Clutching three rotten apples in a single hand, she stood at the screen door and waited for the shifting dark clouds to veil the relentless sun. There was a summer storm sliding over the valley, promises of flash floods providing bittersweet reprieve from the heat. Sweat dried sticky on the back of her neck even in the shade of the narrow entryway and something prickled there, all the peach fuzz rising at once. She licked her chapped lips, tasting his spit and waxy remnants of saccharine strawberry lip balm.
With one bare foot wedged in the gap under the screen door, toes pressed to the deteriorating metal threshold, she waited. The sky darkened from ash blue to gray and the damp air thickened, a touch cooler on her face.
“They’re still good.”
She stared ahead through the tattered mesh screen. The half mile long dirt driveway was spiteful, winding toward nothing but an illusion of freedom. Still, it called for her, begging for her footfall like it had many times before.
“For what?”
Heat hovered at her waist and his leaden hand settled there, squeezing as if her belly were a fistful of sand. Outside, thunder rumbled and rattled the rusted tin porch roof. A lazy breeze rolled through, bringing with it the scent of moist earth and hot asphalt.
“For something,” he whispered against her temple and she shuddered, wishing she could peel back the film of grime and misery he left in the wake of his touch. She’d crawl out of her skin and start over, unmarred, leaving him with the scarred accordioned husk.
“No, I think they’re done.”
Shriveled, off-color, their appeal gone with the shine that only exists for aesthetics’ sake. They’d gone mealy, no pie, nor cobbler syrupy enough to mask that fermented tang. He’d asked her to make something of dead things before, and had sworn that baking, frying, and dressing could bring them back to life. She’d never had the gall to tell him that some things were just meant to become compost, trading their life for another’s.
He kissed her brow, and she went still. She didn’t crack open readily in one crisp, even split like she used to, revealing her lush insides. Overripe, she imagined herself breaking apart into pulp in his hands.
Broad-shouldered and barrel-chested, he blocked her view of the sky. His jaw was strong and tense, his eyes hard and steady. These days, she was indifferent to what she’d once called his charms. He licked his lips, softened his gaze, and she gagged at the abrupt memory of swooning at wispy fantasies of tall, stoic, handsome men rescuing her from loneliness. Another wet press of his lips and unsavory slither of his tongue reminded her that she was once naive and desperate. What had once sweetened her now embittered her. Persistent, he cupped the back of her neck and pulled her closer. Rather than sending a rush of heat down her center and between her thighs, it turned her stomach.
She twisted her face away, a broken laugh crawling out of her throat.
“What’s wrong with you? Relax,” he said, and she’d think it were playful if it weren’t for the deep furrow in his brow.
“I am relaxed,” she said, and stayed in his embrace only to prove him wrong. These little victories wouldn’t deliver her from his sins, but they were something to cling to.
“You aren’t,” he said, and forced her closer, leaning in to bite the fullest part of her cheek. The indentations would fade, never deep enough to wound but enough to lay claim. Its phantom scars took the shape of his name and sometimes she caught him looking, eyes scanning her face. He often smiled then, knowing she was his imperishable meal. At night, she closed her eyes and imagined his grin slicing her into six haphazard segments. She’d lie vacantly and let him gnaw at her at his discretion until she was left oxidized and undesirable. Then she’d decay, blissfully, in hopes of growing into something new.
“Stop.”
The weak shove at his chest didn’t deter him from crowding her, and her stinging cheek didn’t deter her from going pliant, just for a moment. She opened her mouth, let him lick at her palate, then took his fat, nicotine-purpled lower lip between her teeth and bit down.
He winced and flinched back, swiping at his lip, and his thumb came away with a speck of blood that may as well have been an entire pint. “Bitch.”
“I don’t want to kiss you anymore,” she said, and while the bare truth of this confession was thrilling, its impulsivity immediately terrified her. Because it was second nature to her, she cowered. She held out a hand, silently cursing her impetuous nerve and readied an apology. He remained still, unspeaking, and the gleam of exhilaration inside her grew brighter. It urged her to repeat herself, to disregard any reservations and shout, but her boldness was still young.
When he reached for her, she evaded his greedy hand.
“Don’t—”
She stuttered, steeling herself to speak.
“I never want you to touch me again.”
Too long had she been consumed and left with nothing but her core and bits of saliva-coated meat, only to be regurgitated whole, washed as if she were born filthy, and placed in a wicker basket to wait for the cycle to repeat. There’d been a time that she craved this hell, as shameful as that was. Soon she’d lost herself, making a slave of herself in the bedroom and the kitchen, staring into a bowl of macerated fruit and finding kinship. He’d hold her from behind no matter where she was, reciting, ‘I love you,’ as though it were a spell.
His shoulders sagged, his jaw muscles twitched and tightened. “The apples are still good.”
Her jagged nails scraped and dug into the apple’s fragile skin.
She’d been clinging to what was left, tearing through delicate layers to get to beaten flesh, hoping the warm, soured juices dripping over her palm, curling around her wrist, and rolling down her forearm were worth the self-destruction. Dipping her tongue in for a tentative taste, she wondered: Was it sweet enough, this mess?
She licked her fingertips, pulled the juice under her tongue, but his bitterness stuck to the roof of her mouth.
“Taste it then.”
She thrusted one apple against his open mouth, grinding it into his teeth. Though fleeting, the flash of fear in his eyes titillated her and that in itself frightened her. She couldn’t become like him, abrasive and sadistic. No pleasure through retaliation was gratifying enough to excuse stooping to his level. She wouldn’t stay here, canning herself with him here in this perpetual brine.
He reached for her once more, grabbing hold of her collar. She didn’t breathe in his vice that was his fist, nor did she avert her gaze as she took a bite of the apple. Her teeth fit into the marks that his had created and she chewed, pursing her lips in a feeble threat. He clenched harder, a challenge. She closed her eyes, said a silent prayer, and spit.
“What the fuck?”
The moment he released her, she began to tremble, struggling to right herself. She pried open her eyes and dared to meet his. They held no lingering affection, no pain, no alarm at the knowledge that they’d grown rotten. That perhaps they’d always been.
“If you leave, I’ll find you.”
“Do what you want. You always do.”
Knees weak, she opened the screen door and stepped onto the porch. There, the thick air cradled her. The sun cowered behind a cloak of dense clouds and erratic raindrops began to tap and ping against the tin roof. It was a soft rhythm, making way for a sudden downpour that disrupted the dirt-paved driveway and shook the flimsy trees in the front yard. She held her breath and made her way down the warped wooden steps, and onto the dirt path leading to the plastic garbage bins at the edge of their property. Without the protection of the porch roof, the heavy sheet of rain drenched her, soaking her thin clothes to her battered body. She walked through the unyielding onslaught and it washed the sweat from her bruised skin, filling every creased and withered inch. It erased the impressions of his fingertips, and teased its clean taste at the seam of her lips. With her head tilted toward the sky, she swallowed the drops that slipped into her open mouth as if the fresh water could restore the dehydrated tissue pulled over her aching bones. Mud squelched between her toes and she welcomed the mess, reveling in the suggestion of liberation like a once-timid child at the cusp of discovery.
All three apples fell out of her grasp and into the garbage bin, bobbing in the dirty rain pooled at the bottom. Naturally buoyant, they floated up and rose with the water.
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