The Ring
I.
Matthew secretly envied Brandon. He had everything Matthew wanted: a grande cape-cod on a quite street located in the heart of town with a large backyard and deck donning a hot tub. The very same hot tub Ava, Brandon’s slender, blonde wife used after every spinning session in their spare-room turned home-gym. Ava was everything Matthew was looking for in a woman but still couldn’t find. She loved to cook, and was good at it too. She made everything from scratch due to a severe health-consciousness that kept her and Brandon trim and fit, no matter how much Brandon drank. She loved animals, especially dogs and she even let her two pit-bulls lounge on the couches and sleep in her bed.
Matthew tried to find a woman like Ava, but no one he dated would cook for his friends on guy’s night or play poker on poker night; and, if they did win a few hands of poker, they never knew what hand they had and why it beat everyone else’s. Ava even made raking leaves look sexy, with her long legs in dark washed skinny jeans. Matthew didn’t think Brandon deserved Ava.
Brandon often ignored all of the trouble Ava went through to make things so easy for him. But Matthew complimented everything Ava did when he visited. Every time she presented a dish he made it a point to comment on it. If it was just a simple platter, he would compliment on the placement, noting her eye for colors and shapes. Things like this made it hard for Ava not to compliment Matthew in return. And this is how their relationship escalated from Brandon’s wife and friend of Brandon’s to Brandon’s wife and Brandon’s competition. Or, Matthew would have been competition for Brandon, if Brandon had noticed.
But typical of Brandon, he didn’t notice much outside of his own beliefs and preoccupations, like the TV and showing Ava off. In fact, that was the only time he noticed Ava, when he wanted his friends to know how good it was to be him. And, sadly, she would go along with it and do all of the “cool” things that would impress his friends, like ignoring an overturned, broken glass when Brandon would bump the table after hopping to his feet to cheer for his favorite team. Ava would swoop in, sweep up the glass, and just as quickly return with a new drink for her hubby. Brandon’s friends would slap him on the back; tell him how lucky he was he escaped a brawl with the wife. Brandon would laugh it off and say something like, “I already told you, she’s not like that. She doesn’t care about the same stuff your wives care about.”
But Matthew knew better. He would wait a couple of minutes for the guys to get absorbed into the game again and then he would head for the kitchen, Ava’s favorite location, so he could chat her up. He would talk about her dogs, cooking, mountain biking, the latest books, the oldest book, and men. He would speak at length about the habits of men, almost always using Brandon as his example. This turned their flirting up a dial and increased the sexual tension between them.
“You always know how to cheer me up,” Ava would say as she embraced him, making sure to press herself against him just enough to feel the warmth of his body.
Matthew would tingle all over and stumble over his words, “Anytime, you know I’m always here for you.”
But one time, Ava was different, more aggressive. Matthew came into the kitchen for his normal routine but Ava wasn’t having it. As soon as he stepped through the swinging doors her eyes filled with something Matthew didn’t recognize: hunger. He tried to chat her up on the normal topics.
“Are you OK? That’s the second time today that Brandon knocked something over. He’s getting worse and worse every time I'm here.”
At first, Ava’s hunger was minimal and she smiled slightly, “Yeah, it seems that way. I don’t know how much longer I can take it.”
“I don’t blame you. It’s sad when guys start caring too much about having their friends over and impressing them, like they have to compensate for something. Like Brandon, he has to show you off in order to show his friends how good he has it, when really he’s just turning into a drunk. I’m sorry to have to say that but it’s true.” Matthew waited for the tear-rimmed eyes to find his, to feel the arousal Ava’s vulnerability brought out in him. But it wasn’t there.
Instead, fierce blue eyes met his, eyes that wanted something new. He tried to keep the rouse going. “Anyway, I just wanted to make sure you were OK. I hate it when he treats you that way, you don’t deserve it.” She was still watching him, like a lynx, waiting to run in for the kill. “You two are so different; I mean you’ve read The Anthology of American Poetry twice! And what has he read, besides the police beats in the paper?” It wasn’t working.
Ava approached him, her eyes slowly running over him. His heart raced and his mouth ran dry, he licked his lips for moisture and tugged at his shirt collar. Ava was face-to-face with him, nose-to-nose with him, lips-to-lips with him. She slipped her tongue into his mouth and a flame of passion fueled between them, right there in her kitchen with Brandon in the other room, screaming at the TV.
The kiss was long and hot. Ava rubbed her body against Matthew’s and he rubbed his back. He slipped his hand up her shirt and sucked her neck. She was breathing heavy in his ear. This is what he was waiting for, all of his plans were finally paying off! He ran his hand up her smooth, tight thighs, a cycler’s thighs; each muscle accentuated and hard. She moaned, only loud enough for him to hear.
There were footsteps in the hall, they pulled away from each other and Ava briskly made her way over to the stove and turned on the kettle. Matthew sat at the kitchen table and adjusted himself, averting his erection downward. Ava adjusted herself as well, pulling her panties and bra back into place. Brandon stumbled through the swinging doors.
“What the hell are you doing in here,” Brandon slurred, eyeing the tea kettle. “Having tea? HA! You faggot, having tea with Ava. Where’s your beer?” He slapped Matthew on the shoulder.
“I have to drive man, I have to sober up a little,” he winked at Ava. Matthew hardly ever drank at Brandon’s house. He wanted to show Ava how a real man should act, how a real man should be able to control himself.
“Oh, whatever, you’re such a pussy.” Brandon laughed at himself before he shouted, “Hey guys, this pussy is drinking tea! HA!" Then he fell back out of the kitchen and into the living room.
As soon as he was gone, Ava was right back to pulling Matthew close to her. “Wait, wait, wait,” Matthew said holding up his arms to stop her. “What are we doing? What is this, between us?”
Ava considered it for a moment. “It’s me cheating on my husband.” The way she said it so plainly aroused Matthew again, as if she considered cheating for some time now. As if, there was no love left in her heart for Brandon and she was ready for someone knew. Matthew thought, that’s how good my skills are, I made Ava realize that she has to cheat on her husband, she has to leave him, and be with me.
He smiled down at her. “Not here,” he said. “At my place. Come to dinner at my place tomorrow night.”
Ava nodded and turned back to the stove, taking the screaming kettle off of the flame. As her back was turned, Matthew snuck out of the kitchen, happy to have caged the bird that evaded his grasp for three years.
II.
The following day Matthew was tense. He couldn’t focus on his work and Brandon noticed it. He called Matthew into his office to remind him that, although they were best friends, he couldn’t cover for Matthew as his boss, it would look like favoritism. Matthew stared absent-mindedly at Brandon until his lecture was over and then shuffled back to his desk, still unable to concentrate.
At lunch time his cell phone vibrated in a circle on his desk. He looked at the screen, he had a text message. He opened the text message but didn’t recognize the number.
“Let’s meet,” it read.
“Who is this?” He replied.
“Who do you think it is?”
Matthew began to sweat. Was it Ava? Or Samantha? Or Liz? It could be any one of the women he was with in the past week. He had to think of something smooth to get him out of a losing guessing game. He sent back: “Mom?”
A few moments passed before the next message came. Matthew’s hands began to sweat as he hit the OK button to read the message. “No silly, it’s Ava. I got your number from Brandon’s phone.”
Matthew breathed a sigh of relief, and happiness. The woman of his dreams was after him! He didn’t have to waste his time with all of those other women anymore. “I’m so happy to hear from you. Are we still on for tonight?”
“I’m not so sure about tonight…”
Matthew’s heart skipped a beat. “What do you mean ‘not so sure’?”
“I can’t wait. Let’s meet for lunch.”
A goofy smile spread across Matthew’s face and he looked up quickly to make sure no one in the office noticed. “My place,” he said.
“Be there at 1.”
Matthew’s heart was beating fast and he had dry mouth again. Ava made him feel like he was high, like he popped two of the best ecstasy pills in New York. He cleaned up his desk, keeping his eye on the bottom right corner of his computer, watching the minutes pass by. By 12:50 p.m. he was shoving his thick, muscular arms into his suit jacket like a clumsy high school kid on a first date.
He flew to his apartment and found Ava standing at his door in such a sheer, white dress, he could just make out the thong she wore beneath it. Her hair looked radiant, shiny gold flowing down her back. He couldn’t wait. They kissed, repeating the incident in her kitchen but this time against his apartment door. Before he knew it, they were making love right there, not caring who might come into the hallway.
Ava was an amazing lover. She wrapped one leg around Matthew’s waist and didn’t let go the entire time. She didn’t cramp, she didn’t try to make Matthew hold her weight. Nor did she close her eyes. She kissed him fully and ran her hands through his hair, down his back. Matthew couldn’t help but think that this is how it was going to be from here on in. Ava would make love to him like this every night and he would pay attention to her every need, the doting husband that a doting wife deserved.
When they were finished Matthew opened the door and let Ava inside. She teetered over to the couch, drunk from sex. She gracefully placed herself on the couch and tried to gather her thoughts. Matthew grabbed two water bottles from the kitchen and handed her one. She drank quietly, never taking her eyes off of him. Matthew was unnerved by this new habit.
“You stare at me so much lately,” he said, kind of awkwardly.
Her lips curled into a thin smile and her cheeks flushed pink. “I can’t help it.”
Matthew was silent a moment, his heart melting at her innocent demeanor. And then he sighed, and sat on the arm of the couch next to her. He took her hand, kissed it, and then placed it in his lap. “We have to talk about this,” he said.
Ava nodded and finally pulled her eyes away from him, and into her own lap. “I don’t know what to say…” she tried to start.
“You don’t have to say anything,” Matthew interjected, becoming animated. “I already know, and I love you too. You can leave Brandon, it won’t be as hard as it is for some wives because of the way he treats you. You can move in here, with me, and I’ll take a job at a different ad firm. Procter & Gamble offered me a great job last month;. Maybe I can go there…”
Ava’s eyes grew bigger and bigger as Matthew continued on in minute detail of how they would spend their lives together. Finally, she held up her thin, pale hand, showing Matthew her huge diamond wedding band setting. Matthew’s mouth closed instantly.
“Matthew, do you see this ring? I can never take off this ring…”
He jumped in again. “Yes you can! I know it will be hard at first but…”
“No, you don’t understand. I can never take off this ring, if I do, I’ll die.”
Matthew wasn’t understanding, he kept talking about hearts healing over time and buying a new ring for her in the future. Ava kept shaking her head, not to say no, but to show that she felt pity for him. Matthew ran out of breath from all of the pleading. His chest heaved and his dark eyes were watery.
“I cannot take off this ring because it’s a poison ring,” Ava tried to explain. “Brandon gave it to me on our wedding night so I would never leave him. I didn’t know it was a poison ring until I got sick on our honeymoon. I knew I couldn’t have gotten pregnant that fast so I went to a doctor. He didn’t know what was wrong with me, and neither did the other twelve doctors I saw once we got home. I was so fed up I researched my symptoms online and found a website about ancient rings. I thought it was baloney until I confronted Brandon.”
Sobriety hit Matthew, hard. His heart was racing and his mouth was dry, not in anticipation or passion any longer, but in anger. His eyes flashed and he clenched his fist. “What did he say about it?”
“He told me like it was so simple,” tears swam into Ava’s eyes. “He said, ‘If you ever take that ring off, you’ll die. And, if you ever leave me, you’ll die.’ I’m so scared to find out what that last part meant, Matthew. I can’t leave him.”
Matthew clenched his first tighter, he also clenched his jaw. “He’s lying. You can leave him. The ring won’t know who you’re with if you run away. We can run away.”
Ava shook her head and tears fell onto her dress. “I can’t do it. I have to go.” She stood up quickly and made her way to the door.
Matthew gently grabbed her arm, her instability scared him. “You don’t have to go back to him, we can leave. We can leave right now.” He looked into her eyes, trying to draw her back to reality. He didn’t believe in a poison ring, he believed Brandon was just as amazing at hoaxes as he was in college. But this time he concocted something sinister to scare his poor, mistreated wife into staying with him when he knew it was over between them.
But Ava wouldn’t hear any of it. She forced her way through the door and down the stairs of his building, disappearing from his sight. Matthew’s heart heaved as he fell against his door, pissed at Brandon and sad for Ava.
Matthew made it back to work just in time for Brandon to call him back in for another lecture.
“What’s up with you today, man?” Brandon spoke lowly. “I’ve been covering your ass all day and then you come back late from lunch? How am I supposed to explain that now?”
Matthew glowered at him and said, “I went to lunch with Ava.” There, he said it, he tried to push it deep down inside of him but Brandon’s hoity-toity attitude pushed him over the edge. “You think you’re such a hot shot, but Ava doesn’t.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean? You think I don’t notice how you drool all over my wife? You follow her around like her stupid dogs, with those sad puppy eyes and pathetic attempts to make her notice you. Like you really drink tea? Who'd you think you were kidding?”
Matthew tried to breath deeply, to keep from erupting and exploding the ugly truth all over Brandon’s pretty corner office with the skyline view. But he couldn’t. “I fucked your wife in the hallway of my apartment,” he said with such cold bluntness, trying to injure his friend.
Brandon slammed his fist on his desk, shaking everything on it, and knocking his name plate to the carpet. Everyone in the office stopped to look at them, probably wondering why these two best friends and great ad partners were having a row. Brandon looked out at them all and immediately gained his composure. He sat down and leaned back in his black, leather chair eyeing Matthew up.
“Why did you do it,” Brandon asked calmly.
“I love her,” Matthew said, catching Brandon off guard.
But again, he regained his composure. “No you don’t. You love me. You love me so much you want to be me and that includes having my job, my house, and my wife.”
“She’s not your wife anymore.”
“She will always be my wife.”
“You’ll try to stay with her, even when she sneaks around to be with me?”
“Yes.”
“You won’t divorce her, even if we run away together?”
Brandon let out a guttural, almost deranged laugh. “Run away? You think you two are going to run away?” He slapped his desk and his face turned red. “That’s the funniest fucking thing I’ve heard all week.”
Matthew wiggled in his chair. This is not the response he was expecting. He was expecting to shatter Brandon’s world and to walk out the victor, now he wasn’t so sure.
Brandon’s face contorted into anger as simultaneously as it twisted into an evil smile. “You and Ava are not running away and, if you get anywhere near her, I’ll kill her.”
Matthew needed to gain the upper hand. He had to take control of the situation. But what could he say? Brandon was acting like a lunatic! He swallowed, again his throat was dry. From what now, he wondered. Fear, panic? “Don’t…don’t exaggerate the situation,” was all he could spit out and Brandon laughed again.
A few more moments of Brandon’s laughing and face-reddening allowed Matthew to think of a way to gain control. “You would never kill her. You need her to feel good about yourself. Fucking pathetic. You can’t even be a real man and treat her the way she deserves. That’s why she loves me. I’m the real man she should have married years ago. You’re just pissed off that she finds you so repulsive you had to fill her head with all of these bullshit threats to stay with you. And now, you’re trying to scare me too. Well, it’s not going to work. I’m taking Ava away from you and there’s not a fucking thing you can do to stop me.” Matthew stormed out of the office, slamming Brandon’s full glass door behind him. Again, all eyes rested on Brandon, and his red face.
III.
Brandon drove like a madman trying to get home to Ava. He was fuming from having to make up some excuse for his and Matthew’s fight. He assured everyone he wasn’t bringing his home life into work and that the fight was over an ad account and that Matthew would not be returning to Schuster & Morgan any time soon. Then he had to sit patiently while his boss chewed his ear off about hiring a college buddy to handle precious accounts. By the time he got to his car, he was good and ready to pry that ring off Ava’s delicate ring finger.
He sped home and flew into the driveway, bumping Ava’s Subaru. He jumped out of the car and flew into the house full of rage. But the house was quiet. The mocha and latte colored living room looked exactly as it did the night before, two empty beer bottles and an ashtray full of cigarettes on the table. Ava hadn’t cleaned a damned thing. This pissed Brandon off even more, he allowed Ava to stay home, to be a housewife as along as she kept things in order! He punched opened the swinging doors and stomped into the kitchen. But that too looked exactly as it did the night before, spotless and scentless. Ava hadn’t made anything for dinner. Brandon growled as he went back into the hallway.
“Ava!” He yelled over and over again, his voice echoing in the vaulted rooms. There was no answer, there was no Ava.
Brandon ran up the stairs to their bedroom. If she ran away with Matthew she would have taken all of her clothes, he thought. Ava left everything behind. Brandon was baffled. Ava loved her fifty pairs of shoes and walk-in closet full of clothes from dozens of different designers that he bought her after every time he acted like a jerk. She never would have left them behind, he was sure of it!
Brandon skipped several stairs as he made his way back out to his car. He slammed his Mercedes into reverse, made his way out of the semicircular driveway, punched his car into drive, and sped toward the highway.
IV.
Ava’s head was nestled into Matthew’s shoulder. They had been driving for thirty hours straight. Matthew’s head felt heavy with sleep but after running into Brandon, who was passing around flyers with Ava’s picture at a gas station, Matthew decided they couldn’t stop for at least another twenty miles. (Thank God he drove a Chevy Volt!)
They had pulled over for a quick bite to eat and bathroom break. Matthew headed for the bathrooms while Ava perused the shelves for something remotely healthy. Brandon entered with poster in hand and asked the store clerk if he had seen this missing woman. The clerk smirked and pointed to Ava in a yellow sundress, bent over the bags of trail mix and granola bars, trying to decide what to buy. Brandon winked at the man and quietly made his way toward her from behind. But before he could reach her, Matthew yelled for her to run and they both bolted toward the door. They were almost at the car when Brandon grabbed Ava’s hand, but Matthew pulled it away as gently as he could and they safely escaped the gas station.
In the silence of Ava’s peaceful sleep and tuned off radio, Matthew wondered why, if Ava was wearing a poisonous ring that would kill her upon leaving, Brandon would hunt for her. Maybe he was scared that once they settled, Matthew would take her to the police, the hospital, or some sort of ancient specialist to remove the ring? These thoughts flew around his mind like moths around a light bulb, bouncing numbly into each other.
His cell phone vibrated in the center console. He picked it up and strained his eyes to read the screen in the dark. It was a text message, from Brandon.
The gray pixels squeezed together to form the message: “She’s dead.”
Matthew frowned at the message and thought that was a rather weak threat by the man who almost had Ava in his claws thirty hours ago. He must be wearing down.
Matthew shook Ava so that she could laugh at the message with him. They had eluded the tyrant, defeated Goliath. They were the victors. But Ava’s body shook loosely and her eyes did not open. Matthew thought how tired she must be, fleeing her husband then almost getting caught in a violent struggle. He reached for her rosy, blushing cheek. He touched her face and recoiled from the frost. He tried to look down at her but couldn’t take his eyes off the road. He pulled his car into the shoulder and skidded to a stop.
He lifted Ava’s face, her eyes were still shut, her lips pulled tight. He shook her limp body. But there was no response. Tears sprung from his eyes and he shook her again, harder this time. Still no response. He screamed as he lugged her out of the front seat and placed her flat on the asphalt. He tried to wipe away the salty tears and snot running from his face long enough to try CPR. But it didn't work.
Matthew pulled at his hair, punched his own face and head, screamed, cried, and repeatedly kicked his car before falling to his knees in anguish. He lay on the ground next to Ava, sobbing until he was dehydrated and no more tears would form. Then he lay in silence, listening, hoping breath would return to her. He sat up and took her beautiful hand in hers and kissed it as he always did. What was it? What did he miss? He looked at her hand. The ring! The ring was missing!
Matthew dropped Ava’s hand and scoured his car and the ground for the large diamond solitaire placed in an even bigger diamond setting. But it was nowhere, not on the floor nor tucked into the seats. He sat against the car door and closed his eyes to retrace their steps. Where could she have lost…?
At the gas station.
At the gas station where they ran into Brandon. He wasn’t trying to claw her to bring her home. He was clawing her to take back the ring. And he succeeded. The text message was right.
She’s dead.
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