For better or for worse?

I wrote our story before our paths ever crossed.

It would be love at first sight. You’d sweep me off my feet with flowers and dinners, visits to museums and the ballet, symphonic concerts, a Broadway play or two. You’d be a deep thinker, a voracious reader, and, most importantly, a family man.

And one day, there you were.

“Jay,” you said, taking the empty seat next to mine. I looked up from the book I was reading and felt a physical jolt of recognition though we'd never met.

“Hey, Jay,” I replied, returning to my book.

You waited a moment or two before saying, “And you are?”

“Studying for my macroeconomics midterm.”

“It's like that, huh?”

“What? Oh, I'm sorry. Linda.”

“Linda,” you said, putting out your hand, “Nice to meet you.”

My hand was engulfed by yours as I murmured, ”Me, too.” You held on a little longer than normal, staring into my eyes, smiling slightly. I felt my heart picking up speed and I pulled my hand back, saying,”I really do need to study.”

“Can I take you out Saturday night? Dinner?”

“I don't know you.”

“That's how we get to know each other, Linda.”

I loved how you said my name. You made it sound exotic though I'd always found it boring.

“Where are you from, Jay?”

“Army brat. Never any place too long. I guess I'm from DC. I've been here longer than anywhere else since I came here for college and stayed.”

“Oh, you're not a student?” As I looked more closely, I realized you were older than most of the others in the library. “Are you a professor?”

“Ha, no. Professors often hit on you?”

“Is that what you’re doing?”

“Well, I am here to do research but then I saw you and I had to come over and introduce myself to the most beautiful woman in the library.”

“Oy. Give me a break. I have work to do,” I said, returning to my book.

“Don't be like that. I'm sorry. Let me start over. I work in intelligence and I was about to do some research when I saw you. I couldn't not say hello.”

I smiled without looking up. “Better.”

“Saturday?”

“What time?”

“7:00?”

“Okay. I'll meet you in front of the library.”

“I'll be counting the days! Wear something fancy!” You said before heading for the stairs down to the microfiche department.

You took me to a four-dollar-sign Italian restaurant where I had my first lobster and the most delicious red wine I’d ever tasted. We walked hand in hand from Dupont Circle to the campus. It was cold, but I didn’t feel it. You kissed me goodnight at the door to my building. I felt every nerve ending in my body spark. I fell asleep smiling.

Every weekend thereafter was a gastronomic feast from some other international cuisine. You even cooked for me a few times, dishes you’d learned while living abroad, you said. You came to my spring musical and choral concerts. One weekend, we flew up to New York, seeing two musicals and hearing the NY Philharmonic play Rachmaninoff. Another weekend we spent hours at the MOMA and the MET. You took my mom and me out for Mother’s Day brunch. You bought her flowers. She didn’t hate you - which was as much as we could ask for since I was an only child; her baby.

I was in love.

The night of my graduation ball, you got down on one knee in the middle of the dance floor, and proposed and I thought, life begins now.

Within a year, we were married and living in your beautiful home in Georgetown.

It was then that I discovered you had a temper and very firm feelings about a woman’s place in the home. You wanted the house spotless, your meals at specific times and you didn’t want me to work. I had always planned on having a career, but I’d also always wanted to be a stay at home mom, so I didn’t fight you. I figured I’d be pregnant soon anyway since you didn’t believe in birth control and you wanted sex three times a day. At least. You said you were making up for all the months of waiting until we were married. That made me happy even if the sex was…overwhelming.

Within two years, I had been to the emergency room five times. Twice losing our babies due to trauma to the abdomen. But you were so good and kind and loving most of the time, I convinced myself I had caused your momentary lapses that ended with you crying, taking me to the hospital and lying to the nurses and doctors.

No one believed you.

For our third anniversary, you said we needed to spice up our love life. You took me to a hunting cabin in Virginia that I didn’t know you owned. I thought it was terribly romantic, surrounded as it was by woods, with a stream near enough that I could hear the soothing sounds of the water from every room.

“What’s that sound?” I asked as we walked into the cabin.

“I don’t hear anything,” you said, shutting the door and throwing the latch. You grabbed me and pushed me against the door, thrusting your tongue in my mouth and grinding your hips into mine.

I kissed you back but apparently I lacked the requisite passion.

You pushed me away from the door and said, “I’m going out.”

You were gone for hours, so I went to bed and fell asleep soothed by the sounds of the stream.

I woke up to you thrusting away at some other woman in the bed next to me.

“Are you out of your mind?” I screamed.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” you said, rolling off of her and on to me.

At which point I realized she was gagged; her hands were tied to one bed post. Mine to the other.

“Jay!” I screamed.

“I’ve missed this,” he murmured.

“Stop it, Jay! Get off me, right now! Untie me!”

“Shut up! You’re my wife!”

“There is a woman gagged and tied to our bed who you were just fucking next to me,” I tried to buck you off with my body. You punched me in the face. You’d never punched me where it would show before. I tasted blood.

“She likes to be tied up. She likes to be punched and bitten and choked. She’s not all no, don’t do that Jay oh, no I don’t like that, Oh Jay do we have to, tonight. I say open your legs, she says how wide. And when I’m done I can leave her on the side of the road or out in the woods, depending on how rough it gets. No one’s gonna miss her.”

“What?” I screeched.

You flipped me over and pressed my head into the pillow as you entered me from behind.

“Yeah, Linda. That day we met in the library? I was looking for my next guest at the cabin. But I found you. Something clicked. This is my forever woman, I said to myself. But I still found someone to take the edge off that day. She lasted at least four days.” You paused. “Yeah, I got rid of the body just before I picked you up for dinner at Luigi’s.”

Oh my god, I thought to myself. I’ve married a psychopath.

“And then I went on a diet. I said to myself, I’m going to be a one woman man. I don’t need anyone else.

“But, I was wrong.” You came and pulled out of me. “I need more, Linda. I thought you would be enough. But you’re like all the others.”

“All the others???” I was curled as far away from you as possible, huddled by the bedpost.

“Yeah. I wish it would have worked out. I really liked you.”

“Liked?!”

“Yeah, well, lusted after isn’t strong enough and loved is overused.”

“Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll let you go. But if you tell anyone about what I’ve told you, I will have to kill you.”

And to emphasize your point, you grabbed a hunting knife from I don’t know where and slit the woman’s throat.

“She’s nobody. You’re my wife. I don’t want to hurt you. Don’t make me hurt you. Okay, Linda?”

I nodded. You cut the ropes tying me to the bed.

“Go get cleaned up. I’ll take care of this.”

I took a very long shower. When I got out, you still weren’t back.

I sat on the couch. When you walked in, I shot you with the hunting rifle I found in the closet.

I stepped over your body and went home.

The police never found you.

It’s been five years now. I don’t think they’re looking anymore.