppose I simply couldn't draw myself away. After all, I'd never seen a...corpse...before.

You must understand, Darling. I hadn't wanted to kill her. As they say: In other circumstances, we might have been the best of friends. But try to imagine what it must be like to lose the one you love most in life, the one who supplies the little sunshine there is in your drab existence, the only one you've ever trusted! Have you any idea how it feels to have that trust betrayed? But how could you, Darling? You've never had the misfortune to experience it. If you had, you'd understand that the act was committed in desperation. You'd see why I had to do it.

I freely admit that I went to her house for the express purpose of killing her. But I wasn't responsible for my actions. You've no idea how the hatred and jealousy seethed in me as I left the house earlier this evening. The emotions were beyond my control; they'd grown and multiplied since the first day I learned of your affair, until I simply had no choice but to satisfy them. They drove me to an act I would never even have contemplated before they dominated my life.

I did it because I loved you, Darling. But, you know what's funny? Tonight I discovered something infinitely more satisfying than love. Can you guess what it is, Darling?

Yes, that's right--revenge!

Good-bye, Darling...




