Too Good To Be True

The old man at the end of the bar wasn't a regular, but that didn't mean he didn't deserve some consideration. Poor guy looked like someone had just run over his dog. I just can't turn away from someone like that, which can be a problem sometimes working in a bar.

"You look like you're going to water that beer down yourself mister. We handle that free of charge here. Why the long face?"

The guy jolted like I'd just woken him from the worst dream he'd ever had. "Wha? Um...why the... Oh, it's sort of an anniversary today. Not a happy one."

"Why's that? Bad marriage?"

"Oh no. It was the best. It was so perfect it was too good to be true."

That usually meant one thing. "And today;s the day you found out it was huh? Went home from work early and found some one else's car in the drive?"

He let off a huge sigh. "No, not really." He stared down into his beer so long I thought he'd fallen asleep. Then he spoke up again. He was so quiet I could barely hear him. "You're going to think I'm crazy, but I guess it doesn't really matter. It looks like we're alone here anyway, so I guess it can't hurt to finally tell this."

I brought over another beer for him, and one for me. What the heck, I owned the place so it wasn't like I was going to get fired. Besides it really was just him and me.

The guy finished his first beer, and wrapped his hands around the second like it was a life preserver. "Her name was Lamya. I never did find out what it meant, but I think it was Arabic. She was a real beauty. Deeply tanned skin, narrow dark eyes. And that was just the beginning. I never knew what she saw in me, but I was always really happy she saw something."

"Sounds like a match made in heaven. What went wrong?"

"Right to the point, huh? Okay, one night, I couldn't sleep. We would have been married a little over a year, and this was the first time I had insomnia. I usually slept like a rock. I didn't want to keep her up, though, so I just lay there pretending to sleep. That's when I felt her moving against me. I thought maybe she couldn't sleep either, but for some reason I didn't want to ask her what was up."

"So, was she off to phone her other significant, or did she go to meet him? Or her?"

"No, that's not it at all. I could hear her moving slowly across the bedroom floor. But there was nothing on the side of the room she was moving on except the window. Then I heard the window slide open, and I carefully opened one eye to look. She was in her night gown crawling out the window. That just completely freaked me out, and I just lay there, stiff as a board. I didn't sleep the whole night, even when she came back. I could hear her crawling in through the window hours later. I thought maybe I'd dreamed the whole thing. You know, sometimes a dream only lasts a few minutes but when you're in it the dream feels like it's going forever. I stayed up all the next night, pretending to sleep, and nothing weird happened, so I just kind of laughed it off."

"I get the feeling it didn't end there, though, did it?"

"No, nothing's ever that easy, is it? First of all, a week later, the police found a body. They couldn't identify it, there wasn't enough left. It looked like it had been skinned, and then partially eaten. I didn't make any connection. Still figured the whole night was a dream remember."

"I found out the next month that it wasn't. It was the fifteenth. I later realized that was the same day as the first time. I'd been to an office party, and was pretty drunk. I don't remember why I didn't want to go through the front door, but I didn't so I snuck through the bushes to the back. Before I went into the yard, though, I saw her. She was crawling out the window of the bedroom. That sobered me up pretty quick. I ran, and ended up at a cheap motel for the night. Told Lamya the next day that I got really smashed and didn't want to wake her up. She thanked me for my courtesy, if you can believe that."

"So, it wasn't a dream then. Did you ever find out what was going on?"

"Oh yeah. I was getting to that. Took two more months to confirm I wasn't nuts. On the fifteenth, I'd stay awake, pretending to sleep, and listen to her creep out and back in. After every trip, I heard another body had been found, always the same. No skin, looked like it had been gnawed on."

"The next month, I told Lamya I had to be away on business. Would be gone a day or two. She bought it, I think. Maybe she just wanted me to think she had. I don't know. I rented a different car, and parked it across the street. She left through the door that night, wearing a long blue dress. Her favorite for going out to dinner."

I didn't say anything. Got the feeling that was what she was doing, but not to a restaurant for a guilty tryst.

"I tailed her. I guess she wasn't expecting to be followed, and I was in a strange car. She went downtown, and started walking, well, prostitute row. I wondered what she'd be doing there, and I saw her proposition one of the ladies of the evening. They walked together down a side street. I got out of the car, and followed. By God I wish I hadn't."

He paused again, his hands shivering. I was afraid he was going to shatter the mug, his knuckles were so white. Finally he started up again. "When I got there, Lamya had this woman on the ground. She was...peeling her. I watched her scrape the girl's face right off. She must have killed the poor woman when I was coming after them, because there was no screaming or anything. "

This time he barely paused at all, but he slammed the mug down so hard the bottom cracked. "I must have let out some kind of sound, or something. She looked up at me with these sad eyes, like I caught her wrapping a birthday present that she had been trying to hide. Blood was dripping from her mouth. 'So, now you know. I had thought this time it would be different, but it never is. I try to give my lovers every thing they could possibly desire. Why is it you always have to know?'"

His face had gone white, and he was shaking.

"I tried to scream but all that came out was a choked cry. 'What's going on Lamya? Why...'"

"She looked down at the body. 'To give you what you desire my love. All that you desire. Can you tell me that your life with me has not been infinitely better than it was before? Or that you can imagine anything better? Is the price so terrible? These people are nothing. They drain society. I just recycle them into something useful, as I always have. I make their essence into dreams come true. Your dreams."

"I couldn't take any more. I bolted and never looked back. I can still hear her screaming, 'You cannot hide from me! I will hunt you down for your betrayal! You will suffer!' And she was right. I haven't gotten a full night's sleep since. I always feel like someone is watching me over my shoulder. I guess it's true what they say, if something looks too good to be true, it..."

The guy's words were getting a bit slurred to the end, and he just slumped over onto the bar. I checked him, but he was gone. I called an ambulance and what not, figured it had been a heart attack or stroke or something. Poor guy. Must have been undiagnosed schizo or something.

As I was describing the situation on the phone, I saw something out the window. It looked like a trailing of a blue dress. Like the woman wearing it had been looking into the bar and then turned and walked away.

The next morning I read in the paper, some street walker was found dead. It was an awful sight, she'd been completely skinned and partly eaten, but no signs of a struggle. Must have been killed on the fifteenth. Ever since I haven't been able to sleep very well.