His hands grip my cheeks, tugging at the flares of my crow’s feet. He is desperate for eye contact; he begs for it with his silence, his screams pulsing under the pads of his fingers. Can you see it? he asks. He wiggles his eyebrows in some nonsensical, thirsty morse code. Can you see my soul?
Yes, I sigh. I sigh—my neck stiffens. I see it, and it is beautiful. You are beautiful. He … is not beautiful. He is nondescript. He is a mosaic of entirely beige and boring and forgettable tiles. He is nothing at all. I do not see his soul. I do not believe in souls. I am doubtful of the existence of a loving and forgiving god. I stopped believing in God a long time ago—when the dishes started to pile up in the sink.
Can you still see it? he asks, as he throws me to the bed and hovers above my face, lips millimeters from mine. You are so beautiful. Aren’t we? Us?
I can see it, I breathe back. His eyes are so close to mine; his eyelashes prod and poke and scratch my cheeks, my eyelids, my cornea. It … is annoying. His breath is hot and suffocating—it stinks of leftovers, the same way leftovers clinging to dirty dishes breathe hot stink in the kitchen.
He kisses me and tells me he loves me. I kiss him and moan. He bites and sucks and squeezes my tits until the pink of my birthmark and pink of my nipples and pink of his teeth marks are indistinguishable from each other. He tells me he loves me as he comes up for air between his slurps. I moan and tell him I love him. I am imagining an empty sink—smooth, slick, sexy stainless steel that glistens and boasts the scent of Dawn.
I love it when the fucking dishes are done.
He plunges his fingers into me and pumps as he bites the insides of my thighs and grunts, again and again, Can you see it? Can you feel it? My soul? Is it good? He calls me his good girl, his special girl, and something broken—and perhaps deranged—yelps and bucks in his hand at his empty praise.
I feel good and special when the dishes are done.
I love you, he says as he finishes, before he has even started. Do you love me? Do you love how I make you feel? Do you love my soul? he asks, his frantic heartbeat pulsing in his cock, begging for an answer. I love you, I say. I say it like clearing a frog in your throat, like wincing after over-scratching a mosquito bite, like a meaningless syllable.
What I do love … is when the dishes are fucking done.
He rises from the bed and does not look at me. His hands dance between his balls and his ass crack as he scratches like some primate—it doesn’t matter which kind.
I ask him to grab a towel as he ventures into the kitchen. I ask him to do the dishes while he’s out there. He does not respond—I am doubtful he even listens. His response lies within his audible scratches, him clawing at his junk like some pathetic creature, devoid of consciousness.
I hear the microwave going as I imagine wrapping my soulless hands around his soulless neck. I touch myself as I picture myself screaming at him, as his face turns red, then purple, then blue—IF THERE IS A GOD, THEN WHY HAS HE CONDEMNED ME TO A LIFE WITH YOU?! I finish as I imagine the life leaving his soulless eyes, and thereafter stuffing his remarkably unremarkable body down the garbage disposal and throwing the weeks of dirty dishes out the window.
He returns to the bedroom with a bowl of pasta. There is tomato sauce dripping down his chest—it inches dangerously close to his pelvis. There is tomato sauce dripping and crusting down the sides of his bowl—it inches dangerously close to the duvet.
He squeezes my jaw open and shovels a forkful into my mouth before I am able to utter a syllable of consent. I ask if he’s done the dishes through the sludge that cements over my teeth and on my tongue with each chew. He does not respond. I am not doubtful—I am sure—that he does not listen.
Isn’t it beautiful? he sings. Doesn’t it taste like my soul?
