Susan and Gregory Read a Book

Gregory and Susan had been dating for over a year and Gregory still hadn’t finished reading Susan's favorite book, even though he'd seemed so interested in her description of it when they first met and had promised to promptly read it.

It bugged Susan for reasons she couldn't quite explain.

One night after Gregory fell asleep, Susan took it off his nightstand, where it had sat for months, gathering dust. She read the last few pages and like always, they made her smile and cry. She pressed it flat against her chest, liking the feel of its weight. She gently rolled her chin back and forth across the shallow channel of the pages between the front and back covers, and ran her finger up the soft, wrinkled spine, worked flimsy with age but still hanging on.

It was a wonderful book, Susan affirmed to herself. What a shame Gregory had made so little effort to get through the slightly slower chapters at the beginning to where it really started getting good. And the worst part was that he refused to admit he couldn't or wouldn't read it--no, he was content to just let it sit on his nightstand as if he really did want to, if only he could find the time in his oh-so-busy schedule of temp work and watching televised sports.

"Oh well, his loss." Susan thought to herself as she stretched over to return the book to its dust-outlined resting place on his bedside stand.

Then suddenly something snapped, and on a whim, she beat him to death with it. When the twitching finally stopped, Susan sat down beside his oozing corpse and read every word out loud. When she reached the end, she read it again, and again and again... It was days before their friends got worried and kicked down their door to see what was wrong. What they saw when they reached the bedroom, haunts them to this day.