Divorce Settlement

My thanks for Mike Arzen http://www.gorelets.com/blog without whom this story would never have come to life and death. A wicked Tweet game of tag, turned sweet short story.


Pancakes bled on her pasty tray full stream from above her severed duodendum. The bastard had used her best santoku hocho knife. She dropped the silver tray, passed on for generations from mother to daughter, brought over on the Mayflower; and let the cooked batter and raw gore stain the pristine white quartz floor of her kitchen, as she grasped and gasped for air and life.

"You brought me to this!" He shouted at her blanching face. His hand barely had a shaky hold on the bloody utility knife.

She pressed the newly laundered kitchen towel to her bleeding abdomen, knowing that if she didn't get help soon, he'd get away with it.

He had underestimated her mistrust of him over the weeks since she had told him he would have to go. She had expected trouble. Not this, but trouble. She just had to get to the panic button on the alarm. The company had been alerted. The police would be called right away, and her lawyer would get a phone call; but it was on the other side of the kitchen, twenty paces, and at first she was unsure she could make one step.

"I made you who you are, you bitch!"

They always needed to justify themselves, she thought, her face showing him the derision she did not have the strength to voice out-loud. She had plenty of strength left, more than he knew, but she was going to be miserly with it. Just enough to take that first step away from him, then the second.

"No one took you seriously until I promoted you!" He spat at her. "What were you anyway, but a glorified housewife with a television spot on the community cable channel, and a small catering franchise?"

'Let him talk,' she thought. 'The more he talks, the easier it will be for me to take that next step away.' She exaggerated her stumble as she walked, to make him grow more confident, and crouched with the real pain of each mighty step.

"I got you out of the local station! I got you on the nationals! I got you that office in Manhattan, this house in the Hamptons!"

'With my money, you shit,' she thought, and took one more step.

He hated her so much. She had not realized that he hated her so much.

It had been easy at first, to take his cool attitude for nothing more than a bit of injured pride. His machismo getting the better of him. No matter what he said, he knew that he was no more than a glorified PR guy. He could magnify other's greatness, but he was incapable of it himself.

If she had used him, he had used her more. As soon as her career developed, he closed his own firm and dedicated himself entirely to feeding hers and feeding off her. The cars, the houses, the society friends, the endless parties; she had wanted none of those things. They had been his way of making himself important through her.

She stepped and stepped again, so that he had to turn then, to spit more bile at her from behind.

"Where are you going to go, bitch? What are you going to do? You're finished!"

He was always this impetuous and brave when he was drunk. What in heaven's name had convinced her to marry a pathetic loser capable of being drunk off his mind before breakfast?

"Don't think I won't get away with it. I will. I have no qualms with waiting until you pass out and then cutting you up into little pieces." He rambled. For a man who knew how to plan things and get them done, he could be incredibly unrealistic about certain things, she thought; or maybe he could have done it. If she let him. But she wasn't going to let him.

"I'll put you in that precious Cuisinart of yours, piece by piece. I'll make minced meat out of you, you ungrateful cunt!" He laughed wildly, finding his own voice hugely entertaining. "I'll sauté your mincemeat and put you in one of those precious pasties of yours, serve you up to all your friends!"

'As if you could cook anything but your own liver,' she thought contemptuously. 'Let him talk. Keep letting him talk. Pick up your feet and take the next step. It's closer now. I can see it. Don't let him notice what I'm headed for.'

Matthew would know the minute he got the call from the alarm company, that Roger had done the unthinkable. They had discussed it; in that cold-blooded way you must discuss with your attorney the possibility that the man you've had in your bed for ten years would rather see you in a coffin, or in a pasty, than let you walk away from him, and take your money with you.

Roger had laid his own trap. Underestimating her when they first met. She'd gladly agreed to sign the Pre-Nup. She had no intention of ever cheating on him or expecting a penny from him if it went sour; but the Pre-Nup was a double edged sword. She had agreed to forfeit anything he had and he had agreed to forfeit anything she had. He hadn't thought that was important. Who was she when they first met but a little known caterer from Long-Island? Her business had been worth beans then. It wasn't the Margaret Merchant empire; only humble, lovable 'Maggie's Nosh.'

"I'm going to enjoy fucking her in our bed over and over as many times as I want without having to worry about your coming home." He shouted with a satisfied tone; his voice made her aching stomach cringe further.

She'd known he'd already brought her home. Deep inside she knew that. But she'd hoped she'd been wrong, even when she burned the old sheets and bought a new mattress three weeks ago. She hoped he'd been telling the truth when he had said she'd been over-reacting.

'Arbitration is a joke,' she thought. It was arbitration that put her in this position, her Luis Vuitton loafers leaving a trail of blood behind her, slipping occasionally, causing horrific streaks. 'If I survive, this will be hell to clean,' she thought, 'Thank God I opted for quartz, if it were limestone, like he'd wanted, I'd never get the stains out.'

"Aren't you going to say anything?!"

Finally, he seemed to be weakening; doubting his own ability to rage. He wanted her to provoke him. To fuel his fire. She wouldn't give him satisfaction. 'That's his complaint anyway, isn't it? That I'm too perfect and too cold. Fine. Let him have the last word. I'll have the last action."

"Run out the door if you want. I'll collect you outside in the snow. Hell, I'll leave you out there. It's supposed to come down in a blizzard tonight. You'll be covered over for a while. They'll find you come Spring!"

'Good,' she thought, 'Let him think I'm headed for the door.'

She was so close now. It would only take two more steps and then a reach of her hand. She'd have to stop grasping her abdomen with both bloodied hands, she'd probably loose more blood, she'd probably loose all consciousness, but she would have won. Just as soon as she took this next step.

"You're nothing!" he shouted. "No one has ever loved you and no one ever will!"

"I don't need you to love me, Roger," she said calmly as her bloody finger pushed the red button on the small panel display of the house alarm, "I've got me for that."