The Anniversary

Our first date was in the spring of 2005. The highlight I planned for the evening was attending the Broadway production, A Streetcar Named Desire. I wasn’t sure she liked it until she leaned over and whispered, “I hope it never ends.” It first appeared on Broadway in 1947. I remember smiling, pleased that she liked something with a history behind it.    
   
Sometimes when we made love, she whispered “I hope it never ends” into my ear. The power of her suggestion always seems to work.    
   
Now as she rises over me, her eyes are wet with tears of pleasure and she whispers, “I hope this never ends.”      
   
But endings are part of life. Her deception has been revealed and confirmed. Though I still love her, a price must be paid. We will both bear the costs of her infidelity.    
   
My marksman has been paid and posted in the hallway outside our room. It has been a wonderful vacation in celebration of our seventeen years of marriage. So many have seen us so in love and filled with life that there can be no doubt about tonight’s final act.    
   
What a tragedy it will be for the islanders to read of her death in tomorrow’s news. They’ll say that if such random acts from unknown assailants can end such a beautiful woman’s life, then we’re all at risk.    
   
These will be their thoughts and I will have rehearsed my responses to them as they express condolences.    
   
The man in the hallway and I rehearsed the approaching moments carefully.
 
My hands found the edges of my wife's hips. Oh God, I love her shape I thought as she bounced happily over me. If I didn’t know better, I’d think I was her only true love. Her deception was flawless.
 
Her suspended form rose ever higher riding the arc of me. Our hands were clasped as they had been so many times over seventeen years. I saw the sparkle of her wedding ring and thought of that night when this joining became our sacred oath.
 
The armed man outside our door listened for my cry but heard only the creaking of our bedsprings. He'd been instructed to enter silently with gun drawn when he heard my voice.  I would spread her arms wide still holding her hands to make her slender back clear and bright from the hallway light.  
 
He will approach us quickly and plant his first bullet into the center of her back before arriving at our bedside to place his second shot to the back of her head.
 
He is to pause as she folds lifeless over me and be sure I'm finished with her. I’ll feel the limp weight of her and sense a coldness in her face. There will be be no puffs of air from her lips resting against my chest. I’ll spend my final thrusts inside of her remaining warmth, treasuring those last ecstatic moments of grasping as her life goes out.  The calloused gunman will see tears in my eyes when I feel the weight of what I’ve lost.    
   
My hired man will shoot me in the fleshy part of my arm before leaving through the window and out into the street.    
   
I'm brought back to the present by the warm puffs of air in my face and the squeaking of our boxsprings. Now, only a few seconds remain for the gunman to wait in the hallway.    
   
I look into my wife's face and know that she is happy in this moment. I know this face so well, having shared laughter and tears over the years. Her eyes meet mine and she smiles. Doubt creeps  into my mind while looking up at how her fingers so clearly curl around mine.  Her hands are beautiful. What should I do? Is there time to turn back?    
   
Then a feeling comes over me that usually foreshadows pleasure but tonight fills me with horror. I'm tipping into a free fall toward orgasm. I try to hold it in but It is beyond me. I cry out. “God! God, I hope this never ends!” Behind the crisp edges of my wife's darkened form, the door to our room swings silently open and light from the hallway fills my eyes. Her eyes are closed.