The Longest night

冬至 [2] / [16]

She laughed with a shining smile. She could tell he was making the right fist look deliberately larger, so she would pick that, so she went with the left.

“Are you sure?”

Alexander queried her.

“I`m sure,” she replied with certainty, “Now show me the money.”

His smile was fox-like as he dropped the crumpled piece of paper into her hand, which turned out to be a business card.

“There,” he said with a wink, “You have my number, but the house always wins.”

They looked at each other laughing. Alexander said goodbye to her, and left the shop with his necklace and the ring. Meeting this stranger by chance, some light flirting. There's no need to completely shut yourself off from these things just because you have a girlfriend, right? Besides, what if his relationship fell through? These were questions he posed to himself. When was the last time he made light banter with Violet, and smiled at her in that way? In a certain corner of his heart, he felt sorry for her.

He moved towards Violet’s house, making his mind up to compensate her for this sentiment on his part by giving her this Christmas present. But, when he arrived, he encountered a shocking scene: she was banging a man who, by all appearances, was much younger than Alexander.

He replayed it all in his mind's eye: Inserting the key into the door, turning the lock and upon traversing the stairs to “their” bedroom, finding a stranger balls deep inside his would-be lover, mid-thrust. As their panting, breathy moans filled the room, they didn't notice his presence at first. He smashed the door wide open with the heel of his boot, drew his Beretta from the concealed holster beneath his raincoat, and lined up the sights- the bead of the fiber optic front obscuring the head of his target and then . . . he woke from the momentary delirium (The three of their eyes met in the air as they all stopped what they were doing, interrupted in the act by that bang at the door, and the confrontation that followed).

His hand was still on the butt of his pistol, ready to draw on the faces of his now ex-girlfriend and her partner, stricken with horror. But thinking better of it, he withdrew his hand from the gun quickly, slamming the door behind him as he fled the apartment.

It hadn't been unknown to him that his lover had been cheating on him for quite awhile, but it was the first time he ever saw this sort of dooming scene directly, in front of his very eyes. His senses perceived what was before him, but the fury was momentary. It wasn't worth getting angry over. Not anymore. So this was the end of everything with her. No need to settle anything. The sorriness he felt, like his anger, was fleeting. These things no longer had any utility. It was over.