Kiss Of Death

It is late at night, probably one or two, and she looks at the full moon. There is also light streaming in from the street – maybe, from a street lamp or from some strange neighbour’s house. Her nightclothes are drenched with sweat. The same dream has been recurring frequently for the last three months: her husband waking up in the middle of the night; having sex roughly with her cold body; and, it is when he slaps her dead face that she wakes up.

She turns her head to the right and she can see the naked body of her husband in the light, only partly covered by a thin blanket. There is a nauseating smell in the room, of dried sweat and stale cigarette smoke. She can hear the drops falling from a leaking faucet in the bathroom, the ticking of the bedside clock and her husband’s heavy breathing.

She senses a movement in the shadows on the left, close to the almirah, but even before she could turn her head, a damp cloth is pressed firmly covering her mouth and nose; and she can feel the sharp blade of a razor against her jugular prompting her not to struggle. Before losing consciousness, she hears the intruder whisper in her ear, “Time.”

She regains her senses slowly, still feeling the pressure of the blade. She is now lying on the right side of the bed and the intruder remains in the shadows. She sees her husband in a semi-conscious state bound and gagged to a chair, next to the bed. Slow silent seconds tick incessantly. Her husband wakes up with a start, struggling uselessly against the rope and frantically looking at her and the intruder.

“Stop moving. I’ll kill you.” the intruder orders her husband and he complies immediately. She and the intruder watch her husband choking and screaming silently against the gag, scared and pleading with round bulging eyes. “…your wife can save you…if she wants…” she turns her head to look at the intruder, “…she should kiss me well.”

The intruder moves her closer to the shadows, not touching her body or her face but without removing the blade from her neck. She leans forward and her lips are close to the intruder’s face and she can smell a delicate and musky scent. She glances at her husband once more and in his eyes, she can see him begging her.

She stares at the intruder’s face. It is in the shadows except for the lips and the lower part of the face. She wants to see the intruder’s eyes but she cannot. She looks at the full lips ready for her touch. She moves closer nearly leaning into the intruder. She pauses for a few moments, with her eyes closed and hardly breathing. Then, moving away from the intruder’s lips, she gives an air-kiss near the intruder’s left cheek, not even touching. Behind her, her husband watches this and faints.

The intruder moves away from her towards the door – without a touch, without a word. Neither does she move or speak. Her eyes seem cold and dead in the night-light, following with an unblinking stare till the intruder slips out of the room. The lamp somewhere outside is switched off.

Now, in the moonlight, we can see in her eyes a look very common in places of worship – defeated, forsaken, helpless and alone. Listening to time ticking into the past without really bringing in the future, waiting for another God and in the near-silence we can hear her cry softly, “Time?”