A Good Wife

    "Quit, okay?  I'm busy.  I'm trying to get this done before the kids have to come in and get their baths."  I moved my hip to the right, several inches from his wondering hands as I bent to tighten the corners of the mattress protector.  He wasn't discouraged at all by my refusal, instead he followed me to the other side of the bed, stood, and watched me work for a minute.  "What?"  I asked him as I shook our pillows into their clean cases.  He had a strange look on his face, and considering the amount that he had drank in a short time that evening I had reason to be cautious.

    He shook his head.  "Nothin'.  Not a damn thing."  He tipped back his beer for another long swallow, wiping his forehead with the edge of the frosty glass bottle.  I unconsciously echoed the gesture as I wiped the sweat of my own hard work from my forehead, stretching my aching back and groaning at the satisfying cracks and creaks before pulling the bottom sheet from the laundry basket and snapping it out over the bed.

    His hands were back, rubbing roughly over my ass, trying to pull me against his crotch.  I laughed lightly, falsely, as I tip-toed through this potential landmine, dancing lighter then a prima ballerina away from his unwelcome hands.  Tryin' not to make him mad...  "Let me finish this and get supper goin', then we'll talk, okay?  C'mon baby, just let me get this done, okay?"

    Back up goes the beer bottle, his eyes small and mean over the hand clenched around the beer, draining it before he set it on the dresser.  "See?  That's your fuckin problem.  There's always something that you think is more important.  Your damn kids, you're too damn tired, your damn back hurts...  What about what I need or want?  Huh?  Do you give a shit?  Or don't I even matter?" 

    He was following me as I crept backwards towards the foot of the bed.  This wasn't good.  His voice was too tight, his motions too restrained as though he were holding in a big ball of angry energy.  My mind raced over the night before, raced over the previous day, raced through what I knew of his work today..  And I froze.  Today was Tuesday and on Tuesdays he always had to work with the supervisor that he despised, the one that wouldn't let him do his job "the right way" (his way).  Being told how to do his job always made him feel like less of a man.  And when he felt like less of a man in public or at work there was always hell to pay at home.

    I tried to distract him, to pacify him without having to give in at the same time.  "Of course you matter.  You know that you matter; I love you.  But the kids really will be in in a minute-" He was walking towards me. I was stepping backwards but there was nowhere else to go.  I had let him get me into the corner between the wall and the bed.

    My stomach was clenching up as my heart started pounding so hard that I could almost taste it.  I held up my hand in a stop! gesture without even realizing it.  He had me on the wall, pressing the length of his body against mine,grabbing my breasts hard enough to bruise as he bit my neck.  I was pushing him with both hands; I couldn't breathe!  He didn't budge though, I think that he might have even dug in even closer.  "Please stop, please stop baby...  Later, okay?  Please I don't want them to see this okay?  Just quit!"  I begged, I pushed, I might have gained an inch of ground.  He slammed me back against the wall again, mauling me with no love, only selfish possession.

    "Two fuckin' weeks, two fuckin' weeks since you put out, two weeks you're my fuckin' wife it's MY pussy you bitch my pussy!"  He wrapped one hand around my hair for a better grip, the other hand was pulling at my loose cotton shorts, trying to get them down far enough to get a hand in my panties.

    I was screaming on the inside, I was trying to not scream on the outside, trying to be oh-so-quiet- I can't breathe!  "Quit!  Please just stop..  Not like this please don't make it like this..  Not again, please.."

    Then I did it.  I didn't even think about fighting back; I just reacted and bit his mouth hard enough to make him jerk away from me in shock and cover his lips too late with a rough, work-worn palm, feeling the resulting flavor of his own blood, feeling the echoing throb of my teeth.  For a frozen split second we stared at each other, the only two human beings in our universe.

    Oh God.  He's gonna kill me.  Dear Lord God he's gonna hurt me so bad for that, why did I do that why did I do that WHY DID I DO THAT..??  Then adrenaline dumped it's load into my brain, surging through my body in response to a primitive instinct of survival; it was fight-or-flight time.  I sucked in the deepest breath that had ever been inhaled, feeling scared and suddenly strong enough to get the hell away from this vicious man who only wanted to own, then break any woman unfortunate enough to cross his path and fall for his sugar-coated words.

    I jumped on to the bed trying to scramble across it, trying to get away just as his back hand caught me across the face.  I rolled, slamming in to the headboard, but I was still trying to cross the miles and miles of mattress that was going to get me hurt.  I felt his hands on my ankle, dragging me back towards him on my stomach.  I dug my nails into the cotton beneath me trying to claw my way to safety.  I kicked out, connecting with his thigh, almost free!  I'm going to make it; it'll be okay if I can just get out of this room if I can-

    I almost made it, too, almost.  But his fist pounded down on my kidneys and I groaned, arching backwards and curling inwards.  He dropped down onto me length-wise, jerked my head back by a fist full of sweaty hair, and hissed in my ear, "Go ahead, bitch, scream.  Scream!  Make those little bastards come runnin'  so they can see what a whore their momma is.  C'mon bitch, fight me again, you make my dick hard when you fight me!  Scream dammit!" 

    I bit my tongue hard, knowing that I could continue to fight, to fight to my last breath, but also aware that my babies would be terrified to hear me screaming, knowing that this knowledge was his power over me.  He was counting on the fact that I wouldn't scare them anymore then they already were in this hell house full of jagged words and stinging slaps.

    I tried to be somewhere else when he ripped my shorts down my legs, tried to be anywhere but here when I heard his zipper, tried to stop breathing when he pushed my panties to the side and shoved into me.  I was bone-dry and felt myself ripping like a used piece of sandpaper.  I bit the mattress under my face, disbelief blending with the spirit-crushing thought of "oh-well-nothin'-I can-do-about-it" that was growing like a toxic seed in my brain.  My mind seemed to scatter and flee; for those brief (eternal) moments I was only what lay between my legs.  I was pounds of worthless flesh wrapped around this vagina that kept betraying me by making me a woman.  By being female it seemed that I was born to be a victim of every surge of testosterone that made a man sniff in my direction like a half-starved dog in heat.

    Four brutal plunges, a grunt, and a blood-streaked cock later he collapsed on top of me.  I didn't lift my face from the half-made bed.  I didn't make a sound as he finally stood up.  I willed myself invisible; I tried to simply stop existing.  He zipped his pants back up.  He hadn't even bothered to unfasten his belt; he's just pulled himself through the open zipper.  He slapped me lightly on the ass, playfully like we'd just had a merry old time.  "Better get up before they come in.  You don't want to get them stirred up, do ya?  C'mon, you ain't hurt, get up and start supper.  I'm hungry."

    His step was light when he left the bedroom a moment later, the same bedroom where once upon a time I had whispered that I loved him a thousand times over.  Where I had whispered that I loved him more then there were grains of salt in the sea, more then there were stars in the night sky.

    I heard the screen door slam; he was going out for his "after ass" cigarette, as he called it.  I gagged when I felt him ooze out of me, hot and poisonous and full of hate.  I took a long shuddering breath and died just a little bit more inside.  Wouldn't be long until there was nothing left alive inside of me, nothing left worth damaging in any case.  Instead of dreading this coming time, instead of all of the planning of escape that I used to do before the last baby was born, I found that I was waiting for the numbness that I hoped I would eventually find.  I needed a harder shell, more protection from this unnatural disaster of a life.  If only I would quit fighting him..  It would be easier, better for us all if I would just break instead of only bending to his hurricane-wind, alcohol fueled moods.

    I sat up, only shaking a little bit, and felt my face to see if there was any swelling to have to explain.  I was tender along the edge of my jaw, but nothing like the dull ache over my kidneys and the raw throb between my legs.  At least those hurts wouldn't show; I was thankful that he had been quick this time.  I stood up , sore, but on my feet.  It was time to cook supper for my family, time to act like nothing had happened.  My husband loves me and I love him and isn't the whole world just perfect?  Isn't this what a good wife is supposed to do?