by LSF Publications
by Austin Carr
Carole was watching a saccharine Christmas movie on TV, but far from putting her in the spirit of the season, it was souring her even more on the holiday. As the family hugged happily at the credits, she disgustedly flipped to another channel. "Yeah, Merry damn Christmas to me," she muttered, flipping through the remote until she found something less annoying. It was a futile search. She'd have no doubt felt differently if her husband was with her on Christmas Eve, but he was working the swing shift now, which meant she rarely saw him outside of when they were sleeping. Truth be told, even when he was physically present he was largely absent in spirit. She doubted they'd be laughing and hugging their way through unwrapping Christmas presents like old times even if Gary were home.
Her marriage was just five years old, but Carole could sense it crumbling faster than their fifty-five year old starter home. At least with the house she could call in plumbers, painters, repairmen of all types, but she was at a loss as to who she could call for a marriage on the fritz. Her friends were of no earthly use, largely trying to entice her back into singledom so they wouldn't feel quite so left behind, or sniffing disdainfully that the young married woman with the good job and handsome, professional husband was concerned about a couple of niggling problems that wouldn't even register on their own relationship debit sheets.
She'd even sounded her mother out on the subject, but absent obvious adultery, physical abuse, or chronic alcoholism her mom was hard pressed to see a significant problem. Her husband was unfailingly kind, if increasingly distant, and never made her uneasy. While sex had tapered off in quantity and was quite a few degrees cooler in quality, Gary was a skilled and considerate lover and usually responded quickly to her advances. She was concerned that his own sexual advances, once an every morning and evening expectation, with ad hoc approaches thrown in whenever she bent over just so, had so quickly dissipated. It wasn't as if she'd gotten fat or let herself go. She still looked great in tight jeans, better in a tight skirt, and could glance over her shoulder in the mirror and look at her butt with approval.
And now his new work schedule was seemingly another nail in the marriage coffin. Gary was an operations manager for a large I.T. processing company and he'd recently moved to the swing shift - a 4PM to midnight grind that meant he left before she got home from work and didn't get home until she was asleep. The move was bad enough, but when she found out he'd actually put in for the position change, she was flummoxed. He told her that the twelve percent shift differential would make a huge impact on their finances and while that was true she didn't know if the extra money offset really only seeing her husband on the weekends.
So now here she sat on Christmas Eve, alone on her couch where the two of them used to regularly snuggle together. Where in Christmas' past Gary would have had a fire roaring and his arms wrapped around her, she now sat staring at an empty hearth and a few meaningless Christmas cards atop the mantle. Flanking the cards were a few pictures of the two of them; a wedding shot, one from a cruise and another taken at a restaurant when their relationship first became serious. Now the pictures seemed to be of a pair of strangers.
There was nothing that held her interest, neither television, books or magazines, and looking at the presents under the tree, on hold until some undetermined time tomorrow, was too depressing. She was certain that Gary hadn't mixed in a sexy gift this year, some little thing that told her she was still desired and wanted. He used to always slip in a naughty item or two, just enough to let her know she was still his girlfriend as well as his wife. Usually she enjoyed them, enthusiastically trying on Christmas themed lingerie, reveling in lotions and lubricants, or trying out some mild electronics. Admittedly, last year's gift giving had been awkward when he'd slipped in a burnished wooden paddle with 'Mrs. Santa's Helper' engraved on it and she'd pretended not to notice she'd opened it. It wasn't the first, or fiftieth time, that he'd made that sort of overture, and after years of being firmly rebuffed she was disappointed he hadn't outgrown that persistent piece of silliness. He hadn't said anything at her feigned ignorance, but at least had the good grace to look a little ashamed.
The memories weren't helping her mood, so Carole opted for going to bed early. She changed into her regular pajamas, not the sexy Christmas elf ensemble Gary had bought her two years ago. She doubted he would be inspired to ravage her and she certainly wasn't in the mood to seduce him. For no particular reason, she flicked on the bedroom TV and cast one last look at the uninspiring selections. With a resigned sigh she settled back, leaving the set on with the picture dimmed and the volume low for comfortable white noise. All in all, a hell of a way to spend Christmas Eve, alone in bed before ten and married to a man who preferred working late on a holiday then spending it with her. Carole made up her mind to have a long talk with Gary about the increasingly fragile state of their marriage. Uncomfortable questions and potentially catastrophic answers whirred through her head until, like legions of ugly sheep, they eventually numbed her mind and she drifted off.
It wasn't long before she was nudged back to wakefulness, suddenly aware of a dim light and a faint voice. At first she thought she'd left the TV volume on higher than normal, but she could barely make out a murmur from the darkened screen. The light came from the partly opened bathroom door and she wondered if Gary might be home early. She waited a few minutes to see if he would emerge or shut the door for more private business, but when nothing happened she got out of bed and padded over. The light seeping into the bedroom looked dull and dim, not at all like the near daylight brightness thrown from the eight large bulbs atop the sink. Suddenly cautious, she peeked around the edge of the door.
To her complete and utter amazement a young woman was standing in her bathroom, as composed and unconcerned as though it were her own reading room. She was dressed in a shapeless shift seemingly made up of thousands of colored patches stitched together. Though there was no window open, the dress rustled as if a gentle breeze was present. Her blonde hair was cut extremely short, framing a very round face like a thin, wispy border. Her eyes were wide open, unblinking as they stared at Carole.
A dream, Carole decided, fighting back the urge to scream at finding such a stranger in her bathroom. That recognition did nothing to lessen her astonishment. "Who are you?" she gasped.
The girl looked at her with sad, solemn eyes. "My friends call me Memory," she said simply. "Others know me as Regret."
"I... I don't understand," Carole stammered.
The waif nodded slowly. "Yes, about so many things."
Carole bristled. Dream or not, this girl had some nerve. "Look, I don't know who the hell you are or what you think you're doing here..."
The girl brought a forefinger to her lips in a shushing gesture and Carole's tongue unaccountably felt glued to the roof of her mouth. With her other hand the girl reached out and pointed towards the bathroom mirror again, and Carole followed the pointing finger until she faced the glass. At first she saw nothing out of the ordinary, just her reflection looking back with a quizzical expression. Then the outline began to shimmer, her reflection blurred and she found herself stepping closer to the glass to see what was happening. Suddenly the mirror went dark, as though the light switch's reflection had been thrown, though the actual bathroom remained lit in the same weak light as before. Carole started to question the girl, but the mirror began to lighten, from black, to gray, and finally to faded colors. A light hum, like faint static, emanated from the glass.
Her breath caught as she recognized a much younger Gary, a boy of no more than sixteen, many years before she knew him. He was fit and trim now, but positively slender as a boy, his current neatly cut hair a shaggy, brown mass that tumbled carelessly down his forehead and neck like a mudslide. He was with a girl of about the same age, a round-faced, rounder bottomed young lady who even as a teen amply filled out her blouse and skirt. She watched uncomfortably as the girl laughed and waved a pointed finger in Gary's face. The hum lessened and the images leapt into sharp relief. Faintly, as though being heard through a bedroom wall, she could hear the girl's voice. "I warned you about that," she scolded.
"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Carole heard Gary say smugly. Without a word, but with an even broader grin, the girl pulled him towards her, wrestling him over her lap. She noticed that he didn't put up any resistance, smiling hugely as she positioned him over her shapely thighs. The girl smacked him a few times, the sound of the hits coming through the mirror muted as though she were wearing mittens. Carole watched in dismay as Gary craned his neck around and gave the girl the adoring smile she thought was her private property. "You'll have to do better than that," he taunted.
The girl tried enthusiastically for the next few minutes, hitting harder and faster, eventually pulling his Levis down and finally his shorts. Carole couldn't help marveling at the tightness of his young buns and the length of his erection pressed against the girl's thigh. As young Gary's grimaces turned to yelps, the picture again began to gray, and finally dissolved to black. Carole was stunned, not only by the glimpse into her husband's past, but by the red hot surge of jealousy she felt over a spanking dished out over a decade ago.
"Who was that girl?" she demanded.
"His first love," the girl intoned.
Carole swallowed hard. She had not wanted that answer. "What happened to her?"
"She was his first love, not his best."
She didn't want to ask, wanted to take comfort in the assumption that it was she, but forced herself. "Am I his best love?"
Another slow nod lessened the knot in her chest. "You are." The impossibly large eyes locked onto hers. "For now." After allowing the full impact of those two terrible words to be absorbed, the girl nodded towards the mirror again.
Carole didn't want to look, but her eyes sought the glass on their own accord. This time she saw herself, but a younger self, a girl of no more than twenty. She was sitting on the couch with Gary at his old apartment. She quickly recalled the worn fabric of the sofa, the mindless collection of random paintings and posters adorning the walls, the tables and desks always needing to be dusted. It was a typical young bachelor's apartment, casual to the point of barely organized chaos. Yet she'd spent some of her happiest moments in that tired, one bedroom, many on that couch she was looking at now. She was facing Gary, her legs dangled carelessly across his lap and he was rubbing her feet. God, how she missed him massaging her feet. As before, the volume slowly took hold, easing from indecipherable white noise to barely audible voices.
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