What would YOU do if you had to choose between the life of your untrue lover and the life of a complete stranger, and your choice was watched by millions of your fans LIVE?
NUPTIALS OF DEATH
Hours passed unnoticed whilst Anita was writing her blog. She suddenly heard somebody scratching on the door. She shrugged. She exited the blog portal and tiptoed to the hall. In the doorway, her son jumped into her neck.
– -Mom, you're home? – he was surprised. – Grandma said you're still at work, that's why you can't come to pick me up.
– I slipped away – she smiled mischievously to her son –, how was school?
– And you, why didn't you come to pick Romi up? You know how much my feet hurt – her mother yelled at Anita who was still meddling with the school bag in the door. Usually it was her picking the kid up after school, and he stayed with her until Anita was done at work.
– I got sick, I asked to leave early.
– Oh, aren't you...? – her mother's face shone up.
– No, Mom, I'm not pregnant. I told you a thousand times, we don't want any more children.
– Then why didn't you come to pick Rómeó up? I work my guts out for you, and you just siesta around at home.
– I told you I got sick. I took some medicine and I laid down so I can get better by tomorrow. We have an important deadline, I can't call in sick.
– I can't either, even though I thought by my retirement years I would have a little time for myself… – the woman just kept grunting. Luckily Romi interrupted her:
– Is Sanyi home yet?
Her husband got the kid to call him by first name. Anita never understood why Dad wasn't okay for him, but she didn't want to start a fight on that.
– Not yet!
– I'm sure he's again out drinking with his buddies! – her mother added.
– Yea – groaned Anita gloomily, then she turned to her son, forcing a smile on her face:
– Have you had dinner yet?
– Yup – nodded Rómeó –, can I watch TV?
Anita just wanted to say no, but when she thought she could sit back to her blog, she allowed him half an hour.
She could hardly wait until her mother left, she ran to her computer.
At the afternoon post, there was Sangel's message in its full glory:
In deathly nuptials, ore meets ore, And life acquits in mourning galore…
She was just about to delete the ill omen of a sentence when she noticed another Sangel comment a few lines lower.
It's suffering that opens the gate to pleasure. But beware if your secret comes to light…
She shivered. Christ Almighty, who are you, and what do you want from me? – she whispered, and she quickly deleted the messages.
*
Orsolya Manner could barely wait until Snapshots ended. On the way home, in her car she couldn't even remember what the show was about. She kept calling Máté every five minutes, but to no avail, the editor-in-chief didn't switch his cell phone on for a second. In despair, she tried to call Anna Somos too, but the number she had in her directory was not active anymore. Máté's girlfriend must have immediately switched numbers after she became a show host so she can avoid the journalists sniffing after her private life.
Orsi knew it exactly that Anna hates her to death. And not even without a reason. Even though Anna most likely had no idea, Orsi slept with Máté the night before she was kidnapped to try and persuade him to take over the editing of Snapshots. The traces of their passion were found by the police in her empty apartment, so the editor got suspicious too. The cops only got off of his back when he risked his life to trap the kidnapper and serial killer, the programming director of Channel Three.
Orsi had to thank Máté that she got out of her captivity alive. She didn't want to be ungrateful to her savior, so she decided she will go to the park meeting even if she dies from fear. She planned to run home for some strength concoctions, then she takes a cab to the meeting spot. She won't let the driver go, so she won't be alone, whatever happens.
She didn't even take her shoes off at home before she headed straight for the bar. Her hands were shaking as she opened a bottle of white rum, and poured a tumbler full of it. Before she always drank cocktails, but after a while the filler ingredients just got lost. She chugged it down. Even though it burnt her throat, she didn't shiver from it. The knot in her body loosened immediately. She turned the computer on, but she couldn't wait until the system started up, she filled another glass.
– The last one – she said out loud to make her decision even more binding.
She got a bunch of emails, all spam. Nothing from Máté.
Deep in her heart she was hoping that the editor-in-chief would get back to her and it turns out the whole secret meeting thing was just a bad joke.
Now that the last ray of hope vanished, she gave the fight with the demon up and opened the medicine cabinet. First she only put one bright-colored pill for herself, but she got weak again, and dug another five out from the bottom of the bottle.
She washed it all off with some rum.
She was undressing with slow, unsure moves. She hasn't seen the editor-in-chief in a week. She tried not to think of it, but his e-mail just messed everything up. If he starts something, that annuls their agreement that there will be no continuation to whatever happened the night before she was kidnapped. She wanted to appear on the meeting that she would leave no chances to Anna Somos if Máté got unsure. She was selecting in her closet for long, but she couldn't find a dress she would've found satisfactory. She glanced at the clock: it was just barely past 10.30. She poured another glass of rum and she flopped down to the armchair.
Anita waited for her husband until a quarter till midnight, then she went to bed. Her head was hurting, she was dead tired, and still she couldn't sleep. She was staring into the dark until her eyes got dry.
Sándor came home randomly. If there was a good company at her usual bar, he would stay out until dawn. Her feminine instinct, however, told her that this time he was not in the bar with the buddies. He changed in a very worrying way ever since she revolted against him. He drank less often, but then he was more insatiable. At those times, in one moment he was sweeter than honey, and in the next one, with no inbetweens, he turned violent on her.
He never hit her anymore, but his words hurt more than any beating. He slurred her, called her a slut, incapable of raising children. He was threatening her that he would take Rómeó to his parents, because he only learns nasty things from his mother.
After they were over-bidding each other in throwing select obscenities at each other, Anita usually broke down crying and locked herself in the study to confess everything to her blog. Well, almost everything. But she never made it a secret that she had played with the idea several times, how to get rid of her husband once and for all.
When she got ashamed of it, her core readers were comforting her by saying that fantasizing about a crime is not yet a crime, and that it's much better that she lives out her aggression in writing rather than in deeds. They encouraged her not to retreat, to keep out by her rights. She was especially keen on the advice of Psychofairy and a woman called saas. Their friendship gave her strength.
When she sometimes felt pity for Sándor and almost let herself be tempted to bed, she thought, what would they think of her weakness, and she refused his approaches. Now she wanted to fit for them, not for her husband. She didn't even care anymore if Sándor turns to whores because of it.
Soon she was so hungry for some intimacy that she took the advice of saas: she should look for happiness elsewhere. Sándor must have felt something, because between the waves of cutesiness and aggression, he mixed depression more and more often. Sometimes she was afraid he would harm himself.
After ten minutes of tossing and turning, she realized that no matter how hard she tries, she won't fall asleep. She put on her bathrobe and a thick pair of socks. She carefully opened the door of her son's room. The quiet, even breathing calmed her down a bit.
She turned the computer on, and listening towards the hall, she pulled the fresh comments. Sangel wrote again, just the same as before, with only one difference. This time the sentence ended with a question mark.
She reached for the Delete button as if she had to crush a cockroach with her bare finger. She shivered. She decided that the next day she will find out if she can ban this madman named Sangel from her blog somehow. She didn't even notice how Sangel dropped his riddle to entries from weeks before.
He would've been surprised if she came. He knew exactly that she has been dreading anything and everything ever since she got out of the kidnapper's captivity. She saw her drink herself under the table every single night. And she didn't say no to drugs either, so reaching her was child's play.
She won't kill her, not even if she comes. Not yet. Water and Fire have to unite in steam first.
She just wants to scare her. So she can feel he's after her. So she will see him everywhere. When she gets completely upset, she will ask for help from Máté Farkas, but by then neither of them will trust the other. If there's more Water, it will put the Fire out, but if Fire is stronger, it burns up everything.
Suddenly a branch cracked, and a shapely, twenty-ish girl stepped out from the bushes. She was crying. She must have felt she wasn't alone as she looked around scared. They looked each other in the eye.
He reached to his pocked instinctually. The girl suddenly stopped crying. She opened her mouth, but no sound could leave her.
His hand on the grip of the knife. He had to decide in a split second.
Life or death.
If he lets her live, she can recognize him later.
If she kills her, he rewrites the Death Matrix, and the consequences would be unforeseen.
Finally he just smiled instead, whistled out loud and left towards the trees.
He was waiting for the scream.
– I'm sorry, I was a jackass! – he heard from behind his back. Must have been her boyfriend. – Who was it? – he asked frightened.
– Just a dog-walker – she answered.
When he was way away by the trees, he looked back. They were kissing with such wild desperation as if they knew: life and death are divided by a little difference, small as a hair, almost nothing.
to be continued next week
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