From Negligee - published as A Woman's Weapon (in Nimrod 51/2)
She looked westward across the road, where beyond a fringe of flowers, thorn trees, and a strip of grass as green as Astroturf, the desert began. The dunes stretched to the horizon, an immobile ocean. She was glad Maryam and Ghada were studying in England, that they had no idea how low their mother could sink. She went back inside, closing the French window behind her and muting the TV. She padded down the humming hall towards the bedroom, her bare feet noiseless on the marble floor, the breeze of the A/C drying her sweat. In the master bedroom – whitewashed walls and Ikea pine, so insipid, chosen by Terry – she stripped. She might not have time to shower. Anyway, Terry never cared. Instead she splashed herself with scent, some rank Indian fragrance she'd bought in the souk, and put on the lingerie.
She didn't feel sexy in front of the wardrobe mirror. The truth was, she looked ridiculous, her face like a papier-mâché mask, her belly not quite flat or firm, her shoulders slightly stooped. She slipped on new black shoes, Spanish ones with pointed toes and stiletto heels. That was better. Then the sheer black negligee. She smeared Lancôme lipstick over her mouth, scarlet and thick, like gore. Then it happened. She felt the hot steel slice her windpipe, saw the bayonet wound across her throat, blood bubbling from it. Her abdomen clenched; her eyes were wide and white and rolling. It didn't usually happen in the daytime. In the first years after Saad's murder it had only occurred in nightmares, then it got worse, so that even after she had awakened, sobbing, and run to the bathroom, she would see the line of blood across her throat, the stone-dead eyes, and not be able to sleep again unless she got drunk. Now she rummaged in her closet, where she had hidden one of her gin bottles, and poured a stiff measure into a tooth mug. She downed it then put some chewing gum in her mouth. Terry would never detect the smell on her breath. Nor would he notice that her throat was cut, that she was bleeding all over him. Or care, the bastard. It wasn't real, she knew, and yet it was, and she was angry that he couldn't see it too.
She touched her throat. The blood was clotting, the gash blurring. She foresaw the sex in every detail. It was so easy to switch Terry on. She only had to raise an eyebrow, draw a hand across the top of her breast, finger her inner thigh, and he would lunge at her like a dog, pushing her against the wall. These days they usually did it standing up. It reminded her of Beirut, coupling in the darkness of an alley while sirens wailed and women screamed and bullets ripped through the night.
The front door opened with a horror-movie creak. She stood behind the bedroom door, holding her breath. She imagined Terry creeping towards her, his eyes like police car lights, a weapon in his hand. A pistol, a knife. A truncheon, thick, hard and heavy. He was coming to punish her, to bring the pain she craved. Any moment now, hurryhurryhurry –
He entered the room. Seeing her, he jumped.
She took a step back, gave him a coy half-smile, opened the negligee like a flasher with a raincoat. Didn't he understand? Feyrouz tried to pout her lips like the veejay. Terry neither moved nor spoke. In Beirut he had been afraid of her, as many of the toughest fedayeen had been. He'd fidgeted and stammered and had sometimes been unable to get it up. Other times he'd come straight away. She hadn't minded: at least she had been in control. But over the years she had lost much of her self-assurance. She was no longer the Sabra houri, but a middle-aged housewife. She couldn't read Terry's face. If he didn't desire her, how could their marriage continue? It had always been about sex. Love – that was sloppy stuff for little girls. She needed the pleasure of pain and the pain of pleasure. She felt vulnerable. If he didn't take her, he would be a sorry excuse for a man. She willed him to throw himself upon her.
"I'm sorry," he said at last, in that nauseating Tony Blair voice. "But I
can't."
Copyright © 2007 Garry Craig Powell.