"Just A Quickie"

    "Quit, okay?  I'm busy.  I'm trying to get this done before the kids have to come in and get their baths."  I moved my hip inches to the right, away from his wondering hands, as I bent to tighten the corners of the mattress protector.  He wasn't discouraged at all by my refusal; instead he followed me to the other side of the bed.  He stood and watched me work for an uncomfortable minute.  "What?"  I asked him as I shook our pillows into their clean cases.  He had a strange look on his face; considering the amount that he had drank in a very short time this evening I had reason to be concerned.

    He shook his head slowly from side-to-side, his mouth curling in apparent disgust.  "Nothin'.  Not a damn thing."  He tipped back his beer and took another long swallow, then held the frosty glass bottle to the flushed skin on his face. I noticed that his hands were still dirty from his day at work, the ragged nails and worn callouses creased with oil and black grease. I unconsciously echoed his gesture as I wiped the sweat of my own hard work from my forehead (such a hot day and still so much to do!),  stretched my aching back and heard the answering crackles and pops from my tired spine.  His gaze crawled over me slowly, eyes glazed with arousal and too much alcohol.  He stepped closer towards me and I flinched, then tried to cover the reflex by pulling the bottom sheet from the laundry basket and flipping it over the bed with a crisp snap.

    His hands were back, rubbing roughly across my skin, trying to pull me against his crotch.  I laughed lightly, falsely, as I tip-toed through this potential landmine, dancing more gracefully then a ballerina away from his unwelcome hands.  I was trying to diffuse the situation before his rage overwhelmed us both, trying to not make him mad.  "Let me finish this and get supper going and we'll talk, okay?  C'mon baby, just let me get this done, okay"  I hated the pleading note that had entered my voice.

    Back up went the bottle, his eyes staring  small and mean over the hand clenched around the beer, draining it before he set it on the dresser.  "See?  That's the fuckin' problem with you.  There's always something else that you think is more important.  Your damn kids, you're too damn tired, your back hurts.. What about what I need?  Huh?  Do you give a shit about what I want?  Or don't I even matter?"

      He was following me as I crept around the foot of the bed.  This wasn't good.  His voice was too tight, his motions too restrained as though he were holding in an over-flowing ball of energy.  My mind raced, trying to figure out what I might have done to bring this mood on.  My thoughts flew over the night before, over the previous day, through what I knew of his work today.. and skidded to a stop.  Today was Tuesday, and on Tuesday he always worked with the supervisor that he despised, the one that wouldn't let him do his job "the right way" (his way).  Being told how to do his job always made him feel like less of a man, and when he felt like less of a man at work there was always hell to pay at home.

    I tried to distract him, to pacify him without having to give in at the same time.  "Of course you matter, baby.  You know that you matter;  I love you.  But the kids are gonna be in here in a minute-" I broke off my sentence; I suddenly didn't seem to have any breath left in my lungs.  He was walking towards me with purpose.  I tried to keep stepping backwards but there was nowhere left to run.  I had let him pin me into the corner between the wall and the bed.  My stomach was clenching up as my heart started pounding so hard that I could almost taste it's rhythm. 

    I held up my hands in a stop! gesture without even realizing it.  He had me against the wall, pressing the length of his body into mine, grabbing my breasts hard enough to bruise as he bit my neck.  I was pushing him with both hands; I couldn't breath!  He didn't stop, he didn't budge no matter how hard I pushed; he might have even gotten closer.  "Please stop, please stop baby.. Later, okay?  Please, I don't want them to see this okay?  Just quit!"  I begged, I pushed.  I gained an inch of space and he slammed me back against the wall again, mauling me with no love, only selfish possession.

    "Two weeks, it's been two fuckin' weeks since you put out, two weeks!  You're MY fuckin' wife it's my pussy you bitch my pussy!"  He wrapped one hand in my hair wrenching my head to the side, the other hand was pulling at my loose cotton shorts, trying to get them down far enough to get inside my underwear.

    I was screaming inside, trying to not scream on the outside, trying to be oh-so-quite- I can't breath!    "Quit please just stop okay? Please.. Not like this don't make it like this.. Not again, please.."

    Then I did it.  I didn't even think about fighting back, I just reacted.  I bit his mouth hard enough to make him jerk away from me in shock (that I was fighting back??) and cover his lips too late with a rough, work-worn palm, feeling the resulting flavor of his own blood, feeling the echoing throb of my teeth.  For a frozen split second we stared at each other, the only two human beings in our universe.

    "He's gonna kill me," the thought slipped into my mind, a small, shocked trickle, then surged into an explosive silent screaming, "Oh my God he's gonna kill me he's gonna hurt me so bad why did I do that why did I do that WHY DID I DO THAT??"  Adrenaline dumped it's load into my brain, ripping through my body in response to a primitive instinct of survival; it was fight-or-flight time.  I sucked in the deepest breath that had ever been inhaled, and for just a moment felt as though I were strong again.  In that small instant I felt as though I might actually get away from this vicious man who only wanted to own, then break, any woman unfortunate enough to cross his path and fall for his sugar- coated lies of eternal love.

    I jumped onto the bed trying to scramble across it, trying to get away just as his back hand caught me across the face.  I slammed into the headboard, then rolled  to my hands and knees still trying to cross the miles and miles of mattress that were going to get me hurt.  I felt his hands on my ankle, dragging me back back towards him on my stomach.  I dug my nails into the cotton beneath me, trying to claw my way to safety.  I kicked out, connecting hard with his thigh, almost free!  "I'm going to make it this time," I thought.  "If I can just get out of this room then I'll get out of this house it'll be okay if I can just-"  and I almost made it, too.  But his sledgehammer fist pounded down on my kidneys and I froze, liquid fire blazing through my insides.  I let out a strangled groan, arching backwards and curling inwards.

    He dropped down onto me and hissed into my ear.  "Go ahead bitch, scream.  Scream!  Make those little bastards come runnin' so they can see what a sorry whore their momma is.  C'mon bitch, fight me some more, you make my dick harder when you fight me- Scream dammit!"  I bit my tongue in shame and agony, knowing that I could continue to fight, I could fight to my last breath, but also aware that my babies would be terrified to hear me screaming, knowing that this knowledge was his power over me, that he was counting on the fact that I wouldn't scare them anymore then they already were in this hell house full of jagged words and stinging slaps.

    I tried to be somewhere else when he ripped my shorts down my legs, tried to be anywhere but here when I heard his zipper, tried to stop breathing when he pushed my panties to the side and shoved into me.  I was bone-dry and felt myself ripping like a used piece of sandpaper.  I bit the mattress under my face, disbelief blending with the spirit-crushing thought of oh-well-nothing-I can-do-about-it that was growing like a toxic seed in my brain.  My mind seemed to scatter and flee, shattering like a battered pane of glass.  For those brief (eternal) moments I was only what lay between my legs.  I was pounds of worthless flesh wrapped around this vagina that kept betraying me by making me a woman.  By being born female it seemed that I was meant to be a victim of every surge of testosterone that decided to wag it's one-eyed head in my direction.

    Four brutal plunges, three guttural grunts, and a blood-covered cock later he collapsed on top of me.  I didn't lift my face from the half-made bed; I didn't make a sound as he stood up.  I willed myself to be invisible.  I tried to simply stop existing.  He zipped his pants back up. He hadn't even bothered to unfasten his belt; he'd just pulled himself through the open zipper.  He slapped me lightly on the ass, playfully, like we'd just had a merry old time.  "Best get up before they come in.  You don't wanna get them stirred up, do ya?  C'mon, you ain't hurt, get up and start supper.  I'm hungry."

    His step was light as he left the bedroom where once upon a time I had whispered that I loved him a thousand times over, where I had whispered that I loved him more then there were grains of salt in the sea, more then the number of stars in the night sky.

    I heard the screen door slam; he was going out for his "after nut" cigarette as he called it.  I felt his cum ooze out of me hot and poisonous and full of hate.  I took a long, shuddering breath and died just a little bit more inside.  It wouldn't be long before there was nothing left alive, nothing  of my soul left to damage anymore.  Instead of dreading this coming time, instead of all the plans of escape that I used to make before the last baby was born, I found myself waiting for the numbness that I hoped I would eventually find.  I needed that numbness to keep waking up every day, needed a harder shell, more protection from this train wreck that was my life.  If only I would quit fighting him.. It would be easier, better for us all if I would just break instead of only bending to his hurricane-wind, alcohol fueled rages.

    I sat up, only shaking a little bit and felt my face to see if there was any swelling to have to explain.  I was tender along the edge of my jaw, but it was nothing like the dull ache over my kidneys and the raw throb between my thighs.  At least those hurts wouldn't show; I was thankful that he had been quick this time.  I stood up, sore but on my feet.  It was time to cook supper for my family; time to act like nothing had happened.  Isn't that what a good wife is supposed to do?  He loves me, and I love him and isn't married life just perfect??