Nadirah guided the car out into the country and watched as the city fell behind her in the rear-view mirror. She always looked forward to escaping to her private little sanctuary in the woods, and having Joni around made it all the more worthwhile.
Joni. Poor Joni.
She’d been such a jerk to her lately, and it needed to stop. The last thing she wanted to do was drive Joni away or have her become afraid of her. She needed to calm down, quit drinking so much, and keep a lid on her temper. Yes, that’s just what she needed to do, and do it she would for the sake of the one she loved.
Nadirah parked the car by the house and walked up the icy walkway to the front door, surprised Joni hadn’t flung it open like she usually did when she heard her pull up.
Must be in the bathroom, she reasoned to herself.
She entered the house, happy to be out of the bitter cold, and was immediately greeted by the wonderful aroma of food cooking.
Mmm… Beef stew? Pork chops?
Then it hit Nadirah that only the light above the stove was on. “Joni? Joni, you in the bathroom?”
Nadirah stepped into the kitchen and glanced toward the bathroom. The door was open, and the interior of the bathroom was dark.
Flipping on the overhead lights in the kitchen and the living room, she went in search of a note, trying to keep calm while she was at it. She found one on the table between their laptops, written by Joni in her favorite hot pink pen, which she herself found annoying.
Gone to help Irene. Dinner’s in the oven for you. Will be back around seven o’clock but will call if things run later than expected. I love you, Detective. :)
Nadirah took a deep breath and tried to convince herself that a few hours of helping a friend wouldn’t hurt anything, and it wasn’t like Joni had forgotten about her. She’d still had her dinner ready for her, and she had left her a note explaining where she was.
Then why did the whole thing bother her so damn much? Joni said it herself; she had a right to have friends as well. And if Joni said nothing was going on between her and Irene, then why shouldn’t she believe her?
“Because I love the hell out of her like no other woman ever before,” she answered aloud to her cat, “and because I’m so afraid I’m going to lose this wonderful thing that I finally have in my life.”
The cat meowed.
“Not many people can put up with a hot-headed bitch like myself as well as she does.”
The cat meowed again as the forensics detective removed her coat and gun holster and kicked off her shoes. Then she went into the kitchen and made herself up a plate of food. “Mmm… beef tips in mushroom sauce,” she said to the cat.
Sitting at the table with her food, she began to eat. The cat ran to his bowl and began to eat his own food just a few feet away. “At least someone’s going to eat with me tonight.”
The food was wonderful, as always, but Nadirah just didn’t seem to have much of an appetite. She got up, placed her plate in the sink, and grabbed a beer instead. Then she headed into the living room and nearly tripped over the cat, who’d suddenly decided his own appetite was gone as well. “Oops! Sorry, kitty cat.”
In trying to avoid stepping on the cat, she’d bumped into the table and disabled Joni’s laptop from sleep mode. At the angle at which she stood, she could see that Joni had her email account open. Sitting in her chair so she could see better, she read the recent exchange between Joni and Irene.
And when she was done, she ended up having a lot more than just one beer.
Joni turned to the kind and lovely woman from the Philippines as she pulled up in front of the house. “Thank you very much, Irene, for bringing me home.”
“And thank you very much for your much-appreciated work today and for continuing to be my most gorgeous friend,” Irene said with a pleasant smile, eyes and hair as black as the starless night. “I hope your hubby doesn’t mind you helping me on such short notice.”
“She’ll understand,” said Joni, opening the car door. “Take care, and email me if there are any more problems.”
“Okay, my good friend. Will do.”
Joni exited the car and shut the door. Guided by Irene’s headlights, she made her way to the door, curious as to why the house would be dark as early as six o’clock in the evening. Nadirah was obviously home since her car was present. She hoped she wasn’t sick or anything. She would feel just horrible to know she wasn’t around when she was sick of all times.
Joni unlocked the door and called out Nadirah’s name. The lamp in the back corner of the room by the table flicked on a second later, and Joni saw a backlit Nadirah sitting in her chair.
Along with the bottle of beer that was in her hand and the additional three or four that sat empty atop the table.
Joni suddenly realized that she had made the biggest mistake of her life by going off with Irene and not letting her increasingly paranoid husband drive her. Her first instinct was to run. But to where? Where could she go? She had nothing around her but a freezing cold, snowy forest, and by the time she might be lucky enough to reach any of the neighbors, she just might freeze to death if Nadirah didn’t catch her first.
Guess I better just deal with it, Joni thought grimly, trying to assure herself that they would talk things out like two civilized adults and that things would be okay, even if deep down in her gut she knew she was kidding herself.
“Nadirah,” Joni simply said in a worried tone, flipping the overhead light on as well so she could see her better. “Are you okay?”
Nadirah gazed angrily up at Joni through bloodshot eyes in a way that made Joni’s nerves tremble uncontrollably.
“Didn’t you get my message?” Joni asked, trying to keep her voice light.
Nadirah stood up from her chair, surprisingly steady on her feet for someone who had consumed a good four or five beers, and stepped towards her. “Oh, I got both your messages, my dear sweet little wifey.”
“Both my messages?”
“Uh-huh,” Nadirah said with a nod. “Both of them.”
“But I only left you one, a note on the table.”
“Yeah, that’s the one you left me,” Nadirah said, raising her voice, which was full of hurt and anger. “But I’ll bet you didn’t think I’d find the one you exchanged with your new girlfriend, did you?”
“Nadirah, what the hell are you talking about?”
“Your email messages with Irene! Yeah, I saw them, you tramp! I read how she calls you her sexiest friend ever! And I know you two ain’t just friends!”
“But we are! I swear. She’s just playing around like she does with everyone she knows. She even calls the people who work for her sexy and…”
“You lying bitch!” Nadirah screamed, cutting off Joni with both her words and her fist.
Joni’s hand quickly flew to the side of her face as she tried to maintain her balance.
Jesus Christ! How could someone so small pack such a fierce punch?
“How dare you!” Nadirah screamed, now in tears as she unleashed her senseless and misguided rage upon Joni.
“But I didn’t do anything!” Joni screamed back. “I swear I didn’t! I love you and you only. Please don’t change that by doing anything stupid tonight. Please! Just calm down and let’s get to bed.”
“Oh, so now you want to play, huh?”
“No, I want to just cuddle up together and relax, and I want you to quit accusing me of things I’m not doing.”
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to calm down!” Nadirah screamed even louder. “Or if you think I’m going to believe for one minute that nothing’s going on between you two.”
Joni knew her life was in grave danger that night. She just didn’t know what to do to try to save it.
“I could kill you for doing this to me after all I’ve done for you and after all we’ve been through together!” Nadirah raged on, kicking at Joni.
Joni tried to run, but Nadirah caught her. When she failed to escape the fury that was raining down on her, she next tried to fight back. Yet her kicks and punches may as well have landed on a brick wall, for Nadirah was able to ward off every single one she tried so futilely to deliver.
“Too bad the cop you were with only taught you how to shoot a gun and not how to fight,” Nadirah said.
Joni much agreed as a series of kicks and punches were thrown her way. “Stop!” she screamed as blood from her now cut lip poured down the front of the jacket she hadn’t even had time to remove before she was assaulted.
“The hell I’ll stop!” Nadirah both screamed and cried, both hurt and angry over the affair that Joni had never had. She grabbed Joni by a fistful of hair and threw her on the floor where she resumed kicking at the wife she didn’t know was in fact truly a hundred percent innocent of any kind of affair.
Joni knew there was a good chance she might be killed if she didn’t think of something fast. Unlike Nadirah, who was naturally thin, Joni gained weight easily and was now up to a hundred and thirty pounds since she began to eat more and exercise less as the cold weather had set in. Yet none of that extra winter weight she’d packed on seemed to do her any good in defending herself against this drunken madwoman who had her a hell of a lot more wrong than she had nearly twenty years ago.
“You gutless, lying, conniving, ungrateful little bitch!” Nadirah shrieked in a mad frenzy as she continued kicking at Joni.
Joni tried to crawl under the bed for cover, but it was too low. Once again, she tried to stand up and fight back, but she only got as far as her knees before a kick in the ribs knocked the wind out of her and sent her back down to the floor in pain. “P-please stop!” she cried in a pathetically weak voice. “I-I d-didn’t do any-anything wrong.”
“The hell you didn’t! It’s so obvious you’re a liar, yet you’ve still got the nerve to try to bullshit me!”
Joni was bleeding from what seemed like everywhere. Her lips were bleeding, her nose was broken, and her eyes were fast swelling shut. She was also growing dizzier by the minute. Would she bleed to death that night? Would pretending to pass out help to save her? She just didn’t know what to do. She couldn’t run. She couldn’t fight back. So what could she do other than succumb to the fact that she just might be savagely beaten to death by someone who was supposed to love her?
“What is it she does for you that I don’t, Joni?” Nadirah shouted. “Huh? Does she fuck you? Is that what she does? Does she use a strap-on?”
“She d-doesn’t…” Joni tried so hard to speak but was in too much pain and could barely breathe.
“What’s that?” Nadirah said, bending down closer to Joni.
“I-I didn’t… we-we didn’t… do… anything…”
“You’re just gonna sit there and bullshit me all night long, aren’t you, you sorry little whore!”
Nadirah began kicking and punching yet again at Joni, who by now probably didn’t have a single inch left of her body that remained without a bruise.
“N-no!” she tried to scream. But it only came out as a barely audible whisper.
An object, a barely conscious Joni thought. I have to somehow get a hold of an object and surprise her with it.
“I hate you for doing this to me, Joni! I hate you!”
Joni was now trapped between the bed and the front wall of the house. On that side of the bed, there was no nightstand or any other piece of furniture present from which to grab anything that might make a good weapon.
“That’s what she did, isn’t it? She nailed you with a strap-on!”
The window! Joni thought. Gotta get to the window.
“What about a threesome, Joni? Would you like that, too?”
Trying her best to keep her head and face covered and protected from any more blows, Joni managed to crawl toward the front window just a few feet away.
“You always told me you felt that three was a crowd and two was company. Were you just sick of my company, Joni?”
Joni moved even closer to the window.
“Maybe you just got sick of being with someone so short? Huh? Is that it? How tall is Irene, Joni? How tall? And don’t try to tell me she’s straight!”
Gathering as much air as she could into her lungs, Joni shot upright as fast as her battered body would allow her to and punched out the window. The idea had been to scream for help on the off chance that someone would hear her and the shattering of glass and call for help. Instead, all she did was add to her injuries and fuel Nadirah’s fury.
Nadirah reached down and dragged Joni by the hair towards the center of the room and away from the broken glass, cussing her out like she had never heard anyone do before in her life in any language on the face of the earth.
“No! No! Oh God, no! Nadirah, please!” Joni screamed in one last feeble attempt to get her to stop attacking her. “Please don’t hurt me!”
Nadirah continued screaming, never hearing a word she said. She simply would not listen or give Joni a chance to explain and defend herself. “You sick, crazy asshole! You’re gonna pay for this!”
Nadirah slugged the side of her face. Again, Joni went down. But this time, she hit the back of her head on the corner of the dresser as she fell. Perhaps this was a good thing too, because now the pain and the terror were over as quickly as they had begun, and she could finally escape into the deep dark void of black nothingness that claimed her.
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