The Road To Hell

I’m not a psycho. I fall in love too easily. Can’t help it. Pretty face, swishy hips and I’m lost. Before you know it, I’m in up to my eyeballs. Mum says they take advantage of me. Trick me. She says I’m a simple man and I’m led by my you know what.

           Mum always sorts it out for me. She says it’s not my fault. I’m too trusting. Gold diggers, she calls them. Says I should let her choose me a nice girl from a nice family. And I was going to. I really was. But then I saw her. My heart went boom boom boom. My stomach went flippity flippity flop. And my other bit, the bit I think with, stood up like a soldier. Felt like I was drowning. Couldn’t breathe.

           I’ve felt like that before. And it’s never worked out. But I can’t help it, I’m a romantic. One day I’ll meet the right one, and there won’t be all these suspicions and tricks. Just love. Maybe it’s her. Maybe she’s the right one. I had to find out, didn’t I? And if she turns out like the others, I’d get Mum to fix it. She’d pay her off, and I’d never hear from her ever again. That’s what Mum says, “You’ll never hear from her again.”

           I miss some of them. Thought I might look a couple of them up a few times, when I’m lonely. But Mum says that’s just my you know what talking, and that if they failed the test, they’re not trustworthy and I need to let them go. She says she gives them enough money to set up somewhere else and never come back. Which is pretty good of her, if you think about it. She could just kick them out on their ears, after all, if you’ve betrayed your fiancé’s trust, you’re worthless. At least that’s what mum says. She says our family reputation depends upon. Our name depends on it.

           But, here’s the problem. Mum’s so fixated on keeping our family name honourable that she keeps sending my fiancées away. In, out. It just never ends. I think I’ve found happiness; I go down to the pub and have a few, wax lyrical about my beautiful bride to be to the locals and then BAM! she disappears. I mean, she doesn’t disappear, not really, Mum says she gives them some cash and sends them on their way when they fail the trust test. But I can see how it looks suspicious from the outside. I’ve had a lot of fiancées. People are starting to talk.

           To be honest, I’m sick of it. Meet a girl, fall in love, find out girl’s nothing more than a gold-digger and she’s gone before I can say goodbye. It gets you down after a while. That’s why I decided I’d let Mum choose me nice girl after all. I just wanted to get off the merry-go-round.

           But then I met her. And she’s different. I can feel it. She’s The One. Do you know what the funny thing is? After all these years I never even knew what the trust test is. I’d go away for a few days, like Mum told me, pretending I’m going away on business and then when I come back, I have to check the keys. I tell the girl she can go anywhere she wants in the house, except one little room tucked away in the back. Then I give her the Mum’s keys.

Mum said she put some sort of paint on the one of the keys. I didn’t know how, but if you go in that little room it makes the key go red. Mum shows me when I get back. The key’s always red. “See?” she says, “She wasn’t trustworthy.” I’m always really upset of course, so Mum gets into bed with me for a special cuddle. She says it’s a forgetting cuddle. It usually works for a bit, too.

But I really like this one, I want to be with her for the rest of my life. I want to make her Mrs Bluebeard and have lots of little Bluebeards. So, I thought if I knew what was in the room, I could tell her and she wouldn’t bother opening the door to find out. It seems a bit stupid, there’s a room in my own house that I don’t even know what’s in there, but this place is massive and I assumed it was full of junk. I couldn’t even see what the fuss was about, why did these girls all have to go and look in the one place they were told not to look in? I’ve lived in this house for twenty-five years, and I’ve never felt the need to poke my nose in there. Until today.

I waited until Mum was passed out on the sofa. She’s always half-cut by lunchtime and snoring by tea-time. I took the keys out of her pocket; she didn’t even stir. Probably because she’s been putting the gardener’s moonshine in her gimlets. She’d pissed herself.

And I went to the room. It’s in the east-wing. I’ll show you. I used the little key and I opened the door. I dropped the key when the smell hit me. And then the flies hit me. And then. Oh god, and then. I saw them. All of them. They’re all in there. I picked the key up. It’s covered in blood. See? It’s not paint. Every girl I’ve ever loved has opened the door to a tomb in my house and thought I’d killed all my girlfriends. I guess Mum would creep up behind and do what-ever it is she did to them. I don’t know how she did it, but there’s a lot of blood. I was sick on the floor.

So I called you, Officers. She’s still on the sofa. She must have vomited in her sleep. By the time I came back downstairs, she wasn’t breathing. I didn’t do anything to her. I’m not a psycho. I just want to be loved.