"Just enjoy. Let the negative energy go away. Release bad feelings. Enjoy."

I could've cried from his words, could've died from the plea sure.

It was very altruistic. The way he gave me this type of plea sure was so unselfish.

I remained in my weakened state for a wonderful eternity.

Remained that way until my carnal therapy was interrupted by the ringing of my doorbell.

He moaned, sucked my lips, kissed my face, said, "He's here."

"Took him long enough."

"Make him wait."

"It's storming."

"Make him wait in the rain."

"That would be mean."

"I know."

"Cruel."

"I know."

We kissed for a while, the storm intense, the doorbell ringing, reluctant to disconnect.

Moments later we separated, one became two, the extrication of his erection painful.

Thunder crackled in the distance as the doorbell rang again.

I stood up, tingling, naked, moving through darkness, tottering on the edge of nirvana, so distracted that I didn't do what I should've done, I didn't look out the window, just assumed it was the other half of my identical sins, body tingling, anticipating his touch, thinking of Frankie and her experience, wondering, since I would have them together, maybe for the night, maybe this would remain unrushed, thinking but not thinking, caught up in envy, jealousy, my own egotism, the need to have them with me, to have Jewell's husband here while she suffered for what she had done to me.

I went down the stairs, opened the back door, slid my hand out and pressed the button to make the garage door go up, and as it rose winds rushed inside my home, harsh winds that encouraged me to move my nakedness away from the door. I didn't wait for him. My hands covered my breasts as I took to the carpeted stairs, went to the kitchen, heard taps on the door in the basement and called for him to come on in, said the door shouldn't be locked, too busy getting water, thirsty from the heat I had been given, still tingling, so high from the tantric experience I had been given, asking myself if it was tantric, not caring if it was or not because it felt good, so good I didn't hear the door open and close in the basement, didn't hear the footsteps coming up the stairs from the basement, thirteen steps absorbed by soft carpet, not listening, but standing naked in my kitchen, a glass of water in my hand, sipping, replenishing, not until then did I look out the slit in the plantation shutters and see a Jaguar parked in my driveway, not until then did I realize she was here, not until then did I lose my breath, not until then did I turn around and see her wickedness standing in my doorway, her evilness right outside my kitchen, hair wet, rain all over her face, scowling at me, dissecting me with her anger, not until then did my mouth open as I dropped the glass of water, not until then did I realize I had opened my door and invited the devil inside my home.

She had appeared inside my home, had penetrated my kingdom without a word of warning. As if she was magical, as if the powers of righteousness were on her side.

I stood before her, naked and defenseless.

In the deepest whisper Jewell Stewark growled, "Where is he?"

THIRTY-EIGHT.

He called down, his voice filled with panic, asked what was going on.

Before I could pull it together Jewell Stewark was headed toward his voice.

She held her dress and ran up my stairs toward my bedroom.

I reached out like I was trying to grab her, stop her, but I barely moved.

I stood shaking, shuddering, broken glass at my feet, water all over the floor.

I inhaled, but couldn't exhale, anxiety held me captive as my lungs failed to expel used oxygen. I was drowning, being suffocated by anxiety, until, at last, my ability to breathe returned, not all at once, first a harsh release of air, then came a series of pants, shallow inhales and exhales. I was holding the counter, trying not to collapse on the broken glass, bent over, lungs refusing to allow me to breathe as much air as I needed to stand up straight.

I needed to wake from this abominable nightmare.

He yelled. His surprise sudden and strong enough to shake my walls. Her anger was impenetrable, covered and consumed the reverberation of his abrupt horror. This wasn't a dream. She was inside my home. Upstairs in my master bedroom, she had encroached on my most personal space.

My mind was screaming for me to dial 9-1-1.

My body not moving. Words not coming. Finally the veil of surrealism lifted. Reality gave me fear and anger. Finally, again, I could breathe. The sense of sound returned, the world had been muted by my fear, my panic, my suffocation. I heard them arguing. I heard her shouting. She was in my bedroom, arguing with my lover while I waited in the kitchen, waited to hear the echo of my things being broken, waited to hear the bang from a gun. I hadn't seen a gun, but I knew she had to have one. She would be crazy to walk into my home empty-handed, carrying nothing but attitude and rage.

The echoes of her anger stopped.

The resonance of his horror ended as if it had died an abrupt death.

Silence fell and covered my townhome. I couldn't hear him saying anything.

My breathing sped up, as did the beating of my heart.

She had killed him. I knew she had killed him.

Or he had killed her. He could be choking the last of life out of her right now.

Death was inside my home. Soon there would be hundreds of police.

The knife my mother had brought when we hiked Brasstown Bald, it was on the kitchen counter. I hurried and picked that up, removed the knife from its leather sheath. My hands trembled. Then I heard her voice, sobbing, saying he made her do what she had done. Sounded like she was telling his lifeless corpse that he had driven her crazy, that this was the only way she could be free.

In a terrified voice, I called out to him. I called him over and over. There was no answer.

I kept the knife in my trembling hand and went to the phone, mind ablaze, ready to dial 9-1-1. Again I paused. The idea of the police returning to my home, that was unappealing, would be humiliating.

As would the arrival of a coroner. And the media.

I was naked, wielding a weapon, praying for the peaceful spirits of the Arawaks to abandon me, praying for the hostile spirits of the Carib Indians to rule me, praying for fear to become revenge.

Without warning there was the sound of a blow, the sound of a fist striking flesh. She called out in pain. The echoes of violence filled my home. The startling sounds of insanity and domestic violence permeated my walls. It sounded like he hit her. It sounded like he was slapping her over and over.

The reverberation of unmasked cruelty stopped.

Her weeping continued, the pleas of the wounded, her cries thin and long, the song of pain.

Knife leading the way, I took to the stairs, headed toward my bedroom.

I hurried up the final stairs, ran down the hallway, the carpet stealing all sounds.

I ran to the door, stopped when I saw them, when I saw their vicious battle.

The candles lit the room. The ceiling fan was spinning.

I saw them. I witnessed their fight. I saw their out-of-control mlee.

What I saw caused me to let the knife slip from my hands and fall to the carpet.

What I had missed was this: the evolution of this lunacy. Missed Jewell Stewark storming into the bedroom, finding him naked, arguing with him as he struggled with his surprise, her shouting and pushing him until he fell, him not wanting to hurt her and not matching her aggression, trying not to hurt her, then him finding himself naked and off balance, falling to the carpet, a slow fall that was delayed by him grabbing the side of my bed, a fall that ended with him on his butt, then on his back as Jewell pushed him and took his lingam to her mouth, trying to control him, sucking him as he struggled to push her away, her anger and jealousy the manifestation of her possessiveness, lust, and need, madness causing her to take what she had been denied, desire making her savor him as he struggled, making her suck him until he struggled no more, until unwanted sensations imprisoned him as her own desire had imprisoned her, until the heat and electricity inside his body overwhelmed him, until he too was lost, was in the realms of her deep-seated madness, his blood flowing away from his brain, rushing toward his lingam like a dam unleashed, thinning his resistance, and in the end, when he finally pulled her away from that strong part of him, she stood, Jewell stood and stared at him, turned around and as he struggled to get to his feet, as he stumbled and growled at her, as she whined back at him, right then, instead of running, instead of fleeing the evil look in his eyes, she raised her sundress, and bent over my bed as if it was her bed, raised her ass up high as if this was her room, stood on the tips of her toes, held her ass cheeks and pulled them apart, opened herself up, allowed her scent to perfume the air, allowed the scent of her crazed heat to spread, allowed her wild aroma to waft through the air and signal that she was in need.

He stood, staring, inhaling deeply, angry, his blood drained away from his center of thought.

Struggling to walk away from her. Her scent too powerful. Desire too strong, thickening the air.

Her madness was contagious.

Her madness took hold of him, took root and strangled his senses, became his madness.

He went to her, his hands in fists, his jaw tight, teeth clenched.

Stood behind her. Stood behind heat that was hotter than an Indian summer.

Inhaled deeply, her scent creating urgency and hunger.

So familiar, too strong, her scent being that of a wicked memory.

And he grabbed her waist, took her with his jaw clenched and eyes wide, took his madness to her madness. With a growl he fell into her wetness, met her anger with his anger, her pain with his, her scent covering him and his scent blending with hers. He fell inside her trembling as if he was being beaten, he fell into her heat. He fell into her biting his lip and moaning, his eyes watering as he shook his head.

He fell into her thrusting.

Thrusting his way deeper into their truths.

I dropped my knife when I saw Jewell Stewark was bent over my bed.

Her colorful sundress was pulled high up over her rotund ass. My identical sin was standing behind her. Abusing her with passion. I remained frozen. Her pain and his agony blended into an operatic duet, like Pavarotti in a duet with Leontyne Price. The barbaric sound of skin assaulting skin echoed with the rhythm of a constant drumbeat. The music I heard, it stalled me, gave me chills.

He growled out his verse. "I don't love you."

She responded. "Don't lie...don't...don't say that."

"I have...never...loved you."

He continued taking her from behind, wetness between them loud, plunging into her repeatedly as she gripped the covers on my bed to keep from falling, as she pulled the covers toward her, pillows flying to the floor, my comforter sliding toward the carpet, her hands grabbing at what ever was left on the bed as he grunted and plunged into her with so much force the bed was trying to move across the carpet.

I stumbled around the bed, my reflection all around me, each mirror capturing a scene that was being illuminated by candles, and I went to the opposite side, appalled, angry, ignoring him, staring in her swollen eyes.

My bed had become their stage, their theater in the round.

Dazed, I stumbled in as if I was meant to be the audience, an angered spectator disgusted by the performance being presented. And at the same time I walked in feeling like I was being upstaged by someone who was minor in my world. I had walked into the middle of act one, the performance already in progress. I had missed the moment before, missed all that had been revealed up to this moment.

I only knew what I saw.

I didn't see sex. In this dark and sexual Shakespearean play, I saw him trying to murder her.

She was crying, begging for forgiveness, submitting to him taking her without mercy. So dramatic. As an orchestra filled with instruments from the string family, the woodwind family, the brass family, and the percussion family were creating music for her misery. Cymbals crashed as she cried out his name, did that as if she was ignoring me, as if I was nothing, as if I was not a part of this opera. She was too busy pushing back into him, meeting his plunges with her own aggravated movements.

This could not be happening.

What I witnessed had me in a trance, a state so far from reality I didn't think I would ever be able to find my way back. This madness was happening in my bedroom. On my bed. Her shadows tainting my walls. Her reflection blaspheming in every mirror, as if this was a fun-house of pain.

This was happening.

Something inside me snapped. Maybe madness was as contagious as bird flu.

And if madness was communicable, it was airborne and I had been infected.

She was on my bed, on my private stage, but all I saw was her at Starbucks, humiliating me in front of the world. I lost it. I rushed to her, no longer saw the man who was plunging into her with so much fervor, only saw the woman who had spit in my face, only saw the woman who had come into my home and violated my personal laws. I grabbed her hair, grabbed it tight and pulled hard.

She cringed, her eyes closed tight, her teeth gritted, but she refused to scream.

I yelled, "You spat in my face."

She cried for him, called his name, refused to give in to the pain I was giving her.

"Bitch, you spat in my face."

She reached up to try and pull my hand from her hair, her nails digging in my skin, but I was pissed, had a firm grip, held her mane tight enough to make her wail and cringe.

She was primal. He'd reciprocated and become primal. I'd become primal as well.

If madness were contagious, then she was patient zero, my home ground zero for an epidemic.

He plunged into her, his skin slapping her backside so hard it shook the room.

I held her hair as I crawled up on my bed. This was my bed, not hers. Mine.

She cried and moaned and struggled.

He remained brutal with her.

Her alto curses matched his in both intensity and vulgarity.