PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller by Michelle Muckley Read Free Book Online

like tobacco like I know the
expensive brandy smells like.  Instead, mine smells like alcohol, and I assume
that what is in my glass is the cheap brandy which he serves to unimportant
guests.  It is the same brandy that Wexley will drink tonight after being shown
the heart shaped chalice.  “Mmmm,” I say, motioning to the glass.  “It was
worth the money.”
    “Not
really,” he says.  He puts his glass on the table and rubs his hands together
to rid his fingertips of the icy condensation.  He adjusts the position of last
Sunday’s newspaper which is hovering on the edge of the table.  Props ready.  I
attempt to set my glass down on the table but he quickly gets up and produces a
silver coaster faster than the hand of a magician and slides it under my glass
just in time.  Stood next to each other I can see that my brandy looks orangey,
his more like mahogany.  “Anyway, it was pleasant.” 
    “The
brandy?” I ask.
    “No,
my day.  It was pleasant.”  I wish for once he would give me something other
than middle of the road.  I would love for him to love me, but I would rather
him hate me than feel nothing of importance. 
    “The
renovations?”  I have chosen to believe that the renovations were not a cover story
for his lack of desire to be at the hospital today.  I have chosen to believe
they are actually happening.  To not believe this is too difficult.
    “They
are going very well, thank you.”  I haven’t been to the hotel in a long time. 
He used to take me each Saturday but after a few weekend house showings his
will to fight for my time expired.  I know this because Gregory told me so.  There
is silence for a moment whilst he sips from his drink.
    “Gregory,”
I say, “I have taken a decision of which I think you will approve, and I hope
that it makes you happy.”  He doesn’t turn to look at me.  Instead he sets his
glass down onto the coaster and strokes the tweed of his jacket sleeves,
pulling off a small bobble of material that had the impudence to appear.  He
tutted at the offence, at the audacity for it to show up on his jacket.  “I
think it will help us, help us to.....” I pause, uncertain if he is even
listening.
    “To
what?” he says without looking at me, dropping the fluff ball to the floor. 
    I
want to say survive, to be what I thought we might be.  I want to say it might
help me to feel alive, to feel that I exist, and that I have a place in the
world instead of living somewhere that feels like purgatory, neither living nor
dead, just floating through a poor excuse for Elysium.  Instead I say, “to
spend more time together.”  I smile encouragingly like the doctor did for me
earlier on today.  He isn’t smiling, but he looks at me, and I take the
acknowledgement as a good sign.
    “What
decision have you taken, Charlotte?”
    Even
as I am saying the words I cannot quite believe it.  I would never have thought
that I would succumb to that which was expected of me.  I never thought that I
would agree to spend my days as others saw fit, to run by their schedule, or to
rely on the presence of another person to validate me.  I want to be sick as I
hear myself say, “I have resigned from my job.”  With an overstretched smile
plastered onto my face, and the fact that I am forcing my eyes not to wrinkle
and cry, I look like a moving version of a fucked up Picasso, my features out
of line and two dimensional. 
    At
first he doesn’t say anything.  He just looks at me, his interest garnering
momentum as if I am appearing through a haze of smoke.  His eyes move across me,
tracing the line of my lips, and then my nose, my eyes.  It feels like he is
wondering what I am thinking like he did when we first met, wondering who the
person is behind the body, before he got to know the mind behind the eyes.  I
feel his eyes move down across the profile of my face, and his features
slacken, his mouth opens and I see his straight teeth, long and