The Bride
Copyright 2012 by Michael Robb Mathias jr
All Rights Reserved
He remembered the wedding as if it were yesterday; the country club’s perfectly manicured lawn, the crape paper lanterns hanging in the trees, the bride in her wonderful dress, and all those happy people twirling around like sparkles from the disco light the real “Disk Jockey” brought along.
He looked at her now, the bride, laying peaceful and still, and reflected on those first few nights after the ceremony. Ah, those were grand times. She had adored him then. All of her smiles and love had been his. It still was of course, but the fires of passion had withered down to frail embers now.
Time is an evil old bastard, he thought to himself as he took her in. A ray of golden sunlight was cutting through the dusty room, giving her an angelic sort of glow. Despite the years, her hair was still the same shade of auburn it had been when they’d first come here to honeymoon three decades ago. It looked like molten copper even now.
She didn’t wake as he passed through the mote-filled shaft of illumination that was bathing her, even though his shadow swept across her like a ghoul.
“I’ll always love you,” he whispered softly.
He didn’t expect a response, but not hearing one hurt none-the-less. It always did.
He sat in an old recliner, stirring up whirls of dust. He noticed a cup that he’d sat on the table the last time he’d been here. Was it eight years ago? After he situated himself so that he could better see her, he recollected their first night together.
She was a dream in her negligée, all soft, and wet, and as smooth as silk against his skin. She’d kissed him and purred in his ear. She gave herself to him. She’d made him a man that first night, and over the next few days, she made him her lover. Looking back on all of his life he realized he’d never felt that sort of enrapture again.
The second and third wives hadn’t been the same. Thinking of them, the second bride in particular, he stood and walked to another of the large standing wardrobes that decorated the honeymoon cottage’s attic. He threw open the doors. There she was, as still as a statue, wearing the dress she’d worn to the party the third night they were here.
He laughed. He’d sported a “Burt Reynolds” mustache then. He even owned a Trans-Am. “Showing off is what I do best,” he’d told her just before he pushed the ice pick into her temple and swirled it around. Unlike his third bride, she had stayed alive for several weeks. She kicked and squirmed and shit a lot, but she couldn’t get a word out. She stilled when he was inside her, and he fed her so that she would learn to be calm. It was too good to be true though. One day he came to give his wife some lovin’ and she was stiff as a board.
God, he’d nearly lost himself in alcohol after that. He remembered how the third wife pulled him out of it. He actually thought that they might have nights like he and his first love shared, but the third turned out to be terrible in the sack. He killed her by twisting her neck around out of sheer frustration. She was in a wardrobe too, but her head lulled to the side and the maggots had gotten in her skull and eaten most of the flesh away. It was a shame because she’d been the most beautiful of his previous wives.
Movement outside the window caught his eye. He stepped over and looked down being careful not to let himself be detected from the yard.
There was his latest bride. She was a girl half his age, all bubbly, and perky, and full of shit. She was standing in the yard by her brother, or cousin, or someone. Thank God her family was leaving in a few hours. He wanted to enjoy her a while after they left. She was different. She acted like she loved him. She seemed so much like his first bride, when she did so, that he wondered if she’d been faking back then. It was troublesome to his mind. This one couldn’t really love him, yet she slid across his old hide and caused him to tingle. She stoked the fires that age had all but extinguished. She was a “gold digger,” a “whore.” These ideas made him think about his first bride, how she’d used her sex to tame him too. It made him angry.
He stewed on it while shutting up the wardrobes. He paused only to kiss his first wife on her crusty dry lips. The sun’s ray had shifted past her and her husk of a body looked like some B-rate horror movie mummy now. He didn’t care. She still had his heart. She was his love-of-a-lifetime
On his way out the door he grabbed his jacket and slipped the ice pick into his pocket. He would put it in the bedroom before he took the in-laws to the airport. He didn’t plan on using it for a few days, but wanted to be ready in case he changed his mind.
He sighed as he locked the door to his attic and though about his new bride. After this one, he’d have to buy some more wardrobes, two at least. At fifty-three years old he figured he could squeeze two more marriages out of life. Three, if he was lucky.
“Are they ready to go?” he asked stepping to his new bride’s side on the lawn.
Her eyes were full of joy when they met his, and she purred to him seductively. “Just about, I can’t wait until they’re gone, Love.”
“Me either, babe.” He couldn’t help but chuckle. “Me either.”
THE END
If you liked this, start reading the free preview of Mathias' award winning horror thriller, The Butcher's Boy, here: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004FPYWKU
