THE ROOKIE
During their first year together, she attempted to plan a surprise for him and spent sleepless weeks fretting over the perfect color for the cake. Eventually, she decided that her best chance was to ask him.
Dressed in her favorite nightgown—-the one he had picked out for her, the first thing she had ever stolen—-she tip-toed into his office and stood next to him at the desk. He continued scribbling notes in the margins of next week's plan and did not look up.
"What's your favorite color?"
She assumed her question harmless enough and was not prepared when, without more than a moment's hesitation, he grabbed the back of her head in the vice of his translucent fingers and smashed her face against the polished surface of his desk. She heard a crack that she realized indicated the break of her nose and crumpled to the floor, a broken checkerboard doll. She barely registered that he had gotten up and left the room.
She tasted blood—pennies and salt and battery acid—and rested her forehead on the floor to redirect its flow. The cement anesthetized the white-hot burning that gripped her face and it dulled to something less. When she had numbed the pain enough to open her eyes, she was not surprised to be greeted by her battered reflection staring up from the dark splotch of blood on the warehouse floor. She felt the swell behind her eyes and knew they would bruise.
"S-s-sorry," she trembled. She promised herself not to ask questions.
A significant lack of response came from the next room.
She laid her forehead down again and wondered for a moment why he had not answered her question before punishing her. She still didn't know what color to make the cake.
She conceded defeat and settled into her temporary bed for the night—there was no way he would allow her to get blood on his freshly laundered sheets. She had worked hard at staying undetected at the Laundromat and had little desire to repeat the trip so soon. She hated ironing sheets.
Focusing on the slowly expanding pool that nudged hotly at her cheek, she pinched the bridge of her nose and set it back into place. It needed to be straight, or she would be useless to her man. Biting hard into her lower lip, she managed to transform her shriek into a pitiful moan. The sharp, unbearable pain that seared behind her eyes left her reeling. The throbbing that she had been busy ignoring returned, its intensity increased ten-fold.
He demanded perfection.
Trying to find a comfortable position for her shoulder against the floor, she became fascinated by the color of her blood against the cracked and stained cement. It was as thickly opaque as acrylic paint or ketchup on the set of a cheap horror movie—the perfect shade of blood red. She fell into a state of blissful unconsciousness soon after this observation.
She made the cake's frosting the same color as his favorite suit.
He refused to eat it.