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| she curled up and listened to the sound of him coughing in the bathroom, the running water failing to mask that atrocious noise. he is horrible, she decided, a crease finding a home between well groomed eyebrows. a perfectly horrible man brought to her by god as punishment for her sins. i wish i had married someone beautiful, she buried her face in the satin pillowcase and dwelled in her regrets. some beautiful and slender young lad with eyes like the sea. he would have taken care of me. ill call him pet names and pour wine for him, and he would thank me with beautifully shaped lips and hold me in thin pale arms and be gentle. but instead, i have this cruel beast who spits and groans, mutters and curses. this violent being who drinks too much and keeps a hideous blade beneath our marriage bed. a perfectly horrible man. her thoughts were grossly interrupted by her husbands presence at the foot of the bed. she looked on with masked distaste as he peeled off the red and gold bathrobe which clung to his hard and muscle-bound figure. she hated it when he flexed. it reminded of her an old cartoon she used to watch, where a testosterone driven freak with bulging veins and shiny skin flexed so hard that he exploded in a mass of blood and muscle. or perhaps she had just dreamed it. either way, her husband flung himself onto the covers and she flinched as the bedsprings shook. he ran his callused hands along her smooth cheek amorously and she closed her eyes, feigning a smile, discreetly withdrawing from his touch. she remembered the first time he kissed her and she cried when he pushed her on to the bed right afterwards and her head had snapped back and hit the wall and she did not remember what happened afterwards well but she was no fool. she had woken up with her skin sticky and salty, and he had left his room in shambles, the sheets were dirty and she let the tears fall in hopes of washing away the sins (they formed a layer of film on everything she touched). his jarring, hoarse voice brought her back to the present most unpleasantly. i want you, he muttered, as he did every night and she could almost recite the passionate yet stale speech which came thereafter, and every dirty word still had her flinching inside (some things never become routine no matter how hard you swallow it). he broke the strap of her gown and she visibly shrank away from him this time. not tonight, she said in a strangled voice. it shook. she shook. im sorry. she knew it was futile. she remembered screaming those two words repeatedly in a silent prayer as her body racked with spasms when she gave birth to his child. a pale and anemic girl which died a few days later, so it was apparent that god did not forgive easily. (but it wasnt my fault!) her husband growled things in his monotone voice that she desperately tried to block out, and his hands crept, obnoxious intruders, down her body, and those intruders gave way to thievery as he held her small frame in his large grip and pulled her closer to him (she closed her eyes and felt faint). i wish i were dead, she thought, i wish i could die tonight with this horrible man waking up and feeling cold dead flesh below him. i wonder if he would still force himself upon me then. the thought was too much to bear and she cried out. he drowned out her voice with his lips pressed firmly against hers, prying ajar her mouth so he could suck out the soul from inside. small weak fists uselessly rained blows upon his back, but it seemed to excite him further. she cried, and those tears were nothing but water to him, and nothing mattered but taking her. she is so precious, he thought fiercely, finding more solace in the delicate white flesh of her neck, sinking his hard, sharp teeth into it and hearing her cry out. my beautiful martyr, so fragile and cold. he knew she would be bruised by the morrow. thoughts of divinity and power raced across his furious mind as he imagined her naked, crucified upon a cross (it was so like her, growing up with religious freaks and homosexuals who prayed for celibacy). cant she see that we are saving each other? she was all that mattered to him, he remembered the first time she kissed him, and lit up every sensation in his body, and he knew they both needed it, to join as one and rescue the other from drowning in the cold. and he had left the next morning, watching her beautiful face as she slept, that porcelain complexion and soft dark hair. she looked just like an angel (my precious savior, my lamb). stop, she protested weakly, bringing him away from the past, but he heard raw need behind her stifled voice and pushed all doubts down with his tongue. she apologized profusely and quietly, and he knew it was to her damned god, so he struck her across the face irritably and she fell silent, blood trickling timidly from her mouth. it tasted like ambrosia. he had almost laughed with triumph last year when that hideous and deformed baby she produced died almost immediately, as a symbol of how much her almighty savior loved her. she was a sweet girl, but such a fool. there is no one for her but me, he thought savagely, shaking her by the shoulders in frustration as he regressed. NO ONE! something snapped. delicate lines of frustration coupled with timidity jerked with a great force and broke apart, neatly like muscle sinew that had been stretched to its limit. and everything was so disgusting and wrong, every little detail that blurred and refracted in her eyes, and he knew something was wrong inside of her because her body racked with spasms and she began choking on her own saliva. he pushed back and she sat up, still shaking, her eyes blindly darting around in their sockets. she was looking for something, looking through the details to find some sort of purity but there was NONE. something snapped. her dark eyes seemed to stare right through the mattress. his heart betrayed him and sank slowly, like a dead weight, shifting toward his stomach, for the strangest reason, and everything he knew flashed before his eyes. he was scared. not the knife, he pleaded, dont! she ignored his words, and quicker than he knew how to stop her, her small hands found her weapon below the bed, that knife he sharpened every evening and stashed under their marriage bed, so he could protect his wife from intruders and thieves. everything she knew came alive in his frightened face and she saw her baby die struggling to breathe, it was weak and struggling in her arms and she had kissed it one last time before it died IN HER ARMS and everything crystallized before her and she felt death creeping over her, sinking into her skin like oil, and out of the corner of her eye, she could see her husband smirk at her, as she cried to block him out. the tears rain upon her stillborn girl like the water she was baptized in. and she hated him so much. no one else had coerced so much suffering upon her, and so self righteously. nobody else had encased her in sin. NO ONE! screaming, she lunged at him, and as the blade sank itself into the delicate flesh of his neck she found solace in how frightened he looked. like a child who had been slapped for no reason, there was sweet bewilderment in his eyes, and sweat covered his brow as she worked the glinting edge through the tendons, and it seemed to take hours, his arms dropped at his side, failing to fight out of surprise. the blood spilled across the white sheets of their marriage bed like tears, but it was all right since they were dirty anyway. she reached the elastic wall of his windpipe, and with more strength than she had ever exerted in her life, she severed the boundary and everything was fine again. he gave a shuddering gasp and fell back onto the pillows, his head snapping back from the mangled and bloody mess that was his neck, hitting the wall. he looked just like an angel, with his eyes closed and his passion gone. more precious than he had ever looked in life. she rearranged her gown with some dignity and placed the bloodstained blade carefully below the bed. she took a deep breath and smiled calmly, surveying everything around her. the filth was removed, and the walls were cleaned from the stains of her sins. the bed no longer rotten with cum and tears. it was all better. everything was pure. she could feel her baby in her arms again, but it was alive and healthy this time, and her young husband who had eyes like the sea cried for joy and loved them both. she curled up and closed her eyes with deep contentment singing in her heart. there was no need to apologize, for everything was forgiven. she fell asleep feeling cold dead flesh next to her, but it was okay. she took his hand. everything is forgiven, dear. it is okay. it is all better. good night. -mimi- |
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