Dishonor Thy Wife (10 page)

HUSBAND

Someone was definitely out to get me. Just like the other
video of the Vegas wedding, the man in this video was a spitting image of me.

He bends over a dead woman. She is battered, her throat
freshly cut.

He caresses her blouse and kisses her cold lips.

The man clutches a knife in his hands, his fingers
dripping blood.

The man then lunges at the camera, grinning, sending a
message.

I yanked my neck back from the screen.

I hit the pause button and moved my head closer, examining
the woman, my unwanted wife, now dead wife. I screamed, “What did you do, dumb
ass?”

The killer is in my kitchen splashing his shoes in a pool
of blood, stabbing the dead woman repeatedly.

He holds the camera, walking backwards, filming his
bloody footprints.

He then takes a selfie, flipping himself off, his eyes
filled with self-hatred.

From the contortions on his face, anyone can tell that
the man is insane.

I rewound the DVD, stopping at the murdered woman. I balled
like a baby.

Oh, God, what had I done?

“You killed your wife, dumb ass!” I yelled at the video.

I ran to the bathroom and vomited the entire contents of my
stomach. I groaned, hugging the toilet.

What had I done?

What had I done?

I wished to God I never went to Philadelphia or met my new
best friend.

Oh, the web we weave when first we practice to deceive.

Who made up that creepy saying? Little Miss Muffet?

Along came a spider that sat down beside her and…sliced her
throat.

Yeah, a Spidey web was spun in Philly. I was a great
Spiderman fan. I even owned the costume.

I was the sort of man who liked disguises.

(In fact, let me show you right now.)

I yanked a Spiderman mask from a drawer and placed it over
my head.

(There. Now you can’t see my tears.)

I AM A MAGICIAN, AN ESCAPE ARTIST, BUT NOT A KILLER OF WOMEN
EVEN WHEN THE WEAKER SEX DESERVES MURDER.

I am a deceiver, not a liar. Yeah, there is a difference.

To be fair, I never said that I was Brad O’Boyle. I answered
to his name. I wore his clothes, even his underwear. There is no feeling like
knowing a man as when your balls hang in his
Comfyballs
underwear. I healed
his patients. I slept in Brad’s bed. I slept with Ronni, his wife. However, at
no time or in any situation, sticky or no, did I ever claim to be Brad. No one
ever asked me even once, “So, are you really Brad O’Boyle?”

“Are you undoubtedly my doctor?”

“Are you truly my son?”

“Are you genuinely my daddy?”

“Are you honestly my husband?”

Not once did anyone suspect, that is how much I fooled them
all, every last one of them, the wife, the kid, the parents Viola and Ethan, his
patients, and Brad’s staff.

Boil me, eat me, take a match and burn me but do not ever
say that I deliberately misled. It was
their
perception,
their
belief.

Everyone has a double. The comparisons are tiresome. I know
someone who looks exactly like you. Oh, my God, you are the spitting image of
so and so! If only I had his picture, I could show you the uncanny resemblance.
You are his clone!

Everyone assumed I was Brad because we are identical, down
to our cock sizes. Yeah, three months ago my new best friend and I took our measurements
in the men’s bathroom of a Philly bar, both of us staggering over a urinal.

I could kill Brad, step into his shoes, wear his suits, steal
his life, and no one would ever know he was dead.

By the way, my name is Jayden Tremblay. Yeah, the bag with
the bloody knife is mine.

* * *

May 15th; 14 Weeks Earlier

JAYDEN

Friday night before the medical conference officially began
on Monday, you will never guess whom I ran into at the hotel.

Yo, Philly! I bumped into myself, my other half, the missing
link, my clone, my doppelganger. Yeah, I streamed the old
Twilight Zone
series.
Di-di di-di di-di di-di.

You are traveling through another dimension, a dimension
not only of sight and sound but of mind. A journey into a wondrous land whose
boundaries are that of imagination. Your next stop, the Twilight Zone!

The elevator walls were mirrored and it seemed like a fun
house at a carnival because there was two of me in the mirrors. Then I realized
the other reflection was another man when he brushed his black hair back from
my
face, yo,
his
face. Our hairstyles were identical, our complexions an
unblemished natural tan. We both even had sexy stubble.

We both removed our aviator sunglasses, the same brand and
style. We had the same cynical expression and a devil-may-care sparkle in our
ice-blue eyes. We said simultaneously, “I like to wear aviator glasses when I
fly.” We smiled slightly, identical dimples digging into our cheeks.

We circled each other like two wrestlers. The resemblance
was bone chilling, a
Twilight Zone
moment straight out of the Sixth Dimension
or the Sixth Dementia, which is how our cat and mouse game ultimately ended.

“This is surreal,” I said.

He slapped his business card in my hand.
Dr. Brad
O’Boyle, MD, Family Medicine.

“This is unbelievable.” I took out my business card.
Dr.
Jayden Tremblay, MD, Family Medicine.

His office address was Austin, Texas, USofA and mine
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.

The elevator stopped and we both got off on the 14th floor.

“I always ask for a room on the 14th,” he said. “It’s my
birthday.”

“Me, too!”

“You’re messing with me, right?”

I yanked out my driver’s license and showed him that I was
born on November 14, 1985.

“You have my exact birthday,” he said and pulled out his
license.

“Look, we should meet for a drink. This is too much...”

“Of a coincidence.” He finished my sentence.

“Yeah, I mean, chills crawl up my spine. Looking at you, is…”

“Like looking at a mirror. I can’t take my eyes off you,
you’re so handsome,” he said, grinning.

We exchanged room numbers and each grabbed our suitcases. We
each had the other’s bag because our luggage was identical brands, two shiny maroon
suitcases with spinner wheels and navy blue, nautical carry-on bags. Leopard
skins encased our tablets.

We exchanged bags, laughing uncomfortably. “Pretty weird,
huh?” I said.

“I’ll see you at the bar in half an hour, Jayden?” He made a
left fist before holding out his hand to me.

We both were missing a knuckle on our left hand ring fingers.
However, he wore a wedding band.

“You’re not married,” Brad said.

I nodded my head, no.

“Lucky you. I wish there was a way I could get rid of my
wife, if only for a little while.”

Of course, he had to be joking.

BRAD

Jayden and I plop down on a couple of bar stools at the
hotel and order an
AMF
, which is a potent mix of vodka, rum, gin,
tequila, and Curacao, blue as the ocean of a Caribbean vacation. The drink is
our favorite, at least my favorite. I am unsure whether this guy who looks exactly
like me is pulling my leg.

This hotel is a fleabag. You would think the medical conference
could do better. Jayden keeps his mouth shut when I rant about the hotel not
having a masseuse on call 24 hours a day. And what if I want a manicure in the
middle of the night? I hate frickin’ dirt under my nails.

Jayden thinks we are exactly alike, but he had a public
education, having been raised by a country veterinarian and housewife, probably
a woman who sleeps in curlers and drags her slippers around a farmhouse with
cat hair clinging to her shoes. He is Canadian, for crying out loud! Those people
still suck up to the British queen, that old granny. The only culture in Canada
is French Quebec. Frenchies know their wines. Other Canadians just want to be
British but speak with American accents.

Big deal, so we both played basketball, baseball, football
and soccer at the same ages, but then so do most boys. I, however, never wore a
bicycle helmet with full-face guard and ran across a lawn carrying a stick with
a net on it like badminton. I would respect Jayden more if he told me he was a
cannibal instead of a Lacrosse player.

It is bizarre we are both missing a knuckle from having
cracked our hands when we were walking our dog Toby and a cat ran out of the
bushes. We both named our dog the same and chose beagles, and broke our hands
on the same day in the same year.

It gets even stranger between this Jayden guy and me. We
both broke our foot playing baseball, sliding into home base, on the same date
and at the same age. We both broke a rib falling down the stairs when we were
13, on the same date.

I coolly sip my
AMF
like secret agent
Brad Bond
,
hiding the fact that our similarities are freaking me out. I saw the movie
Face/Off
,
and maybe someone copied my pretty face and put it on this man. My looks can
kill and I can see an entire army of Brad O’Boyle’s.

Anyway, this man is already boring me. Just to get rid of
him, I agree to a zygosity test to see if there is a biological reason for
appearing on the outside like clones.

“Hey! I can swab my own cheek,” he says.

I really was not going to jam the cotton-on-a-stick down his
throat even though it is irritating that he looks like me.

We rub the inside surfaces of our mouths and remove cells
from our cheeks and gums via saliva.

Gung ho Jayden scans his tablet and discovers a 24-hour DNA
clinic to do the test. What is even more science fiction is that the clinic is
located around the corner from the hotel.

He shakes the spit-filled plastic bags at me. “One other
thing, I was adopted.”

“Me, too,” I add and squeeze his arm
in sympathy.

Jayden plans to put a rush on our DNA tests. “Wait up with me
for the results,” he says all excited.

“I’m about to pass out, Sherlock, and need to crash.” Jesus,
I thought he would suggest climbing in bed with me to see if we both snore.

He skips on his merry way to the lab.

There really is no use going to bed so as a wake-me-up I
snort cocaine in the privacy of my room using a fifty-dollar bill. BECAUSE I
CAN! MY PARENTS ARE RICH! However, Mom and Dad could never buy me an identical
twin brother since humans are no longer for sale in the free world else I would
own an army of slaves.

It matters not if Jayden is my identical twin or our
resemblance is an eerie coincidence. My head is spinning with relentless
opportunities to use our alikeness to my advantage.

JAYDEN

The zygosity test confirmed we shared the exact DNA. It is
only possible for identical twins to have dead ringer DNA. Our hereditary makeup
proved absolutely that we were carbon copies in every way, down to our last
gene locus. As fate would have it, we have both discovered a long lost, unknown
brother in Philadelphia, City of Brotherly Love, which was poetic.

Brad insisted my balls were not as big as his were because
of the independence a military boarding school gave him, which he attended from
first grade thru junior college. My parents smothered me with kindness,
puppies, and love while Brad learned to be a sharp shooter. He chuckled when my
mother called to see if I arrived in Philadelphia safely.

“The biggest difference between our lifestyles is that I am
married and have a kid yoked around my neck,” he said at supper. We both cut
into our steaks in the same manner, stabbing a piece of rare-cooked, bloody
meat and then slicing in similar fashion.

“I read about twin brothers separated at birth who both wed
women with the same name,” I pointed out.

He threw his steak knife down and it bounced off my plate,
nearly stabbing me. “But you’re single, man. This proves I should not be
married! Our stars were knocked out of alignment then by a teenage tease named
Ronni.”

“Your wife?”

Brad twirled his wedding ring and then removed the band, shoving
it in his pocket. “A piece of trash took advantage of my broken heart.”

“You sound like you really hate your wife. Why not divorce
her?”

He poked his finger on the table, lecturing on
Marriage
101
. “A woman thinks she owns you once she gives you a kid.
Oh,
childbirth is so hard. My figure is ruined. I went to hell and back for you!
Ronni’s
fingers pinch my wallet, and we have no prenup. You’re lucky, dude, to not have
a wife.”

Brad did not act married. He got fresh with the cocktail waitress,
and she smacked his hand from her butt. “Twat,” he snarled under his breath.

She smiled at me and Brad slammed his glass on the table,
breaking it. The waitress walked away, shaking her rear, seemingly for my
benefit. “See, even though my ring is hid, she notices the aura of marriage
around me so flirts with you instead.”

“She probably saw you take your ring off. Oh wait; there is
a gaseous ring around you. Did you just fart, bro?”

He stared into his
AMF
, as if he was drowning.

Seriously, to see my brother so unhappily married, well, it
was as if our heartstrings were joined. We shared a connection unknown to the
majority of the human race. We had earlier spent the day with an arm around
each other’s shoulder as we took a historic tour of Philly. We now continued
our party in his room and stripped. Brad actually played a stripping song on
his iPod and stripped like a professional whereas I was always a bit shy in the
gym locker room.

 We both wore the same style underwear! Our Scandinavian underwear
was so scandalous; the U.S. banned the shorts. We twirled our
Comfyballs
undershorts around our heads and strutted around the room in our birthday suits.

We puffed out our chests, acting like gorillas, displaying
the same pattern of chest hair.

We stood rubbing our butt cheeks together and were both
six-foot-one of towering male beauty, resembling twin statues of Michelangelo’s
Michael
.

We stood on bath scales, giggling like schoolgirls. We weighed
185.1 pounds of taut muscle. Our shape was still identical even given our age. Some
men over 30 had beer guts, not us.

We ordered room service and doled out the same portions of
each type of food. We even left the same amount of leftovers on our plates. On our
foils of butter, the smudges of unused butter were duplicates.

I surfed the internet and discovered studies where identical
twins separated at birth often chose the same profession. In addition, some
sets of twins even had the same scar on the same location of their bodies,
which they got at the same age doing the same thing, such as falling down the
stairs. Ditto for all our other similarities, including the butter spread.

To experience having a clone (identical twins are nature’s
clones) was like science fiction. To celebrate, we both got roaring drunk,
running around naked in Brad’s room and screaming, “I have a brother who is the
coolest on the planet!”

We both passed out and I woke in the middle of the night,
lying naked beside Brad. No, we did not have sex. We are both a bit wild but not
into anything kinky. Besides, we are both heterosexuals. We just like to have fun
and were a bit immature. Any male whoever belonged to a fraternity would
understand.

I tiptoed to Brad’s bathroom and closed the door so my tinkling
the toilet bowl would not disturb his sleep. I snooped, feeling smug that we
used the same brands of shaving cream, toothpaste, mouthwash, aftershave, etc. It
seemed neither of us liked the hotel brands and were both picky.

In the morning, we both sat wrapped in towels, sipping our
coffee cold.

This was way too neat—we both used to ride Harleys until we
crashed, on the same date, and broke our right foot. We then each bought a
black Mercedes Benz and named it the
Darth Vader Death Star
.

Brad smiled lazily. “You should take a shower in my room,”
he said.

I boiled in a hot shower, soaping my body with the same masculine
soap I have always used. However, the bar was Brad’s soap.

The shower curtain slid open and Brad climbed in behind me,
washing my back with a sponge. Brad was somewhat creepy and the way he scrubbed
me down seemed a bit jealous, not in an envious way, but in a possessive
I
am his
way. I swear if that cocktail waitress from last night flirted with
me now, Brad would clutch her wrist, and twist her arm until her bones cracked.

Brad slapped my butt in a guy way. “I scrub your back, brother,
you scrub mine. Always remember I’ve got your back,” he said which made me feel
relieved. For a minute there, Brad worried me, but I always wanted a sibling,
especially a brother. To have an identical twin was like living on another
planet, especially having a twin like Brad. I thought I was a wild and crazy
guy but Brad was more insane, you know like those
Saturday Night Live
sketches.
Yeah, Brad and I streamed a few episodes, mimicking the loony Czech brothers,
only we were naked when we did so, wiggling our peckers along with our necks
and chests.
“We are two wild and craaaaaazy guys.”
What a riot!

At this moment, I would do anything Brad asked of me, as
long as it did not concern anything gay.

We made plans to play hooky from the medical conference and
hang out. We only just found each other and have 32 years to make up for our
biological mother cruelly separating us. If my adoptive mother had not been such
a loving woman, I would probably be scarred for life. Unlike Brad, I was not shipped
off to boarding school by cold parents who did not want me around. Surely there
were plenty of private schools in Austin Brad could have attended.

When Brad mentioned his rich adoptive parents, his eyes
appeared frigid. His adopted last name was Irish and mine French. We speculated
as to our ethnicity, but as God stated in the Old Testament, “I am that I am.”
We are who we are and screw the woman who gave birth to us. Brad called her a
tramp, which made me feel uncomfortable. My heart squeezed at the thought of
her, but no way would I ever try to find our biological mother. One, she did
not want me. Two, she split us up. Brad would like to punch her in the stomach
for not ordering that we be adopted together.

“Our mother is a selfish broad,” he snarled. His violent
nature maybe came from his military school training. We were built alike but
Brad stood so much straighter as if at attention, his eyes scanning the hotel
for enemies.