Author’s Notes:

I’m particularly happy with this one. It’s one of those ideas where you don’t really know how things are going to turn out and you just let your impulses run wild. It’s a tad morbid, but oh well xD I quite like it. The only thing I'm pointing out here is that there are a lot of page breaks haha.

Paramour

A knock came at her door late that Friday night – as it always did. Somehow, it never ceased. At least thrice a week, Tara would hear the distinct rapping sound on the wooden door of her apartment. It was a beat that begged her to let it in. It ate at her heart and she always gave in, even if she knew the thousand and one reasons why she should have just left well enough alone. It was this one string of knocks that kept her awake at night, that kept her on her toes, waiting…

It also made her what everybody else liked to call “The Other Woman”. But she didn’t know that until fairly recently, which made her feel like a real idiot.

The knocking in her head reminding her of it never stopped either.

It was not as though she liked to be acknowledged as such a person or be labelled in such a way. It was a foul term – a dirty term to use on anybody – that made her feel nauseous. It made her feel like a tool or like an ornament of some sort. She didn’t do much to stop him though.

He wasn’t much older than she was – probably about three years older – and he never ever asked her age. He was contented with her just being around. Tara’s mother had always taught her that she had better use than to let a man bully her like that. But being young and uncertain of what the future held or with what possibility she even had with anybody else, Tara flipped over a chance card with this man. Again, she didn’t know what she was getting herself into until it was too late.

She greeted him shyly like she always did, finally coming to the door after minutes of contemplation and confusion. Why did she still succumb to this if she knew it was wrong? She was at a loss for words and when she opened her mouth to say something, he didn’t let her.

Another thing Tara always noticed about him was that he never spoke to her much either. He just…did what he liked. Which was ironic, given the nature of Tara herself.

She liked things to go her way, or it was the highway. She wasn’t spoilt; more like strong-minded and her self-esteem was quite high. She understood her rights in most cases.

Except when it came to this.

She remembered the first time she ever kissed him. It was like wild fire and it was incomprehensible. The profundity of it all astounded her. Whoever thought a kiss could be profound? Certainly not Tara. She 

had had her fair share of dates, crushes and serious relationships. But this, this was something she didn’t know how to classify.

It was like she had strayed into a dream. A rather violent, heated, pleasurable and intense reverie that seemed to be over quick and simply. Nothing ever lasted with Mark. He didn’t stay long enough for a decent conversation. He only got what he arrived for and he didn’t want to negotiate for anything else. He didn’t care if she was left scarred and bruised in the end because it wasn’t in his book to play it by the rules. Still, Tara let him do it.

They weren’t anywhere particular. In fact, she couldn’t even remember where she was at the time. She did recall a distinct smell of cologne mixed with alcohol and a taste of cigarettes and peppermint gum. It was foul, yet enjoyable at the same time. It was heaven.

‘He’s using you,’ her mind sprang out at her, bringing her back to reality through the heat and submission. ‘If you don’t throw him out, you’re filth and you end up with nothing.’

If only she knew to follow her own advice.

He was gone again. The rain was pouring down heavier than ever and as she sat in her bed, her comforter wrapped snugly around herself, over her shoulders, Tara heaved a huge sigh. Her room still smelt of him. It was different tonight and she couldn’t pinpoint it at all. ‘His other women perhaps?’ her mind scoffed at her. She made no immediate reaction to it. She honestly didn’t mind.

‘How can you not mind? You’re being used, being mistreated for some chauvinistic redezvous and you don’t even care.’

“Shut up,” Tara whispered to the darkness, pulling her quilt even tighter around her body.

‘He doesn’t love you at all. He loves whoever else he loves, but it’s definitely not you.’

No reaction was necessary then. She did nothing to respond to such probes of the mind.

But it would seem like a lapse of judgement on her part, for she started clenching her fists in utmost rage, yet her heart melted at every thought of him. Was she a slave to his will?

She noticed him in a bar with somebody else and she wasn’t entirely surprised. This woman looked a lot different than Tara; she was clean, conversational and concise, and yet what shone through her eyes for Mark, and what Mark responded with was something that has never really crossed Tara; love.

Did he get with her to get a better relationship with somebody else? That was a nicer version of the truth, really. Did he treat her as something of an object, ready to be used should he just dust it off after putting it away for about a week or so? Did he think she was that gullible? That was much better. It was straight to the point and…brutally honest.

She stared at them for a long time, watching their subtle gestures of matrimony. She had a wedding ring on her finger and so did he. He never wore it when he went over to her apartment; not once. So he had decided to keep his marriage covert. Tara was another secret for him to keep as well; a dirty little secret hidden in the depths of the nooks and crannies of his heart. She was a secret he will never, ever tell.

Never, ever tell? She wouldn’t let him at all.

‘…You love him,’ the voice spoke in utter shock. ‘That’s why you wouldn’t let him go, even if you already know what a sleazy bastard he is.’

“It’s all part of the game, isn’t it?”

‘…What game?’ she had confused her own conscience.

“Tara, I’d appreciate if you didn’t tell anybody I was here,” Mark had once said to her, after a particular meeting of theirs at a motel. “Like, let’s just keep this our secret, okay? D-don’t go around telling your friends or anything like that. I mean, now’s not the right time, y’know?”

She knew there would never have been a “right time” at all – even then, she had that feeling in the pit of her stomach – but she chose not to think about it. All she did was nod and smile sweetly, as though she believed all the lies that he was feeding her. Her front of utter ignorance – or so it seemed – was enough to convince him that he was safe with this being his little clandestine thought.

Maybe it wasn’t right to dwell on it, and maybe she should have said no in the beginning. It would have made things a hell of a lot easier for the both of them. Well, he would’ve gone on to find another woman to spend his lonely nights with, but it wouldn’t have affected Tara in the way it did. She was beginning to feel like the woman her mother had been so frightened she would become.

Well, not for much longer. She had told herself it was the end, even if she knew it wasn’t at that time.

Well, it’s truly the end now.

x

The next night, Tara heard the same knock on the door, and this time, she was prepared. She answered the door at her customary speed – keeping him waiting and begging to be let in, as always. Things started out the same as they did too; him aggressive, her submissive.

However, it was a role reversal once she had led him into the bedroom and once she had him pinned to the bed. Grabbing the pillow as quickly as she could, she smothered him. He wasn’t a strong man or anything – he wasn’t skinny, but he certainly wasn’t big-built – so it wasn’t as difficult. She was sitting on him and she had her entire pillow over his nose and mouth, making it impossible for him to breathe.

When he finally stopped moving, Tara released her grip on the pillow and just to ensure he was entirely washed away from her past, she began dragging his body from the bed to the bathroom, where a full bathtub lay awaiting its occupant.

With much difficulty, she managed to put Mark in his watery grave, throwing him in the tub. Water spilled forth from it, the iciness of it chilling her barely-clad body to the bone. Smiling in sick satisfaction, she gazed at her reflection in the mirror overhanging the sink next to the bathtub. She traced her features of her reflection with her finger, everything from the limp locks of chocolate-brown hair framing her face to the wicked smile that creased her lips.

“That, my friend, is how the game ends,” she whispered to the emptiness of the cold bathroom.

Her dirty little secret.