From:
zackthemack@hotmail.com
Sent: Sun 1/12/08 9:10 PM
To: ariel1970@yahoo.com
RE: Tonight
There’s
been a change of plans. My beloved wife is so tender and fragile these days,
and though I do not deserve it, she has forgiven me, at last. Just last week
she could barely look at me. Her speech brittle, words chosen painfully, as if
we were in-laws, she talked around the weather, the day, but rarely directly to
me. Weeks into therapy, Charlotte had not forgiven me our affair.
I
emailed you last week because I wanted you. Living here then was like living
here before—you. She was characteristically cold, distant. I was reminded often
of you. Not of as you are, but of as you are not. The depths she went to avoid
me attending all-day conferences and workshops–why a writer needs conferences,
IDK–would have been funny, if it were not happening to me, to us.
But,
tonight she smolders. Her short brown hair whipped around her face as she
turned it this way and that. Her long, sensuous lashes could barely contain her
almond-shaped eyes. I told you once of her passion, you accused me of missing
her, you were right, of course. Tonight she bristles over a remark carelessly
made.
“Is
there milk in the macaroni and cheese?” I am lactose intolerant, a condition my
wife had carefully planned meals around—along with allowing for my other
allergies—but that I was afraid she had forgotten in my absence.
I wonder
that you did not notice, but we seldom dined together, did we? Our entanglement
had left her intolerant of my various calamities and so I had asked. Oh, but I
am so glad to have asked, for then I realized her forgiveness was finally
granted. The words that came out of her supple mouth, the articulate gestures
of her long, slender fingers, the contortions of her beautiful golden, brown
face, finally she is at ease with me again. I would kiss her bony hands
gleefully, but to do so would be to admit I know she did not before forgive me.
I would rather to mark this pass silently than to mark it in vain.
I, of
course, cannot continue to see you, meet you, as we had planned.
From:
zackthemack@hotmail.com
Sent: Sat 2/19/08 9:10 PM
To: ariel1970@yahoo.com
RE: OK
I have
been ill these last weeks. Between conferences, Charlotte has taken up cooking
with a vengeance rivaled only by Chef Ramsey, LOL. So vexed by my dietary
limitations, she has decided to see exactly what I am allergic too, so as to
strike a balanced medium for our meals. Breakfast, lunch and dinner are an
array of possible intolerants. She tries so hard to please me in ways other
women would not endeavor. I have worn a path from the couch (where I sleep so
as not to disturb her) to the bathroom. I fear our carpet cannot handle more of
her culinary intervention.
How is
my girl?
From:
zackthemack@hotmail.com
Sent: Mon 2/21/08 9:10 PM
To: ariel1970@yahoo.com
RE: Enough
Of
course I will stop calling you my girl, as you are right, you are no longer my
girl. Charlotte is the only girl for me. If only I had known before our
venomous months of sex on your dented futon and all of that cheap, greasy
affair food. Shiny packaged sandwiches from gas stations on the way to your
cramped apartment. At least, Charlotte says, climbing six flights up that
narrow stairwell (I am convinced echoes of our lovemaking still linger there)
kept my body strong. Still, if I had not eaten all of that sleazy food for you,
I would be spared the indignities of the weekly colon cleansing Charlotte says
I now need to go along with the prune, fiber shakes she makes me for breakfast.
Thx–a
lot.
From:
zackthemack@hotmail.com
Sent: Sat 3/5/08 9:10 PM
To: ariel1970@yahoo.com
RE: What the hell?
Oh dear
silly little one, of course Charlotte knows all about you. She does not know
about your emails; though you must be more careful. A cell phone rang during
dinner last night. I worried it was you. I dropped my fork with such a clatter
I worried the plate chipped. Charlotte would have been furious as the plates
were given to her by my mother, as was the house, and everything in it. A price
for marrying me, sort of a dowry.
My
nerves are so on edge that Charlotte has taken to making me drink a strong brew
of teas and whatever else she read or heard will soothe me. She tries so hard.
I suggested Charlotte stay home this weekend and spend it with me. The look in
her eyes frightened me more than her silence. I immediately reconsidered. These
weekly conferences, though I don’t see her write anything, keep her connected
with other writers. The phone, of course, was not you. Charlotte has taken to
whispering on the phone, no, to taking calls in other rooms and then
whispering. I know because when she catches me cocking my head to listen, or
tiptoeing behind her into the living room or bedroom, she sneers and sometimes
growls at me. Worse, she will turn her back on me, talking as if I am not
there, hissing into the phone.
She is
everywhere.
BRB
From: zackthemack@hotmail.com
Sent: Tues 4/29/08 9:10 PM
To: ariel1970@yahoo.com
RE: What are you talking about?
I am
dreadfully allergic to shellfish, tobacco and olives. Or, it makes a horrid
dish. The concoction slithered around the plate, shrimp sliding under leaves,
hiding within olives. They slid down my throat faster than I could chew them.
Charlotte poised across from me the better to see my discomfort, watching every
bite slip in to my mouth. She notices everything, forgives me everything or
nothing at all. My insides, and I know because between vomit and diarrhea, I am
forced to come face to face with what should be within my body, are rotting. I
mean to rid myself of this poison. I will tell her everything, she will know
everything. She will forgive me for she loves me so. Her deep eyes water as she
empties the buckets I am forced to relieve myself in when I am too weak to get
to the bathroom. She utters not a sound as she empties the buckets, when she is
home. She spends more time at these conferences. They are spilling in to her
work week so much that she had to quit work to devote her time to conferences.
I married a writer. She is writing a mystery, it is not finished. She says I
may not like the ending. I am sure it is good, I assure her, she has been
writing for so long, has so much knowledge by now. Her lips puckered in a huge
hard kiss, but she did not kiss me. We are not ready for intimacy: sex, words.
From:
zackthemack@hotmail.com
Sent: Sat 5/18/08 9:10 PM
To: ariel1970@yahoo.com
RE: Leave me out of this
You are
in it! She knows about us. The teas are working, loosening my bowels, my
tongue. I am a babbling fountain of deceit, Charlotte says. She was slithering
around the dining room, the bedroom, slithering and hissing in front of me. She
has devised a menu of roots and berries, three times a day. I am an
unattractive mass of adulterous rotting flesh. I do not know where Charlotte
comes up with these things. But, they must be true. Thoughts flicker, anger,
indignation, but they wither. Pride is hard to maintain when your stomach
knots, cramps and releases in 60 seconds. She hates you less today than she did
yesterday.
From:
zackthemack@hotmail.com
Sent: Wed 7/2/08 9:10 PM
To: ariel1970@yahoo.com
RE: You’re as crazy as she is. May you both rot in hell
Thank
you for the well wishes. Charlotte and I are doing frightfully well. Charlotte
has ceased going to workshops. Her novel is finished. She lays up at night
watching me sleep, I know because I wake often and she attends me. She has
created the most delightful bitter, sweet tasting tea. My angel is just now
fixing me another cup of this elixir. Goodbye forever sweet trollop. Tempt me
no more!