…I watch you sleep.
Not as frequently, not nightly as it was in the beginning when I first moved in with you, but I still make my visits to your bedside. It’s best to do when the nights are sullen and thunderous, when the lightning through the window flashes out all the shadows of our bedroom, and I’m permitted a token of your brilliance, your beautiful face. You sleep well through storms, and I thank you for that.
Actually, your sleep always seems easy, so peaceful, hardly ever a stir from you like a pet mouse tucked snugly in a small bed of gossamer downy. I envy the peaceful sleep world into which you seem to be so easily drawn like water through a tunnel.
I wonder, do you ever even dream?
Lord knows I dream. My dreams keep much of my own sleep quite restless. It’s said that we each only recall approximately 5 percent of our dreams when we wake, so there’s always that I guess, because I dream of terrible things, scenes and images so burning they are left indelible upon my thoughts even in the light of day.
Most of my dreams, like the one I had months ago, come upon me just once. I was riding a mysterious wave of energy that floated me through the center of a surrounding inferno. I glided down the streets of my hometown while all around me it burned to the ground. Here was the house of the first boy I ever kissed, each and every window being punched out successively by brilliant orange and full flames. There was the house of my date to senior prom, the weight of the roof collapsing upon itself and above it a column of smoke and flecked cinder rushing to beat the angels to heaven. There ran past me the hysterical mother of the boy I lost my virginity to, her body aflame and flailing.
Though lately, I have been experiencing a recurring dream that involves you. I’m always racing through a strip of unknown forest. It’s nighttime, and I can’t see but feel the branches whipping and lashing at the flesh of my face. I run undeterred by this assault from the woods because I’m in a race for my life. I’m in the lead but there is a pack of dogs at my heels. Wild things they are and thinned to starvation. Behind me, but not far, I can hear them snip and snap at one another in anticipation of being the first to satisfy their bloodlust. The chase is short-lived as claws find purchase on my back and take me down. The animals are on me before I have time to reach out to fend them off. All I can see is snarled jaws lined with teeth. All I can feel is a ripping of flesh. My nostrils fill with the coppery smell of blood and I give up, accepting this is to be the end of me.
And then a miracle.
One by one the weight of the pack is lifted from me and thrown off until finally I am able to crawl free a distance and look back.
Who is this savior? I ask myself. Who is this knight that has appeared from nowhere and interrupted these wild beasts’ feast? It is you of course, and I watch from the side transfixed at your voracity as you fight valiantly knocking back each of their oncoming attacks. In the end though, you are only one man and they are a pack of viciousness collectively thinking as one. In sheer numbers they overtake you, and now, safely at the side I watch as they devour your shaking body.
But you, you’re lucky with your seeming immunity to the infliction of a nightmarish subconscious. Nary a stir from you in your night’s rest as I stand sentinel at your bedside.
Of course, you have no idea I’m even there as I’ve been very canny with my presence. I know most of your routine. I’m an early riser by nature, and each dawn I lay on my stomach, with my ear to the ground so to speak, and through the attic floor I hear the braying of your alarm clock. There are mornings that you must hit the snooze as the alarm repeatedly sounds off for some time, and although I’m not entirely fond of this habit it is something I can compromise on.
When we are together there will be slight adjustments, but I still I want you to be you of course!
However, on mornings when the one whose name I will not utter has spent the night with you, I find it particularly grating that you procrastinate the beginning of the day, but I don’t want to dwell on the one whose name I will not utter and the ill effects she has on you!
You shower before brushing your teeth, which is a bit odd and a habit which we will definitely need to break. I will not, I WILL NOT! kiss a mouth infested with morning breath! But I will hold off confronting you about this initially in our relationship. Lord knows I do not want to scare you off, he-heh! The thing I appreciate the most about your mornings is that the television remains off while you get ready for the day, I mean who cares about which team won and which team lost.
And all the craziness of those other corners in the world with their bombings and attempts at genocide. If all those lunatics would just focus on the one person they are meant to be with the world would be bliss.
Right?
Your ignoring the T.V. of course means the two of us will have all the more time to talk over breakfast which is an issue we have to address. Now understand I’m not entirely sure of this, but I believe you skip breakfast, and if this is the case it is another of the very few habits which we will have to adjust as breakfast is the most important meal of the day! And I will have a meal fit for a king prepared each and every morning! And since I will be so diligently preparing a meal for you in the morning you will diligently eat it.
I must confess that I myself don’t eat a breakfast but I do have my own morning routine as well. I have the window propped just a bit so I can hear you leave for work each morning, and it’s only then that I climb down from the attic and can have the life I desire. First, in your bedroom, I reset the alarm, and I crawl beneath the covers. I appreciate your efforts to make the bed each morning, but I’m sure you’ll be relieved when I take this duty off your hands. You tuck the sheets just a smidge tight for my liking. Once I’m in the bed, I like to snuggle and cuddle and position the pillows so I’m nice and cozy.
Then I practice. I practice by petting and stroking and whispering sweet nothings into the pillows. I mean I know it’s just make-believe, for the time being anyway, but it all feels so right to me! I probably shouldn’t write this, it’s a bit unladylike, maybe even a bit unbecoming, but I want our communication to be flowing and open. So here goes! Sometimes, I pet myself. Do you know what I mean?
I pet myself in that special way.
Please don’t think the worst of me as I’m only being honest! It’s like you’re really there with me, there for me!, and I’m there for you and the urge is soooooo overwhelming!
Satisfied and solaced by this reverie I usually fall asleep only to be awakened too shortly by the once again braying of the clock. At this point I’m always still a tiny dreamy but I’m always up immediately. I never hit the snooze button. NEVER! But like I said earlier, I’m sure we’ll have to compromise on some issues. I’m guessing this is one I’ll have to acquiesce on. Probably. Well, maybe, definitely more like maybe. MAAAYBE. We’ll talk about that later.
Suffice to say, I get up when the alarm goes off. I brush my teeth before I jump in the shower. I ALWAYS! brush my teeth before showering and you will too! I hope you don’t think this rude of me, but I’ve been using your toothbrush. I brought mine with me when I moved into your attic and I was using it, but then one day I overslept on our couch during my afternoon nap, and when I woke I scrambled up to the attic worried you were going to stroll in the front door before I could get back to my hiding spot. What a surprise that day would have been for you! Anyway, in my haste I left my toothbrush in the medicine cabinet. Oh, that was my longest and most worrisome night so far as I was sure you’d discover it. It’s bright pink and glittery, so it sticks out like a flamingo in a group of penguins! I’m so clever with my words sometimes. Well, you must not have brushed your teeth that evening— SHAME ON YOU! because you certainly didn’t act out of the ordinary the following morning. During the night I slipped down to stare at you, God I just love watching you sleep, and when I went back up I made sure to tote my toothbrush along. That was a hiccup I couldn’t risk rising again.
So, after I brush my teeth with your toothbrush I like to shower, and I’ve been using whatever towel you’ve left on the rack. I mean obviously you’re an intelligent man, maybe not all that observant but intelligent, and if all the sudden there were two used towels instead of one you’d probably start getting a bit suspicious.
NO! NO! NO!
I told myself I would be forthright with you in our true beginning and this note is our true beginning. So here it is, secretly I looovvvve using the same towel as you. I love to dry my face with it and take a big ol’ whiff imagining with which part of your body I’ve just become intimate.
You’re probably laughing at how cute this all is as you read this letter. Surely, you’ll shrug this quirky behavior off, because once you get to know me you’ll understand why I’ve been so deceptive up to this point. You’re the love of my life, and I’m nervous, and I just don’t want to frighten you off before we have the chance to even begin our love affair. You understand, or you will, I know you will.
You better.
After showering I like to go back up to the attic and get dressed. I’ve only brought five different ensembles to wear. I burned all the rest of my clothes because most of them remind me of my past.
Ugh, my past— so ugly!
I’ll just come out and say it, I’m not completely baggage free. I’m being really open here, more open than I’m really comfortable with but if we’re going to make this work I must be honest. Of course, I can’t tell you everything in this letter. Some things about me you’ll just have to work at to get out of me. You’re great and all, but still, a woman has to have her scruples. Oh, don’t worry about me just yet. You’d be surprised at all of the combinations a girl like me can create with a limited wardrobe. Besides, there’s always credit. You do have a credit card don’t you? We’ll just have to do some online shopping and put our time in at the mall. Yayyyy! You’ll enjoy it. At least you’ll pretend to enjoy it.
‘Cause if you don’t, no guys’ nights out for you.
Actually, you better not even want any guys’ nights out you fucking bastard.
I know what kinds of activities go on during a guys’ night out.
On a guys’ night out, guys meet girls like the one whose name I will not utter. Surely, you’re asking yourself, how does this prim and proper woman know what takes place on a guys’ night out? I told you I’m not completely baggage free. I may be a lady, but I’m not ignorant! And don’t you dare, DON’T YOU DARE! think that I am ignorant. Read this and read this well you piece of shit— the stork didn’t just drop me onto this big, mean world yesterday. I know you’ll want to look at other girls, but you won’t. You WILL NOT!!! You will refrain yourself like a sycophant dog waiting for his treat.
And you will forget about the one whose name I will not utter.
At this point, if you haven’t already, you must be wondering how long we, the most perfect couple in the world, have been living in our house together. 97 days. Over three months! And we haven’t even had our first tiff yet! Promising I know!
In all frankness, I guess I haven’t been here every single night. There have been a couple of nights, 3 or 4, okay more than 10 but less than 20, I have spent at that crummy apartment of the one whose name I will not utter.
That is right, I’ve been there. When the one whose name I will not utter left you her extra key you were careless. You simply left it there on the table and went to work. Your carelessness was my opportunity knocking, so I snatched the key and had a copy made down at the hardware! Ingenious I know!
Over at that crummy apartment I’m not quite as guarded, cagey is probably the more appropriate word, because I’ve actually kind of hoped the one whose name I will not utter might find me out. Over there I never sleep.
Never sleep.
I’ve spent most of those nights hidden in her front hall closet.
But once I lay flat under her bed when you made a visit.
I heard the two of you.
Right above me.
Like animals you were.
I wanted to kill—and it’s crucial you understand I’m not sorry to admit this; I wanted to kill not only her, but the both of you that night. Luckily for you buddy-boy you left. That, and that alone was enough to appease me. You don’t love her or you would have stayed that night.
You see why I’ll make such a lovely wife? I’m not like some of these other women. I can control my emotions.
Somehow, I even managed to refrain from killing her that night.
Let me help you comprehend that sentence as I know you are an intelligent man but a trifle less than observant.
Somehow, I even managed to not kill her THAT night.
Last night I did. I was in her front hall closet, and I was listening with a glass to my ear and pressed against the door. I heard what she said to you over the phone.
I love you.
I will never ask, but I suspect based on her bubbly mood after she hung up that you said it back to her.
You’re a prick.
I’m sorry, but you are. I will never question you about it since we are now a couple. After all the past is the past.
But if you did say it in return, you had better take it back in your prayers.
And even if you didn’t say it, you’re a prick for letting such a nonsensical relationship develop to the point where the one whose name I will not utter would even entertain it was appropriate to say to you. Because of you, the one whose name I will not utter, had to be eliminated.
My blood boiled. My thoughts raged. Yet I maintained my composure. I was wearing my gloves; I always wore my gloves when I was in her apartment, because just the very thought of my bare fingers even slightly brushing against any of her possessions is enough to make my skin crawl. I quietly rose and stepped out of the closet. Her attention was with the television. You will thank me for what I did to her because—
…SHE IS NO GOOD FOR YOU!!! She was watching some trashy guilty-pleasure show while eating peanut butter from the jar with her fingers! With her FINGERS, for God’s sake!
I was stealthy in my approach. There was a large candle, about 5 inches in circumference and contained by thick glass. She never knew what hit her, and it’s probably better off that way. I struck her with that candle and then struck her some more! I guarantee that now you wouldn’t find her very attractive!
I’m up in the attic waiting for you. You will have to invite me down. I’m a lady and want this romance to start in a traditional manner.
I brought the candle home with me. It’s blue, and the label says it has a passionate fruit aroma. Nice.
It will sit at the head table at our wedding reception. Of course, you’ll have to wash it first.
Tonight, we can light it and place it on our bedside table. It can be the symbol of the igniting of our passion. While we languish into the late hours I want you to fall asleep, face to face, nose to nose with me.
Sometimes I watch you sleep, and tonight I want to do it by candlelight.
XOXOXO
