The Couple in the Glass

The first time she saw them, she didn’t think too much of it. Just an exceptionally attractive, well-dressed couple having dinner together in their multi-million-dollar penthouse while overlooking downtown Chicago. Bev Thomas watched them from the balcony of the apartment, hidden away in the shadows of the night, wondering what it must be like. The apartment she was currently cleaning for work was cherry enough, but nothing compared to the place these two lived in. She'd studied them, admired them, became invested in them, but never once did it occur to her during that first sighting that anything was wrong. 

The woman wasn’t just beautiful; she was elegant. Elegant in the way that women just weren't anymore. Audrey Hepburn, Grace Kelly, Jackie Kennedy. Women who embodied class, charm, and fashion. The woman in the window looked as though she belonged on that same list, regardless of the fact that she was completely unknown to Bev. She wasn’t a celebrity, wasn’t an actress or a singer, and Bev didn’t recognize her from the world of politics. She was just a stunning, refined, angelic individual who looked as though she'd descended from heaven itself to grace the earth with her beauty. She wore a ballgown of sorts, pale-yellow and doused in what Bev could only imagine were real diamonds from the way the material shimmered.

Bev couldn’t help but allow the jealousy to set in. How could one person have it all? If her looks weren't enough, there was the man seated across from her.

He was unrealistically handsome. She was convinced he'd had work done to make him look that way, like he'd just arrived from a factory somewhere, but inside she doubted it. Something about his face told her it was all natural. He landed somewhere between Paul Newman and Henry Cavill. From the Newman side came the piercing blue eyes so deep in color that Bev could see them clearly from the balcony across the boulevard. The stubble of a full beard gave him the timeless rugged quality, but then came the Cavill features. A strong, chiseled jaw, a full head of wavy auburn hair, and a physique that looked as though Michelangelo had risen from the dead and carved it himself.  

Bev's life could have stayed perfectly normal if it had only been that one time, but it hadn’t. She cleaned that apartment five nights a week for an owner that was in town once a year and every single night she found them in that exact same spot. Just looking at each other. The second time, she found herself talking out loud about it. After all, it was just her. The walls weren't going to be critical of her self-monologue.

"The hell are they doing? Every night?" she whined as she dusted away at the shelving and priceless décor. "If I had money like that I'd never cook another thing ever again."

Then it occurred to her, and she nodded to herself at the realization.

"Probably a personal chef. Brings the five-star menu to their front door. Unbelievable."

She watched them as they ate, trying to imagine what the steak and asparagus tasted like when you were that well off, but from what she could tell, they didn’t seem to enjoy it all that much. Probably eat like royalty so much that the glamor wore off, she'd thought. She'd forced herself to ignore them after that for the entirety of the second night. It was when she arrived for her shift on the third evening that the situation started to feel…off. Something just wasn’t quite right about them.

Third night in a row and there they were, seating by the window, candlelit dinner and champaign. It was like watching someone's anniversary on a loop. That night, she didn’t ignore them. That night, she actually moved a chair from the other side of the living room to the window where she could make herself comfortable as she stalked. She began to realize small details about them. Their clothing had changed, but their expressions were exactly the same. Stoic. As she watched their rendezvous unfold, she noticed that neither of them took a single bite of their meals or a solitary sip of their wine. Odd.

Then there was Prince Charming's facial hair. The stubble had been there to begin with, but now the shadow of a budding neck beard was now showing. He hadn’t shaved in a few days. It wasn’t all that peculiar, but something about the couple told Bev that these weren't the kind of people who let hygiene go unattended. It was like the thing in the photo not like the others. As she studied their faces, she noticed that they both looked exhausted. Like they hadn’t slept much. The final observation she made was that they never moved from those seats. When they did shift in place, or push food around on their plates, their movements were subtle, almost careful.

It became almost irritating for Bev. At first, she'd enjoyed daydreaming about what their world must be like, but now the show was becoming a bore. She moved the chair back to its spot on the other side of the room and ignored them as best she could for the rest of her shift, but when she returned for the fourth and fifth night that week, she found them there still. Staring at each other and never moving. Saturday and Sunday she had off, but her mind was completely occupied by that couple across the way. It bothered Bev so much that Monday morning she decided to do a little detective work.

She didn’t have names to go on, so she went about finding them out. She made calls, did some internet searches, even sorted through city and county records to get any information that she could. It took her most of the day, but she finally found something. The penthouse on the forty-second floor on the left-hand wing belonged to a man named Doug Allen. He was some sort of financial wizard and had obtained an enormous amount of wealth day trading. From what Bev could tell, he'd never been married. Must be a girlfriend, she thought. But then she called the front desk of the building the penthouse was in and discovered that Mr. Allen hadn’t used his personal entry sensor or code in over a month.

When she went in to clean the apartment that night, they were there again. Sitting by the window looking like a set of puppets. It was too much for Bev. She was too invested. She made her way across to their building and waited outside until a stranger walked in, walking in behind them and onto the elevator as if she belonged. Thankfully, the ladies at reception were fully engaged in a conversation about the latest episode of Yellowstone and hadn’t noticed.

When she arrived on the forty-second floor, she found herself in a hallway that offered only four options. One penthouse door for each wing of the building. She approached their door and immediately noticed the do-not-disturb placard that hung beside it. She was so nervous she was shaking, but this couple had completely polluted her days and nights. She had to know what was going on if she ever wanted to get back to reality. She didn’t know what she would say when they answered, but she decided she would figure it out as she went. She knocked once with the intention of doing it a second and third time, but when her knuckles connected with the door, it inched open slightly. It hadn’t been properly latched.

She looked at the opening for over a minute, trying to decide what to do. Clearly, they hadn’t heard the knock, as no one came to the door to confront her. Surprising even to herself, she was actually considering letting herself in just enough to get a glimpse. She decided against the idea initially, but as she reached for the knob to close the door, she couldn’t help herself. She shifted it open a little further, just enough to see inside.

There was a small table in the center and on the top were dozens of photos and documents. She'd come this far. She needed something to satisfy her insatiable interest. She approached the table and began to peruse the contents. The photos were all of the couple in the window, but the images were all from afar as if…as if whoever had taken them had done so without their knowledge.

Bev's stomach started to turn as she read through the documents, every one a piece of evidence. Evidence…of an affair. It wasn’t the affair itself that unsettled her. It was the fact that someone had collected evidence of it and had compiled it right here in the home of the man involved. She set the papers down and began to take steps backward as quietly as she could, but a noise behind her forced her to a complete stop.

"You shouldn’t be here," he said.

Bev was frozen, the fear infiltrating every cell. She was caught, but that wasn’t what frightened her. It was what she had walked into. She turned slowly, being careful to control her movements. As she did, she found herself face to face with the barrel of a pistol. The man holding it was calm, but in a way, perplexed. Like he wasn’t sure exactly what to do with this discovery.

"I'm sorry," she started to say, "I—"

"What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here."

"I just…I clean the apartment across the street and…I…"

She couldn’t find the words and any she did came out mumbled through her now shaking lips. She'd never seen a gun in person before, much less had one trained on her face. She couldn’t think, and she could hardly breathe. He raised his free hand and rubbed his forehead as if working through a complicated mathematical equation.

"Move," he said.

"What?"

"I said move. Into the dining room," he said, waving the gun in the direction she was to go.

She did as she was told, inadvertently holding her hands in the air like she was under arrest. She knew it was silly. She would have felt much better if a police officer were detaining her versus what she was currently experiencing. As she emerged into the dining room, the couple she'd been watching for over a week came into view. They had to hear her enter, but they didn’t dare move, and Bev believed she already knew why.

"Douglas, Denise, we have an unexpected guest," he said.

Still, they didn’t move. Bev waited for a verbal confirmation that they were even alive, but then she saw the woman he'd called Denise's throat catch slightly as she fought to control her breathing.

"I think introductions are in order. Why don’t you go first," he said, poking Bev in the back with the gun.

"I…I'm Be…Bev Thomas. I just cle…clean the apartment across the street."

"Perhaps you'd like to tell us exactly why you've intruded upon our evening of wonder and romance Bev Thomas."

"I just…I noticed them having dinner…in the same spot…all last week and I just…"

"You were nosy," the man said, finishing her sentence.

"I was…I was concerned…I didn’t mean—"

"You didn’t mean what? To break into this apartment? To impose somewhere you weren't welcome? But you did it anyway didn’t you Bev Thomas? You know what though, that’s okay. You see, you and I are a lot alike. Curious. You were curious about this beautiful couple, so was I. You can imagine just how curious I was when I discovered that my wife of fifteen years was having an affair with a wealthier, more attractive and apparently more adventurous man."

Bev didn’t know what to say. Her fears were being confirmed, but that didn’t bring her a single ounce of relief. For once, she wished she'd been wrong.

"Since they can't answer for themselves, allow me to complete the introductions. Douglas Allen, my wife's new lover. My darling wife, Denise. As for me? My name is about as important as our marriage was to my whore of a wife."

Again, Bev stayed quiet.

"You must be wondering what exactly you happened upon tonight Bev Thomas, let me illuminate you. You see, I have been tracking this forbidden love affair for over two and half years. Every meet up, every email, every middle-of-the-night phone call that my wife took from the downstairs bathroom as if I wouldn’t hear. Everything. I was so moved by the greatest love story ever told that I figured, why not recreate it? Let the lovebirds live through it all one more time. We've been at it for weeks, Bev, day and night. Every dinner date, every intimate conversation, every single moment of sexual engagement, all of it on replay like a show on Broadway. The obvious difference is an audience of only one to enjoy it," he said, referring to himself.

"She doesn’t have anything to do with this Mike. Just let her leave."

Denise's sudden outburst startled Bev so much that she almost jumped. The woman in the window had finally broken her silence. The man called Mike was still behind her, so Bev couldn’t see his face. Even so, she could feel the anger radiating off him like heat from a bonfire.

"What is the rule, Denise? What is the fucking rule?"

 She didn’t respond, nor did she look away from Doug Allen. Her face was expressionless, but her eyes told the story all on their own. It was clear to Bev that Denise was overrun with fear. She'd messed up, and she knew it. Bev flinched as Mike's footsteps met her ears. He moved around her, making his way toward Denise slowly and methodically like a hungry tiger closing in on a wounded antelope.

"I asked you a question," he said calmly as he arrived at the table.

Again, she refused to answer. Mike sighed heavily and pulled something from his pocket. Before it registered what he had retrieved, the blade of the folding knife had flipped open and had been driven through Doug's hand, nailing it to the tabletop. Doug screamed out in pain and Denise did the same, all the fear, anger and misery exploding out of her.

"Look what you made me do you whore! You worthless bitch! You couldn’t follow a simple set of fucking rules! Don’t break character! Ever! You've ruined the entire sequence!"

When he was done, he collected himself and turned back to Bev. She expected he was about to explain the rules of engagement in this little game he'd created, but he stopped realizing what he had done. Years of tracking, months of planning, weeks of playing out his fantasy of revenge, and he'd never made a mistake. Until now. He turned back around as quickly as he could, but it was too late. Denise had already pulled the knife from Doug's hand. As his front side became exposed, she drove the knife deep into his chest. He gasped and began to stumble backwards.      

She followed him onto the floor, where she pulled the blade out and then stuck it in again. Then again. And again. Doug nursed his wounded hand and Bev watched, frozen in time, as the slaughter ensued. When she no longer had the strength to pull the knife out and Mike was fighting for his last few breaths, she moved up to his head and whispered something in his ear. His eyes went wide, then slowly shut as the final bit of life departed from his body.

What happened next was a whirlwind of police sirens, flashing lights, EMTs and crime scene technicians. People in uniform taking Bev's statement again and again, paramedics checking her for injuries, the flash of cameras as evidence was documented and collected inside the penthouse. She couldn’t bring herself to say much of anything, but she hung on every word as Doug and Denise detailed what they had been through while captives of a madman driven to the edge of sanity by pure rage and jealousy.

When the police had finished their questions and just before the pair were swept off by an ambulance to receive further medical attention at the hospital, Bev had time to ask one single question. She approached the back of the ambulance and looked up into Denise's eyes.

"There is so much I don’t understand…I'm glad you're both okay, but…what did you say to him? At the end?"

Denise smiled to herself like she was about to reveal a childhood secret she'd always promised to take to the grave. She leaned down close so that she could whisper and still be audible.

"I told him the truth. That Doug and I knew he was following us for months and we kept at it anyways. I told him that it made it that much more exciting that he was seeing everything we were doing and it just made us want to do it that much more. I told him that and I told him that the only thing better than Doug and I tearing into each other with him knowing was doing it all over again in front of his pathetic face."

Before she could say anything more, the paramedics came and secured the doors. Bev watched, speechless, as the ambulance pulled away. Since she didn’t have any injuries, she didn’t need to go to the hospital. Instead, she went back to the apartment she was supposed to be cleaning. Lost in thought, she wandered over to the window, looking up to an empty table in the penthouse across the street. Where she'd first seen the couple in the glass.