Film Noir

"Yuck, Rom, what are you doing here? Shoo fly!"

No, of course, that's not what I say out loud and for a second I wish I could forget my breeding and say something really nasty and act ill-mannered but I say, "Oh, hi," with my voice leveled but icy with suppressed disdain.

Just his presence oppresses me! I have to endure sitting beside him until this racket outside this building dies down.

I see some chairs stacked in the corner of the room and start moving them towards the window so I can escape but each chair I drag to the window drags itself back to the corner and soon I'm exhausted.

When I get home Paolo asks me, "Where'd you come from?"

"Nowhere."

"Where?"

"Nowhere."

"WHERE?"

"NOWHERE!"

He takes out pictures from a manila envelope anonymously mailed to him.

We're in a pre-internet spy movie. Everything is in shadows. Film noir.

He throws the pictures on the floor and I pick them up and see me and Rom in bed. Even the pictures are black and white. It's obviously not me. How can anyone make that mistake?

I throw them back at him.

"You're disgusting! This was set up! It's an insult that you could believe I would sleep with him! I never even touched that asshole! This is a hoax!"

The very idea of me touching that jerk! I'm so angry that I begin to upturn all the furniture in the room. I start with the dinning table then the sofa then all the chairs and coffee tables. I throw the electric fan out the window and pieces of shattered glass fall all over the place.

The last thing I see before I die is the chandelier coming towards me.