Gentle Breeze

The gentle breeze from the open window awakened her from a troubled sleep. Andrea looked over at her husband’s slumbering silhouette and wondered if he had suspected that she was the unknown assailant that every local television station had been prattling on about. She never meant to kill him. It all started out innocently enough. Well… not really innocent, per se. Hell, husbands and boyfriends go out looking for "strange" all the time. Why couldn't she get a little male companionship on the side? Andrea fought to suppress a shiver as she played back the whole sordid event in her mind.

Saturday night and Marcus had to work until 4 AM, so it couldn't have worked out better. Their sex life was the ideal topic for one of those lousy talk shows. "Women whose men can't last five minutes! Next on Jerry!" All she needed to do was to find one of the more popular nightspots and grab a young stud. It wouldn't take long at all. Wear something that shows a little cleavage, a little leg, and hang at the bar, nothing to it. There really wasn't.

Five minutes after stepping into Club Ice, at least ten guys wanted her phone number. Nah, too young. Too fat. Too goofy. Ten minutes, twenty minutes, after forty minutes of tired pick up lines, Andrea finally decided that she might as well go home. That's when she saw him. He was just right. Just like that whore Goldilocks' porridge. All it took was a couple of whispers in his ear and they were out the door. Twenty minutes later, they were already under the covers and grunting in a room in the first hotel she saw.

"My God," Andrea thought to herself as she looked up at the silhouette huffing and puffing above her, "I don't even know this man's name!"

All other thoughts were cut short as she felt herself about to climax. That was when she first felt the hands around her neck.

A dog barking from next door shook her from her thoughts about the previous night. Andrea quietly slid from under the covers and tiptoed to the bathroom. The mirror's reflection was someone she no longer knew. Strangely, this did not bother her at all. Andrea bent down slightly to turn on the water to fill the bathtub. After doing so, she walked to the doorway of the bathroom to see if Marcus was still asleep. Working fifteen hours straight had taken their toll and he remained in a very deep slumber. Andrea returned to the tub and took a seat on the side of it. As she stared at the steaming, gushing, water, she was drawn back to that hotel room.

The hands on her throat were at first caressing, but they soon began to tighten with every passing second. The gravity of her predicament was evident to her almost immediately. Without thinking, she raked the fingernails of both her hands along the sides of his ribcage. When his grip loosened, Andrea turned herself on her thigh and began rapidly punching the man on the left side of his throat.

"You fucking bastard!" screamed Andrea as she continued punching.

He was just like Uncle Mike when she was 7 and her stepfather when she was 10. Just like all the other assholes in her life.

The silhouette lover held his throat and began to gag. Andrea pushed against the man's body, attempting to get out from under him; she succeeded, but fell to the carpeted floor in the process. She scrambled to her feet, grabbing at the closest thing she could find. It was her left spiked high heel shoe. Swinging the shoe blindly, Andrea caught the man in his right eye. There was a faint, popping sound. Without even a whisper, "Mr. Stud" collapsed on the bed.

Andrea pulled her heel from the man’s eye with shaking hands. For a moment, Andrea stared at the rise and fall of the man's chest. His breathing was sporadic. She then grabbed the pillow next to his head, straddled his body, and held the pillow over his face. Soon his chest ceased to move. The pillow remained tight on his face for another five minutes before she finally removed it. Staring at him, Andrea felt a power within her that she had never before experienced. Working on automatic pilot, Andrea went to the hotel bathroom, washed off her shoe's heel, and then began to quickly dress. She then went back to the bathroom, soaked a hotel washcloth with soap and water, returned to the bedroom, and carefully cleaned the man's body to remove her DNA.

Andrea slowly got off the bed and walked out of the hotel room, slowly closing the door behind her with a wry smile on her face.

Water lapping against Andrea's thigh from the lip of the tub stirred her from her musings. As she shut off the faucet, Andrea began to talk quietly to herself.

"They're all the same,” she muttered.

With that, Andrea stood up and returned to the bedroom.

Marcus wiped the sleep from his eyes and stretched. When his eyes focused, he saw Andrea standing over him, staring angrily, and clutching her pillow…