Swing

by Zachary Leeman

  They entered a bedroom and Gloria lay motionless on the bed. Tom undressed and noticed she barely looked at him. He remembered from the night before her saying something about being a lesbian. Tom climbed on top of her. He felt uncomfortable about the whole thing but didn't know what else to do. He thrusted and thrusted, trying not to look at her. She made no sounds. It wasn't sex. It was as business-like as signing a contract.

  Both lay in bed naked. Tom was trying to figure out what had happened and what to do next and Gloria was trying to forget the whole thing.

  “Do you know what to do?” Gloria asked.

  “Are you crazy?”

  “No.”

  “I'm not fucking doing it.” Tom got up and began dressing himself.

  “Yes, you will.”

  He looked towards the bed where Gloria covered herself with a blanket and confidently looked at Tom.

  “Why's that?”

  “Because you hate him and you want the money.”

  Tom laughed. This woman really was crazy. “Yeah, okay, because I would trust you to pay and I'd definitely get away with it.”

  “We don't tell them about the swinging,” Gloria said. “You get control of that bitch of yours—but she'll probably be too embarrassed to talk anyway. I can let you in tonight. I'm telling you: Richard always does this, and when he's through with her he'll spend the night on his boat relaxing and sleeping. You get in the safe, grab the gun, go in when he's asleep. Make it look like suicide. Haven't you seen these crime shows?”

  “You mean the ones where they get caught every week?”

  “Whatever. That's TV. This is real.”

  Tom was completely dressed now, waiting for the crazy lady to finish. “Look, I'm leaving. Thanks for whatever that was. I'd gladly kill your husband but you're right: this is real life.” And with that Tom walked out. Crazy lady, he thought as he walked down the stairs, outside, into his crappy car and drove home. Alone.

  VIII.

  Tom realized the second he was walking into his house what day it was: Tuesday. He immediately sped to school on instinct. It was one o'clock when he got there. Why he had bothered to show up was anyone's guess. Principal Shanks brought him into his office and ripped him a new one like never before. Tom was given bus duty and detention duty...that day.

  It wasn't as bad of a punishment as he deserved. Tom knew that and felt lucky. Plus, during the yelling and preaching of Principal Shanks, Tom didn't think about Hillary on that fucking boat with Richard or crazy Gloria. After watching kids run to their buses, Tom reported to room 318 where the delinquents with detentions sat waiting for him. There were about ten. They were the usual crew. A few boys wearing ironic t-shirts with rock n' roll band lyrics on them and a few girls showing far too much cleavage.

  When the students saw Mr. Straum walk into the room they breathed a sigh of relief. They knew he would sit back and try to ignore them for an hour. They wouldn't need to write essays or do homework or be quiet. As long as they weren't loud enough to warrant another teacher coming into the room, Mr. Straum didn't care.

  Tom sat at his desk while the students mingled as quietly as they could. He wished he had something for his banging headache. It was worsened by the fact that the sounds from last night kept jumping to the forefront of his mind. His wife's moans and groans and screaming. Images of Richard's hands all over her would enter his mind. Tom felt sick.

  Tom tried to get his mind away from his pathetic wife and that fucking asshole. He thought about Gloria and the way she just lay there with him on top of her. Tom had only done it to get back at Hillary in some small way. But Gloria didn't moan and groan. She didn't do anything.

  Tom thought about what the lesbian wife with the millionaire husband said to him. One million dollars, gun in safe, suicide, kill Richard. Crazy bitch, he thought. Still, toying with the idea and the fantasy in his head kept his mind away from the sounds his wife was most likely making out in the middle of open waters, so he went on. Besides, he was a writer. He could come up with something good.

  Gloria said she would let Tom in. Then they would open the safe. Tom would wear gloves, keeping his fingerprints off of the gun. He would check to see if it was loaded, click the safety off. Tom had once toyed with the idea of writing a murder mystery. He had bought a Glock 19 and gone to the range for two weeks. He wasn't a very good shot and never wrote a word of the mystery, but he knew enough to know how to load a gun and click the safety off. Simple details like that could trip you up.

  Tom would wait as the boat came in. Gloria said after Richard's little shindigs with his newest crushes, he would order a taxi for his latest female triumph and never leave his boat till morning. He liked to relax and think over his accomplishments from the day and night before. Gloria said she went out to the boat once and caught him sitting on his couch, lounging and masturbating. He yelled and hit her and told her to never step foot on the boat again. She never did.

  Tom would wait for the car to leave. He would wait for Richard to finish his masturbation session, wait till he was most surely asleep. Tom would sneak on board...quietly. He imagined himself sneaking down below like in a movie coming up on a sleeping Richard. The man had his shirt off and looked hard as a rock. It only made Tom want to kill him even more.

  Tom walked slowly, slowly. Richard didn't make a peep. He was out cold as if he had taken something to knock himself out. Tom would take Richard's right hand (he remembered him eating with his right hand. He probably finger banged his wife with that hand as well) and put the gun in it, making the fingerprints nice and firm. Tom would put the gun to Richard's chin, facing up so it would blow his brains all over his precious millionaire boat.

  Tom wouldn’t think, wouldn’t hesitate. He’d just use Richard's trigger finger and blow skull and brain everywhere. Richard would be gone, Hillary would be crushed. Tom smiled at the fantasy. A month later Gloria would deliver on her promise and give him his first installment of the money. They’d do it in minor chunks so it wouldn’'t look suspicious. It would take maybe a year, or two, or three. Tom would take maybe another year before spending it. Then he'd run away. Probably without Hillary. Maybe with another foreign beauty like Penelope.

  Tom wondered what the kinks or holes in his plan were, because there were always kinks and holes. Alibi, he thought. Gloria wouldn't say anything about the swinging, but Hillary might. Or the police might find out somehow. Then they’d get back to Tom and ask him if he would have wanted to kill the man boning his wife while he listened downstairs. The question would be rhetorical. They would then ask where he was between such and such a time and if he could verify.

  Tom would have to make sure Hillary didn't talk. What would he do? Admit everything to her? The only part he would enjoy telling her about would be sticking his dick into Mrs. Richard. Maybe Tom would just be a man and tell his wife to shut the fuck up. He was in charge now. That's not a man, thought Tom. That's a monster. Would this turn him into a monster?

  Tom stopped himself. He realized suddenly that his thoughts had moved from innocent fantasy to realistic hypothetical. Shit, he thought. He checked the clock on the wall above the doorway. Twenty minutes to go. And six or so hours before Gloria needed him there. Shut the fuck up, Tom told himself. It's not real. Even if it was, he was not doing it.

  When detention was over, the kids left without so much as glancing at Tom. He skipped out through a side door so as to avoid Shanks and the teachers that saw him at the dance. He needed to avoid everyone for a while. Hopefully forever.

  Tom got in his car and sat. He wasn't sure where to go. House where Hillary was not? Back to Richard's to fuck his wife again and maybe her girlfriend and see if she is for real? Or maybe to a gun shop. No, not a gun shop, dumbo. You don't need a gun. You have one. But, you won't use it. Too risky. You'll just use Richard's. In the safe. Tom stopped himself again.

  Tom drove back to the house he lived in with his wife and sat on the couch and tried to watch TV for a while. He wondered what he w
ould do with a million dollars. Hire someone to kill that fucking reviewer for The Times, he thought to himself, and laughed. Retire on a beach with a beauty. He wished it would be Hillary, but that was over. At least he thought.

  Eventually, Tom passed out. He awoke on the couch with the TV still on around eight. He went upstairs, pissed, looked at himself in the broken mirror and headed back downstairs to fix himself dinner. If I eat, thought Tom, I might puke when I see Richard's exploded head. He slammed the door to the fridge and leaned against a kitchen counter. What if she was serious, he thought?

  Technically it would make sense that she would inherit everything for now. Suicide wouldn't matter. She wouldn't get insurance money, but when it came to someone like Richard, it didn't matter. Tom thought about the money. He thought about sitting on a couch in a strange man's house listening to a man fuck his wife better than he ever had.

  You aren't a man, Tom told himself. Murder wouldn’t make him one... But it was a hell of a lot better than this. He looked around his empty house. His wife was probably sucking Richard's cock while he drove his boat back to his giant house. She hadn't sucked Tom's cock in over a year.

  Tom's blood rose. Why shouldn't he kill him? The man has the audacity to mock him in front of his wife, mock his writing, fuck his wife while he knew Tom could hear! And Tom let it all happen. He fucking let it happen. Not anymore.

  Tom raced out to his vehicle and started it up. He knew the route to Richard's and he drove fast. Real fast. He didn't care about cops or pedestrians. He was dangerously and solely focused on his new goal.

  Tom pulled into the long familiar driveway and hated everything about it. He hated that it was next to the water, he hated that the lawn was perfectly cut, he hated that his house wouldn't even be fit to serve as the garage for a place like this.

  Tom walked up to the door. It had started to rain. It got quicker and harder and soaked Tom. He glanced to the water and noticed that the boat was not back yet. As Tom knocked at the door he asked himself if there were security cameras. In fact, he wondered about a whole bunch of new details now. He thought about every way he could get caught. He thought about the fact that a place like this wasn't gated in. Why the fuck not? It was secluded and away from neighborhoods. It was isolated with essentially zero security. Was he being set up? Classic scapegoat?

  Tom cleared his mind. No, there are no absolutes, he told himself. Stop worrying. For once in your life, focus and finish something, damn it. He heard footsteps coming to the door. He thought about putting the gun to Richard's head and using Richard's finger to blow the man's brains everywhere. More footsteps. He thought about his wife screaming in delight. More footsteps. He thought about the money, he thought about Penelope, Gloria, Hillary all naked and offering themselves to a guy like him, not Richard. Footsteps. The door opened. Gloria stood confused. “Oh. It's you. What are you doing here?”

  “Let's get that gun.”