My Obsession
by
Daniel G. Snethen
I told myself not to do it and that I really didn’t need another one. But it looked so nice and would go perfectly with the rest of my collection.
She was a farm girl from Kansas, vacationing in Hawaii and I was serving fruit drinks from a little cabana on the beach. At first glance, there was nothing remarkable about her. Oh, she was pretty all right but so too were a hundred other young ladies looking for refreshments at my juice bar.
She may have visited my business several time before I first became cognizant of her. I’m not certain; I never really noticed. But once she took her sarong off and I actually got a good look at her, at it, I couldn’t keep my eyes or my mind off of her.
Even when she was out of sight, I obsessed over her—over it and I wanted it; knew I shouldn’t have it; knew I didn’t deserve it. But hers was the most exquisite I’d ever seen. And I wanted it like none other I’d ever seen before. More so than any I’d already taken.
I didn’t go to work for two days after having first seen it. But still, it was always on my mind.
When I finally returned to work, I half-ways hoped she’d already returned to Kansas—half-ways. Deep down however, I feared she’d done just that, and gone forever would be my opportunity to possess it, and that one thought alone weighed heavily upon my mind, even more so than that which was bothering my conscience.
For you see, I’m not really a bad sort. Actually, I’m a very moral man except for that one thing, that one thought that obsesses me, compels me to go against what I know is just and right. I can’t help it. It controls me. I try not to look but I know it’s there and I must look at it over and over and over again, though it be ten-thousand times.
She ordered a pineapple-papaya with a hint of cayenne pepper and sat across the crescent shaped bar table from me. Asked how long I’d been working the stand. I lied, claimed that Canary’s Cabana had been serving tropical juices for six years now when actually I’d only started the business eight months prior.
I hate answering questions about myself. The truth only leads to more questions and more questions lead to more truths and more truth can only get me into trouble. So, I usually have to lie when someone starts inquiring about me and my past. I hate it, lying that is, but what else am I supposed to do? My life and my past are my business and not nobody else’s.
So I changed the subject. Started asking questions about her life. Tried not staring. Thought about looking the other direction, but that would be rude. If nothing else, I am a gentleman and being rude goes against my nature. So, I looked at her and stared at it. I stared at that one thing which I most desired, at what I had obsessed over those past few days. I almost asked her to leave. I wanted to lie and say she was keeping other customers from being seated, but really, I wanted her to never leave, not as long as I could see it.
She must have known I was staring. But this did not seem to bother her in the least. I am, if you will forgive me, an extremely handsome looking man and she, most certainly, didn’t mind that. In fact, her obsession with my fine looks, and my feigned interest in her, is what allowed me the opportunity to incessantly stare at and obsess over it.
I asked when she was sailing back stateside and she confessed that she was departing in the morning. I should have thanked her then for the lovely conversation, offered her one final refreshment before going back to her lodging but instead my heart began to race, my pulse was pounding and all of the gears of my mind were turning.
Instead I invited her on board The Canary, promising her a couple of peaceful hours of night-sailing under a cloudless starry sky. She said she better not. Would be leaving early in the morning. Once again, I lied. Said it would only be for an hour. Smiled at her and intimated that I wanted to show her something really special.
She fell for it. They always do. Women just cannot resist my smile nor the intensity of my eyes. They always act like they want to resist but, in the end, they give in to that mystique of the romance they wish they had at home but obviously don’t. That’s why they’re traveling alone and so easy to predict and prey upon. Putty in the paws of the predator.
And God, how I wanted it, wanted hers, had to have it, and best take it that night or lose it forever.
We enjoyed our excursion upon the Pacific beneath the starry canopy. Emptied an expensive bottle of Dom Perignon together. Began feeling all warm and giggly inside. She dared me to take my clothes off. I did and she got naked too. I held her in my arms gently kissing her neck. She told me she loved me. Again, I lied, and told her that I loved her too.
I stared at it, getting very aroused. This excited her. Made her laugh some more and smile too.
And then I did it with the precision not even a skilled surgeon could master. After all, I’d performed the operation twenty-two times already.
It was over quickly. Before she had any time to contemplate what was happening, she was dead.
I dropped her lifeless body over the starboard side of my yacht. Her stomach still profusely bleeding. In time, what was not devoured by bull sharks and other sea dwelling scavengers would wash up on the beach. Another unsolved mystery; just another unwary tourist who didn’t understand all the inherent dangers of the South Pacific.
And I would just kick back on my yacht, drinking bubbly for a few days, enjoying the tropical breeze and continue to obsess over my odd collection of trophies, twenty-three in all, meticulously taken over the past eleven years. All of them, but one, perfectly preserved in a cigar-box.
The crown jewel however, a most exquisite one, an outie, the navel of the Kansas farmgirl would be bathing in the effervescent nectar of my long stem champagne glass. And I would take one more drink, gently rolling it around, nudging it, caressing it with my tongue before gingerly placing it with the other trophies of my obsession.
Bio:
Daniel G. Snethen is an educator, naturalist, movie director-producer, poet and sometime storyteller residing on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation of South Dakota. Snethen teaches science and coaches oral interpretation of literature as well as drama at Little Wound High School. Snethen is currently the vice-president of the South Dakota State Poetry Society. He has edited several poetry anthologies and has over three-hundred published poems to his credit. Aside from this, Snethen is an avid animal lover and especially loves lizards. Among his favorite authors are David Goodis, Jim Thompson, Bram Stoker and Robert E. Howard. Snethen’s all-time favorite piece of literature is The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge. When not reading or writing or biologizing, Snethen can be found jamming out to the Hu, a contemporary Mongolian throat singing folk metal band.
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