Tuesday at Six

Insults were her only amusement.

If I were to bring anything now, it is the beauty inside me. Within. No? Don’t I bring enough? For a man, it seems not. Yet, still, there’s a bucket in my hand. No toilet that I could flush; yet, without security, I don’t bring enough.

Now her thoughts drifted to a halt and she looked at herself.

Her face.

Her hands.

On her left, an empty finger.

The toilet refused to flush. The tears refused to stay in.

Music was the way through which she could shut out the truth. But when it came, the truth knew not whether she was near or far.

The lyrics went:

No space for the mothers.

No soft hearts for the times.

No men for the promise.

The tape hissed to life downstairs; a blast of static before the voice began. Chastity dropped the rag and left the bucket. She couldn’t let the baby in her belly hear his words. She scrambled down the stairs to silence the player.

Every Tuesday at six, the ritual was the same.

Belligerent would slide a cassette, spooling and schooling, into the player.

They would sit and dine behind their stolid eyes,

listening to the sound of his own voice nailing and knocking at her like a door.

But now he wasn’t here, she was alone.

She didn’t reach for the dial; the recorded voice reached for her mind.

The tape hissed to life, a phantom from the past Tuesday.

👙➰〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️➰👙

"Dear old Chastity,"

The voice became vituperative.

"You're young,

but, by God, what a body you have. Only good at midnight, just a pawn with one move. Ain’t that right, honey?"

"I married you because you said you could cook...

how could I love you when I love food... My dad... forgot me when he left... how I pine for the offering of your time and energy.

Don't leave me, Chastity... Your submission to me is my only security."

👙➰〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️➰👙

She stiffened.

The air curdled into his shape; the phantom sat where Belligerent used to be.

This was the part where she would get his food. With furtive movements, she began to feed it to him.

The flesh of her dry skin on her finger was peeling.

She couldn't attend to it.

She thought she could touch her brain that way.

If she stuck it up her nose,

that finger, switched it off from his mind games.

"Here, husband, chew quickly, now.”

She stared at his face, watching the rhythmic grind of his jaw. It didn’t look like he was tasting the food, but his eyes rolled back with a glutinous white glaze; he didn’t look at her. To Chastity he was like a machine. Work. Fuel. Work. Sleep.

“My dearest,"

she whispered.

"Just like the patriarchy prescribed,

you will be a big man with a magnanimous heart.

It's a good wife's treat. Isn't it so... son of a king?"

"Maybe some day,

I will find sweet, handsome security.

Somewhere off in the countryside all on my own.

Where the mouth of the mountain calls the light gossamer,

where the silence of security is mellifluous.”

👙➰〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️➰👙

Today, the air in the house felt different.

Heavy.

It pressed against the peeling skin of her finger. It fanned the burning fresh flesh. A premonition that the voice behind the tape would be home soon.

She lived as if she were polished,

gracefully walking around the house with tentative steps, when all she could do was dance.

She was always done up pristine,

like the fine china behind the glass of her cabinet.

Don't change the person you are for a temporary man,

yet today she had dared to step out of the display.

"You always come crawling… like our dog Mike, he would… just like you he would… I got you something…"

His voice trailed off. He held guileful gifts behind his back.

He leaned against the wall.

His eyes squinted menacingly. He could unravel her just by the

way she was standing.

He wasn’t looking for his equal. To him, her presence in the hallway was a blemish. He would have peace without her.

One hand folded into the other like the swirls on a shell. What a sweet little damsel.

He drew closer to her,

knowing she had not been touched by him for days.

Not been seen.

Not been cherished.

👙➰〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️➰👙

"I needed some air and I could’ve eaten… the air that is, if you bothered to leave anything for me."

She offered, in a low tone, something that sounded like a plausible attempt

at a lie or the truth.

She smoothed down the clothes she was wearing.

Flecks floated around her insidiously.

She noted his new haircut and sharp suit;

they looked like incipient signs of a prosperity she hadn’t been invited to share.

He was climbing into the light, while the light was fading for her.

"Are you trying to get big for another man? My preferences are simple. Slim in the summer and a bit of flesh in the winter."

She brought her hands to her cheeks,

her palms damp,

tracing the heat of the blush.

She felt naked.

Her green eyes sparkled with the threat of tears,

and she had a sad smile on her angled face.

A smile would make what was wrong, look right.

Her face was full in all the wrong places and her skin was pale.

Her hair was usually parted,

but today she wanted to be someone else.

It was parted off to the side,

falling just below her jawbone.

👙➰〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️➰👙

"I’m not the only one who got comfortable… keepingyour words to yourself, wasn’t taught to you as a child… but it’s alright. I’ll forgive you like I always do."

"Like you always do?” He laughed a short grim sound.

“I don’t stonewall when I don’t get my way. If you don’t listen, there is nothing you can do otherwise to please me."

His eyes were hard and wide, his gaze trenchant: a juggernaut of dark passion gathered behind his pupils.

They were almost grey,

flashing from old to young.

A moment when his mother was supposed to have been there, she wasn’t there when the lights were out when he called for her. She was meant to provide the model of love and devotion, but had instead left him to make his own version.

The memory flickered and died, leaving Belligerent’s face once again unflappable.

“Fuck!”

She was far too quiet. The shadows of his mind came back, just when he thought he was safe, he swung his arm forward with a flourish.

In his hands were red roses and a box of chocolates.

His expression suddenly winsome as if the dark moment had never happened.

But in the bag was something more than cassettes.

He bent one knee.

"I know you want to look cute and defy me… turn rebellious like those other us, out there, but I would prefer you wear this."

He took out the dress, some of the fabric spilling over his hands like a silk noose: a gift to ensure she was forgotten.

👙➰〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️➰👙

Chastity looked in his hand and saw too much fabric and not enough air.

She reached out, her fingers yielding as they brushed against the cold silk and the skin of her love: him, his mother’s memories. She retreated to the shadows of the hallway to change.

She knew her time was up,

but she wasn't taught that love could be here, and then not.

They were supposed to go to the beach later.

👙➰〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️➰👙

The drive began in a vacuum of stars.

The sound inside was white noise; the aura was maudlin.

Her heart beat a rhythmic da-dum against the cell walls of her stolid,

breathing,

feeble body.

She wrung her hands and the dress,

as if squeezing tears out of it.

She wanted to destroy it,

to burn it.

To forbid him from doing what he’d do at the beach.

Even though she was calm,

she was weak.

Inside the car,

She felt vaporous, pale death inside the damned dress.

Pressed against the expensive leather seats,

she felt the gurgle and the acidity from her stomach.

She swallowed the sour taste and looked over towards her husband.

She searched his profile for a softness he once had: the micro smile when he thought of her, a moment he was yielding to her company and could steal a glance from the road. She remembered a time they had once in London, or on the train to Totnes, when he didn’t want to drive.

She took the Pepto.

She uncapped the bottle.

She swallowed the shame.

👙➰〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️➰👙

Belligerent gave a malign whistle to the tune from the cassettes.

The sound was abrasive against her ears: a blunt butter knife sawing away the last of her calm.

His cadence would go low, his voice would go high; the punch line began with a forced grin.

The car veered and his head lolled when his body waned lethargic;

as if he needed sugar or food.

Rage filled his face but a smile took over when he remembered his plan for

Chastity.

The car hissed to a stop at the shoreline where the squalid ocean froth and the waves collided.

Belligerent didn't wait.

He punched the air with obstructive self-expression.

He marched around to the passenger side and pulled the handle up and

then yanked the door open.

He grabbed her wrist tightly,

forcing her out into the salt air.

👙➰〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️〰️➰👙

"You think just because you're a woman, you deserve to be listened to?” he spat, his eyes flashing grey. “I like women, I am not gay, so what is the difference between looking and staring? If I want to lust after women, I should be allowed. It is what a man does. I can sleep with them if I want. It’s just what we do. What is wrong about that?"

He looked at her angled face,

for the beauty where none was.

She wasn’t a person.

She was a mirror.

She was a mistake.

"I’ll let your own conscience answer that.”

The brackish spray stung her cheeks, yet she stared into the abyssal waves: a perfect whale of teeth for the damned dress.

Chastity clutched the fabric, her knuckles flushed red and the wind began to howl as her dress puffed as though it would reveal her nakedness.

"You spend your money on women because you can’t get them to fall, you can’t get them to stay. You can throw me away like your past, but you will still feel you’ve failed. And so will she."

She looked at him then,

her eyes were wild,

her hair beating against her face like strands of wheat.

"Who?"

“The woman who was supposed to be there. Your mother. I don’t care that they left… both of them, physically and emotionally, you need to get over it. She preferred shopping over you. Your dad prefers his new family.”

Belligerent didn’t move. His eyes crossed over her, but he couldn’t see anything. He couldn’t hear the waves crash, stasis filled his body. Time was outside of him; his spirit was pallid and he felt nothing.

Don't react. Just do.

Don't react. Just...

Every Tuesday at six, the ritual was the same. Chastity let the heavy fabric slip from her fingers. She didn’t feel the bite of the wind or the grit of the sand; she only felt the weight of her suffering dissolving between her toes. The sea of women opened its mouth and swallowed the silk noose whole.

Only this time, no bones were broken: he couldn’t see himself anymore.