The Diary

by Julia Derek

  Like yesterday, he is proving himself to be an excellent bartender.

  You’ve probably already figured out that I never did go into the police station to turn in Jason. After his text, I simply couldn’t find it in me to do it. I tried, I really did, but I just couldn’t make myself leave the cab. I was paralyzed, unable to move. The cab driver must have thought I was crazy when I just sat there in his backseat, bawling my eyes out. Only when he finally told me that he had to leave did I tell him that I still needed him, could he please drive me back downtown? Fortunately, he didn’t mind.

  Even if I had gone into the station, I don’t think that I would have been able to get any words out. I would have just stood there, crying and crying, acting as hysteric as I was feeling on the inside. And I’d rather do that in a dark, shady bar than under the bright fluorescent light bars of a police station. So I told the cab driver to turn around and drive me to Finnerty’s, which is the name of the dark hole in the wall that I’m in right now.

  By the time I arrived at Finnerty’s, my eyes had dried and I had gone numb the pain inside me was so intense. I felt like a living dead as I walked in to the dark space and took a seat on one of the many empty wooden stools before the smooth-voiced bartender. Only one more person is there this afternoon

  I have a sip of my vodka, then I return to staring emptily ahead, into the many rows of liquor bottles in the wall behind the bar counter. I’ve been doing this from the moment I sat down on the stool I’m on and I have lost track of time. When someone sits down next to me, interrupting the soothing daze that I have entered, I’m shaken back to reality. Not bothering to turn my head to see who it is, I only steal a glance of the person out of the corner of my eye. It’s a man in his fifties dressed in an expensive-looking business suit. He orders a gin and tonic from the bartender and the drink is promptly before him.

  We sit there in silence, sipping on our drinks. I have slowed down my own alcohol consumption, not feeling the same urgent need to get shitfaced today as I did yesterday. I don’t know what I feel anymore. I don’t know who I am. I feel like the specks of dusts that are floating around in the air inside this place, caught in the sparse daylight that enters through the few windows. Like them, I just float around and around, a tiny, meaningless part of the universe.

  “Tough day?” the stranger suddenly asks.

  At first I decide to ignore his question, hoping that doing so will make him stop trying to engage me in conversation. So I let it hang in the air for a long, pregnant moment. Then, as if someone else that has nothing to do with me has suddenly possessed me, I change my mind and answer him.

  “You could say that again,” I say. I even turn slightly to get a better look of him and he of me. I give him a tiny, humorless smile. He is definitely in his fifties but with a full head of salt-and-pepper hair. His face is puffy and he is slightly overweight, but you can still tell that he is a handsome man. Was a handsome man.

  He nods, sweeps his drink, and orders another one. Throwing me an almost shy glance, he asks in a way that can’t be described as flirtatious, only congenial, “Can I buy you a drink?”

  I shrug. “Sure.”

  The bartender makes sure we have full drinks in front of us and it occurs to me that I’m pleased that this man sat down beside me and is drinking with me. It reminds me that I’m not the only one on this earth who has bad things going on in their lives, things that they’d rather forget exist. Why else would this man come to this crappy bar on his own and have a drink in the middle of day? A man like him should be at the office somewhere, at a law firm or a financial institution somewhere in the city, hard at work. But obviously something is weighing him down the way life is weighing me down so much so that I’m compelled to come here again and get wasted.

  Suddenly I feel I need to ask him what he would do in my situation. If he believes that most people would do what I chose to do in the end—spare their spouse from a life behind bars, perhaps even the death penalty—or if he thinks I’m a terrible, terrible person.

  “Are you married?” I ask him to ease into the subject. I eye his ring finger discreetly, which is bare. Bare or not, though, it means nothing, I’ve come to learn. These days so many men walk around without their wedding rings that it’s impossible to know their marital status any longer. If Jason would walk around without his on, I would be so upset. Luckily, he is one of those men who love wearing their rings at all times, even when they sleep.

  Well, I think darkly. As far as I know he loves to wear it.

  An image of him with Celeste materializes inside my mind in which he is most definitely not wearing it. I make the picture instantly disappear it makes me so uncomfortable.

  “I was once,” the man says, gazing down into his gin and tonic.

  “What happened?” I ask him. I’m sensing that he wants to tell me about it.

  “She found someone else, so she left me.” He grabs his glass and sweeps his gin and tonic in one long gulp. Then he motions for the bartender to give him another one. He looks at me as if asking if I’m ready for another drink, but I’m not so I shake my head no.

  “I’m sorry,” I say and I really am. The pain his wife leaving him has caused him is obvious.

  He rubs his chin and there is a faraway gaze in his eyes for a moment, as though he is in another place entirely. After some time he shakes his head slowly, lowering his gaze back to his drink.

  “I’m sorry too,” he says finally, not looking at me.

  “So it happened recently then?” I ask him, already convinced of his reply. This is why he is in here drinking today. He is in as much pain as I am.

  “Two months ago,” he confirms, sighing.

  “Oh,” I reply. “Did you love her?”

  It’s a stupid question that I already know the answer to, but I need to see how he replies. I need to see if he replies in the way I think he should, sitting here next to me drinking away his sorrows.

  He runs his hands over his face. “I’ve never loved anything as much as I love her.”

  I can’t help but stare at him then. The passion with which he said those words literally made the wooden bar counter below us vibrate. Both our knees are against it. As I keep staring at him, I’m assaulted by a need to find out what happened between them, why they met, how they fell in love and why she left him. Did she ever love him as much as he so clearly loves her? I’m burning with a need to know what happened, but can I really ask him such personal questions? Well, what do I have to lose by trying? Besides, I’ve already started anyway, haven’t I? So I begin—continue—my prodding.

  “How did you meet?”

  His chest heaves with emotion and I can tell that this was the right move on my part. This man wants to talk about what happened, relive their love story again. And I’m the instrument that allows him to do so.

  “We met fourteen years ago,” he begins. “When I was on a business trip to Fort Lauderdale. She was walking down the street one day as I was heading to a meeting, and it was love at first sight, at least on my part. I stopped her and asked her what her name was. Brianna, she told me.” There is a faint smile on his lips and suddenly he appears years younger. He’s right there with her in his thoughts, far away from me and this bar, I can tell. “When I asked her if she wanted to have dinner with me that night, she said yes and handed me her card. She was a hairdresser in the area. We had dinner together that night and were inseparable from that day and onward. Six weeks later I proposed to her and she said yes.”

  “So you were married thirteen years then?” I ask, unable to remove my eyes from this man and his story.

  “Thirteen years, five months and twelve days.” He turns around and looks at me then and his lips pull into a smile. A nostalgic smile.

  I don’t know what to say to that. All I can do is pull my own lips into a smile to mirror his. He removes his eyes from me and gazes into the distance yet again.

  “Then what happened?” is all I can make myself ask next, not wantin
g to be too pushy. I fear I might make him stop talk if I do. And we’re getting to the part I really want to hear about now.

  He doesn’t look at me, just shakes his head slowly. “I think she got lonely. I worked too much and didn’t pay her enough attention. That’s when she got involved with… with that prick.”

  His face distorts as he spits out the name of his wife’s lover. His ex-wife.

  He lowers his head and rests his forehead on the heels of his hands. I can’t help but pat him on the back then, I’m feeling so bad for him. The poor man is in tremendous emotional pain.

  We order another round of drinks from the ever-accommodating bartender and my drinking partner insists on paying.

  “I should never have neglected her the way I did,” he keeps mumbling into the bar counter. “It’s my fault she left me. She had no choice but to leave me, she was so lonely.”

  “So you want her back?” I venture. Another stupid question that I know the answer to much too well.

  He raises his head and inhales deeply. “Yes, I do. And I know that one day she will come back to me. One day she will forgive me for what I did. She will see that I’m the one she’s meant to be with, not that…” He clenches his teeth and his jaw muscles flex. “That creep. And then she’ll come back to me and we’ll be happy again.”

  I can tell that he truly believes this. I hope for his sake it will come true. As for me, the time has come to ask the questions I really want answers to.

  “I want to ask you a difficult question,” I begin. “Is that okay?”

  He looks at me over his hands. “I can’t see why not.”

  “If you got her back and she turned out to be a murderer, what would you do?”

  He stares at me for a long moment and I almost regret having asked the question. But before I can try to take it back, he says, “That depends on if the person she killed deserved to die. If he did—if she chose to kill her new lover, for example—I wouldn’t have a problem with it. He’s a bad man. He got involved with my wife despite knowing that she was another man’s woman.”

  I hold my breath I’m so excited right then. “So you mean that if you found out that she killed the man she’s with right now in order to be able to be with you again, you wouldn’t turn her in to the cops?”

  He seems to be pondering my question, placing a hand around his chin. “No, I wouldn’t turn her in. That creep deserves to die. Besides, she did it for us. In the name of love and war, there are no rules.”

  I nod slowly as I take in what this man has just told me. He is right—all is fair in love and war. I straighten in my chair. How could I have ever even considered turning Jason in to the cops for killing the woman who stood between us? He had no choice but to kill her, just like he had explained in the diary. How could it take me a conversation with a complete stranger to realize something so fundamental?

  I push myself away from the bar and stand up. I look at the man next to me and smile.

  “Thank you,” I tell him. “You don’t know how much you telling me this has changed my life.” I grab his hands and bring them to my chest. “I truly, truly hope you guys work it out. I’m sure you will, the way you love her. Love conquers all!”

  He takes me in and then smiles. “Thank you, my friend. I hope you work out your own problems. Whatever they are.”

  I grin at him then. “Oh, don’t you worry about that. I’m one hundred percent sure that my problems will work out just fine. It’s you who I’m worried about.”

  “Don’t worry about me, kid. My wife and I will be just fine. Rest assured of that.”

  “See you later?” I ask him as I get ready to leave.

  “Yes, see you later. Come back to this bar whenever you need to talk. I’m here most days of the week.”

  “Sounds good,” I say. “So long then…” I raise a brow at him in question, realizing that I don’t know his name.

  “Rick. Rick Atkinson.”

  I tell him my own name, then I rush out of Finnerty’s and look for a cab on the street. I want to get back home and get ready for my husband to return from work. As I think about how I was about to betray him today, shame heats my cheeks and I wish that someone could slap me right then. As ungrateful as I have been, almost destroying Jason when all he did was what he had to do in order to save our marriage, I want to crawl into a corner and hide from the world. I really don’t deserve a husband as good and loving as the one I have. That old adage is so true—all is indeed fair in love and war. Jason only did what he knew had to be done. He didn’t take any pleasure in killing Celeste. In fact, it seems instead that his deed eats at him every day. Besides, just like Rick’s wife’s lover, Celeste must have known that he was already taken. She had no business messing with my husband. She tried to steal what wasn’t hers and she lost. No one is happy about how it ended, least of all poor Jason—who I practically pushed into Celeste’s arms by being so unbearable to be around. He is as much of a victim as Celeste.

  Well, I think as I gaze out the cab window. The good news is that I can rectify this situation now. I’m going to treat Jason as well as he deserves to be treated from now on.

  Chapter 15

  When Jason arrives home a few hours later, I’m greeting him while wearing only a pair of six-inch spiky, black leather boots that end above my knees, a red thong, and a lacy red bra. My husband loves red underwear, so I have decided to wear the most recent ones he’s bought me in celebration of the rest of our lives—in which I intend to make sure he is as happy in every sense that he can possibly be. After all, the man has gone out of his way in order to be with me and only me, so how can I not?

  His handsome face lights up at the sight of me leaning against the doorway of our kitchen.

  “Well, hello there, handsome,” I say in my most seductive voice, licking my red-painted lips. “I’ve missed you today... I’ve been a bad girl and need to get punished.”

  He instantly comes up to me and takes me in his arms. His blue eyes glint dangerously as he looks down at me. “Really? Just how bad have you been?”

  I can feel him harden against my lower belly.

  I gaze up at him from between my lashes. “Really, really bad.... I need you to set me straight right now.” Part of my lower lip disappears into my mouth as I chew on it lightly.

  His own lips part and his breathing gets heavy. His pupils dilate, causing his light eyes to darken as he takes me in. Yeah, me acting this way definitely turns him on. “You can bet that I’ll set you straight… Take off your panties.”

  He lets go off me and I take a couple of steps away from him. Then I pull down my panties while he watches. His breathing picks up speed.

  “Good girl. Throw them on the floor and lie down on the table.” He glances over at the kitchen table behind me. “Now.”

  “Okay,” I mumble and toss the panties next to me. The flesh between my legs is throbbing and tingling with excitement. He is not the only one who enjoys this moment, who enjoys to have him order me around. I’m pretty sure I know what will come next.

  I back up toward the kitchen table and lie down on top of it, bringing my knees up demurely.

  “Don’t you dare hiding yourself for me,” Jason murmurs darkly. “Spread those legs for me right now so I can punish you properly.”

  I do as he wants me to do, already ready for him to enter me. I can’t wait for him to punish me, push himself into me. Between my parted legs, I watch him under heavy eyelids as he quickly opens his pants and lowers his underwear. As I suspected, just the sight of me and hearing me tell him I need to get punished has made him so hard his erection is pointing to the ceiling. Rubbing it once against my considerable wetness, he places it against my opening. Then he buries himself all the way to the hilt while pressing my knees apart so far I feel as though I might split in two. In a good way.

  Keeping my legs locked apart with his arms, he fucks me hard and deep while squeezing my breasts firmly. He soon brings us both to an intense and satisfying orgasm th
at lasts many seconds, groaning loudly. He lowers himself on top of me when the last shudder of pleasure has left him and just lies there for a while. Then he pushes himself up on his elbows and kisses me on the lips.

  “Well, that was a nice welcome home gesture, I have to say,” he murmurs and smiles pleased. His eyes, back to their regular light blue hue now, glitters with humor. “What did I do to deserve that?”

  I smile at him, content myself. “It’s enough that you’re just you. Just keep being you and you’ll see how everything will turn out all right.”

  He nods. “That sounds good.” He leans in to kiss me again. “And not too difficult.”

  “Happiness shouldn’t be very difficult,” I reply and, as he stands back up, I slide my legs closed. “And it’s not like we both don’t deserve it. I think we’ve had enough difficult times to last for several lifetimes, don’t you?”

  His smile fades and the glitter in his eyes scatters quickly. He inhales deeply, his chest rising and falling as he gazes beyond me. His face darkens a little at the same time as he looks sad. “Yes, I can’t argue with that. We’ve been through enough hard times.” Then his eyes find me and he smiles again. “From now on, we need to have fun and enjoy ourselves more.”

  We proceed to cook dinner and talk about how our days have been. I don’t let on what I was almost about to do to him today. There is not point and I have been home long enough to sober up and make sure he doesn’t suspect where I spent my afternoon anyway. As soon as I got home, I took a shower and rinsed out my mouth with lots of powerful mint mouth rinse. I told Angie I spent the second part of my day working from home and I prefer that she keeps thinking that.

  As we go to bed later that night and Jason has fallen asleep beside me, I thank my lucky stars that I never managed to go through with my mission today. I honestly don’t think I would have been able to survive having betrayed my husband when all he wanted by killing Celeste was to be sure that I stay with him. According to Rick Atkinson, this is the one time it’s okay to condone a murder, look the other way. I keep thinking about the wise man’s words while listening to Jason’s even breaths and find that the more I do, the more I agree with them.