PSYCHOPHILIA: A Disturbing Psychological Thriller by Michelle Muckley Page B

superior.
    “There
is soup.  I will ask her to prepare it.  Here,” I say, standing up, “take this
off and warm up.  It is freezing out today.”  I helped him out of his coat and
ran the palm of my left hand down his left cheek.  He stared at me for a
moment, complete surprise at what he had arrived home to find.  He looked
around the room, placing objects and cross referencing them with his memory,
asking himself if he had arrived in the right house.  He looked back towards
the front door, to see if everything was as he expected.  It was.  It was only
me that was out of place.  As I step out of the room I look back to him and he
is watching me.  I smile, my eyes meeting his.  He doesn’t manage a smile, but his
face twitches a little, the corner of his mouth turning upwards, and I feel at
least it is a start.
    I
can feel Ishiko’s brown eyes upon me as I walk into the kitchen and close the
door behind me with Gregory’s coat in my hand.  We are both well aware that
this little fiasco is my creation and it brings me great joy to feel her eyes
boring into my back as I walk through to hang up his coat.  I return to the
kitchen to find her stood over the bin, depositing the now cooled and crusted
lamb chops.  It is freezing in here because the window is wide open and it
smells like the inside of a barbeque pit.  As she tips the meat away she is
watches me with complete audacity, her eyes running all over me like a colony
of ants.
    “Make
the soup, Ishiko,” I say quietly, my eyes fixed on hers.  I walk over to her to
say, “And remember this lesson.”  That’s all I say before returning to the
conservatory.
     

Chapter nine
    “Gregory,
I believe it could have been my fault.”  I say this and try at the same time to
look as innocent as I can, so I dip my head and widen my eyes like a doll.
    “What
could have been your fault?”  He looks up as he steadies another spoonful of
soup towards his mouth.  He is holding his soup spoon with the same elegance that
a fairy might carry a flower, just as he was taught so many years ago in this
very same room, betraying the capabilities of his man-sized hand.  The soup
dribbles away from his thick lips, spilling back into the bowl and displacing a
few drops on his shirt.  For the second time today he picks up his napkin from
his lap and dabs at the distracting spillages, leaving me no option but to consider
what a pathetic bastard I married.
    “The
lamb chops,” I say once his attention has returned.  There is a small carrot-orange
mark on his white shirt, like the crest of a sunrise, the rays of which have
been smeared across his shirt in the style of Monet.
    “What?”
he says looking up, his napkin now back across his knees. 
    “The
lamb chops.  The fact they were burnt.”  I see him begin to panic, wondering if
this is a misfortunate show of paranoia, which we both know would not be a good
sign.  “I was sick.  I asked Ishiko to clean up after me.  I had no idea that
she was cooking.  I really do feel bad for her.”  I could almost feel the
judgment of Ishiko, her cries of innocence from within the creases of my
pocket.  I reached into my pocket and scrunched her up, strangulating her
efforts to halt my progress.
    He
reaches a hand over to my side of the table.  It wasn’t expected.  He places it
on top of my hand and says, “It’s not your fault.”  Words I love to hear.  I
smile and eat a mouthful of soup.
    “I’m
going out for coffee with Marianne this afternoon.”
    “Oh?” 
He seems surprised and I can understand why.  The clatter of plates echoes from
the kitchen, and it distracts us both.  Ishiko seems in a bad mood for which I
feel both entirely responsible and satisfied in a way that I have not felt in a
long time.  Sometimes, the most vindictive of actions elicit an entirely
positive response within oneself.  This merciless route to self preservation is
often an art lost to polite society, a misplaced