Huffington Magazine Issue 15 | Page 25

chapter 1 fiction O HUFFINGTON 09.23.12 N WEDNESDAY, Janet heard Daniel call Edward and cancel their lunch date. “I’m just too busy this week,” he’d said; Janet smiled to herself in the bathtub. He brought her handfuls of daffodils. “My wife doesn’t love me,” he told her in bed, which made her laugh from the deep bottom of her throat. She put a flower between her teeth and danced for him, naked, singing too loud. He grabbed her and pushed her into chairs and she kept singing, as loud as she possibly could, straddling him, wiggling, until finally he clamped a hand over her mouth and she bit his palm and slapped his thighs until they flushed pink. When it was over she felt she’d shared something fearfully intimate with him and could barely look him in the eye, but he just handed her the hundred and went into the bathroom.   HE BROUGHT HER On their wedding day, HANDFULS OF Daniel had given her a card with a photograph of a beach DAFFODILS. “MY on it. “You are my fantasy WIFE DOESN’T LOVE woman,” he’d written inside. ME,” HE TOLD HER “You come to me from my IN BED, WHICH MADE dreams.” It had annoyed her HER LAUGH FROM then, like a bug on her arm. THE DEEP BOTTOM I come to you from MichiOF HER THROAT. gan, she had told him. From 928 Washington Street. He’d laughed. “That’s what I love so much about you, Janet,” he’d said, whirling her onto the dance floor. “You’re nononsense,” he’d said. She’d spent the song trying furtively to imitate Edward’s wife, who danced like she had the instruments buzzing inside her hips.