I put my suit jacket back on. Lady Alligator sighed deeply.
“Is this about the money?” It shifted in the tub and for a moment I saw the dark, destroyed flesh of what had once been its nipples. “I have money. You tell Buddy outside to give you $300 from my account. He’ll take care of you and then we’ll be square, all right, Arthur?”
Square?
“You know what,” Lady Alligator said with a preening little tilt of its grotesque head, “tell him to throw in an extra hundred, a gift from me to—“
And then my hands were around its throat, the skin beneath my palms felt dry and scaly but I ignored it and squeezed tighter, relishing how Miranda’s eyes widened in shock, drinking in the sound of its self-righteous voice finally silenced.
I thought I could save her.
Lady Alligator made a strangled noise as I took one hand away from its neck to shove its head beneath the grimy water. A great burst of bubbles erupted when I did but I threaded my fingers through its hair and gave it no leverage. I pushed down harder.
Its arms flailed helplessly. Its feet kicked. Its toes were painted red.
We remember the strangest things.
I held it underwater until it stopped moving. The mottled hands went limp and fell back into the tub. When I released it at last, it floated there like scum on a pond.
I’m not sure how long I stared at its body before reaching towards it, wanting to be sure it was dead, wanting to be sure the nightmare was truly over. I took it by its scaly shoulders and leaned it against the porcelain back of the bathtub. I brushed the hair from its face, just like I used to do when my wife was sleeping.
The mouth gaped in a wide, terrible smile. The pointed teeth gleamed. The destroyed skin shimmered in the candlelight.
Above the slit nose Miranda’s eyes stared at me, blank.
A monster hidden in a dark room. That’s who my wife was, and always had been.
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