Crime of Passion

She gazes, transfixed, at the blade whose colour, reflected in her irises, seems to penetrate ever pore of her skin. She breathes deeply, remembering how she plunged the knife into his flesh – how she felt it give way, melting like butter around the tip of the blade. She recalls the heavy rush of his blood, its warmth, its metallic odour, its colour, a shade of crimson like no other she had seen. She thinks back, and recalls the imploring tone of his voice, coupled with his hands upturned in a suppliant gesture, as if she were a deity. He had told her in his trembling voice that infidelity was the worst way he could have hurt her. It wouldn’t happen again. He had wrapped his arms around her, all the years of marriage were suffocating her – she had leaned in to kiss him, and she had felt his grip loosening. She bit his tongue and clawed at his cheeks – pushed him to the ground and leant over him, her vision blurring as she realised the enormity of what she was about to do. She had felt the panic spreading through her body, she wanted to stifle it – she kicked him. She wanted, she needed, to hurt him, damage him, break him as he had broken her. This was no crime of passion – this was the ultimate degradation – the grand finale, the end. He had pleaded with her, telling her he loved her – his words had fallen on deaf ears. She had tied him up, gaining some perverse pleasure from the control she had – the control she had yearned for for years. He had pleaded with her – words falling on deaf ears, as she picked up the knife, smiling in a state of insanity. She had laughed manically, passing the knife back and forth between her hands, looking at him. Pausing. Looking down at him, his eyes rolling into the back of his head. Plunging it deep inside him. Removing it. Repeating the process again and again, until her hands were soaked with his blood, and his screams were reduced to groans, his groans to whimpers, and finally – a silence as blank as the whites of his eyes. Respite. Freedom.