Well-Fed Barbarians

The clinking of the silverware and the wine being poured were the only sounds to be heard at the dinner table. The lights were bright and harsh, casting dark, sharp shadows across the dining room. What the light could not reveal, however, was that the couple would be trying to kill each other that night, and that both would have bullet holes in their heads in the end.

**************

“Where’s Bethany?” Dominic looked up from his plate, gazing stoically at his wife. It was the first words he had spoken to her all night.

Ellen didn’t bother looking up, keeping her gaze fixed on the steak au poivre – with peppercorn sauce, of course. Any other sauce would be gauche.

“I sent her home for Christmas,” Ellen said.

“Why? She had her vacation this year!” Dominic said. The anger in his voice was unmistakable. Ellen had heard it daily for the past seven years.

“Because I decided to do so! Just…eat your food.” Ellen barked in an unnaturally loud voice. Dominic detested her voice when it became strident, and this always happened when she drank too much. That is, it happened daily.

“Who made this? Nobody makes steak au poivre like Bethany. It’s terrible,” Dominic said. He tossed down his fork and knife in irritation, wiping his mouth and pouring himself more wine.

“It’s from Marcel’s, and it’s fine.”

“It isn’t,” Dominic retorted.

“Then don’t eat it! Be satisfied with the wine,” Ellen watched closely as Dominic downed one glass of wine and poured himself another. He quickly drank half of it and lit a cigarette. Ellen hated it when he smoked at the table, and he wanted her to hate him right now.

The minutes crept by. Ellen kept close tabs on Dominic’s wine intake as she finished off her meal and sipped her sparkling soda. She had polished off a rather nice pinot noir earlier and the effects of the wine were still with her. She frowned slightly. Dominic was on his third glass of cabernet sauvignon and he still hadn’t shown the reaction she had been expecting.

Dominic pulled a vial from his pocket and set it forcefully on the table. Ellen looked at the vial, her eyes widening in surprise and fear. How the hell did he find that? The slightly milky liquid seemed to mock her.

“What’s that?” Ellen kept her composure. She must remain calm, above all else; any sort of histrionics would give her away.

Dominic glared at her and slammed his fists on the table. Ellen started, despite her efforts to show no emotion. Dishes and silverware jumped, performing a brief, glittering dance on the table.

“You know damn well what it is. You squeezed sap from the oleanders you have in the back garden. I checked it after finding some interesting information from your browsing history!” Dominic was yelling now, his face suffused with blood and the veins in his neck displaying themselves prominently.

Ellen gasped involuntarily. Damn the man! He must have guessed her password. And damn the man for checking the back garden. She had pulled out one of the oleander plants for the purpose of extracting the poisonous sap and inserting it into Dominic’s favorite wine. The spot where she had pulled up the plant was still bare; she didn’t think her idiot husband would notice.

“I replaced it with water and two drops of milk.”

Ellen looked at him silently, unaware that she was blinking rapidly. It did not go unnoticed by her husband.

“Why do you want to kill me, Ellen? For the love of God…”

“Because you’re a pig!” Ellen jumped up, shouting. She had lost her composure, yes, but it needed to be said.

Dominic stood up slowly, staring at his wife with unadorned hatred. Ellen felt a chill run through her body. Dominic - soft, squidgy Dominic - suddenly looked dangerous.

“I provide for you. For us. And you dare try to murder me with this…this…vile substance!” Dominic held up the vial and threw it at Ellen. She moved aside, and the vial exploded against the fireplace behind her. The liquid trickled innocently down the wall and the shattered glass winked in the small fire that was burning.

“Ha! Your business…”

“That’s right! My business.”

“Is ghoulish. You bury people!”

“I’m a mortician! That’s what I do!” Dominic leaned forward on the table. Ellen feared that me might jump across the table and come after her. She picked up her steak knife and held it in front of her.

“And you are screwing your assistant. And you screwed the one before her. And the one…”

“What about you? Your fitness instructor hasn’t been able to get you into shape.”

“I’m still working on it!” Ellen’s voice became strident again.

“Sure, Ellen, sure. He stays in shape with the horizontal push-ups he does, with you under him. Yeah,” Dominic’s voice lowered, but it was still menacing, “I know about you and Randy Beeton. Three times a week, without fail.”

Ellen stared at Dominic, breathing hard. How the hell did the man know? Dominic, as if reading her mind, spoke again.

“A camera. In the teddy bear on a shelf.”

Ellen picked up her drink and drained it, her face turning pale. She looked at Dominic, fear written on her face.

“No, I didn’t poison you. I have a much better plan for you, dear.” Dominic slowly drew out a pistol from his waistband and pointed it at Ellen. Ellen backed away, but there was no place to hide. Dominic pointed the gun and fired. He missed, the bullet slamming into the mantle above the fireplace, sending shards of marble flying through the air.

He fired twice more, but with similar results, those results being that he hit a portrait of the happy couple with both shots, but neither came close to hitting their intended target. I shouldn’t have had that fourth glass of wine, he thought ruefully. Ellen’s image swam before him and he couldn’t steady the pistol in his hand. He closed his eyes briefly and tried to refocus.

“Aaaaayyyyyy!” Ellen’s primordial scream induced him to open his eyes. Much to his horror, she was coming at him with the steak knife. He didn’t have the time nor the reflexes to stop her, and the knife sped its way to his heart.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), Dominic had his cell phone in his left breast pocket. The knife shuddered against the back of the phone, skidding downward and ripping his dinner jacket. Dominic reacted instinctively and savagely backhanded his wife of seven years, sending her sprawling into the living area and on top of a glass table.

Ellen crashed through the table. The glass top broke instantly, and Ellen felt a large piece of glass rip through the small of her back. The pain was intense, but she scrambled to her feet, turning to Dominic and eyeing him warily. He pointed the gun at her again. Without thinking, Ellen grabbed a vase and threw it at him. It struck him squarely in the forehead.

Dominic went down like a felled deer, grabbing his forehead and yelling obscenities that surprised Ellen. The man was a pig, true, but he rarely cursed.

Ellen raced to retrieve the pistol that Dominic had dropped when she had beaned him with her favorite vase (the one with water-colored lilies on it) and pointed it at him. She was breathing rapidly and trying to hold the gun steady. Dominic rolled over and stood up, facing his own gun. He froze.

Ellen smiled wickedly and pulled the trigger. Nothing. She tried again. Still nothing.

Fortunately (or unfortunately, depending on your point of view), the safety lock had been set when Dominic let go of the pistol. Ellen didn’t know about such things as safeties on a gun. Frustrated, she threw the gun at Dominic. She missed.

The gun bounced on the dining room table, sliding down its length and landing in the fireplace. A few sparks flew up as the gun nestled itself into the glowing embers of the fire. Dominic reached in and quickly withdrew his hand; the searing heat had blistered two of his fingers and he hadn’t even gotten close to his beloved pistol. Now he would have to kill Ellen with his bare hands.

The chase had begun. Ellen ducked behind furniture as Dominic unsuccessfully tried to catch her. He was breathing harder and harder before finally giving up and dropping to his knees. His chest hurt and his throat burned from breathing so heavily.

Ellen also stopped, bending over and placing both hands on her hips, sucking in air. She was thankful to the God she didn’t really believe in that Dominic had given up first. The only thing that had kept her going was her adrenaline-laden fear.

Dominic collapsed on the floor, bloody, bruised, beaten, and bewildered. It should have been so easy to kill the bitch, he thought.

Ellen likewise collapsed on the floor and cried softly. Her back was bleeding, and it burned from the slice that was made to it from the jagged chunk of glass that found its way there. Her whole body felt like one big bruise, and the exhaustion she felt was the most overwhelming tiredness she had ever experienced.

Neither person moved for a few minutes. Their eyes were closed and their heart rates were returning to normal. After a full fifteen minutes, the couple looked at each other, still despising the other person but no longer in a murderous rage.

“How did we get here?” Ellen spoke first. It all seemed so surreal. They had been happy once, but then reality and disappointment intervened, along with its attendant emotions. Both strayed from marital fidelity, but both also lost what they had once felt for each other. How did it happen? Ellen shook her head in defeat. There wasn’t a single incident that did it, she surmised, but an accumulation of little chips in their relationship that finally added up to where they were now. The point of no return.

“Dunno. Don’t care, really. I just want it over with,” Dominic tried to sit up, but his body rebelled. He slumped back to the floor.

Ellen got to her feet, swayed, and then hit the floor. Bullets started flying everywhere, coming from…the fireplace! Dominic curled up into a little ball and whimpered. It would be his rotten luck to survive his wife’s attempts at murdering him, only to be done in by a bullet from his own gun.

The popping of the deadly missiles stopped after a few seconds, but it felt like it was much longer. The incident, though, had the fortunate effect of pumping enough adrenaline into the couple that they could at least get up off of the floor.

Dominic inspected himself and sighed. Blood and ripped clothing. A sledgehammer headache. Ellen felt as bad. The cut on her back burned and she couldn’t bend over because the pain was so intense. Both lit cigarettes and sat in chairs, stiffly and quietly.

“I’ll call my lawyer tomorrow. You should get one too,” Dominic said. Ellen nodded. She knew lots of lawyers; all of her girlfriends had been divorced at least once.

“Overstuffed, well-fed barbarians, the lot of them. But, yes. Let’s get this done,” Ellen said through a haze of cigarette smoke. She barely had the energy to puff.

“But I want half of the business and the house,” Ellen continued.

Dominic scoffed and then winced in pain.

“You’ll get the house and 10% of the business, if you’re lucky.”

“The house and 30%. No less, Dominic.”

“The house and 25%. Final offer. Or we can let the lawyers fight it out. Mine is very good, Ell. He got Jim out of his divorce without him even losing his house.”

Ellen considered the offer and nodded in agreement. It wasn’t worth fighting for any more. She would have accepted far less, but she would never let Dominic know that.

Ellen looked around the area with distaste. It was a mess, a bloody mess. Glass lay scattered everywhere. Their marriage photo had two bullet holes in it. Ellen looked at it curiously. There was a bullet hole through her temple, and one through Dominic’s temple as well. She shuddered at what might have been.

“Guess we’ll have to clean this shit up before Bethany comes back to work. We’re not animals, after all,” Ellen said without irony.

“You can marry your fitness instructor,” Dominic said.

“Shut up.”

“No, really. An attractive woman with a nice house and a decent, if unearned, income. What’s not to like?”

Ellen looked at Dominic, mild surprise on her face.

“You think I’m attractive?”

Dominic nodded.

“On the outside.”

“Asshole!”

“Says the asshole who tried to poison me.”

An ember chose this moment to pop in the fireplace. Ellen and Dominic jumped at the sound, each emitting a small gasp. They looked at each other and laughed sheepishly.

Both eventually went off to their respective bedrooms, leaving blood, shattered glass, and a very hot gun to their own devices; it could all be dealt with in the morning.

The last significant sound of the night came from two doors being bolted and deadlocked.