TWENTY SIX
Holly was going to meet Gideon Cortez.
So exhilarating.
He had planned the date, at one of the most classiest restaurant at River Heights, Warmaukey. Holly had gotten home from work three hours before the meeting time to get ready for her date. She had worn the most fanciest dinner gown she owned. It was a teal backless silk dress. It had two long ropes that could be tied around the neck and left to dangle down her back. There was a slit on the side of her left thigh which began a little above her knee and then all the way down, revealing her leg. The front was a lower v neck that had her cleavages on show. Down her neck dangled her favorite necklace, it was real diamond, which Peter had gotten her for their last year anniversary. She matched the dress with a silver heels and purse.
After she was done beating her face up, she curled up her hair. Her Farraha Fawcett hairstyle which was in full swirls of vermilion-red hair and they plummeted over her shoulders like fiery flames of fire. Afterwards, she did a nervous pose and walk in front of the full length mirror in her room. She put her hand around her waist once to see how she looked through that position. She looked over her shoulder at her ass to see how they jiggled when she walked. She smiled at her reflection to see if she would have to wipe off the red glossy lipstick she had on and replaced it with nude. She did a catwalk. Bent forward a little to look at her cleavages. She made faces. She sat on her bed and crossed her leg to see if that pose looked alluring. Made sure everything was perfect and in order before she began typing a short text to her best friend.
Remember the huge celebrity crush I had at eighteen? Gideon Cortez? I’m having a business date with him in less than an hour. I need to impress him so I don’t lose my job. I wanna pass out, and die, and never wake up. Helpppppp! I need some Elizabeth’s words of encouragement right now!
Attached some pictures and selfies to the text, and then she waited for a response. Pacing the space of her room endlessly, her phone tight in her hand like she wanted to break through the screen. She felt choked with nervousness, almost insanely, and there was this sudden void in the pit of her gut which was from not having anything to eat the entire day because she couldn’t bring herself to seat and eat at all. All through her day at work, she had taken her frustration out on the workers and even on Peter who hadn’t done anything to rile her up.
When her phone buzzed against her palm, it hadn’t been a text from Elizabeth, it was one from her business date. It simply said: I’m waiting. Be here in 20.
_______________________
“Who the hell put something right here to kill me?” There was a grunt of pain and a thud, followed by the agitated voice of Jacob. “Belle, is that you? Have you and your daughter been plotting against me! That little slut!”
Belle had been in the kitchen, preparing dinner and in the process of chopping the chicken she had defrosted when her husband arrived. She hadn’t seen him come in through the front door of the house but she could already hear him cursing as he always did each time he arrived at the front of the house. She gripped the knife in her hand tightly, and gnawed on her cheeks from the inside, trying to suppress the anger she could feel starting to rile up. Her eyes focused intently on the chicken before her, and different thoughts fought to overcome each other in her head. Just before they could go too far, she lodged the knife deep in between the chicken breast and rinsed her hands beneath the rushing water of the tap.
Took a few seconds to stable her breathing before she rose her voice and gave a response. “It’s just the stairs, honey! You probably missed a footing.” Not a first.
There was another grunt and thud, much louder than the first one had been. Then there was silence. Belle held her breath and waited till she heard his voice again, but nothing came. In the living room, audio filtered out the television, barely audible as she had reduced the volume out of the fear that someone would sneak into her house again and she wouldn’t know. She waited a few more seconds for her husband’s voice and didn’t hear anything from him. From the living room direction, she could hear from the TV a theme song for a News channel going off before it was momentarily cut off and replaced by some body beauty products commercial. The best way to feel nice is to look it, the female voice was explaining, “Be bold. Be fabulous. Be you. Take that step today and get yourself a...”
Belle zoned out the audio. Quite the contrary because she had not been feeling too bold lately. She had been paranoid, and terrified, and had terrible nightmares every night. She’d constantly dreamed of a faceless man gutting open her husband with a knife and spewing his insides into a bowl. The supposedly dish was then offered to her as a gift of love. In it, along with her husband’s intestine, lung, kidneys and heart was his head. His eyes were missing and his face contorted into that of agony. The bowl was full of his blood as well. Then his lips moved and he was whispering. She hadn’t heard what was being said at first, but when she leaned in, she picked up the word: “It’s your fault. You did this. You wench.”
Then, smiling, she had lifted the bowl to her lips.
Belle shook the terrifying images off her head. Her body gave a sudden shudder in response. She was utterly disgusted and very much terrified that when she woke up that morning, she had spent a long time being bent over the toilet while she spilled out the content of her belly. She didn’t want to get reminders of the nightmare now.
“Jacob?” Belle called. She crossed the threshold of the kitchen door and proceeded into the living room. The first thing that had gotten her attention was the light breeze blowing up the drapes hanging over the windows, and through her peripheral vision the movement of Coco beneath the center table, rolling on its back and wagging its tail playfully.
The pup hadn’t sensed any intruder.
As she approached the front door, her heart pounded erratically, but that hadn’t restricted her from pulling the wooden door open. It gave way with a loud creak. She stood there for a second or two waiting for someone to jump at her, bracing herself for the impact of a serial killer, too scared to go past the threshold. The front door hung open and she just stood there, draped around her body was her husband’s jacket that looked sincerely too over sized on her. She looked small and petrified within the reach of the glaring fluorescent light over the porch. Fresh breeze poured in from the open space, blowing loose strands of her hair about, and filling her lungs. Her chest rose. In. Out.
Probably she had been hallucinating things, she gas lighted herself to believe her husband was not back and she had just imagined the voice. Oddly, something felt off. Fuck this, she thought and backed away from the door. Just as she touched the handle and attempted to close it, a giant figure suddenly casted a shadow on her. Belle gasped and jumped away from the entrance, until the moment of recognition set in and she realized it was just her husband. Her hand pressed into her chest, she could feel the continuous pound of her heart against her palm. Thud. Thud. Thud.
“Jacob!” She shrieked. He reeked of strong alcohol, Belle registered, and the scent of a day’s long work of sweat and soil from working on the farm. He also looked very angry, like he had been possessed by a demon. The look of annoyance and sneer over his big face was like she’d never seen before. And trust she had seen him angry plenty of times to determine how furious he could get and how violent and ugly things could proceed into. Jacob was a big man, almost giant-like. He was in his late forties and had creases over his forehead from having to work beneath the farm all day, every day. He had long dark hair which he usually had in a pony most times than not. His facial hair was also long, furthermore depicting the fact that he was very hairy. His strong hands were holding tightly to the door frame and his nose widened big and then small as he watched her in annoyance, his bushy blonde brows knitted closely together in a frown.
Belle didn’t know what had caused his annoyance this time and she definitely wasn’t going to stick around to find out. She backed away, slowly at first. “Jacob, what?—”
A sound resounded through the house and a squeal from the small woman. He’d cut her sentence off with a slap. “You bitch!” He said in a roar, quite animal-like. “You thought I wouldn’t find out!” Belle’s body shook at the force of his slap and her left cheek felt numb for a few seconds, ticking almost into a minute. She didn’t know if he had truly found something out or if he was just too drunk to realize he was spewing rubbish. His next words brought her to realization. “You been talking to people about me? Showing them your bruises? Tell me why my friend’s wife threatened to call the cops on me next time she saw a mark on you.”
Belle shuddered in panic, her words came out in chains of stutters. “I d-o-n’t kn-ow what you’re talking about.”
“Well, you’re about to find out what we do to disobedient housewives.” He closed in on her and shut the door behind him. His steps were in a stagger and he was fiddling with the buckles on his belt. “I’m your husband! I own you! I can do whatever I want with you! Nobody, not even the cops, should have a say in our marriage! Now, strip!”
Not today. Belle wasn’t going to succumb to his orders. She knew what was going to happen. He was going to forcefully make love to her, taking out his frustration of the day through the extremely rough lovemaking. Then after he’d hit her with the buckle of his belt, his fists, kicks, anything within reach to inflict pain onto her body.
Belle watched the blue jeans drop down her husband’s pants to reveal his hairy buffy legs and the bulge in his boxer. And just when he thought she was giving in, without as much a fight as she did every night, she raised her leg up and kneed him so hard in the groin.
“Motherfucker! I’ll kill you!” His voice was in a muffled groan. The pain hadn’t taken him down as she’d expected but it had sure left an impact. The moment he was up and wanting a grasp of her in his hands, Belle knew, no one had to tell her.
She was dead!