Methods of Madness

by Ray Garton

  “Home later than usual tonight,” she said quietly.

  I shrugged out of my coat. “Sorry.”

  “Oh, well. It’s Friday. You can sleep in tomorrow, I suppose.” She turned back to the news.

  “Yeah, but… I should’ve called. I’m, uh, sorry, Peg. I should have.”

  She shrugged one shoulder and I wanted to die. My knees actually felt weak. She looked so pretty there in the glow of the television, her ankles crossed, shiny blond hair pulled back into a little ponytail with corkscrew curls dangling over her ears. Nearly fifteen years... and in a matter of a few hours I had destroyed what had been a perfect record. Maybe not a perfect marriage, but certainly a perfect record. And even if it wasn’t perfect… well, we’d stuck around this long for something, right? And now I’d done this… to her…

  Suddenly all those frustrating conversations about sex didn’t seem so important anymore and I felt like crying.

  I reached up to remove my tie as I moved toward her, realized once again that I’d left it behind and felt even worse. “Peggy, I’m—”

  She turned and there were tears in her eyes.

  You’re what? I thought. Sorry? For what? You gonna tell her? Is that really necessary? And why is she crying?

  “—I’m… I’m sorry. Really. I should’ve called and told you I’d have to work this late. I didn’t even know myself. Really. I guess I just lost track of time. Didn’t even eat. In fact, I’m starv—”

  “Please… don’t, Arnold,” she breathed, standing. She finished her cigarette and stubbed it out in the coffeetable ashtray, then her hands fidgeted before her. “Don’t lie to me anymore. I know you weren’t at work.”

  My insides froze.

  “I drove down to the office and talked to the guard. Sidney. He was very nice. He said he’d seen you leave at six-thirty and that you… hadn’t come back all night. That was at… oh, I guess eleven-thirty… midnight.” She closed her eyes and rubbed them. She sounded so tired, so afraid and nervous. “Maybe it was wrong. What I did. Maybe it was suspicious and… untrusting, but… I had to know. And you weren’t—” Her voice broke, “—there.”

  I crab-stepped slowly to the chair, groped for the armrest and plopped down, dropping my coat to the floor as I massaged a temple with weak fingertips. It had happened. On the one night that I’d acted, the one night that I’d found what I was looking for and thrown almost fifteen years of jealously guarded vows out the window in exchange for a little sexual variety… she’d discovered my lie. Something moved in my stomach and I knew I would throw up soon.

  Peggy stood there, still rubbing her eyes, silent, as if she were alone in the room.

  I had to speak, to tell her. Not all of it, necessarily, but I owed her some kind of confession. Once I’d worked up enough saliva in my mouth, I whispered, “Okay, Peggy. I’m… I… yeah, I wasn’t at work. I went… I was—”

  She was at my side in an instant, down on one knee, pressing her palm over my mouth gently, hissing, “No-no-no, Arnold. Just… sh-sshhh. I don’t… want to know. Really. I’ve been scared and… God, terrified. Sitting here wondering… worrying… going over and over every possibility. Especially the worst ones… the worst one… wondering if maybe you hadn’t worked late last night, either, or the night before that, or… last week, or last month. And then I realized that I really didn’t want to know. Not now. Really. It’s better that way, I think. Because if I knew and it was one of the worst possibilities… I would have to leave you. And I really don’t want that. I could’ve asked Sidney if you’d been working late recently, but… I don’t… want… to know.”

  “Peggy, please, you don’t have to—”

  “Sshhh. No. I’m not finished. I’ve been sitting here for hours thinking and thinking. My mind’s been a… tornado. I’ve been thinking, what if… just what if… I’m losing him? What could have brought it on? What could I have done to prevent it? And I realized… maybe I’ve been a little too closed to you. Maybe I’ve gotten a little too set in my ways. I thought about that a lot, and… well, I… “ She stood slowly, opened her robe and let it fall away.

  “Oh, my God,” I murmured.

  She wore a dark purple teddy I’d bought for her almost two years ago, and she looked beautiful. Absolutely beautiful. Part of my heart melted away.

  She said, “If that is what’s happening—and I don’t want to know—if I am losing you… I don’t want to. I still love you, Arnold. Very much. And I want things to be different.”

  Peggy took my hand and led me to the bedroom…

  We fondled and kissed and caressed and sucked one another for what seemed hours, then made love until dawn, first slowly and deeply, then with a rapid-fire passion I hadn’t seen in Peggy since our first few times together. My experience with Julie and Larry Ruskin was completely forgotten, as if it had never happened.

  When I slept, I relived the last few hours with Peggy in my dreams. But something was different…

  As we rolled on the bed, legs entwined, our mouths occupied with one another’s flesh, I saw Larry Ruskin in the room. I saw him again and again. The first time, I didn’t notice him until he was passing back out the door. Then I saw him again, crossing the room on his way out. The third time, I saw him hurry in, slightly hunched, glancing toward the bed as if to see if we noticed; he gathered something up in his arms, then hurried out. The next time, I tried to see what was bundled in his arms, but the room was dark, my vision blurry and it was nothing more than a shapeless blob. He came back repeatedly, and each time I tried to see what he carried out; each time I failed.

  In my dream, as in his own bedroom, Larry Ruskin never made a sound…

  That weekend was like the first weekend after we’d started sleeping together: making love was the only thing on our minds. Rather than sleeping, we napped. Rather than eating meals, we snacked. It was glorious… the stuff of the most secret sexual fantasies… better than anything I’d done during those hours with Julie and Larry because this was Peggy… my wife… my lover of fifteen years, who had finally opened herself to me, the way I had always imagined a lover should.

  Of course… there were a few things I forced myself to ignore…

  Peggy suggested no new positions; she left that up to me. She turned none of my suggestions down… but…

  There was a certain look on her face. I couldn’t put my finger on it, exactly—was it in her eyes, in the set of her jaw, or in her lips, maybe?—but I knew one thing: it was not a look of enjoyment. It was more a look of… yes, of acquiescence… of surrender.

  With each new suggestion, she would nod her head, perhaps mumble, “Okay,” or, “Sure,” and assume the position. There was no protest, no disagreement… but neither was there any enthusiasm… any delight.

  At first, I thought it was my fault; I thought I wasn’t being exciting or imaginative enough. So, on Saturday evening, I told her I was going to step out and get something. A surprise.

  I went to the Pleasure Dome, a sex shop that carried porn videos and magazines, lingerie and sex toys. There I bought a vibrating dildo, ben-wa balls and some love oils. On the way home, I stopped to pick up a dozen roses.

  When I arrived, she was sitting in front of the television again, smoking. At first, I was afraid something was wrong, but she stood, extinguished the cigarette immediately and switched off the television, smiling first at me, then grinning at the roses, then looking at the bag I held with… well, I guess it was a wilting sort of look… the way you might look a man at your door when you discover he’s from the IRS. She recovered instantly, coming forward to kiss me. She wore a sheer black negligee I’d bought her a few years ago and when she held the roses to her breast, she was beautiful. But she kept glancing at that plain brown bag…

  Later, her displeasure was far less subtle. First we used the love oils, then took a long bath together, then, back in bed… she greeted each new surprise with a brief look of intense apprehension. As I massaged her pubis with the vibrating dildo, the lo
ok on her face became unbearable and I sat up, turning off the dildo.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked.

  “Oh, nothing,” she replied quickly—too quickly—taking my arm and pulling me down beside her.

  “No, look, Peggy, if you don’t want to do this—I mean if you really don’t want to—just tell me.” I tried not to sound frustrated, but probably failed.

  She smiled. “I’m doing it, aren’t I?”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “What makes you think I don’t want to?”

  “Your face.”

  Her smile faltered. “What about my face?”

  “You’re not enjoying this. At all.”

  The smile disappeared.

  “Are you?”

  She turned away and sighed.

  “I really want to know, Peggy. I certainly don’t want to force you into anything. But since you instigated all of this last night, I figured—”

  “Because I didn’t want to lose you,” she whispered into her pillow.

  “Lose me?”

  “Oh, please don’t play dumb, Arnold. You know what I mean. I thought if I gave you what you wanted—what I thought you wanted—you wouldn’t have to lie to me anymore and go… do whatever it is you do at night instead of working late.” Her face was withered when she turned to me. “But it’s not working. I’m sorry, Arnold, but… it’s just not me. I can do it… but not convincingly.”

  I sat on the edge of the bed and sighed, putting the vibrator on the floor. “You did it before,” I said quietly.

  “I didn’t like it then, either.”

  “It sounded like you did when you talked about it.”

  “I know, Arnold, I’m sorry, that was bad judgment and… probably a stab at getting your attention and keeping it. I did it, but I didn’t really enjoy it.”

  “Then why did you do it?”

  “Because… I didn’t want to be alone and that was what he wanted me to do. The same reason I’ve been doing it for you. I’m afraid if I don’t, I’ll lose you and… be alone.”

  Turning away from her, I wanted to say she was being ridiculous, of course she wouldn’t lose me and I was sorry for putting her through something so uncomfortable and—

  —I didn’t. I couldn’t. I felt angry, foolish, guilty, put upon… you name it. I just sat there for a while, then put on my robe, left the room, made a drink and sat down in front of the television. She didn’t follow me out. When I looked in on her a half hour later, she was sound asleep.

  As I write this, I am holding a gun in my left hand.

  We spoke little the next day and when we did, it was as if nothing unusual had taken place. That evening, we agreed we were both in the mood for a couple of old Thin Man movies, so I walked to the corner video store and got them while she cooked dinner. Peggy went to bed while I stayed up and read; when I followed, she was asleep, as I’d hoped.

  Actually, I didn’t feel at all bad about the whole thing by Sunday night. She was willing to forget it, so I would, too. We would live our life the way we’d lived it up until Friday night, and—after the brief but intense emotional storm I’d gone through over the weekend—that was fine with me. Everything was normal once again.

  Until Larry Ruskin called my office on Monday morning…

  “You’re a hell of guy to track down, Arnold Kramer,” he laughed when I picked up the phone. My secretary had told me a man was on the phone and wouldn’t identify himself but insisted to speak to me, so I was thrown for a moment. “Larry Ruskin,” he said after a pause. “Remember? Friday night?”

  A thick lump of guilt rose in my throat. “Yeah. Yeah, I remember.”

  “Look, the reason I’m calling is this: you left your tie and, um, let’s see… are you missing a pearl handled pocketknife?”

  “Yeah, that’s mine, too.”

  “Thought so. Well, I thought you might like to drop by on your lunch hour and pick them up.”

  I definitely did not want to do that. “I’m not sure I can, Larry.”

  “I’d bring them to you, but I’m waiting for Julie to get home, then we’re catching a plane out of town, so I’m kinda stuck here for a while. I’m gonna be gone for about ten days and… or, how about if I send them to you?”

  I almost said yes, but realized I’d have to give him my home address or have him send them to my office and neither of those options would work. “Tell you what, Larry. Why don’t you just keep them.”

  “Oh, c’mon. Believe me, we’re not trying to push you into anything. Just drop by, have a drink if you want, get your stuff, and you never have to see us again. That was the deal, right? I wouldn’t be calling you if it weren’t for this.”

  I decided that dropping by his apartment for a few minutes would be preferable to opening myself up to him, so I agreed.

  When I rang the bell, Larry called, “C’mon in!” from somewhere inside; he sounded winded.

  The television was on in the living room and what appeared to be a porn movie was playing on the VCR. I looked around but saw no one and my eyes returned to the screen.

  Two people. On a bed. A man and a woman. The lighting wasn’t very good, but…

  I squinted at the television, smirking, because it almost looked like… it looked almost as if…

  Slowly, I moved close enough to the television to make out my own face on the screen. My face and Julie’s. Naked. In bed.

  “What,” I breathed, “what in the—”

  Something fell and broke in another room and I spun around, my mouth gaping. The bedroom door was open and I could see a pair of legs thrashing on the bed.

  “Lar . . ry? Larry?” I hurried toward the bedroom, but stopped when I saw Larry hunched over the head of the bed struggling with something… no, with someone. Julie. Lying on her back. Fighting. Making small pathetic gagging sounds. I staggered toward them and stopped, paralyzed and unbreathing, at the foot of the bed when I saw Julie’s face—bloated and purple, eyes bulging, fat tongue stabbing between her teeth stiffly—and the necktie Larry was using to strangle her with black-gloved hands. My necktie.

  My paralysis broken by what I was seeing, I dove toward Larry, but he swept something off the nightstand and spun around, shouting, “No!” as he leveled a .45 at my face. “Just get back and shut up, Goddammit, I’m not finished yet!”

  I stumbled back against the vanity, knocking over some bottles of perfume and rattling the mirror.

  Julie squirmed and coughed on the bed, clawing at the tie that had gnawed the skin of her throat cruelly, but Larry moved fast, taking something else—something small—from the nightstand and swiping it back and forth in front of her face several times.

  Julie’s head snapped left and right, left and right.

  Blood spattered the wall above the bed.

  She gurgled and jerked violently when Larry stopped and turned to me, holding up my pearl handled monogrammed pocket-knife.

  “A crime of passion,” he said quietly, dropping the knife. He aimed the gun at me one more time. “Don’t move, or I’ll kill you, too.” Then he put the gun on the bed and finished strangling his wife.

  I slid to the floor, legs splayed before me, back against the vanity, and became numb as I watched her die. I thought, then, that watching Larry kill her—just watching and not trying to do anything—was probably the worst thing I would ever do in my life. Of course, I was wrong, but at the time, I became sick and dry heaved for a few moments after she was dead. In fact, I was certain that I was as good as dead, too, having witnessed the murder. But, of course, I was wrong again.

  I was supposed to know about the murder.

  “Okay, I don’t have much time,” he said, removing the tie from Julie’s throat—it peeled away from her skin with a whisper—and turning to me. “So you’ll have to listen carefully.” He dropped the tie to the floor and nudged it half way under the bed with his toe.

  I felt submerged in water, listening to him speak on the surface. He grabbed my arm and lifted m
e to my feet, saying, “C’mon, Arnold, let’s get a move on.” We went into the living room and Larry walked over to a small suitcase against the wall. “You saw what happened, right, Arnold? I strangled Julie. With your tie. The tie that has a little tack with your initials on it. I slashed her with your pocketknife, which also has your initials on it. You saw the videotape when you came in?” He gestured toward the television, where snow now hissed on the screen. “It seems I discovered that tape by accident and discovered that my wife was having an affair with a kinky guy who likes to tape himself fucking. We had a big fight, my wife and I. Lots of screaming and shouting. Our neighbors will testify to that. We did a lot of screaming and shouting today. I saw to it. Anyway, I told Julie to break it off with her lover while I was out of town to decide how I wanted to react to all of this. I’m going to—”

  The telephone rang and Larry smiled, cupping a hand to his ear.

  “Out of town?” I rasped as an answering machine cut the ringing short.

  Larry’s recorded voice said, “Hello. No one can take your call right now. I’m going to be out of town from Monday afternoon until sometime Tuesday. Julie’ll be in and out, though, so if you leave your name and number, maybe she can get back to you.”

  “See?” Larry grinned. “I’m already gone.”

  I began to feel dizzy, as if I were about to fall.

  “While I was gone,” he continued, “Julie called you over to end the affair. You got upset and, in a fit of passionate rage, you murdered her, then hurried out of the apartment in a panic, leaving behind the two murder weapons. I come back from my little trip and find my wife dead. I call the police. They come. They see. They look for you. End of story.”

  I clutched the back of a recliner to steady myself and spoke in a sandpaper voice: “Whuh… w-whuh-why?”

  He smiled, slipping into his coat. “Because if it weren’t for all of this, you wouldn’t be very eager to give me one and a half million dollars.”