love & poison
by Cleve Lamison
Tonight we’d catch her in the act.
We waited, hidden in the alley behind the house beneath the drooping branches of a rogue willow oak at the edge of the neighbor’s property. Despite the night’s coolness, sweat poured from my face like I’d chugged a tankard of lava. The acrid reek of ammonia hung heavy in the air, an invisible fog, burning the back of my throat. Beneath us, dark stains puddled the cobblestone floor—evidence of someone’s frequent, foul habits. I turned to Colt. She’d grown more talkative as the headaches got worse. “Someone’s been using our backyard as a toilet. How could I not have noticed before?”
“When was the last time you stood in the alley beneath your own bedroom window?” My gal, Colt. Ever the voice of reason.
The answer? Never. I’d spent a big chunk of my inheritance purchasing the brownstone. That had been thirteen years ago, right after Elizabeth got promoted at Chemlab Industries for securing a major military contract. Until recently, I had no reason to spy on my wife.
“I don’t know about that.” Sometimes I couldn’t tell Colt’s voice from my own. “Maybe if you’d kept a closer eye on her, things would never have gotten this far.”
“Maybe. But then we wouldn’t be together.” I ran my thumb along the smooth curve of her backstrap. “Not like–” A rasping wheeze stole my voice and pushed another cough from my throat. With it came a renewed pounding in my skull.
Colt studied me. “It’s getting worse, Jonathan. I’m worried about you.”
“I’ll be fine.” I thumbed a thick glob of neon green veined with blood from my lips. “Promise.” And forced a smile across my sweat-soaked face.
The bedroom lights blinked into life above us. “Won’t be long now, Jonathan.”
The light threw long, slinking silhouettes against the blinds. A salacious shadow puppet theater played out, entangled figures writhing in intimate choreography. My stomach pulled in on itself. Then, the dark shapes pulled apart. Henry Thales—the charming doctor of pharmaceutical sciences—opened the window, and unceremoniously whipped out his privates.
My wife’s voice floated down from the bedroom. “Aw, honey. Not that again. The bathroom is right down the hall.”
The good doctor’s barrel chest rumbled with resonant laughter. It echoed off the alley walls, like thunder coughing against a mountain. “Just marking my territory.” He arched his back and streamed an arc of gold through the silver moonlight. It splashed across the alley floor and spattered my new white sneakers with pungent yellow droplets. A new wave of acrid stink burned up my nostrils.
Ragged breaths stumbled from my chest. I couldn’t stop the sob—it shook me, blurred my vision with tears. My skull rang louder. Low and venomous words slithered into my ears. “Treacherous bitch. She threw it all away for him.”
Had Colt said it, or had I?
I swallowed hard. Another cough threatened to flee my clogged lungs. I stifled it behind my fist.
The good Doctor Thales shook the last drops from himself as Elizabeth’s musical giggle rippled out from the bedroom behind him. He pulled the window closed and went back inside. A moment later, the room went dark.
“Johnny? Lover? You okay?” Colt’s voice sliced through the vertigo whirlpool spinning around my senses. I had no memory of slipping from the alley into the house, but the acrid sting of urine clung to me like guilt on a sinner’s skin.
“I will love you forever, Jonathan.” The words coiled around me.
“I know, babe. That’s why I love you.”
“Do you love me enough to sacrifice in my name, Jonathan?”
Her question squeezed my brain like a vice. My answer came without hesitation. “Yes, Colt. It would be an honor.”
*****
My next memory found us hiding in the dark hall outside the master bedroom, indulging the primal anthem of my cuckoldry, a scandalous duet featuring my wife and the man she preferred. Elizabeth sang his name into the darkness, backed by a chorus of squeaking bed springs and clapping flesh. “God, Hank. Yes. I love you, baby…”
“I love you too, Liz…” He grunted like a rutting pig.
Their declarations twisted in my gut like snakes wrestling in a pool of cold grease. My breath hitched, choked on the sob stuck in my throat. I dug my fingernails into the palm of my free hand, splitting the flesh, filling my fist with blood, but I welcomed the sting. I held on to Colt like a drowning man grips a lifeline.
Reveal them to the light. Whether it came from me or Colt, the thought burned through me, searing, undeniable. I reached for the switch, my fingers slick with sweat.
High end track lighting—Elizabeth had insisted on the most expensive—buzzed to life, and an X-rated tableau burst into clarity beneath its calibrated brightness. My wife spilled over one side of the bed, mounted from behind by the good Doctor Thales.
I stormed into the light, Colt cocked and ready.
“Johnny!” Her unrelenting brown eyes bugged out at me from her place down on all fours. “What are you doing here?”
“Are you serious?” I almost laughed, but another series of barking coughs smothered it. “I live here.”
“It’s game night.” She grunted in response to Doctor Thales behind her.
Doctor Thales offered a squint in my general direction and shrugged. “Sorry, man.”
Typically, I’d be at my D&D meetup at this time. Elizabeth knew this. She mentioned it in one of the countless texts I discovered she’d been sending to her lover.
“I demand a sacrifice.” Colt’s voice?
Elizabeth extricated herself from the good doctor, grabbed one of the lilac-colored memory foams, and used it to hide a pillow’s worth of her exposed flesh. “Please, Johnny.” Liquid pearls streamed down cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. “I know this looks bad—“
“‘Looks bad?’” Colt warmed against my palm, randy with anticipation.
“Okay, Johnny. It is bad. It’s terrible. You have every right to be furious. But don’t we still love each other? If only a little?”
“She never loved you.” Colt said it—I think—but had I not always known? Hadn’t I seen it in the way she looked at me with mild contempt, the way she touched me like it was a chore?
“That’s not true. I did love you, Johnny. I wanted to. I tried to love you. But I was just an acquisition to you. Something to prove you were better than your geeky friends…”
“I treated you like a queen.”
“Only so you could be king, Johnny.” With slender hands, she pushed tears from her cheek in an act of feminine grace. “King of the Nerds.”
“That’s not true. I adored you.”
“Even I know that’s a lie,” Colt said.
Elizabeth’s long-lashed soulful brown eyes grew wide and switched from me to Colt, and back again, her fine features twisted in confusion.
The gun hummed in my palm, warm, patient.
Waiting.
The frown on the good doctor’s face matched the incredulousness in Elizabeth’s. “The hell is he talking about, Liz? What’s wrong with him?”
Elizabeth whispered, “He’s talking to his gun, Hank. I told you. The Mortoxicide 7’s made him delusional. Violent.”
“Mortoxicide 7?” My voice or Colt’s? “Didn’t they mention that drug a few times in their secret texts?” I had spent a small fortune hacking her phone. “Some kind of toxin developed for the military?”
“Shit.” The good doctor pulled away from my wife, his symmetrical face turning the color of ash. “He’s the .0001 percent, Liz.”
“‘Liz.’ She hates that nickname. Or she did when you used it.”
Breathing cost effort. The agony in my brain increased as well. “Jesus Christ. What the hell’s happening? What’s wrong with—”
“Put the gun down, buddy.” Thales wrapped the purple bedsheet around his fist and used it to wipe himself clean of my wife. “You’re having a psychotic break. This is not what you want…”
“You have no idea what I want. My wife…”
“She’s tainted now.” A whisper in my mind. Or Colt speaking to me?
“I am not tainted, Johnny.” Heat burned away the fear in her voice. “And If I am, then it’s you who tainted me—“
The good doctor slipped a white tee shirt over his muscled frame. “Let’s just calm down and think for a minute—“
But Elizabeth went on as if he hadn’t spoken. “You’re not innocent here, Johnny. I know about Kathy. I know what happened at Comic Con—“
“Shut up, slut.”
“How dare you?” Fury flushed across Elizabeth’s face.
Convulsive coughs seized my body and held it captive. I spewed bright green mucus into the air. My trigger finger itched worse than a mosquito bite.
The good doctor swallowed a lump of fear, all hope draining from his face.“Liz. Please…”
Colt waved at her. “I’m in charge here, ‘Liz.’ I’m the boss tonight.”
“You’re insane,” Elizabeth said. “You’re—”
“That’s right, man.” Thales showed me the palms of his hands. “You’re in charge. You’re the boss. How do we work this out, John?”
“That’s Mister Davis to you.” Was it my voice? Or Colt’s? Clarity failed to penetrate the hammering in my skull.
“I’m sorry Mister Davis. How do we work this out?”
“With a bullet,” Colt purred, her giggle vibrating through my grip.
Elizabeth sat up, clutching the sheet to her chest, her face twisted in fear. “Johnny, please. Let’s talk.”
“What’s left to say?”
“Listen, man… ” Thales’ voice wavered, his hands raised. “This isn’t what you want. You’ve been exposed to poison, John—”
“Mister Davis!”
The doctor swallowed, nodding. “You’re right. Sorry. My bad.” He pushed himself up from the bed, muscles rippling as he inched forward, his voice a measured whisper. “Just be cool. Okay?”
“Please, Johnny. Please put the gun down,” Elizabeth sat up, wrapped a white sheet around her. She looked virginal in white. Angelic. “Let’s talk.”
“What’s left to say?”
“I’m sorry, Johnny. Truly. I beg your forgiveness…”
“Sorry you got caught.”
“Mister Davis…?” Thales again, “…Please, Mister Davis. This isn’t real. Whatever you’re hearing—it’s not me. It’s not her. I promise, buddy—”
“I’m not your buddy, Doc. I’m your executioner.”
Colt purred. “I love it when you take charge.”
Doctor Thales took a step in my direction, hands held high. “You’re having a psychotic episode, Mister Davis. Please. Listen to me. You’re about to do something we’re all going to regret. You’ve overdosed on Mortoxicide 7.”
“It’s the active chemical in the nerve agent I developed for the military.” Elizabeth wailed into her hands. “It’s driven you insane.”
I coughed up more thick mucus. “Why would I take military-grade poison gas…?”
“We gave it to you,” the good doctor said. “It was my idea. Small doses over the course of the last year and a half. So that when you died, it would look like natural causes. Stress-related—”
Colt and I shared a single voice. “You didn’t have to kill me to cuckold me. She could have just divorced—?”
“Money.” He looked sheepish. “I know. It’s a cheap and ugly motive. But between the insurance payout and your inheritance.…” He shrugged.
“And don’t forget the prenup. Divorce and she gets nothing.”
“The poison is killing you, John— I mean, Mister Davis. But there’s an antidote.” He took a step closer.
I swung Colt in his direction. “Don’t. Keep your distance.” And tugged at my shirt collar, sopping wet with sweat. An antidote? My thought? Colt’s? Both? Could we be saved…?
“He can’t be trusted. He’s a cheat and a murderer. He’s also a liar.”
“We’re not lying, Mister Davis. We can fix all this…”
Colt focused on a crosshair shaped wrinkle in Doctor Thales’ brow, perfectly framed above his wire rims. “Look at that. A naturally occurring target right between his eyes.” Her metallic chuckle proved contagious. I threw my head back and vomited bone-shaking guffaws that descended into another coughing jag. Every chortle and cough banged against the ache in my skull and intensified it.
The good doctor took a real step forward, his hard brown eyes filled with intent.
“Stop.” Colt focused on the wrinkle between his eyes.
“You got it, boss.” He froze mid step, his confused gaze switching between me and Colt as if he couldn’t decide which of us spoke. “You’re in charge.”
“Filthy liar.”
“I’m in charge?”
“That’s right.” He bared perfect white teeth. A smile?
“Faker than a 7-dollar bill. How could Elizabeth fall for someone so shallow?”
“If I’m in charge then get on your knees.” Colt pointed at the floor. “Beg for your life.”
A sob poured out through Elizabeth’s fingers clamped over her mouth. “Jesus, Johnny—”
The good doctor waved at her, a calming gesture. “It’s alright, Liz—”
“Her name is Elizabeth.”
His knees hit the floor hard, as if his guilt pulled him into submission. “Please, Mister Davis. Please let us live. This can still have a happy ending—”
“‘A happy—’” I coughed up tatters of laughter streaked with blood and slime. “‘A happy ending?’ Are you— Are you serious?”
He conceded with a stoic nod. “Okay. Not happy. But at least it won’t be tragic. But we have to act fast…”
A waterfall of sweat ran down my face, stinging my eyes. .
“...You’re burning up with fever, Mister Davis. You won’t last much longer…”
“Neither will you,” Colt said. Or I did.
“...The delusions? The coughing? The labored breathing? You need the antidote, Mister Davis. But to get it, you’ll have to let us live.”
I spent a moment considering as the world spun round like a carnival ride. “No.”
The good doctor rose to his feet like a pouncing tiger. “Motherfu–”
“Watch out!”
I fingered Colt’s trigger, and she screamed in response, a thunderclap of fire, smoke, and raw, concussive fury. A dark ragged hole flowered in the center of the good doctor’s forehead and his face froze in a curious expression. Shock? Regret? Fear?
“I’m sorry, Liz.” His blank gaze fell upon my wife. He blinked once, twice, and a third time as a single drop of crimson drew a line from the target between his eyes down the slope of his nose. Then, like someone flipped a switch, the back of his skull burst apart like a rotted melon. Scarlet gore splattered the wall behind him. He stood upright for another few seconds before his knees buckled and he slumped forward like a marionette with cut strings.
I was never much of an artist, but in that moment, as I admired the grotesque mural of gore painted across my bedroom wall, a sick warmth filled my chest, something dangerously close to pride. Despite my constricting throat, pounding head, and fuzzy vision, I grew as hard as Colt’s smoking barrel. “Now that’s what I call a sacrifice.”
“It’s what I call a good start.”
Elizabeth screamed through her sobs. “Please, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry, please. If I ever meant anything to you—”
Jesus. Snot and tears poured down her face of perfect angles, and she made it look glamorous. “Maybe—” I squeezed my eyes shut, shook my head to clear away the cobwebs and pain. The poison…
“What? You think marriage counseling is going to fix this? You disgust her. She’s a treacherous liar, Jonathan. She would say anything to get out of this–”
“Then what should I do? How can I…?” I reached for cogent thoughts, but they disintegrated in my grasp like soggy toilet-paper.
“Sacrifice.”
My knees trembled, threatening to betray me. I leaned against the wall as the world dimmed before eyes stinging with sweat.
A blur of movement registered through a hazy fog of pain. Elizabeth leaped from the bed, her mouth stretched wide with a shriek of rage.
She tore through the flesh on my face, raking me with long crimson fingernails.
Wrapped in my fist, Colt threw herself at my attacking wife and the crunch of breaking bone echoed through my brain fog. A fount of blood streamed from Elizabeth’s former perfect button of a nose as she tumbled back onto the bed.
“You know what? Fuck you, Johnny.” Passion drained out of her tone to be replaced by calm resignation. “I’d rather be dead than have you ever touch me again, you limp-dicked--”
I pulled the trigger a second time. Colt roared again, shaking the bedroom walls. Elizabeth’s insides splashed onto the floor, a sloppy wet mess.
A rapid fire burst of the most violent coughs yet erupted in my chest spraying blood and neon green slime. It’s true. They poisoned us. Wait. Wait. Did I really just… What had I done?
“You didn’t love her.”
“Maybe not, but I was very fond of her…”
“Then look at her, you coward.”
“No.” A sob rose from my gut and tore out of my throat. “I don’t need to see that, Colt.”
“Fine, lover. But I know what you do need. Shut up and kiss me.”
Agony burned across my lips as I ran them along Colt’s burning blued length. I used to believe I was the hero in my story. But heroes didn't kiss guns.
What about murdering their spouses?
Convulsions forced toxic green sludge from my mouth and nose. “Oh God. Why did I…? I wish none of this had ever happened…”
“I know, lover.” Colt hummed against my lips, her metal skin burning against mine—scorched, acrid, the taste of burnt powder lingering. “But if wishes were Cadillacs, hobos would drive. Now shut your pretty mouth and kiss me hard.”
My hands trembled like they belonged to a palsied old man.
Colt nudged my teeth apart. She’d tasted like judgment since the day I picked her up. “Sacrifice.”
A final act of devotion. I fingered her trigger until she climaxed a third time.
It was explosive.
Photo of Cleve Lamison
BIO: Cleve Lamison is an award-winning filmmaker and screenwriter renowned for his dynamic storytelling across film and literature. He teaches at the Gotham Writers Workshop and engages in community projects, including innovative programs for military veterans and at-risk youth. Cleve’s narratives often blend the psychological with the surreal, exploring deep themes of human nature and societal issues.