A Child Killer's Soliloquy: Chapter 9

My wife's blood supply was again replenished. Any strife that had come between us seemed to have disappeared. I don't know if she really knew what I did, or how the blood she consumed was sourced, but she did seem grateful. Her looks at me were short but thankful the day after I killed that little boy.

But our relationship isn't any concern to the questions you've posed to me, is it? You don't really seem to care how I managed to keep my marriage together with what were otherwise insurmountable challenges. And why should you? You're not here to hear my troubles, but to make them. Am I mistaken? I think not.

Still, I think it's important to discuss our day to day life, hers and mine. The passionate lover I gained shortly after she initially recovered after I killed that little girl earlier had cooled. She was still willing to make love, but did so out of a sense of duty and indebtedness. She was my wife and respected that, and she knew, to exactly what extent I don't know, that I had taken certain steps to save her life. Sometimes we ate together and other times we dined apart. I couldn't help but suspect my night walk I detailed earlier was the cause of this distance.

One thing she did seem to enjoy doing was resuming our night walks, although from time to time, she insisted we walk apart. I had my suspicions, and one night I took it upon myself to follow her. With the same stealth I stalked my victims I now stalked my wife. If I had become so detestable as a child killer for her life, I would not become her cuckold.

My trek in the shadows behind her unveiled nothing to me. She walked alone, talking to no one, and not once looking over her shoulder. I remained certain she did not know I was there, but as every man in love knows, there exists that little voice that always sparks jealousy. Did the worms which caused Vampirism endow her with some sort of superhuman hearing? Was she aware of me from the very beginning, and thus maintained an appearance of innocence? I had absolutely no way to discern this from a singly night of observing her.

Asking her directly about her activities on her lonely night walks would certainly only serve to either arouse her anger or elicit a lie. There was only one solution to quiet that voice of jealousy. I would have to continue to follow her.

This I did for several nights which the two of us did not walk together. Some nights she would go her own way and I would go mine. Others I would stay home. And still, I followed her when I could. And every night yielded the same results. Yet my suspicion persisted.

You know, somebody somewhere once told me that there's a psychological phenomenon among happily married couples that when one partner suspects the other of cheating, he is correct. Has something to do with subconscious noting of facial expressions, nuances in conversations, and other changes in behaviors that tend to betray the sin of adultery.

Apparently, these are little things which either evade our conscious detection or which we do indeed detect, understand, and then choose to ignore out of fear of the emotional pain. Why is it we fear emotional pain so much? I mean, every man has some fantasies about dying for a cause, about enduring torture and giving up nothing as a demonstration of both one's masculinity and his loyalty, and about returning from some war in some far away land, changed and with the visible scars to bear evidence for the invisible ones. To bear some testament to physical strength and a solid soul is what every man yearns to do. Yet the same man, who either dreams of such glory or has actually achieved in some capacity, the opportunities to do so seem to be far fewer than they were in ancient times, this same man will retreat from even the threat of emotional torment. A dead wife is better than knowing she is in another man's bed. I think that's why some men are so violent towards the women they love so much.