Love You To Death

Love You To Death

         Love is like a mystic river: a step into a realm of the unknown; a little monster waiting for you just around the bend; a killer of the heart and soul that has somehow, through the ages, been taken totally out of context and lost in translation. We revel in love -- can think of nothing else. Just as I did. Just as you have, or will, soon. But mark my words, love is out to get you -- love wants revenge. I tell you this now because in a very short while, I will not be around to tell you anything ever again.
         You see, love does not like to be taken for granted -- ever! It does not have a conscience or any regret for its actions once it has been spurned. Love knows only one way to get back -- one way to get even with the person who scorned it. True love, intense love -- can kill you. Which is why I am telling you this story. My true love has but one purpose in mind . . . to see me dead.
         I’m thirty-seven, I live alone, have a great house and car, a budding career in advertising -- or at least I used to, until Susan came along . . . Susan Montreau.
         I met Susan at work just a short year ago. She was young, French, and exotic, and I was immediately smitten with her. Her sweet-scented chestnut hair fell playfully across her forehead and down to her deep, bright green eyes. A scattering of freckles lay across the bridge of her nose, which was sharply slanted and aristocratic. Her lips were thin, but not too thin because she was the best kisser I have ever known.
         Susan had stormed into the corporate office meeting, somehow slipping past all the head secretaries, and demanded that we quit using sex to promote our products. The boss gave me a look from over the top of his horn-rimmed glasses, and I jumped up immediately to run interference, escorting the young lady out of the meeting room while she continued to scream wild obscenities at the board members from over my shoulder.
         Susan was great. I loved her as soon as I saw her: loved her spirit, her spunky attitude, and the way she looked -- especially the way she looked. The short and quick of it is, we dated, fell in love, and now I’m going to die for it. Whoever said, “Too much of a good thing can’t kill you.”
         Susan had a presence about her that I found completely lacking in other women -- she had no fear of death -- hers, or anyone else’s. Needless to say, this made her a very intense person to be around -- in and out of love. At times she would walk a very fine line, a high-wire act that was always hard to follow. It was an exhilarating, high voltage, adrenaline rush of a love affair, and I was totally addicted. She was zealous and passionate in her love-making, I had never experienced anything so profoundly overwhelming in all my life. It was as if she were trying to merge our bodies into one person -- me in her skin and she in mine.
         My performance at work began to suffer, my boss had already made several comments about it. I was spending all my time with Susan, and seeing less and less of my old friends and favorite haunts. She consumed every minute of my life, demanded my attention night and day, or would threaten me with some outrageous death-defying stunt. Once, when late for a dinner date, I found her outside on the restaurant balcony, tip-toeing barefoot upon the railing of the twenty-four-story building.
         “What the hell are you doing?” I shouted.
         “You were late. I became bored.”
         “Bored? Jeez, Susan, does your life always have to be a thrill a minute?”
         “Yes.” She lightly stepped down from the guardrail, rushed over, and kissed me passionately. “You excite me, Bill. When you didn’t show up, I felt like doing something wild and crazy. I can’t stand to be away from you, darling, you know that.”
         That was when I decided to call it quits. Susan was trying to possess me in ways that I could no longer stand or put up with. She called me incessantly at work until I finally had to turn my cell phone off during meetings with potential clients.
         When I arrived home that day, I found Susan in my backyard. She had taken all my best suits, and after throwing them in a heap, set fire to them. She was dancing around the pile totally naked and waving a butcher knife when I found her.
         “Susan!”
         “You shut your phone off,” she said, matter-of-factly. “You cannot shut me out of your life with just a flip of a switch -- not me.”
         She tried to kiss me and I pushed her away. “I want you outta here, Susan. Pack your things and leave!”
         “Leave?” She laughed at me as though nothing had happened -- began to dance seductively in front of me. “Why would I leave? You have nothing to wear to work, so we can spend the whole day together tomorrow -- just you and me.”
         “No, Susan! We’re through! Get out!”
         She looked surprised and started laughing hysterically. “You can’t get rid of me that easy.” She threw the butcher knife she held and it stuck in the ground between my legs. “Not that easy, lover.” She turned and walked off. I watched her exquisite body stroll confidently away. That was the last time I ever saw Susan.
         Today when I arrived home, I discovered my fine leather furniture had been slashed with a knife. I immediately called the police and the locksmith -- waited for them to arrive.
         I heard a noise in the bathroom. The door was closed, but I could hear the sound of running water from inside. I was so pissed at Susan I wasn’t thinking clearly -- I burst in, hoping to catch her in the act of some more of her deranged vandalism. But nothing could have prepared me for the ghastly scene that was set before me. The bathroom floor and walls were covered in blood. A young girl I had never seen before, was lying naked in the tub. Her throat had been slashed from ear to ear, and her chest was cut wide open. I gagged at the sight, falling to my knees retching upon the blood-strewn floor -- saw my butcher knife lying beside me.
         There was a knock on the door, and two police officers entered my home calling my name. Grabbing the knife, I tried to stand but slipped in the blood that now covered a major part of my clothing. Looking up, I saw the two officers before me, brandishing their weapons.
         That was several months ago. Now I’m strapped into this chair waiting for the lethal injection the judge and jury decided should be my deserving reward for killing an innocent fourteen-year-old girl. I told them all about Susan, but they didn’t believe me. I can’t say as I blame them. My fingerprints were the only ones found on the knife, and the name, Susan Montreau never rang a bell with any of my former work associates. Although they did recall a young woman storming into the office meeting way back when no one could recall her exact name. Eventually, the judge and prosecutor considered Susan Montreau to be just a fictitious name I had come up with to save my skin. My boss had testified that I had been seeing a young girl, but her age was never brought out in court. My friends were supportive of me, but had to admit that after I had taken up with some young woman, they never saw much of me anymore.
         The small metal door swung open and the prison doctor entered the room with a tray of hypodermic syringes. A priest was ushered in and the last rites were given. “Be brave, my son,” he said. “Your family has gone through a lot to be here with you during your final moments.”
         “Family? I have no family. My parents were killed in an auto accident when I was twenty years old.”
         “I was referring to your sister, my son. May God have mercy on your soul.”
         “Sister? But I don’t have . . .” The curtain was drawn back and there in the front row sat Susan. She was crying and dabbing at her eyes with a tissue. She looked as beautiful as ever.
         The doctor stepped into my line of vision and injected the lethal poison. My body began to shake, rejecting the toxin. The doctor slowly stepped aside and I saw Susan blow me a kiss.