Monster in the Mirror

My thanks to Randi. Literotica and my beta readers.

Scott had hoped that he could take good news back to Gemma, his wife of 12 years. That wasn't to be. He also needed to tell his best friend, Tim.

The Oncologist had been as gentle and as kind as he could be, but telling a patient that his cancer, previously thought cured, had now rapidly metastasised to most of his major organs, his prognosis was bleak and no treatment save for palliative care would be possible, is never easy. Scott had six months to live, at best.

He had received his initial diagnosis of cancer two years earlier. He had gone through the agonies of chemo and radiation therapy, His wife Gemma had been his rock as had his best friend, Tim.

Tim had been really good, supporting Gemma as well as Scott, driving them to and from his hospital appointments, helping around the house and doing the yard work when Scott was too weak to cope, helping him run and eventually sell his business.

Scott felt that he owed a great deal to Tim, his best friend since early childhood.

Scott was thinking about how he and Gemma could show their appreciation to Tim as he made his way back from the hospital.

When he arrived at the apartment he shared with Gemma, he found her in the living room. They both started to talk at once. "You first," he said.

"Scott, oh, this is going to be so difficult.

"Scott, I have loved you with all my heart ever since we met, 14 years ago. Although I still love you very, very much indeed, I no longer feel that burning, all-encompassing love that a wife should feel for her husband."

He looked at her, in silence, he felt a lump growing within his chest as he waited for her to continue. He knew what she would be having to say would be bad, but he had no clue as to how bad it was going to become.

"You know that over the past two years, after you were diagnosed and treated for cancer, that Tim was my rock? Well, our rock, really, I suppose I should say? Well, over those two years he helped me with the health insurance paperwork for your private healthcare, the paperwork for selling your business and getting you the best price so you could take early retirement, getting to the pharmacy to get your prescriptions, taking me to visit you in hospital while you were receiving your treatments and a thousand and one other things?

"There were times when I didn't know if, mentally or physically, I could continue, knowing you were in hospital and they gave us a prognosis that wasn't too favourable."

Scott nodded, silently. He was beginning to have a very bad feeling as to how this would progress. His apparent acquiescence emboldened Gemma enough to continue.

"Well, a while ago, Tim and I realised that we were beginning to have loving feelings for each other that were growing and growing. We tried to ignore them, but in the end, we realised that the situation we had found ourselves in could no longer be ignored and that we were now no longer good friends, that we were now in love with each other. Majorly in love with each other."

Scott found his voice, at last. "Did you... have you slept with each other?"

"Oh, no, Scott! Never! No, we would, could never, do that to you! It was bad enough that we were betraying you emotionally, but betraying you physically wasn't something either of us could do, though we were tempted. But we didn't."

"What is it you want, Gemma?"

"I want, no, that's not right, I need a divorce, please, Scott. That's so I can marry Tim, the man I now love with all my being."

"You don't love me anymore?"

"Oh, please don't think that, Scott! There'll always be a special place in my heart for you as the boy who took my virginity and the man I loved with all my heart for 14 years, but I want to spend the next 14 years or more with Tim, the other man who I now love with that burning, passionate love that I used to feel for you. I'm sorry, Scott, I just don't feel that deep, burning passionate love for you, any longer."

Scott sat down.

"Scott, when you came in you wanted to say something. What was it? Was it about your check-up at the hospital? What did they say?"

He shrugged. "Oh, it was something and nothing. It's not relevant to you, so there's no need for you to concern yourself about it."

She nodded, having failed to comprehend the exact nature of his words. Perhaps she had heard what she wanted to hear?

"Oh, that's great, honey! Look, I'm going to go to Tim's house. We are going over to see his mother in the nursing home she lives in to let her know about Tim and me. We'll talk, you, Tim and me, about the practicalities of the divorce later this evening. I have left some papers on the table." She motioned toward a stack of papers. "And..."

Scott interrupted her. "I'll sign them, now."

"There's no need for haste, Scott! You need to read through them, have a lawyer look them over. But please, please understand I want the minimum from this divorce. I certainly will not touch any of the money from the sale of your business or your retirement funds. After all, I realise that I am breaking your heart, breaking you financially, too, would be wrong."

"Why would I need to have them looked at by a lawyer? It's not like you'd cheat me out of anything. I trust you." That was a slap to her face that was almost physical in its impact on her.

He took the papers and signed them. "But you have no witness?" she asked.

"Get Tim to countersign it. He knows my signature. And please pass on my best regards to Mrs Oliver."

He felt it no longer appropriate to say: "Give my love to Mandy!" as Mandy was no longer his life time friend's mother; she was Mrs Oliver, the mother of the lover of his wife. Sad, really, as he'd loved Mandy as a second mother after he'd lost his own mother several years before, and now that would all be gone, too. Pity, but adultery had a lot of toxic fallout.

"Okay." Gemma sounded crestfallen.

'Damn her!' thought Scott. 'She's getting what she wants but that still isn't enough!'

She kissed him on the cheek and then left the apartment.

'Great!' Scott said to himself. 'Fifteen minute drive to Tim's house, a 30 minute drive to the nursing home, an hour or two with Tim's mother, a 30 minute drive back, so that would give me three or four hours to do what I had to do. To disappear from the lives of the cheating assholes forever.'

He went into the bedroom, cleared out enough clothing to last him for a few weeks, grabbed his laptop and packed it all into a couple of suitcases.

He left his cell phone in the kitchen, along with his wedding ring and the signed divorce paperwork. Would the paperwork that he'd signed without a witness be good enough? He shrugged. That wasn't his problem. He had the rest of his life, or rather the rest of his death, to concentrate on, now.

He called for a taxi and gave him an address several miles away, leaving his old life behind.

When Tim and Gemma got back to the apartment Gemma was horrified to find the divorce paperwork and the ring on the kitchen table, along with his phone.

She ran to the bedroom. She'd sort of expected to find a mess, but instead the bedroom she'd shared with Scott for the entire length of their marriage was as neat as ever. The difference was that it was now devoid of any sign that Scott had ever lived there.

She flung herself into Tim's arms and began to sob. Tim was feeling ambivalent. Yes, he felt guilty for falling in love with his best friend's wife, and he hadn't been looking forward to the meeting between the three of them that Gemma had planned for them to have, plus he hadn't liked the idea of Scott and Gemma living together, even in separate rooms, whilst the divorce went through. Scott signing the paperwork and just taking off like he had meant things would be easier for Tim and, he thought, for Gemma, too. Now he had a sobbing woman to help calm.

Over the next two hours he stroked her hair, gently kissed her face and talked soothingly to her. "Gemma, I know you are sad for Scott. I'm sad for Scott, too. After all, he is, or rather he was, my best friend from our early childhood days. I expect I am no longer his best friend, even though I still consider him to be my best friend."

Gemma nodded. "Like I told him, I still love him, but I had to be open and honest with him and I had to tell him that I love you more than I love him. I, we, need to make this right by him. Tim, we have to keep Scott in our lives as your best friend and as my Scotty, the boy who took my virginity and who will always be my first love, my first lover."

At those words Tim felt a momentary flare of jealousy in his heart, but he quickly supressed it. After all, he had Gemma in his life, now. They'd marry and hopefully they'd be able to keep Scott in their lives, somehow.

With him just disappearing, how would they be able to get in touch with him? He had left his phone behind, his email address wasn't used any longer and his social media footprint had vanished entirely. After an initial withdrawal of some money from their joint account, there had been no transactions on the account or on the credit cards.

Tim and Gemma had asked mutual friends who were utterly shocked by the turn of events, and Gemma and Tim felt the suspicion that even if some of them had known where Scott was, they'd not have told them.

Tim had moved into the apartment (which Gemma had owned before she married Scott, being a gift from her wealthy grandparents), and where they had started living as husband and wife, though Tim had decided to change the bed Gemma had shared with Scott. His excuse was that he didn't want to disrespect his friend's memory, but there was also that little flare of hot, burning jealousy, too.

One morning, over coffee in the kitchen, Gemma said: "I hope Scott hasn't done anything silly, like killing himself."

Tim nodded. "I doubt he'd do anything like that, but I guess anything is possible. Look, I think we need to hire a Private Investigator to help track him down. Scott might not want to see us, but knowing where he is and how he is would be good for us, if not for him."

"Do you know any private detectives, Tim?"

"Yes, sort of. You know that my company does a lot of work on secure government contracts, so we do background checks on new hires and we employ a security company to do them. I'm pretty sure that I remember that on their corporate website they listed working as a private detective agency as one of their services. I'll go on line now and try to get some details of what they can do, what they charge."

Two weeks later Scott and Gemma were in the offices of Detectia, a trade name of Brown, Brown and Jenner, Security Services.

David Cline, the detective who had handled the case said, "You both explained to me what had taken place, and how badly you felt about what had happened with Scott. I have traced him, I know exactly where he is, but before I give you the information, I have to say that I think the information that I will give you will make you both feel a damn sight worse about yourselves. You sure you want to know where he is located?"

They both nodded, not feeling able to speak.

"He is in the Saint Peregrine Laziosi unit of the Hospice of Saint Jude, over on West Street."

"He's working in a hospice?" said Gemma, incredulously.

Tim's face had blanched as he had realised the implications of Scott being at that particular address.

"No," replied Cline. "He's not working there, he's a terminally ill patient. He has, at best, a month to live, maybe not even that long."

Gemma gasped and fainted, Tim broke down and began to tear up.

When she came round she said: "On that day, the day he left, I thought he told me the Oncologist had said he was cured of the cancer. But that's not what he said. What he really said was: 'It was something and nothing. It's not relevant to you, so there's no need for you to be worried over it.' He was really telling me he was dying and I ignored what he said."

Several days later Gemma made her way to the Saint Peregrine Laziosi unit of the Hospice of Saint Jude. She had discovered that Saint Peregrine Laziosi was the patron saint of cancer patients, and that Saint Jude was the patron saint of lost causes.

She approached the reception desk of the Saint Peregrine Laziosi unit and spoke with a woman who wore a nurse's uniform but had a nun's habit on her head. "Hello. I'm here to see my husband, Scott Cooper. He's a patient, here." She showed her driving license to prove her identity.

Legally she was still Scott's wife as, due to his disappearance, she hadn't been able to divorce him, yet.

She was led to him room by a different nurse who said: "It's not going to be long for him. In fact, it's a good job you came today. He might not make it until tomorrow."

As she was ushered into the private room, Gemma was shocked, horrified by Scott's appearance as he lay in the large bed.

He was a skeletal shell of the man she had once loved. She looked at him and she realised that she had gotten it all wrong, that she still loved Scott with all her heart. Tim? Damn him for tearing her apart from the man she loved, the man she should have spent the last five months with as he slowly died, alone and, as he had wrongly thought, unloved.

His eyes opened and a smile illuminated his drawn and pained face. "Oh! Gemma! You're here! I had a terrible, terrible nightmare last night! I dreamt you told me you didn't love me, that you loved Tim, instead."

She looked at him and she knew what she had to do. She would have to lie.

"Oh, Scott! I'd never do that to you! You are the man I love. And you are the only man I love!" So, that was only a partial lie.

She stayed with him, and they talked and reminisced about old times, happier times, about people they had known, funny incidents that had happened. She helped change his bed, aghast at how light his body was.

She fed him and helped give him his pain medication. And she asked if she could spend the night with him. It was agreed that she could, as she was his wife and the medical staff knew that if he made it to see another day it would be a miracle. And, yes, although they'd seen more than their fair share of miracles, they knew there'd be no miracle for Scott Cooper.

A nurse found a clean nightdress that Gemma could wear and so she lay in bed with her husband, cuddling together, both sleeping.

The next morning, she awoke and she realised that Scott had passed away during the night.

She pressed the call button and quickly a large and friendly nurse had come into the room. She opened the window a crack and explained that she always did this to make sure that the spirit of the deceased could leave the room to continue their journey.

Gemma looked at Scott and realised that the lines of pain on his face had gone, that he looked more like her Scott, her man, her husband. "'til death us do part" she thought, tears in her eyes.

Gemma went in to the attached bathroom and looked in the mirror. And she saw a monster looking back at her.

She knew with a certainty that whenever she saw a reflection of her face for the rest of her life that she'd see a monster looking back at her.

What she had done to Scott, along with his so-called best friend, meant that she and Tim were both monsters. She also knew she could never love another man as she had loved Scott.

As for Tim, He'd have to serve out his monsterhood well away from Gemma. And that, she thought, would be his punishment, little though it might be.