Toxic

by Nicole Blanchard

It’s a wonder something so mistreated can still respond to the cause of its neglect.

Beside us on the nightstand, an alarm drones, and I mentally countdown the long minutes until he finishes and I can reach over and turn it off. With his arms a relentless cage around me, he stiffens above me and groans. The promise of oblivion fades, taking the blissful sense of nothingness with

He stops me with one hand on my arm and angles his cheek up to me. I oblige him with a kiss, and he says, “I’ll see you for dinner.” The underlying threat of what will happen if I’m late hangs heavy between us. Dinner is to be served promptly at six from an approved menu. The lack of autonomy doesn’t matter. I’ve long since lost the ability to enjoy the food I eat, and it’s but one of the aspects of my life he controls.

“Did someone hurt you, little mouse?” His voice is as empty and hard as his gaze was. An abyss of secrets and lies. He shifts but still doesn’t touch me as he leans forward and inhales. Is he smelling my hair? “Is that why you look like you want to crawl back into a hole?”

He drops back down to the ground and covers his face with his uninjured arm. “If you’re going to yell, can you do it a bit more quietly? My head is pounding like a son of a bitch. I think I nose dived into the tile.” “You better be glad you’re hurt. If you weren’t, I would rip your balls off with my bare hands.” “I think I’ve been a bad influence on you,” he says, smiling even though he’s nearly ghost white beneath his tan. “You’re far more violent now than you were when we first met.” “I wonder why?”