Short Story || Suspense || "Full Disclosure" by Thaddeus Gunn

FULL DISCLOSURE by Thaddeus Gunn

You know the minute you come around the corner and see her under that maple tree that she’s the one you’re gonna tell. It’s like a needle falls into a groove you’re so sure. It’s like everything, the way the light cuts through the branches, the way she’s facing away from you but just turns her head slowly toward you when she hears you coming, the way she pulled her hair back even though you didn’t know she was going to do that—it’s perfect anyway.

Every time you see her, it’s like – well, it’s like a song, like those pop songs that are so stupid until you’re really feeling it, like “Good Vibrations”, like the only thing that embodies the bliss-filled, dizzy feeling you get when you’re just crazy about somebody. Any other day it’d be, no man that’s retarded. But today, it’s all about pickin’ up good vibrations, about feelin’ ex-ci-ta-tions from all those little things she does, like that crazy little snort she gives before she laughs.

But even though you’re all dizzy and soft inside and you feel like you’re walking on tennis balls, you have purpose in your stride as you walk to her. You’re kinda smiling too, but it’s a little smile and it’s on top of a heap of my-heart-is-open-to-you serious. It’s that combo look: happy mouth, serious eyes. You have that look on when you go to her. She puts her arms around you and you put your arms around her. She’s so small your arms go all the way around her like a circle ‘round the sun, right around her ribs, right up to the underwire on her bra. She has to go up on her toes a little to look you in the face, and now you can smell her. It’s something you can’t name, something that she puts on in secret because you’ve never seen the bottle, or Jesus maybe she’s just so good it comes straight out of her pores, you don’t know. It mixes with spearmint smell of her pouty little mouth and the chalky essence of the powder on her forehead. You can feel every inch of her against you: her breasts, her stomach, even her pubic bone and the tops of her thighs. And you remember that when you make love, as awkward and gangly as you may be the rest of the time, when you’re with her, on top of her, inside of her, you are smooth. You are the 1968 Live at the Copa lineup of The Temptations. (Strictly speaking, that’s not entirely true because you throw in some of that David Ruffin sweetness, you know the kind he had on “My Girl”, but that’s usually reserved for after. That’s for when you’re telling her, full voice and not even shy, how much she means to you.)

Her eyebrows go up just a little. She gets that questioning look because you have the “bidness” eyes on. She’s giving you a look that says, “yes?” You say to her something that under any other circumstances would sound stupid. You say, “Baby – “.

You can’t get away with saying “baby” and not sounding stupid or fakey unless you’re black because, let’s face it, black people are so fucking cool and you are so not black. But that’s the awesome power that true love imparts. It gives you the ability to summon blackness when you really need it. So you say “baby” and you don’t sound retarded at all. You say it and you can see by how her expression changes that she knows it mean bidness. Just like when your black friend Roderick from the fifth grade would say, “baby, gimme some sugar” those little girls would just—bam—give it up on the spot.

This is ain’t about that. Not now. You need to speak not the words of your body, but the words of your soul. So, the way you have it planned anyway, after the appropriate pause, not for effect, but because you really need this to line up right before it comes out, you say, “baby – I killed a girl.”

Best thing is, in this scene in your head, she doesn’t even let you finish. You had it all right there, you were going to let her know everything, every detail. You were gonna tell her that you killed this girl with a knife but that you were really respectful and that you were positive—hand on the Bible!—that she hadn’t suffered even for a second. And even though you cleaned her up afterwards the same way you clean up after you’ve bagged a deer, you wouldn’t use the word “butcher”—even though you bled her out and cleaned out her whole body cavity and removed her hands, feet and head. But you wouldn’t say “butcher” because it was an act of caring, you know? And besides, you can’t leave those things because somebody might put two and two together and you have your own needs and interests to take care of, you have your own safety to look out for. You have to survive, you know? You didn’t do anything bad like eat her or anything because, c’mon, you’re no weirdo, right?

But in this dream you’re having that’s becoming more real by the second—she’s there and you’re there and the maple tree is there and you’ve just rounded the corner and the afternoon light is just so—she doesn’t even let you get all that out. In the dream, in the plan, just as soon as the first sentence leaves your mouth, she raises a finger to your lips and says, “Shhh. Don’t say anything else. I don’t care. I love you anyway.” And then her sweet mouth closes on yours and you melt into her body and your whole life, your whole life that has been shit since day one just slides away and all that’s left is your one breath and all that sweetness because that’s what true love does, doesn’t it? And that’s what true love is, isn’t it? When you can tell someone anything?