I'm Still Not Sure What They Meant By That Description

"I assassinated the entomologist," I said with poised smugness over the uproar in the back of the dim bar in which I was lurking that evening, but my declaration had unexpectedly locked the room into a powerful silence.

"He was a dangerous epileptic," I ventured defensively.

The silence only grew more formidable. It seemed that I had made a miscalculation, even the riffraff at this hole in the wall was seemingly progressive enough to have sympathy for both entomologists and epileptics. Someone muttered drunkenly that he came from a long line of distinguished entomologists, even though he had decided to make his living as a plumber, and he also insisted to everyone present that plumbing was just as distinguished a profession as entomology in a clumsy way that probably left most of those present unconvinced but equally unwilling to quibble with his inebriated logic.

"And what does epilepsy have to do with it?" came from the stout proprietor standing behind the bar in the midst of polishing a mug.

I was staggered by the negative response, thinking I was among intelligent and like-minded individuals. I sheepishly folded my wings back into my carapace with an awkward, cellophane-like crinkling noise that rattled too-loud off the low ceiling in a move that was later described by eyewitnesses as Kafkaesque.

"I am not a bug!" I said softly but loud enough for all to hear as I scuttled away rapidly under the door-frame to find a suitable rotten log in which to hide and lay my eggs.

You fucked my wife.

My clock is an asshole. My clock fucked my wife. I come home one day after work at the gourmet cheese shop, there he is with my wife in the kitchen with an arm down her skirt. After a moment of astonished silence I set down my briefcase and loosen my tie with my eyes turned to the floor. Then I look him right in his fucking face and say, “You fucked my wife, clock. You fucked my wife.” He just stays where he is ticking off the seconds across my wife’s back, she writhes in pleasure, not even caring that I’m watching them. “I am a man!” I scream, while my voice breaks pathetically.

“Tick, tock,” says the clock in a crooning whisper to my wife, who brushes his face affectionately in return.

“Tick, tock YOU, you dog,” she says to him.

“Pfft,” she says to me now, her face turned away absently, giving off hints of understated ecstasy as the corners of her lips upturn slightly like wilted rose petals as another of his hands advances incredibly slowly over her thigh. “You ain’t no real man, this one here, he knows how to please a real woman, and I am a REAL woman, honey, god knows... This man here, he’s got control, he knows just when he’s going to chime, not like you, he knows what turns me on... just shut the fuck up, Ron, I’m coming, I don’t like to talk when I come.”

“I will not ‘shut the fuck up’ Ann. Six years of marriage, Ann, for nothing?? Six years of marriage so I could come home to you fucking a clock?”

“Tick tock,” said the clock, still incredibly calm and controlled even under these emotional circumstances, “Tick, tock, tick, tock.”

“Is that all you have to say for yourself? You are fucking my wife, clock.”

“He’s not a clock, he’s a chronograph, tell him, sugar.”

“Tick, tock,” said the clock.

“That’s right,” says my wife.

I go over into the kitchen and extract a bottle of nice cognac from the liquor cabinet and shakily pour myself a tall glass, then take the bottle by the handle and smash it against the wall. They don’t care, they go on making love on the kitchen table. “Tick, tock,” says the clock, as if mocking me. I take a long sip from my glass, it's good cognac, really good, in fact. I go upstairs and, disheartened, feed the gerbil. I pour him a tiny gerbil-sized glass of cognac too, why the fuck not? From downstairs I hear my wife coming loudly and after she’s finally finished, I hear him faintly through the drywall whispering some sweet nothings into her ear, the end of it sounds like, “Your husband is such a fucking dweeb, Jesus, I could really go for Thai, do you want Thai food babe? Ok great, I’ll call it in, tock,” but it’s so muffled I can’t be sure.

I down the rest of the cognac, and despite everything, I have to admit, it’s still good cognac, goddamn.