The Wife (weekend freewrite)

'Don't you know that violence is an expression of an unmet need?' he said with a smile. She wanted to punch him in the face. But he'd beaten her...to the punch, it seemed. She would've rubbed at the sore spot on her cheekbone, burning and already starting to swell, but she could not. He held her hands down tight, fingers locked around her bony wrists.
'Now, didn't your mama ever teach you not to raise your hand to a man?' he showed her that wolfish grin of his that had once made her fall for him – made her fall hard – but now only made her nauseous.
'No, she told me a gentleman would never raise his hand to his wife, so I never thought I'd have to worry,' she spat back, and watched as his grin faltered, but didn't quite die out.
'You're not my wife,' he told her, teeth ground together. 'Nor are you a lady, and I don't think your mama ever said anything about hitting a common whore.'

She felt his dirty nails digging into her bonny-white skin and whelped. 'Please stop,' she breathed, feeling him pushing into her bones, flesh wobbling under the pressure. He let go of her then, only just slightly, and she felt the marks, raw and red on her perfect arms. He let her drop unto the marble floor and walked away, closing the door of his study behind him, making it clear she was not welcome.
And she felt it so pointless to follow. She'd heard enough for one night and she shrugged in amazement at the thought that sometimes – many times when they were younger, still first in love – she'd managed not to hear his accusing voice, the ache buried deep under all the layers of tenderness.

You're not my wife.

No, and she never would be. Despite all the gifts she gave him, despite all the kind words, all the love she professed deep into the night, he would never bring himself to see her as her, as the one.

Yes, I can see that. I have to start correcting her behavior.
She formed the words slowly, as she stood up. First in her brain, in the darkness where no one could quite make out what hid behind her smiling face, and then, her lips, still trembling with pain and terror, began drawing the words. Slow and beautiful like a perfectly broken dance. She looked in the mirror at the beaten woman and she promised her she would never be the same after this – she would no longer be imperfect, no longer a disappointment to her beloved.

It started with the bobby pin. She stole it from the servant woman, the old black girl who came to his house every Tuesday and Friday to care for the house. The Wife had always looked upon her with kindness, even arguing with her lover that it wasn't right how he treated her. And even then, she could glimpse the anger in his eyes, how he would've liked to hit her, but resisted 'cause they were young and still perfect for one another. That was before all the little things started setting in, before she heard every other moment how the right woman should be.
So, she stole the bobby pin and hid it in her dress pocket and every time she opened her mouth to reply – sometimes in anger, sometimes begging forgiveness – she would prick herself in the finger, drawing blood and gritting her teeth. She would speak to him, but cold, listless, never too upsetting and never too exciting. Enough to exist in the background of his busy life.
He didn't need the trouble, not with his whirlwind career and she wouldn't want to take him away from everything, she wouldn't want to be on his mind.
She made herself invisible and he was only too keen to forget her, to let her fade. Because no matter how much he enjoyed the fighting and the violence, it did take up a whole lot of time that he didn't really have.
And this new Wife of his blended in much better, with her pretty features and her clean skin. With her charming eyes, though never too much. Yes, just what he needed.

Rain and lightening put an end to this, to the unsettling quiet that had seized the entire house . It had been a strange few days, when neither of them had been able to get out of the house, not that the Wife went out much. Nowadays, she was content with sitting at the window, staring into the valley of dying trees behind their house, watching as the leaves flew by her window and the trees moaned and cried out after their lost children.

She was crying too, although after what, she wasn't quite sure. She just felt it in the mist, in the sun going down earlier and earlier each day, she felt something setting in her, a death that hadn't been there before. But then, something miraculous had happened. The rain had come, powerful, hammering down against the front door so that when he opened it on Monday morning, he was drenched within seconds and realized – to the shock of the both of them – that he couldn't quite leave. He'd stay in, he'd said, he'd wait it out.
And he'd waited and he'd waited and he'd found that the rain can be a very patient waiter too. So he'd popped up to her room and sat by her on her window seat, where she stared out into the world she no longer recognized. He slid his cold fingers into hers, bringing up her hand to his lips.
'I'm sorry,' he whispered, slathering her with kisses. 'I was a monster.'
'We both were,' she said and he smiled because it was the perfect thing to say.

When someone did think to wonder where the promising young man had gone, she just shrugged and nodded in that dumb way she'd newly found. She told them she'd kissed him goodbye on Monday morning as he went to work, as any good Wife would, and hadn't heard from him since. Why, did they think something may have happened?

This is a weekend freewrite based on the prompts offered by the ever lovely @mariannewest. Tomorrow, I shall continue the story I started yesterday. Which is almost always true, now that I think of it.

Thank you for reading,