Leonard reached into his breast pocket for his cigarettes, trying not to disturb the soft, dark woman who lay passively with her head rested upon his lap. He brought the softpack up to his long, bristly face and expertly shimmied one right into his mouth. He rolled the cigarette with his lips to the corner of his mouth and then spoke softly to her, “Do you see, Nancy Guthrow, this is why I like softpacks. You don’t have to fiddle around with those stupid cardboard lids. Of course, sometimes when you bend over a bunch fall out."
His right arm returned seconds later with a flame. A long shadow of the couple momentarily appeared on the wall he was rested against while his left hand continued to lovingly fondle her long wavy hair. “Nancy, these are all the things we don’t know about each other yet.”
Then he corrected himself, “I mean these are the things you don’t know about me, the little things, little but important.”
Leonard thought about the first time he saw Nancy through his camera lens. He just absolutely had to have her, and after a little work, he did. He followed her out of the studio to her car, chattering to her in the glowing morning sun and they both got in.
“I just don’t understand why you had to do that Nancy. You’ve really ruined what could have been a beautiful thing, hon.”
Nancy still didn’t answer. She only lay there unaffected, calm. She had no fight left in her.
“This is what I mean Nancy” He picked up and focused on the picture on her driver’s license and saw a very different person. “You pretend to be something you’re not, and now where has that gotten us? I’m afraid we can’t see each other anymore.” And with a dispassionate voice he said, “I have to get back to work now.”
Leonard eased out from under her soft, flowing hair and clambered to his feet. Inspecting the driver’s license he still had in his hand, he turned back to her and said “I see you’re not an organ donor, too bad.”
He flung the plastic identification to his mistress, who made no attempt to catch it. Instead, it landed face down on the floor, next to her naked and badly beaten corpse, in the small pool of blood that was leaking from the corner of her disappointed eye.
Leonard brushed off the front of his body with his hands, took a deep drag and carefully stepped between the scattered cigarettes. It was time to get back to his job at the drivers license center.