Face Of The Monster

***5***

Phoebe Kim is in love and she knows it.

Her heart flutters at the thought of seven thirty. Seven thirty, when she will open her doors and Emma will be her first client. Her eyelids will still be heavy with sleep and Phoebe will offer her coffee. Then they will talk.

Phoebe is in love, but she will not let Emma know. She has been in this situation before, and exposing herself is never worth it. I am happy, she tells herself as she downs the last of her coffee. I have a nice house and a pretty girlfriend and a good job. I do not need anything else.

For a moment, it works. She doesn't need anything else. Chloe, her dear, sweet, familiar Chloe is enough.

It isn't as if Chloe hasn't had her own affairs, though. Phoebe remembers them all vividly, remembers feeling so worthless it made her sick.

The first one, when Chloe was still an amateur, she caught sleeping on her side of the bed. She was an aggressively sexy woman: high, pronounced cheekbones, plump lips, honey blonde hair spread all over Phoebe's pillow. What hurt even more was that they had their arms around each other, Chloe's head resting on the other woman's chest.

Phoebe remembers blaming herself that first time. They talked about it, and she came to the conclusion that Chloe was seeking supplemented affection she wasn't getting from Phoebe herself. Phoebe knew it was a problem. Chloe is almost hyper-affectionate, always hugging her or kissing her or holding her or touching her hair; Phoebe, generally, keeps to herself.

The next time, she found a pair of earrings, tiny pearls, perched on her nightstand. The moment she presented them to Chloe, she broke down in tears, begging Phoebe not to leave her. The third time, perhaps the most insulting of all, was when Chloe's lover stupidly texted Chloe a picture she had taken of them together, naked, wrapped around each other. The last time, only three months ago, was with another foolish girl, no more than twenty-one, who was dumb enough to show up at their door and tell Chloe that she was "in love" and wanted more than just "one perfect night" from Phoebe's girlfriend.

And still, these were only the ones Phoebe had caught.

She knows thinking this way isn't healthy. She is thinking in terms of revenge when she ought to be thinking in terms of love.

This morning, she got out of bed at six fifteen and made pancakes and bacon which she left in the kitchen because Chloe wakes at six forty and it would still be hot when she stumbled out of bed to start her day. It made Phoebe feel good to do that, made her feel like a good, worthwhile person. She felt even better when on the drive here, a text from Chloe popped up made entirely of emojis: eggs, eggs, pancake, smiley, thumbs up, multicolored hearts.

But no matter how much she loves Chloe, it doesn't negate the fact that she finds Emma irrefutably attractive. Maybe it's time. Besides, if they get caught, Phoebe has the best excuse in the book -- but you did it first.

There is the problem, of course, of Emma having a husband, especially one who is dying of cancer. Phoebe can imagine all sorts of embarrassing scenarios where Emma recoils from her, disgusted and too spooked to ever come back again.

She gets up and unlocks the front door. Lars isn't here yet -- her first real appointment isn't until eight forty-five. No one wants to get up early to talk to their shrink. No one except Emma, that is.

Phoebe goes back to her office and collapses in her chair. She doesn't feel good about this; she is about to be alone in this building with Emma, and she doesn't know what she is going to do. Nothing, probably, but she can never know for sure.

She hears the door creak open and slam shut. "Come in!" she calls.

Emma's shoes clack across the floor outside Phoebe's office. Outside, the world is beginning to come alive. She hears the agitated trills of mockingbirds in the trees, cars streaking by on the post road. The optometrist next door is outside for a smoke. He catches Phoebe's eye and waves. She waves back and when he isn't looking anymore, drops the shades.