The Big Dipper

"Who is she, Bernard?" she demanded, eyes blazing.

Bernard's wife, Gayle, was in a state of high agitation.

"I loved you, gave you the best years of my life."

The wild-eyed woman ran to the closet, pulled open the door, and found another suitcase. From there, she went just inside the bedroom to his dresser, opened the top flap of the case, and began tossing his personals inside.

"I heard you talking to her, upstairs, on the phone. I won't put up with this!"

Bernard sat silent and dumbfounded, hunched over in his easy chair, hands clutched around the black leather grips of the first suitcase she'd hastily filled for him. She was angry. He could understand that. But if she did in fact ever love him before, she hadn't recently. For some reason she'd been acting as though she'd hated men. All men.

Watching her now, cursing and ranting, shoveling out the contents of his undergarment drawer, he thought it was almost laughable. No communication. No nurturing. She should've expected him to find someone else.

She slammed the suitcase shut, zipped it, clipped the lock. When she spun around, her dark bangs fell across piercing eyes. The woman threw the suitcase out the bedroom door toward him. The black leather case whooshed! across the floor and came to a halt along side the one in his grasp. Bernard cringed, but didn't look up at her.

"You're a cheatin, bastard!" she said through gritted teeth. "Always talkin about love, gettin closer. You never showed me any of it."

She moved slowly, calculating every step as she came toward and stood in front of him. Now beyond his suitcase he could see the old ragged slippers on her feet. They were as old and as ragged, he presumed, as their marriage had become.

She latched onto his chin with one hand and forced his eyes upward to meet hers. Her next words spurt through the narrow slits between her lips as if they were steam-driven.

"Get out." She commanded him as if he were a little child being told to go to his room. “And you don't come crawlin back here. You're incapable of giving me love."

Bernard knew differently. He could love. Of course. Given the right person and receiving a little respectful treatment in return, oh how he could love. Right now, she met neither of the criteria required for Bernard to let his love loose. Why else would he have found someone else? And besides, he thought she was messing around too. On a couple of occasions, with the door closed tight enough to muffle her voice, didn't he hear her talking on the upstairs phone?

Before he got up, Bernard bent over and grabbed the handle on the suitcase that had slid in beside him. When he stood - not allowing his eyes to meet hers, she backed away one step. He squatted, grabbed the other suitcase and shuffled over to the front door. Placing one of the cases off to the side, he opened the door, went out, and repeated the procedure to close it behind him.

He paused there for a moment, looking out at the street beyond the old Ford Escort in the driveway. Besides the light on the lamp post he'd had installed last year, it was dark. The light glanced off the passenger side window of the car. Bernard reached for the car keys and found his pockets empty. They were back inside and he wasn't going back for them. He decided he'd walk down to the Flanders’ house and ask for a ride into town. He knew they'd understand his need, they'd met his wife once. And that'd been enough for them.

Crouching once again, Bernard picked up the luggage he'd placed on the stoop, then hobbled down the stairs. He started down the brick walkway when he heard a soft whimpering coming from behind and above on the balcony.

In between whimpers, a soft female voice called out to him. "Bernard, come back," she called, tearfully. "I need you, Bernard."

Without turning back, looking up, Bernard paused at the bottom of the stairs. He heard the voice calling him, but refused to listen. Bernard stiffened his upper lip, adjusted the weight of the luggage in his hands, started down the walk.

"Bernard, please come back here." Her voice was softer now, sexy. "Your baby needs you."

Bernie, he scolded himself, pausing again on the walkway, don't do it! Don't listen to her. She's trouble. The cause of all this. She was the one his wife thought she’d heard him talking with on the phone. Only they needed no phone to communicate, she'd been living in the upstairs room all along.

He could feel himself weakening, falling for her soft voice. Every time she used this soft, sexy voice on him, he could just melt away like an ice cream in the midst of hellfire. I wouldn't turn back now, a little voice in the back of his head shouted. Bernard closed his eyes tight, they felt as though they'd spun around in their sockets to look at the faceless voice, and he answered: but I--

"Bernard, I'm sorry," she whispered, tenderly. "Please come back. Come upstairs. I'm sorry."

-- love her.

Like that ice cream in the netherworld, Bernard's heart melted. He turned around slowly and looked up. There she was. Flowing black hair. Red glowering lips. Lesley had an anatomically correct body in every way and when his eyes met her on the balcony, her tiny rubber finger waved gently at him. "Come back here," she said. "Don't leave. I have a plan."

In all of her long-legged, adult-featured eighteen inches, Lesley was more of a woman than Gayle could ever be. Lesley knew what it took to make Bernard feel good about himself, make him feel like a man. All the right moves. She knew what he was thinking almost before he did. She nurtured his emotions and satisfied his physical needs unconditionally.

That Lesley was made of molded rubber and vinyl didn't matter to Bernard. To his touch, his every stroke, she felt warm. Soft. She could move, talk, make him feel whole like he used to when he and his wife had first fallen in love.

As always, Bernard had melted. Lesley sensed it. And grinned.

***

After sneaking past Gayle, cautiously climbing the stairs, he went into the room quietly closing the door behind him. "What do you mean, a plan?" Bernard asked, adjusting his voice to half-volume.

Bernard stood and watched as Lesley came toward him from the balcony. She took short, animated steps, that made her appear as though she were skipping. That was caused by the shortness of her legs, but like any faults a loved one may have, he overlooked it. She got to him and wrapped her arms around his right shin, rested her head against his knee.

"Not now." Bernard leaned over and gently pushed her away like a cat that wouldn't stop rubbing against him. "The plan? And keep your voice down." As he said that, he made a vague gesture and looked down at the floor.

"We kill her." Lesley skip-walked to the guest bed and struggled to get on. Bernard helped her up, then sat beside her. We can make it look like an accident."

"And how do you propose I do that? Cut the brake line in the car. Christ those are so rusted now, I'm surprised they don't give out on their own."

"No," she said. "I'll try to do it. But you do have a small part to play."

Bernard thought about it. Not long, though. He'd thought about it many times before, only not this seriously. Still, the thought of it didn't cause his adrenaline to stir. "What do I have to do?"

Lesley's little rubber head turned to him. As it did, the tightness of the neckline rubber caused her head to tilt down on the right side. "First, you get her up here. Tell her you’re sorry, or something like that. Ask her out on the balcony. Tell her you want her to look at the stars." She shrugged and her shoulders squeaked. "Some romantic crap like that. Just get her out there. While you're out there, tell her to look at the moon. Or whatever. Think of something. Then, when you say Big Dipper, I'll come runnin. I'll jump at her, knock her off balance. Over she'll go. Splat! It'll look like an accident."

Bernard thought about it, ran the whole scenario in his head. "You really think it'll work?"

"If it doesn't, at least she'll be off balance and in shock after seeing me. You'll have to give that last nudge."

"Okay."

"Remember ... Big Dipper!" She slid off the day bed and took her position leaned against a small chair about ten feet from the balcony door.

***

Gayle was angry, reluctant to come upstairs. But, after some of Bernard's best sweet-talking, she did. She came into the room and the first thing she looked at was the phone.

"Now honey," Bernard said, noticing what she was staring at. "I'm through with all that. I want things to be the way they were when we got married. Remember? We took walks, had long talks. We used to stay out and gaze at the stars." Bernard shuffled over to the balcony entrance, pointed to the night sky. "Why look. What a beautiful night for star-gazing. Come here ... look!"

Gayle walked onto the balcony. When she passed him, Bernard looked down at Lesley and nodded. "Wow," he said, "what a moon. And I might add, you look ravishing under its light."

"Bernie." Gayle squinted her eyes, “cut the shit. This isn't goin to work."

"Oh, Sweetie. It's gonna work. Look over there." Bernard pointed high and to the west. "The Milky Way! So many stars clustered together, it looks like a cloud in space."

Gayle shook her head and started inside.

"Gayle, wait!" Bernard clutched her arm, stopped her from leaving. He gave one last look at Lesley. She winked at him. "Over there. You may have to lean out over the rail to see it." He helped her, led her to the rail, and leaned her out over. "The Big Dipper!"

Lesley came to life. Struggling to her feet, rubber knees not bending too well, she skip-ran at them. Across the floor. Skip, skip, skip! Picking up speed. Through the balcony doorway. She got to them and--

--and changed course. With all her momentum, she leapt at Bernard, careening into his hip. Gayle stepped out from in front of him as he lost his balance. She reached out toward him. Lesley came down on the balcony and bounced back into the room.

As Gayle got to the teetering Bernard, his eyes had become the size of pie plates. They'd taken on a haunted look and his arms were wheeling for balance, grasping for purchase. She got close to him, and just before she nudged him over the edge, she asked: "who's the Big Dipper, now?" She pushed him. Hard.

As Bernard's upper body went beyond the point of no return, his legs lifted off the balcony floor and rose up either side of Gayle. He locked them around her body. Now dangling upside down over the railing, he could see the concrete steps below, the driveway lamp post suspended from an earthen ceiling.

Gayle stuffed her hands between Bernard's legs and her waist, prying them loose. Slowly his feet unlocked behind her and he slid over the edge. An instant later a sound, like the noise of dropping a ripe watermelon on a hard surface might make, echoed back up and over the balcony's guardrail.

Gayle peeked over the rail. Bernard was motionless, laid out across the concrete steps in the shape of a human swastika, body twisted and broken. She looked back at Lesley, who was struggling back to her feet. "It's over." Gayle said, smiling. "He's gone. We did it. I guess that old adage is right: you always do hurt the ones you love."

"Not really," Lesley said, skip-running over, poking her tiny head through the rails for a glimpse at Bernard. Her head was too big for the gap between the rails, but being made of rubber did have its advantages. She forced it through, sides of her head puckering until it came out the other side. "If that was true, we'd be hurting each other." Lesley looked down at Bernard, then up at Gayle. The right side of her head had failed to unpucker. "I hope it never comes to that."