Free Earth Angels by Bobby Hutchinson

wonder if I’m the only man in town enjoying your favors.” He knew it was terrible and wrong, but he was past caring.
    She stared at him, her dark eyes wide and wounded. The color in her cheeks faded. “You should know better than anyone that there is nothing between those men and myself but friendship, Joseph.” Her voice was a whisper.
    “When I made love to you the first time, I did know. But how would I know now? Since the day I first came into your store, I’ve watched you give your attentions freely to everyone. Flirting with the men in there and on the street. In fact, wherever you go. And after your performance tonight, what am I supposed to think, Emma? Perhaps I’m just a flirtation too. Someone to amuse you.”
    She gaped at him, speechless. Tears glimmered in her eyes. “How can you insult me this way? You—you stuffed shirt! How like you not to understand simple friendship and warmth. You—you’re nothing but a hypocrite, Joseph Gillespie, a holier than thou hypocrite, not saying anything about how jealous you felt all this time, acting as if you loved me.” Her entire body was trembling. “How—how dare you make what we have together dirty? If that’s what you think of me, then get out. Now.”
    She lifted one shaking hand and pointed at the door. “Leave. Now. And don’t ever come back.”
    Rage carried him out the door and down the steps, down the quiet, sleeping streets to his own door. He threw it open, stormed inside and then slammed it as hard as he could. In his bedroom he tore off his suit, heedless of flying buttons and ripped collars. He flung the garments on the floor.
    “You may need to wear those again, Joseph.” Nathaniel picked up his vest and hung it on a hanger in the wardrobe. He sat down on the side of the bed and looked at Joseph, shaking his head. “Now why did you act like that, just when things were going so well?”
    “Don’t you start on me,” Joseph roared. He, who’d hardly ever raised his voice to anyone, now felt as if a bottomless pit of anger had opened up inside of him. He curled his fists, longing to smash something, to destroy something, but there was only Nathaniel.
    “I don’t need or want anymore of your sanctimonious claptrap. I’ve had all I can take from both you and Emma.” He pointed a trembling finger at Nathaniel. “What can you possibly know about men and women? You told me yourself you’ve never really been either. So you can’t have any idea what it feels like to be hurt and betrayed.”
    Nathaniel rose, his kind face sad. “There are human emotions I can never experience firsthand. But I do know how you feel. I see your pain, I hear it, and I’m sorry.” His voice held endless compassion and love, but it also held inexorable truth when he added, “But Joseph, you have only yourself to blame. You need to think about why you projected your own insecurities on Emma.”
    Some distant, honest part of Joseph recognized the truth in Nathaniel’s quiet words, but admission would be more than he could bear right now. Instead, he summoned up all the fury that had driven him like a painful whip. “I don’t need you, Nathaniel.” His awful words spilled like lava, horrifying him, and still he couldn’t stop them. “I never asked you to come into this part of my life. All you’ve done is make a mess of things, urging me into this relationship with Emma, mewling at me that my life was incomplete.” He snorted and threw a shoe at the wall. “Incomplete be damned. I was perfectly happy the way I was. I want you to leave me alone, so I can go back to being content.” He flung the other shoe, and it hit the daguerreotype of his parents that he kept on his bedside table. The glass shattered, and the prized likeness tumbled to the floor.
    Pain overwhelmed him, but Joseph turned it to rage. “Go away, Nathaniel.” The terrible dictum rang like a death knell, but Joseph was too overwrought to call it back. “Get out of my life, and stay