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.