Be Careful What You Wish For

She started staying out later and later and I was sure that she was having an affair. The final straw came when she came home drunk one night without her skirt or her panties. She had a long over coat over her near nakedness. She got into bed after a quick shower and went to sleep. I refused to sleep with her. Our house had six bedrooms, I found another one.

The following morning, I told her I wanted a divorce. I told her I knew she was cheating on me and I wouldn't put up with it.

She told me that I could have a divorce if I wanted it, but she'd take every penny I had. We didn't have a pre-nup so there was a very good chance that she'd do it. My lawyer told me that I'd only be able to get away with it if I had proof of infidelity.

Aida seemed to smirk at me about that and just glare angrily at me the rest of the time. When I looked at her, I saw nothing in her eyes but sorrow though. Sorrow and pain were etched deeply in her expression, as if she wasn't the one who was doing wrong. Maybe she was being drugged or blackmailed. There was a nagging suspicion in the back of my mind that something was causing her to react that way but I couldn't figure it out. Everyone was sure that Aida loved me like there was no tomorrow. I retreated to my den to deal with my depression over the breakdown of my marriage.

* * * * * *

Aida

My perfect life was falling apart all around me. I'd hoped that Wayne would realize what I wanted. One look at my body should have told him what it was made for. We were drifting further and further apart. He needed to get his head out of his ass and recognize what he was about to lose. At first I hoped that by cutting down on his pussy, he'd snap out of it. But that only hurt me too. There was also the fact that I wasn't successful at it. He could get into bed with me and start rubbing my arms and my legs would just spread for him, dammit.

I had to find another way. At first I thought it would be easy but he just didn't seem to care. For the past three weeks, ever since that woman visited him at work, he's been different. I watched him in his den a few times and saw something I couldn't believe. I have no idea of how to fight that. I took a day off from work and went to see an expert. She told me to ramp up what I was doing because it might help me to wake him up. She also gave me something that I doubt will work. For the money I gave her, it should be gold plated.

I ran into Ace, who'd just come back into town. Ace was acting really differently from the way he'd acted in high school and college. He was attentive. He was really nice to me as well. He complimented me and told me how pretty I was and how pretty I'd always been.

When he told me that Wayne didn't realize how lucky he was, things just spiraled out of control from there. I think that the final straw was when Ace brought me home drunk and I kissed him in our doorway just as Wayne opened the door. Ace looked at him in abject terror and took off. I almost fell into the house. Wayne stalked away towards our den. We were supposed to be having a Halloween party that night and a lot of people including our families were attending.

* * * * * *

Wayne

I settled down into the old comfortable leather desk chair in the den. I didn't turn the computer on. I unlocked the desk drawer with a key that I had the only copy of. I pulled the diary out of the desk. In the few weeks that I'd owned it, the little book had become my prized possession.

I still remember the day the woman had come to my office to present it to me. She didn't have an appointment. She just told my secretary that I would see her. My secretary, Joan, had called me and told me that a woman named Lara Hess wanted to speak with me. It took me a few moments to put two and two together. Joan told me that the woman said it was about Maria. That had sent shivers down my spine even though it was a warm late summer day.

All kinds of emotions went through me. I realized that Laura must be Maria's surviving sister. I felt a twinge of guilt pass through me. I really should have contacted her years ago. I guess that after the accident, I'd been locked in my own personal depression and she'd been in hers over the passing of her entire family. At the funeral, we hadn't really spoken to each other. Now, years later, when the emotions over our mutual tragedy had settled, perhaps we could speak.

She walked into my spacious office and looked around. She smiled nervously. I got up from my desk and walked over to her.

"You have to take this," she said. "I can't have it in my house any longer. Please take it. She wants you to have it."

I began to think that the woman was crazy. Was it grief that had unhinged her or was she just nucking futs.

She looked at me and I was sure that there was something wrong with her. I think if I'd shaken her head it would have rattled. She pressed the worn book into my hands and a look of euphoria passed over her face. I looked down and recognize the book immediately. I had seen it so many times it was crazy. Maria was always writing in it. The edges of the pages were both water damaged and discolored. Part of the cover was burned.

"This...this is Maria's diary," I gushed. "She always wrote out all of her plans for us and how our life would go in it." My joy and hers seemed to be nearly equal.

"How much do you want for it?" I asked.

"Shit, nothing," she said. "She had it with her during the...at the end." Her eyes scanned the room constantly. It was as if she was either afraid of something or looking for a way out. "She wants you to have it."

"Huh?" I thought.

Then the woman turned and walked away. She seemed calmer, almost normal now that she'd accomplished her task. She even smiled as she got to the doorway and turned and said, "It's yours now. My family will be..." her words trailed off as she left. I didn't pay any attention to her. I was scanning the pages looking for things I remembered and trying to find things that I didn't. I knew that the things she'd written the last few days I'd have no idea about since she'd been away from me. This was a chance to read the final thoughts and feelings of my first love.

Somehow, I didn't think about my marriage to the woman I loved. All I could concentrate on was Maria and her thoughts. As I thumbed through the worn pages, my hands tingled. The door to my office shut on its own and I felt strange. It felt as if someone was watching me. I turned around and looked all over the office but saw no one. For a second I thought that Aida was playing a trick on me. She'd done it before. She'd hidden herself in my bathroom while I was out of the office and then stepped out naked as soon as I was alone. We'd locked the door and had sex on the thick pile rug in my office.

An hour later, when we stepped outside of my office as if we'd been going over papers, the several people in the outer office had looked at us strangely. Joan, ever the dutiful assistant, had pushed us back into my office.

"Wayne, you go out and deal with your employees," she'd ordered. "Aida, you wait until they're gone and then go home. And go out the back stairway to the parking lot."

"Why?" Ai had asked her.

"Wayne needs a mirror in his office. Men don't notice shit," said Joan. "Your hair is kind of messy. It has that, "I just got fucked look." Your make up is smeared. You have bite marks on your neck that can clearly be seen. They'll probably fade by tomorrow but right now you look like a fucking vampire got a hold of you. When the door opened, the whole room smelled like pussy and you have cum running down your leg."

"You're a beautiful woman, Aida," she said. "You have an incredible body so men are going to always look at you from top to bottom. Those things are noticeable. You also have this wide eyed, I'm in love, glow about you. Everything about you says, "I just got fucked and I liked it." That's great for you guys but this is supposed to be a place of business."

As I thought about that incident, the atmosphere in the room seemed to turn sour. It was as if the room was angry at me for thinking about fucking my wife. I realized that I was crazy. Perhaps I'd been working too hard. I decided to take the afternoon off and take the book home and read it. I wouldn't be invading anyone's privacy because Maria had passed years before. Maybe reading over her old thoughts would bring me some joy and help me to get over her. I loved Aida with all of my heart and soul but there was still a place in my heart that would always belong to Maria.

Normally, if I went home early, I'd text Aida and have her join me, but that day for some reason, it just didn't seem like the thing to do. I'd see her at home anyway.

I got home and went into the den. I sat down at my desk and started reading the diary. The more I read, the more I couldn't put it down.

I started to feel really strange as if I wasn't alone. The air in front of me swirled as if there was someone there. As I read the scribbled notes and musings in the diary, I felt as if Maria was there with me again. I really needed to get better lighting in the den. Just reading that book for an hour had made me tired. Not just my eyes, my entire body felt drained.

Aida knocked on the door and then came in. She'd been in the den thousands of times. She even worked in here sometimes when she couldn't avoid bringing work home. She looked around the room as if seeing it for the first time.

"Come on Honey," she said. "Let's have dinner. I missed you."

Even as she said that I felt something strange. It felt like a cloud of pure hate. It was as if someone in the room was very angry at Aida. It seemed like she felt it too.

"Let's get out of here," she said. "This room feels strange. Maybe we should have it repainted and get new furniture."

I tried to get up, but I felt really weak. Aida noticed it and tried to help me to my feet. "Maybe we should just get you to bed and I'll bring you something up to eat. You're probably catching a cold or something," she said.

The next afternoon I came home and read more of the diary. As I read it, I imagined how I'd felt back when I was younger and Maria and I were together. I found out things about her and about me that I'd never known. One of the first and most shocking things I discovered was that no teacher had told Maria to ask me to show her around. She'd lied about that. Maria had simply walked into the classroom and saw me. When she looked at me, she'd been drawn to me somehow. I totally understood that because I'd felt the same way about her.

Anyway, her claiming that a teacher had asked me to show her around was fiction. She'd simply thought that it would be a good way to meet me and it had worked. I also discovered that from the very first time that she'd touched me, Maria had considered me her property. In her mind, we'd been soul mates. From reading the diary, I learned that Maria thought that she and I had been lovers in a previous life and we were destined to be together forever.

Maria also believed that she had some kind of powers. She'd written several times throughout the diary that some of the women in her family had an affinity for supernatural abilities. Only the women in the family got "the gift," as she called it; and only one in each generation. That woman usually had red hair. Maria's aunt had it, but her mother didn't. None of her cousins had it nor did her sister. Maria wrote about her ability to enchant anyone with a touch.

I wasn't sure of all of that being true. It sounded like a teenaged girl's rambling fantasy to me. But on the other hand when she touched me, it did feel like magic. Maybe she did have me under some kind of spell. But at the same time, from reading the diary, I learned that there were a lot of times when Maria really didn't want to go somewhere or do something, she often conceded because I wanted to.

So, if she did have me under her spell. I had her under my spell just as much. Perhaps that's what love really is though. Maybe it's just some sort of mutual enthrallment. Or maybe love is the only true magic that exists.

Our relationship, though I'd always seen it as being very easy, was really hard on Maria. She was constantly jealous of any woman that looked at me, even my friends. She'd had actually gone out of her way to glare at and alienate Aida, that first day because she'd seen her looking at me with interest after the incident with Ace. Maria had read Ace instantly, and seen that he wanted her. But he didn't want her in a nice way. He wanted her like some sort of possession or status symbol and she wasn't having it. So, she'd immediately gone on attack mode and was pleasantly surprised when I stepped in to defuse the situation. It had proven her point that we were meant to be together.

I also learned that Maria had been far readier for the two of us to have sex than I'd ever considered. Everything between us had pretty much gone according to the plan she had for us. When she died, though still a virgin, she'd been on the pill because she'd been planning on our first night in our apartment being our first time.

Perhaps the strangest thing in the diary that I'd read, was finding out that she'd never wanted to go on that final trip with her family. In fact, she'd complained about it and reminded her father that her sister didn't have to go. Her father had assumed that she'd only wanted to stay home to have sex with me. She'd told him that she was still a virgin and he'd snorted like he didn't believe her.

She'd told him to put up or shut up and he'd looked at her like she was crazy. She suggested that her mother take her to the doctor's office the next morning and if she was still a virgin, she could stay home. Her father had told her that she was going because he'd said so and that was it.

The next day, I'd driven over to see them off. We had hugged each other tearfully and her parents had rolled their eyes. "Good lord," said her dad exasperatedly. "It's not like you're never going to see each other again. We'll be back in a few days. What are you going to do when you're older and married and he has to travel for work."

"Take her with me," I said. Her dad rolled his eyes again and started the car. Her mom smiled at me and waved goodbye. The last time I saw her before she...The last memory I have was of Maria pressing her face against the car window as they drove off. God, I loved her.

Even as that thought went through me, I swore I saw someone in the room. I only glimpsed them out of the corner of my eye, but someone was there. I turned and looked at the room but I couldn't see anyone. Then I heard it. It sounded as if someone was laughing at me. I settled back in my chair and wondered if I was going crazy.

I'd wasted an entire afternoon thinking about the past. I wondered if I'd ever get over Maria. In a way I already had. I loved Aida very strongly or at least I had until that afternoon.

Then everything changed.

"You aren't meant to be with that bloated whore." I heard the words as clearly as if someone had been in the room next to me. "She's cheating on you."

I turned and there was a translucent figure standing or hovering near me. I say hovering because the figure didn't have a complete body. I went into shock. I jumped back so fast I knocked the heavy desk chair over and ended up sprawling on the floor. I looked up and the figure was still there.

As I looked at the figure the face though clearly not solid was recognizable. It was Maria. She didn't look as if she'd aged a day since I last saw her. Years had passed for me. I was twenty six years old, but she still looked the way she had at eighteen.

"Whoah, shit," I yelled. "Stay the fuck back." I tried to make the cross using both of my index fingers. She smiled and moved towards me.

"I'm not a vampire," she smirked. "Besides, I'm only here because you and I feel the same still."

"What...what...what do y-y-you mean?" I stuttered.

"My spirit hasn't been able to pass on," she said seriously. "There are things that I was never able to accomplish while I was here. Those things will not allow my spirit to rest."

As she looked at me her face grew more solid and her body stayed translucent.

"Wayne, Honey, it has taken me years to get strong enough to manifest myself so you can see me. It takes a great deal of power to do it," she said. "Wayne, I could always feel it when you thought about me strongly enough. But I needed something to bring us back together. Spirits sometimes attach themselves to objects. In my case, it was my diary. I've been working for years to get my stupid sister to bring it to you. I finally had to haunt her house. I knocked over some furniture and scared the hell out of her kids. But she didn't get the message. I scared her husband so badly that he peed himself. When she asked in frustration why this was happening to her. I spelled it out on the mirror in her bathroom. Give Maria's diary to Wayne. She found it the next day. It was exhausting doing all of that, but I did it for us."

I was exhausted myself and all I was doing was watching her.

"At first, I thought that the fact that I hadn't been able to say goodbye to you and tell you how much I loved you was what anchored me here. But now that I'm here I can see that there's more to it," she said.

"W-w-what?" I asked.

"Wayne, I love you," she said. "I always did. Now I have to protect you from the mess you've made of things."

"I-I-I made a mess?" I asked.

"Yes honey," she said. "You don't belong with that whore. You belong with me. I already told you she's cheating on you. She doesn't love you Wayne. Trust me. I know what I'm talking about. If she really loved you, I wouldn't be here. I'd be happy that you'd found someone to make you happy until you and I are reunited at the time of your death."

Maria's body began to flicker like the picture on an old TV set. "Wait," I said.

"Can't stay," she said. "No energy left. Back tomorrow...love you." Then she was gone and there was nothing left to mark that she'd ever been there except a funky smell in the room.

Sometime later Aida came in to get me for dinner. "Honey, you're burning up," she said. "Let me get you to bed." I could barely walk as she half carried me up the stairs. She brought me soup in bed and showered and then lay down with me.

"Aida, maybe you shouldn't be around me," I said. "We don't need to have both of us sick."

"If you've got it, I want it," she said. "Besides, I promised you for better and for worse. In sickness and in health, remember?"

My mind was confused then. I hadn't had a clue that Ai was cheating on me before Maria said it. Aida certainly didn't act like it.

"Are you done reading Maria's diary?" asked my wife.

"Nope, there's a lot left," I said. "I've been skipping around." I noticed that Aida's face turned then. Maybe it was the suggestion that Maria had made but I started looking at Aida then.

A couple of days later she told me that she was staying home from work, but she didn't she went out of town and didn't tell me why. In fact, when I asked her about what she'd done that day, she didn't exactly lie but she didn't tell me the truth either. She went out of town. I checked her credit card receipts a few days later and found out that she'd gone to New Orleans. She flew to New Orleans, was there for about an hour or two and then flew right back. It almost seemed to me that she'd flown to meet someone, and then came home and not told me anything about it.

My mind went wild. Obviously, Maria was telling the truth. From the very beginning, I'd always wondered why someone who looked like Aida, wanted a guy as normal as I am. For the first few years of our relationship, I'd been wondering when she'd dump me. She never had. We'd gotten married and had been together for seven years. That was it; the seven year itch. Aida had gotten bored with me and now she had the money and the ability to do whatever she wanted so she was out cheating on me.