Rachel Ratajski
Silverware clinks against china plates. Husband holds a sharp knife, cutting into tender steak. Wife sits across the elaborate dinner table from her beloved. She raises her wine glass, eyes beckoning Husband to join her in a toast. A toast to what, neither are quite sure, but a toast seems appropriate to Wife.
“Our first meal together in so long.” Her voice is soft. She is happy to have him to herself now. He has been absent at dinner for a few days. “Business,” he said.
Husband smiles as he raises his glass, “Too long indeed, my dear.” The table is too long for the glasses to reach, but the couple mock clinks them anyway.
Each take a sip then resume eating.
As Husband raises a bloody piece of meat to his mouth, Wife begins to speak again, “How did the business trip go?”
His fork freezes for a moment, “Oh, nothing too eventful happened.”
*
He has always loved big eyes.
Across from him in the café sat a young woman. She looked to be in her late twenties, but these days it has become harder to know a person’s age based on appearance alone. Shiny chocolate hair, clean fingernails, unstained teeth. And most importantly, large blue eyes.
They had made eye contact four times since she walked in an hour ago. Once as she glided past him, twice shyly over their coffee mugs, and the last as she twisted her hair around her fingers with a slight smile on her face. It was all very vexing.
She approached him first. She said something sweetly innocent. He invited her to dinner that night and with a shy nod, she accepted and gave him her phone number.
*
Husband’s teeth sink into the meat, juices filling his mouth.
Wife stabs a potato with her fork. “Uneventful. Was it boring?”
“No, but I couldn’t stop thinking about you. I missed you so much.”
She chuckles and takes more sips of her wine—she loves the dark red color. “I missed you too of course.”
*
She has always loved the times when he has gone on business trips.
Wife loves Husband very much; she has for a long time. But she needs him out of the house sometimes. She needs “me time.” For the first time in two months, he left to go attend to business across the country. On Sunday, he promised five days only, kissed her just the way she likes, and left to catch his plane.
It was Monday when she found the perfect boredom release. She noticed he was staring at her over the tops of the books from the adjacent aisle. She noticed him when she left the library, and he followed her a few blocks before she ducked into a convenience store on the corner. She noticed him when he ‘accidently’ bumped into her next to the Advil and cough drops.
After a moment of consideration, she deemed him adequate to help ease her boredom.
Her lips pulled back to reveal perfectly white teeth, “Excuse me. But are you free tonight?”
*
“Have you heard about that man who went missing around here?”
Husband’s voice makes Wife’s hands freeze for a short moment before she shrugs and continues eating, “Yes, vaguely. It was on the front page of the paper.”
“Police are linking the disappearance to the serial killer they have been chasing for the past year.” He chuckles under his breath. “Finding this man alive doesn’t seem very likely if that’s the case.”
“Why do you bring it up? Just curious?” She is watching him now. Something in her eyes is cautious, but her face is perfectly composed.
Concern shows on his face. He is good at pretending. “I just want you to be careful. People like that are monsters.”
*
The woman was beautiful when they met for dinner. She was more beautiful when she kissed him in his car and suggested they go back to his hotel. And she was especially beautiful when she pulled him down into the bed.
But she was most beautiful when her big eyes widened as his hands wrapped around her throat and clenched down. Maybe for a moment she thought it was a kink. That he would let go. But he wasn’t, and her lungs were starting to burn and the panic quickly made her body sizzle with adrenaline.
Her fingernails clawed at his hands; her mouth open and desperate for air. His legs pinned her down to the bed; her attempts to buck him off were futile. He loved watching her blue, blue eyes stare at him in fear. A perfect moment.
It was a perfect moment until her eyes slowly rolled back as her body lost tension underneath him. He wanted to see the irises again—beautiful, shimmering sapphire against bright white.
Once her body stopped twitching, he released his grip on her neck. Her head flopped back onto the mattress. Gently, he used one fingertip to push an eyelid back.
He needed the eyes.
*
Wife doesn’t like his use of the word monster. Her lips visibly twitch downward, but she quickly hides her frown behind her wine glass and takes a long drink.
Husband notices her reaction but doesn’t think much of it. Perhaps, he thinks, she is just nervous about a man like that at large in our neighborhood. It hurt him when he thinks she would hate him if she knew he was also a monster, even though he would never harm her in any way. She is special to him, since the first moment he saw the life in her eyes.
They are the only beautiful eyes he has never wanted to destroy.
*
She stood in front of the man’s unconscious body, contemplating what to do next. Usually they don’t pass out this quickly.
Her invention was genius. It was designed to leave her victims alive until the last stage. He was only on stage one, when the gloves release their needles slowly into the skin. Painful of course, but usually they stick it out until the third stage. The invention was hidden in a cheap apartment she had signed for without Husband’s knowledge. He was unaware of how she utilized their time apart, and she preferred to keep it that way.
The man’s eyelids fluttered. He was waking up. Blood from the gloves dripped down to the plastic lined floor. The red color was beautiful. She was impatient for more.
As his head started to lift groggily, she stepped over the small pool of red and leaned down to strap the leg constraints around him. Their eyes met briefly; she smiled as he started to yell for help again. He still believed there was a sliver of hope for him. It was almost endearing. Definitely comical.
With the leg constraints strapped down, she walked back to her control panel. She considered him for a moment, saw the red dripping from his hands, and pressed the button labeled “2.” It takes a moment for victims to feel it, but soon he was screaming in pain as a hundred tiny needles slowly sunk themselves into his calves. Her eyes closed as she marveled in the sound of his desperate pleas. Music to her ears. She shivered in ecstasy.
Stage one, hands. Stage two, calves. Stage three, stomach. Stage four, neck.
*
Wife stands. “I’ll get us more wine.” The couple’s glasses are both empty.
She starts to walk towards the wine cabinet in the corner of the room, but the screeching of Husband’s chair being pushed back stops her. She hears him walk up behind her. One of his hands touches her hip and slides across her stomach as he pulls her into his embrace. The other hand tugs at a small section of her hair.
His lips are near her ear. “I’ve missed you, my dear.”
She turns in his arm so she can look at his face. The love she is desperate for is there in his eyes. It makes her smile. Her hands reach up to tangle in his hair. “I love you.”
She pulls him to her lips, kissing him softly—forgetting about the perfectly red wine completely.
*