Near and Dear

It was one of those evenings when Theodore just wanted to come home to someone he loved after work.

Immediately after dropping his old leather briefcase by the door of his house, he scurried off to his bedroom. He sat silently next to his wife on the king size bed, caressing her bulging belly with swelling desire.

“Oh, dear, dear, dear.” He whispered, as if lulling a colicky newborn to sleep. Slowly and stealthily, he reached for a pair of handcuffs in the wooden nightstand.

As the silver handcuffs clicked into place around her thin wrists, she woke up unsettled from her dream. “Honey, I’m way too exhausted. We’ll do it tomorrow.”

Instead of gaining sympathy, this pair of half open, puffy eyes could only garner gales of convulsive laughter, the sheer rumble of which almost caused the bedroom to crumble.

There was a sense of mortification inundating her, leaving a strong tart taste at the back of her tongue. With her brows furrowed into one straight line and lips curled downward, she snarled, “Stop. It’s not funny. Are you drunk again? Take them off.”

“Why? So that you can rendezvous with him every night after I’ve been bankrolling your lavish lifestyle for more than ten years? Do you even know how to keep your legs closed?” He clenched his teeth, shooting her an iron hot glare back that scalded her face.

“Ughhhh… Seriously? Why are you so paranoid all the time? He’s just my ex-classmate. There’s nothing between us. Take them off. Now. I need to sleep.”

“I know it. I know you’ve been keeping me in the dark all along. Don’t you run away from me. You’re supposed to be mine.” Pow. Pow. Clack. He punched the wall twice, unfastened the Panerai watch that she gave him on this year's anniversary, and tossed it onto the ground.

“You’re absolutely delusional! Get a life!”

It dawned on her that her demand would not elicit any rational response. Thus, she attempted desperately to break off the handcuffs with her bare hands — yet to no avail. Hopping off the bed, she then stomped to the door and wiggled the knob in front of her, only to realize that it was locked.

“Damn. This is more than enough, Steve!” Fury is the viper venom seeping into her skin, rendering her ears lava-red.

Upon exhaling a troubled breath, she turned her head and found him clutching a butcher knife.

“What.. What are you doing? Can you put it down? It’s dangerous.” A flinch of fear festered ferociously in her heart, fueling her bile to burn and churn up from her empty stomach. Her mind was contorted into a mishmash, her head a vertigo.

Like a possessed puppet, his stare turned eerily vacant. He did not utter a single word. Step by step, still gripping that fatal weapon, he walked towards her.

“I’m sorry, but you’ve gotta calm down. At least think about our baby. We have a family to build, right?” Defenseless as she was, she was still wallowing in her feeble effort to conjure the last ounce of care and warmth from him.

“I really am sorry.” She reiterated.

“You’re not, dear. You’re not.” He murmured, pivoting his head from side to side. A vicious smirk mounted to the corners of his mouth.

She took a small step back from him, kneeling down languidly, hands shackled over belly. She was a sinner, but he was not a saint. Deep down, she wished she could undo those disgraceful deeds to avert the destruction that was unfolding before her eyes. She wished she could stay faithful to him through and thin, watch her little one grow and glow… And there she went again with countless could haves and should haves. For a moment, all she wanted to do was to throw herself into a deserted cavern, and vanish alongside the unborn creature within her.

Out of the blue, he squatted, seized her chin in a hard grip and said, “Maybe the baby isn’t even mine. But it doesn’t matter anyway. We’ll never ever be able to find out.”

She was speechless. Bullets of cold sweat pelted her pallid cheeks incessantly. Her heartbeat oscillated like a macabre pendulum, tolling louder and louder by each second. The faster her adrenaline pulsated, the sharper her senses grew. Each lift of his brows, each flicker of his eyelid, each twitch of his nose, and each quiver of his lips were equally rattling. The humming sound emanating from the air conditioner became more deafening than ever. The smell of the cologne on his shirt had never been so pungent.

“I need to show you how much I love you. I need to let you feel it.” With full force, he pushed her down on the floor to a supine position, his fingers running over her blue lusterless lips.

Just when her gaze darted to the pristine white ceiling, in an alarmingly rapid chopping motion, he thrust the knife up and down, up and down — through her abdomen, through her viscera. Agape and motionless, she felt many of her innards being lacerated into shards and gouged out. So excruciating was the agony that she was downright numb. The scarlet streams not only splashed the carpeted floor, but also stained the wall and their clothes like confetti. Soon, the breath from her nostrils dwindled, and receded into nothingness. The last sight she saw was him relishing the twisted pleasure of licking off the crimson liquid at the corners of his lips.

Nothing excited him more than the thought of feasting on his wife. Unable to contain his thrill at having that distinct metallic taste lingering on his tongue, he craved for more. He snatched a small slice of flesh from the floor and put it into his mouth. It resembled the roasted pork chops she cooked for him last night — chewy, succulent, and sweet with a hint of bitterness. Once he stripped off her torn, blood-drenched silk gown, he ecstatically picked up the knife again, eviscerating and dismembering her dexterously the way he used to dissect his hunted game animals in his 30s. Within half an hour, her head, neck, limbs, stomach and even fetus were chopped into roughly even chunks. Her organs, however, were left as they were temporarily. Having completed the gory procedures that he deemed necessary, he appeared filthy with big dripping and drying red patches all over him. And off he trotted to the bathroom, with a faint bleeding trail following his feet, leaving the bedroom in a thick, putrid silence.

His collared shirt and pants, reeking of rust, sit restlessly in a sink of saline solution. Rivulets of icy water flowing from the showerhead turned crimson tinged when bouncing off his sagging skin. As he vigorously scrubbed his sparse, sticky chest hair with a soaped sponge, fervid yearnings cascaded down his mind. He contemplated her remains transforming into divine delights. He contemplated every fiber of her being permeating his pores, dwelling in his core for an eternity.

Yes. Two become one. Like butter melting on toast.
Like water trickling through wine.
Blood to blood. Bone to bone. Flesh to flesh.
Sear and crisp up her skin like bacon in the sizzling olive oil.
Simmer the joints and bones to create a broth that gels.
Mince and roll the marinated meat into balls.
Mill the bones into fine powder as condiment.
Grill the sliced and seasoned tenderloins with rich marrow gravy.
Consume all, once and for all.

The shower flooded him with a feeling of being baptized and reborn. Never could he be this close to her, nor had he ever felt this complete. In a state of bliss, he stepped out onto the turquoise ceramic tiles and dried his body with a new terry cloth from a rack. As part of his nightly routine, he lit a cigarette and took several puffs before stubbing it out, which whipped up a dense miasma of sulfur that wafted and shrouded the whole room.

In the midst of going to the kitchen downstairs in his big robe, he heard the bell ring. Oh, shoot. I almost forgot about it.

“Just a minute!”

He placed a record on the hallway’s gramophone and clicked the flip switch. His feet then raced to the front door, whilst the soft, dreamy music wandered around every corner like the specters stalking the living in dark streets.

“Hey.” Standing at the door was an auburn-haired girl with a mannequin-like figure glowing in her fuchsia skirt. Leaning forward, she imprinted an electrifying kiss on his left cheek and smiled with her dimples dancing.

“Sorry for taking you so long, honey. Come on in. I’m still preparing our dinner. But I’ll be very quick. I won’t starve you and our baby.” He said affectionately, his breath still cigarette-tainted, hands on her waist.

“It’s really, really sweet of you. Am I allowed to take a sneak peek at what you’re cooking, Chef Theodore?”

“Sure.” A sly smirk lurked beneath his sapphire eyes, as he led her to his bedroom upstairs. He was getting hungrier and hungrier. Little did she know what the meal would be.