sweet tooth
My wife and I usually get along. Once in a while we'd bicker like grade-schoolers over the last open swing on a playground, but for the most part we've managed to defy the old trope of married couples wanting each other dead. I've been told of its logical reasoning; youngsters are usually blinded by love and tend to pass over flaws or nuisances their partner would exhibit.
Mel's decently tolerable. I've grown accustomed to her sporadic screaming and excess vigilance over Emi, but she has a certain habit that had been tormenting me to no end: she can't get a grip on what she eats.
I wasn't concerned with her weight; in fact, she's usually pestering me to get off the couch and go for a run, but it gets irritating when Emi and I never get much of whatever nice cake or box of chocolates the company treats us with for Christmas each year unless we've already finished our shares within a day. I've once tried to hide a tin of expensive wafer rolls under the sink cabinet, but it didn't take long for her to find- the very next morning it became a tin of wrappings.
That too. It turned out the more valuable something was, the more likely it was to make it into her stomach. In particular, she had a sweet tooth but awful taste; I only recently found out she once sprinkled packets of stevia over some Wagyu steak and was supposedly enjoying it.
When she was a kid, she had the same problem. They locked the break rooms up at 9 PM, yet the janitor would always find her next morning asleep next to an empty candy jar. (This was also how she earned her colloquialism of Caramel, which then became the closest thing she had to a legal moniker.)
A memory none of us are particularly fond of involves the overnight disappearance of several little chocolate sculptures. When the obvious culprit was caught in the act, all she did was apologize profusely and complain about how hungry she was. The holiday banquet was a bit of a letdown after that, but most of us let Mel's misdeed slide and accepted the disappointment. We never made chocolate sculptures again.
It got weirder when foodstuffs a quarter of her body weight would go missing each morning. Yet, she still had her thin, lissome figure, and never seemed to put on a single pound.
Eventually she started taking field missions and working well away from the rest of us. From thereon after, she became less of a nuisance and we could actually prepare more ornate meals without all our funding going down the throat of one woman. I did miss her though; as I had mentioned she's usually lovely to be around and Emi had, after all, expressly stated that he liked his mommy more. But I suppose memories of people are always fonder when they're gone.
Last week though, she received the task of taking out someone in our city- which means she'd return and stay in the facility, and we'd all have to accept the inevitable again. Nonetheless it had been a year, so my heart nearly flew out my mouth when I saw her through the glass door of our building. Emi and I had cobbled together a little dinner party on the night of her arrival, and I had stashed a few boxes of pricey chocolate under the nighttable. We kissed, hugged, did a little bit of catching up; I'd nearly forgotten how sweet the subtle warmth of her skin was.
That morning she woke me up with a hot cup of green tea. It tasted faintly like honey.
"I figured I'd treat you with a little something," she said. "It's not much, but we're all a little tired." She gave me a smile and a kiss on the cheek.
"Thanks." I looked over at the nighttable- the golden wrapping paper was still intact over the box of chocolates. "You don't like chocolate anymore?"
"I wasn't all that hungry last night."
"That's alright." I smiled back at her. "No need to be humble. I got it for you anyways."
"No, I'm really just not that hungry. Thanks though, I'm off to work."
She walked out and grinned at me again, shutting the door behind her. There was a sort of a dull silence in the room- the air a little too heavy, the lights a little too dim, the bedsheets feeling too clingy to the touch.
Even in the rare moments my wife would be home, she almost never made enough time for me. When I saw her she was always wiping down floors and tables or cleaning stains off her gloves. On a different afternoon she was sitting at the counter eating chocolates, quickening her pace as I rolled around the corner. I could feel her nausea through her eyes. That was the last time I saw her eat in the dining room.
I left her alone. When I decided I would scuttle back to my room and have my repose, the doorknob-covered by some adhesive- held my hand down a little longer than I was used to. I put on a show, growing drowsy in the sweet, warm air, and fell asleep on the couch. I probably wouldn't have woken up if Mel hadn't yelled at me to pick Emi up from daycare.
"What's your problem?" I grunted to no one as I slipped on my jacket, annoyed with how sticky it felt against my skin. "You drive just fine."
After picking up my son I wanted some alone time with my wife- I figured she was exhausted from the stress and volatility from her occupation, and I didn't want it to start taking a toll on her self. I sat her down in the den and opened a window next to her favourite velvet armchair.
"We can leave Emi at his buddy's and eat out at a nice place together. What'd ya say?"
"With my money?"
"I'm paying for it," I explained with a little umbrage. "I've got a job too, you know."
"It'll be a waste regardless."
"Listen, uh, I'm real sorry about bothering you about your food habits. You don't have to hold back, I know you can't really help it, it's just-"
"I'm just not hungry."
I said nothing more and went upstairs. I spent a little longer in the shower that night (not without sitting at my couch and blanking out while naked like a madman first though); the steam didn't dissipate in the bedroom. I was sapped myself, and crumbled a little with each passing step. Then I dropped myself on the bed and blew out like a matchstick.
…
She wasn't hungry. A warmth has left my side.
…
She wasn't hungry. There was a click about ten feet away.
…
She wasn't hungry. I rolled over and tried to hold onto my wife. I missed.
…
She wasn't hungry. I woke up.
It smells like honey.
I found enough strength to leave the bed, and after counting the number of steps to the lightswitch, I turned it on. The room brightened with a yellow hue; from then I checked the washroom, the closet, then the bed again. The flashlight was dimmer than usual. Out of the bedroom, into the mezzanine.
Tap, tap, tap, went my slippers against the stairs. Beyond the stained glass railing nothing was lit up. I kept track- it was step seven down when the smell of honey began to fade, and step ten when it was replaced by the scent of iron. The air got warmer.
Emi's TV show was still on in the living room. There were half-empty snack wrappers scattered about, which I had checked around.
Tap, tap, tap. At around step four down into the lower level the smell of iron intensified into a fog, through which I couldn't single out a sensation to follow. My tongue felt gummy and writhed in my mouth like a captured fish. At six, I wiped my hand against the wall- it left a print and a smudge. At eight, when the staircase turned a corner, I saw my wife.
The torridity was overbearing.
Next to her was a pile of clothing- I could make out a suit and some t-shirts, along with some men's underwear, wristwatches, and a pair of glasses. She was standing in front of a stainless-steel table with a long object, lying supine and cut into sections. More objects laid atop a generator, wrapped in black plastic. She produced a smaller blade and cut out two chunks, putting one into her mouth and chewing- slow and deliberate, and for far too long before swallowing. The other chunk she tossed into a large stewpot with a nozzle on its exterior, the valve twisted open. Something was slowly dripping from the nozzle.
…
It wasn't blood.
It was honey.