"It's not enough, anymore," she said while turning her face away, so he couldn't see her lack of tears.
Oh, Christ, she's crying, he thought.
"Other relationships have more...passion, more fights, more drama, more dark secrets..."
she said while trying to make herself cry so he would Do Something.
He thought, the back of her neck is turning me on. I need to fix the situation
so she thinks we are enough. His old red toolbox, already in the kitchen,
he grabs some tools and stops the sink from drip-drip-dripping.
She walks ten feet away, the water no longer dripping triggers actual tears;
she turns and faces him, so he can see her crying. It works.
"I need more from you," she said. Tears only made her more beautiful and she knew it.
He said, "Please don't cry, tell me what you want and I'll do it. I'll be it. Just don't cry."
Inside of her, she smiled and thought, it works every time.
He wiped her tears away; she allowed him to, she even let him hold her.
Then she said, "I want you to become something you're not,
a werewolf, a vampire, perhaps even a gargoyle."
He thought, she must be joking or it was that time of the month for her.
She said, "Like on television, or in the movies, it's sexy."
He thought, SEX, she wants me to change so we can have more sex.
She knew sex was the hook, the lure, the bait. It was only a matter of time now, so she said,
"Think Hugh Jackman as Wolverine, that's what I want."
He thought briefly of the X-Men movies and the mutants, especially Halle Berry as Storm.
He didn't think of Hugh Jackman.
He never saw the hypodermic coming and slumped slowly to the carpet, probably still seeing Halle Berry,
in the last moments of life as he had known it.
She picked up the phone and said, "I have another one for you."
Then she left his apartment, went shopping, dropped off dry cleaning, phoned her mother,
tutored a junior in high school who was failing English,
picked up Chinese take-out, watched the news and fell asleep with all the lights blazing.
She waited the required 48 hours and filed a missing person report. It was the right thing to do, she thought.
Then she walked for an hour, for her health, at a nearby graveyard, mentally counting how many times
she had done this ritual, how many lives she had changed.