Corrosion
by Tríona Walsh
It's morning. And I wake up in our bed. David isn't around. I hear the shower running. I pace the room and distractedly pick up his wallet from the bedside table. Nothing in it that shouldn't be there. No illicit phone numbers, no condoms that have no right to be there.
And he comes from the shower, dripping and clean. He smiles at my rigid form, carefree, as if cleansed right to his soul. "Looking for money there Lisa?" he chuckles as he takes it from my hand. He lets a shadow smile linger on his lips. He turns away and begins to towel himself dry. He was going to say nothing more. There was to be no mention of what had happened. The last nail hammered. A screech from my gut regurgitates itself through my gritted teeth.
As the table lamp smashes on the wall behind his head and the vomited scream permeates the air with its revolting fumes, he at last looks at me properly.
"Everything okay?" he ventures. David's chosen state of denial my breaking point.
I run from the room, down the stairs and out the front door. I'd never be coming back.
***
The strange bitter wind stung me through my thin dress. The September night yielded its stealthy autumn chill. I wasn't drunk enough to keep the cold, or my thoughts, out. The only thing that made me warm was the visceral recollection of his hand on my thigh. His smell, came to me mixed with the wind, slapping me across the face. I looked around, convinced that he was here. But I was alone. I began to walk back, down the dark side street I had emerged from a few moments earlier. Back to the pub.
"Same again." I said to the barman. My stool was still warm.
"You again, so soon?" he asked with a unsuggestive smile.
"Freezing outside" I replied. "I need another drink to keep the cold out. Home then, maybe."
My drink was refreshed and I sipped.The flames of the whiskey licked life back into my body. Waves of warmth flooded back into all extremities. And, as if a message had been sent out on the air, that a fire was burning once again, my phone vibrated. With a message from him.
"Meet me." A statement, not a request. "The same place."
I looked up from the screen, and caught the barman's eye.
"A double this time, please." I swallowed the drink in one, adding fuel to the fire. I pulled my jacket on, leaving it unbuttoned. And the icy blast that hit me this time I left the pub didn't bother me.
I didn't know if he would be waiting for me. I didn't even know if he would come at all. He could have been taunting me. Playing with me.
I made it to the place. Shadows surrounding steps to the first floor front door. Overgrown gardens and discarded rubbish bags.
My eyes adjusted to the layers of black and I made out a figure. Half hidden under the steps. My heart quickened and my body slowed. He didn't bother to say my name or even call to me.
When I got close enough he grabbed my wrist and jerked me forward, and suddenly he twisted me so now it was my back against the shadows. He leaned in and his smell invaded me. His stubble scratched my cheek as he dragged his face down mine, finally finding my lips. And of course his kisses were harsh and sore. And of course his hands were rough and my body and head collided with the concrete wall as he satisfied himself. And satisfied me. He offered me a cigarette which I declined. He lit one for himself and leaned back beside me on the shadowy wall, a vertical post-coital bed.
"Lisa," he chuckled to himself as he exhaled smoke. "Go on now" he said with amusement in his voice, giving me a nudge. "Off home with you."
I stepped back to the pavement and walked, without backwards glance, away. I paused under a street light and straightened up my clothing. I flagged a passing taxi and climbed in.
"Where to love?" came the friendly inquiry from the cabbie. I give him my address and he dutifully headed for home.
***
"Oh my God!" shrieked Isobel, "What a whopping sparkler! David is just wonderful! He got down on one knee, didn't he!"
"He did." I conceded . "Everything by the book."
"You're so lucky." sighed my friend. "Gorgeous boyfriend, sorry fiancé, beautiful home... you're living the dream Lisa, living the dream!"
I looked my friend in the face and tried to compose my features impassively. I didn't succeed.
"What is it hon?" she asked. "You don't seem to be quite as delighted as a bride-to-be should be."
I paused, deciding whether to share my secrets with her.
"Its more like a nightmare Isobel." I finally whispered, hissing air out of my soul, deflating with this admission.
"Oh."
"I just don't know. Maybe I'm blowing things out of proportion..." I laboured, intent to come out with it all. "No, its just that...”
“What?”
“God...This is so hard to say.. David and me..we've never had sex.”
“Ever?”
"Never. I know he wants me, we get, you know, passionate, but whenever I take his hand, to take him to the bedroom, he shuts down. He'll pick a fight, or just say he's not in the mood any more. This has been going on for two years, but he won't talk about it. Are we going to have a sexless marriage? It sounds like madness, surely no one would be happy that way?”
"Maybe he has a problem, you know." Isobel dropped her voice and pointed below the waist.
"Who the hell knows! He's the only one with the answers and he's not telling."
"It'll be okay. You two love each other. You can sort it out, I'm sure of it."
"I just don't know..." I said.
***
The text message lit up the screen. Instructions. I had to bring some cloth. A scarf, a shirt, something like that would do.
I slipped off my wedding ring. He hated to see them.. He'd hit me the one time that I had forgotten. He'd hit me and then left. I didn't hear from him for months. Eventually though, the summonses returned.
I had never been here before. But I knew why he had picked it. The taxi man looked worried as he dropped me off.
"Are you sure this is where you want, missus? It's not a great place to be hanging around for a woman on her own, and at this time of night"
"No, I'm okay" I said composed, utterly calm. The worst thing that could happen to me was what I had come here for. The car pulled slowly away, the driver's conscience uneasy in its complicity.
The tower blocks, empty and boarded up, cast their shadows. A huddle of junkies stared at me as I walked by, but too addled with drugs, or stunned at my presence here, they didn't bother me.
He grabbed me from behind, and dragged me into a deserted apartment. The scream I emitted he stifled with his hand. My scream quickly turned to tears. And he was all tender.
"Don't cry, chicken," he stroked my face. "Shush, hush, its okay." And my sobs subsided.
"That's better. Good girl. Now... did you bring it?" He demanded, my tears a temporary inconvenience. I pulled the scarf from my bag and handed it to him wordlessly trembling. He smiled at it, ran it through his hands and nodded his approval. It is what he wanted. Roughly he tied it around my head, covering my eyes. He lowered me to the ground and I heard his breathing quicken. The stench of wet rotting carpet filled my nostrils, the deprivation of my sight intensifying my other senses. His hands pull at my trousers, knowing he'll find no underwear underneath. As per his predilection.
Betraying me, my tears return. Lying here on my back, in this derelict building,
"Why?" I muttered. "Why?" I asked again.
"Shut up!" he growled and continued. But I couldn't. I couldn't continue, not any more. My soul was dead. The betrayals were too much.
"Please," I whimpered, attempting to sit up, trying to free an arm to remove the blindfold.
"Shut up bitch" he said, but I could tell that I had ruined it for him too.
"I loved you. But how did I ever think I could do this? If you loved me you would make love to me in our bed at home, not rape me in the shadows. How can I live with a man who can't show me his love unless I'm a stranger to him."
He walked away without looking back at me once.
***
It's morning. And I wake up in our bed. David isn't around. I hear the shower running.