How to Unthaw Packaged Meat

He sits beside her, dull eyes coated with a layer of insanity. His lips are smiling, which makes her smile, because she’s never seen him so happy. The dimple on his right cheek creases in, that dimple that makes her fall in love all over again. She leans over to put her lips on it. His skin is cold.

But so is her heart.

And her kiss tries in vain to warm them both.

—-

She spends the evening in a worn apron, pretending she is cooking a meal that she wants to eat. He would’ve never eaten such a meal, though. He likes beef and barbecue, but she likes rice and vegetables. So as any loyal wife, she once tried to compromise: barbecued vegetables. This was followed by an extensive episode of beating and screaming, which ended with her sitting, head in palms, watching the front door shut and her husband drive away into the night, twinkling bottle in hand.

She shakes her head. The memory is distant, but close enough that she still flinches when he raises his fist. She decides on something completely meant to please him, entirely meant to save her, and surely meant to be left cold on his plate until ten or eleven at night.

She makes steaks, one for him and one for her. He loves steak, she tells herself. He’ll be happy with the meal.

She takes a plastic-wrapped piece of meat from the bottom of the freezer and puts it in the sink to thaw.

A car engine turning off.

A knock at the door.

A muffled laugh.

And he walks in.

He’s happily drunk, or if not that, happily insane. His collar is undone, his tie is loose, his lips are curving up, and his eyes are shining.

But more than that, there’s a red smudge vaguely shaped like two full lips placed on his neck.

She stares. She’d move if she could, but over the course of their marriage, she’d grown a cautious and slow persona around him. She knows better than to take action so recklessly.

He’s holding a bouquet of red roses, the paper crumbling beneath his tense fingers.

“Home.. I’m home,” he slurs.

She keeps staring.

“Hey, honey. Is everything okay?”

His posture changes, and he slumps his shoulders.

“I’m tired. What’s for dinner?”

“I’m still cooking. It’s not yet four.”

“Turn on the tv then, will you?”

And with that, he slips off his penny loafers and walks to the couch.

She pauses and observes him: his head is lolling back and forth, obviously drunk, so she decides it’s a safe time to ask.

“What’s with the roses?”

His eyes run over her before going back to the tv.

“Nothing, just a friend.”

“I’m making steak. You like that, no?”

He doesn’t reply.

“What’s the red on your neck?”

“Friend.”

And the bouquet falls, scattering roses across the wooden floor. The flowers blend with the blood, mixing and mingling until the wood itself takes on a crimson shade.

She does it without realizing. The scissors she had been holding, intended to cut the plastic wrap of the just-thawed meat, were thrown into his chest.

Her thought process was something along these lines: he’s drunk again, take the chance, end the sorrow.

And then he was dead.

—-

She didn’t know what to do. She didn’t know who the red lips belonged to.

She only knew that the problem was renewed and worsened.

His phone rings. After reading the name, she knows she’s found the owner of the lips. 

“Hey, Steven.”

The voice is bubbly like champagne, glad to be reunited with the man she stole.

“Who’s this?”

The line goes quiet on the other side.

“I’m Steven’s secretary. Who’s this?”

And her lips curl slightly at this question because, in status, she’s supposedly a step higher.

“I’m his wife. Why’d you call?”

A sharp inhale. The smile in her voice can be heard as she says, “I’m sorry. It was just a problem at the office, and I needed to check in on him. If he’s too busy, I’ll call back later.”

And she hangs up.

And the affair is over.

—-

Her husband’s eyes are still open. She crouches down and runs her fingers across his eyelids, but they’re as stubborn as he was. She stares at this man’s lifeless body and suddenly realizes that she’s committed a crime. That she just recently murdered her husband.

And that this man never loved her, regardless of how much she loved him.

She pushes herself into a corner and tucks her chin into her knees. In court, she’ll say that it was self-defense, in a way. He was not only a plainly bad husband in every way from the very beginning, but he couldn’t keep his badness to himself and his wife. He had to stretch his limbs to other women and send off some badness to them, too.

And with this realization, she figures out that she’s free. She’s no longer bound to the man who hurt her. She no longer has to ignore the obvious signs of infidelity and intoxication. She’s free to run out the door and start a life that she wants to live.

So she picks up the bouquet.

It drips the man’s dirty blood. She touches a rose and pulls back a red-soaked finger, then applies it to her lips, painting them in until they are full and elegant. The metallic taste of blood lingers, but she ignores it and places a kiss on the smudged spot of his neck.

She picks up his phone and calls the secretary. This time, she’s less cautious.

“Hello?”

“Is that you, Steven?”

“No, it’s still his wife. Not anymore, actually. Steven’s dead.”

The secretary pauses and says she’ll be right over.

When she hangs up, she tucks the bouquet beneath her arms and pulls the scissors from her husband’s chest.

I’ll do the same to her, she thinks. I’ll end them both the same way they ended me.

So she stands by the doorframe, waiting for the secretary to come and die beside her beloved. And the meat became unthawed in the kitchen sink.