Sure, after three kids, she gained some weight. And yeah, I missed the thin young woman; long shapely legs, straight golden blond hair, and breasts that stood out with no help from me or her clothes. As my girlfriend, she was uninhibited, as my wife; she was without shame, I’d say.

You see, Officer, I’m not an ignorant man; I know women change, as do men. My hair thinned. She shrugged it off. I developed a paunch; it bothered me more than her and I worked to get rid of it. My wife changed little in attitude. Her weight gain didn’t bother her and to be frank, as I grew older, I kind of liked the thicker hips and stronger arms.

No, sir, the issue wasn’t that she grew older and looked older because she was still beautiful for her age. No, the problem was her eyes. She squinted. Something happened when her eyesight started to go. She squinted to see minor details. She squinted when cleaning the kitchen sink. She squinted when cooking. I noticed that when she squinted, a facade…slipped.

Color? Her eyes? Blue. The ice blue of any Nordic maiden. Her dad and mom were both Swedes. Blonde, tall and beautiful, just like her. Her Dad died some years back and I regret to hear her mother has taken this… situation badly.

You know I told my wife to damnit just wear glasses, but she is… was stubborn. I tried to reason with her but she had that LASIK thing done and sure, her distance improved, but her squinting became worse. Worse! And let me tell you, Officer, she wasn’t the same woman when she squinted. She wasn’t! God’s truth.

Anyway, we were up at the cabin, just her and I. The kids were coming up later. David and Ella were coming that night. Jeff and his new wife (I don’t know how many he will end up with… the nervous sort is our Jeff) Janice were expected sometime. My darling Kimmy, who I don’t think will ever marry, was to show up at 8:30 the next morning. My wife kept the schedules. I won’t be on time for another thing.

David and Ella are pregnant with their first and my wife is very conscious of food. I was helping with the dishes because, you know, that cabin kitchen is small, a coffee cup and plate makes the place look overloaded. We had soup, vegetable, on the stove and fresh bread. Any minute, I was waiting to hear the approach of David’s car. Suddenly my wife has this brainstorm to make a batch of cookies. I tell her, no; she had worked that day. We drove up to the cabin; we worked to clean and air the place out. You know all the things you do when the kids are coming. I told her no; we were both tired; we didn’t need cookies, for the love of Mike.

Do you know what she did? She wrinkled her nose at me, squinty eyes and all. I kept it together that time. I knew she was nervous. Anyway, the kids were running a late and she, by golly, was going to make a batch of cookies; David’s favorite. Peanut butter. Not much to tell after that. She started in and I kept washing dishes. Fate, because I was washing the serrated bread knife. She was measuring out the soda or the baking powder; I don’t know which, and she squinted those ice-blue eyes.

Did I mention she was a different woman when she squinted? Yeah, well, you weren’t there. She squinted, you see. Right before me, as her eyes narrowed, her upper lip lifted. It seemed to me her canines elongated and her skin seemed to tinge a lime green. What shocked me the most was her hair, grey-blonde, lifted and tangled in like lightning speed. She looked like a mad scientist–mad. In went the soda or the backing powder and presto-bango she was the woman I married in a blink of an eye. But I saw it. I saw what she was. It took me over 40 years but I saw and without so much as a blink; I cut her throat.

Shocking, really, my own strength. Adrenalin, I suppose. She didn’t suffer. Well, maybe a little bit, but it was over quickly. I will say I could see the young woman I married, despite the blood (lots of that) before her soul left her body. But her eyes, you see, I finally… what can I say… her eyes looked, I suppose, innocent? I can tell you one thing officer, I wasn’t overjoyed or anything, but I was oddly…content. It was like getting an answer to a lifelong question. Funny, huh? David and Ella were shocked, of course; the knife was still in my hand. I don’t know how long I was standing there thinking of her last expression. No questions, no accusations, no surprise, just a sort of smugness. Then I hear this soft voice saying, Dad?

I was mortified he had to see his mother like that. I tried to explain, but you know, you see your mother with her throat gaping open and blood all over, explanations are difficult. You know, I get his anger. He might thank me someday that he never had to see his mother morph into a witch. It all could have been avoided if she had worn glasses like her mother. I mean, her dad and I talked about it, and he always warned me–it’s the eyes that will get you, son, the eyes.

He awoke one morning with the idea that premarital sex was wrong.  What would his life been like if getting a woman into his bed included signing an oath committing himself to just one woman and doing so in front of clergy and family?

The idea was outrageous; commitment, solemn oaths were societal dictates that had no room in this post religious age.  Nobody in their right mind did that thing anymore.  But guilt pervaded his conscious one particular morning when realizing that premarital sex was the only type of sex he had ever had.  So, the startling question awoke within him; if premarital sex had not been so easy, if condemns and birth control had not been so readily available what would committed sex have been like?

He wasn’t a moralist, but if a sane man couldn’t think of another reality, what was the world coming to?

So, stretching deep and feeling his muscles tense and then release, he thought of the different lovers he had known with the idea he would bring each to mind without overt emotion.  He wasn’t a cruel man by nature, but he was intelligent and feelings were detrimental to reason, in his opinion.

There was one woman who wanted to curl up next to him and talk until they both fell asleep.  At first the idea was comforting, like being read a bed-time story, but after about a year he realized he was dreading sex because of the conversation afterwards.  Words like future and phrases like ‘my mother,’ and ‘your dad,’ slipped so easily between her lips.  He imagined that his apartment was full of grungy kid’s toys and the looming responsibility of college tuition was bearing down upon him.  No, he had had enough, and they had drifted apart.  There was the other who insisted on watching him fall asleep and yet another who wanted to eat in bed and watch television – that happened once.

Yes, there was another and despite his idea of remaining devoid of emotion, his heart tugged at him and he squirmed around in his big, cool, comfortable bed uncomfortably.  She (what was her name, damn) curled up by herself and didn’t want anything to do with the afterglow.  The whole object of the deed was the touch, so he was a little miffed at her attitude at first.  There were those who were loud and those who even cried and one or two who had the sexiest moan he had ever heard. Each had their own quality, even the one who wanted to eat in bed, but only one acted wounded. 

The idea of sleeping with a virgin made his head spin, but the sheets didn’t reveal anything of that nature and he remembered falling asleep relived if not a little miffed at being frightened.  She got up the next morning unbeknownst to him and slipped out of his apartment.  He looked about, wondering if she stole anything.  She had not.  He felt odd, puzzled for an entire day, and then thought little about it.  He never saw her again.

Sitting up in bed after contemplating his various lovers he sighed and mentally conceded that each had their good qualities but each had their own diabolical fault.   A clinging lover was too much.  By the nature of the act, you had to put some distance between yourself and your lover for at least a few minutes.  Wanting to fall asleep in a quasi-pool of love wasn’t something he looked forward to night after night.  Besides, it was exhausting.  A man had to sleep.

Outside of the girl who would not allow him to touch her afterward, he never had a one-night stand; all the rest hung around for a month or two.  There was one who lasted a year.  They had met at a New Year’s Eve party and parted at the very next New Year’s Eve party – it got noisy, but the whole block was noisy on New Year’s Eve.

He had an idea.  Committed sex may be like reading the same excellent book over and over.  He had read a few novels but had never read one over.    He imagined his adolescent years reading the great novels of Sir Walter Scott.   What would those novels reveal to him now?  Reading again a novel that spoke to him twenty-five years ago would speak to him differently in the here and now; it’s reasonable to think so. The discoveries, the lines and the language that a 13-year-old boy read through quickly to obtain the ending may be enjoyable now. Yes, enjoyable and perhaps even comforting due to the familiarity.

Yes, he would reread a novel, one he loved from boyhood, that was a start to contemplating committed sex. But he would tell no one, especially a woman, because any woman would be smug about his idea and wonder what took him so long to come to it.  He would try it first and make sure that familiarity was an enjoyable experience.

“What are you thinking about?”  She walked in with nothing but his shirt on and a copy of East of Eden in her hand.  He realized that his idea had come from his latest partner.  She was a student of literature, a few years younger than him, and had the strongest thighs he could remember on a woman.

“Is that novel any good, would you read it twice?” he asked eagerly.

“I do nothing twice.”  Her smile seemed a little canine.