Work Text:
Phyllis thinks she hates him the second he walks through that door. He's a man, so he doesn't feel it, but his stupid, square face rankles from the start. But he's a means to an end, in the beginning, and the best she can think of. She flutters her eyelashes.
He's just as dumb as all guys like him seem. He's got that same stilted way of talking, like he's playing it for laughs. He can't get anything to show right on his face, as if he's shy about it. Yet, Walter stands out because he's got an awareness of himself that she isn't used to. She's intrigued. Maybe there'd be something in that, if he could keep his hands off other people's wives, she thinks. He falls for all the usual tricks anyway.
He's never put work into anything worth keeping. His life is empty. Maybe she convinces him that Dietrichson is something to blame. Maybe the femme fatale is just his type. Maybe he's bored. He agrees to kill her husband, if only for something to do.
He thinks he loves Keyes. She thinks she knows better: he just envies him. It's a little pathetic. She thinks Keyes sounds like the kind of guy who has to be righteous because he never got the hang of being liked elsewise. It seems to work, with the way Neff gushes and frets.
He thinks he loves her, which does come as a surprise. Her Dietrichson wanted a good time. This meant getting his wife out of the way. Mrs. Dietrichson became too sincere and too used to him to hold his attention, but her pretty young nurse was fresh and perfectly willing. Neff likes how she looks just fine, but talks about sharing her home and his bed like it's a romance all on its own. It's sweet.
Her husband is killed in her passenger seat, and it should be a victory. She should be ecstatic. There's only a terrible stillness that follows. Neff looks like he's going to throw up. His face is tight at the edges even as his jaw hangs slack. He makes it out of the car,.glad of the excuse to be unsteady on his feet. She stares all the while. The disguise is passable, at least at the distance he's keeping. She can't look at the dead man even as she's stuffing his stiff body into his own boot.
She hadn't been there when the old woman had died. It hadn't been quite so direct. It was a little less than she needed over long enough that it wouldn't raise eyebrows. She'd been out of town the day of, and she'd been married six months later.
It was the sort of life she'd always admired most. She'd cuddle up to a rich man in company, boss about the help, and never work a day in her life. She's bored stiff in a month.
By the time the insurance agent waltzes into her home, she's stir-crazy. Walter makes out like he's too good for all of the schmaltz and the sleaze that has made up men as far as anyone can remember. Doesn't he know that it's going to outlast him, too? She doesn't buy it, but she isn't particularly pleased when she's vindicated. Maybe she's so used to getting her own way she's bored of that, too.
It's worse than that.
Walter's a cut above this crap, or he wants to be. She festers in it. He's trying for something better. He looks up to people like Keyes. He's the same as all the rest, but there's a romantic streak in there that wants to be better. There's something sincere in it that makes her think about things in a new, uncomfortable light.
The moment before he sells her out are the best she's ever felt. Neff makes her think starting over could make her something better. It won't last. He's not got the stomach for all of this. He's a man of the law, of rigid principles. She is a corrupting force that has seduced him away from the things he is proud of.
He says that there's something off about her. She can't fire the shot that will save her, not when it'll take him with it, and thinks he's right.