Intimate Relations, Rebecca Forster [best ereader for manga .txt] 📗

And then...

"Sit down."

Emi raised her voice because the room was so big. Enver didn't move. It was getting very hard for Emi to speak as if nothing was wrong. It was difficult to be the one who was calm, when all was chaos.  Emi came toward him. She slammed the mugs down on the cracked table and fairly ran across the room to her husband. Emi slapped his hand, and the little glittery thing flew away. He started and blinked, but said nothing.

She took his arm and pressed her fingers into his skin. That skin was crepe-like and his muscles were long, not bulky as they had once been. He was an old man and she didn't know when that had happened. It struck her that she might be an old woman, and that was why he so loved the companions.

Then Emi thought again. He wasn't old. Inside there was still fire and desire, and that was the problem. He was soft because he was an artist, that was all. He thought only of beauty. She was the one who was forged like steel because she worked with metal. It was opposite of what it should have been for a man and a woman, but she loved him and always would.

"Husband," Emi whispered.

Enver looked through her. He walked away, out of the room, disappearing up the stairs like a ghost. Emi started after him, but changed her mind. Her anger was too hot, so she returned to the kitchen and started to wash the kettle. But even that— the mundane thing, the rote thing — could not calm her. She grasped the granite and hung her head.

Hot tears welled behind her eyes. Her skin was on fire, her heart was beating against her chest. She was so afraid, and Enver did not care. She took the glass kettle and smashed it against the wall.  It broke into big, thick pieces and tiny shattered ones. Her husband did not come to see what had happened, her husband did not come to see if she was hurt. He had not asked her if she was afraid, or if she knew what happened. He did not ask her if she believed that he didn't hurt that woman. Enver did not turn to her for comfort and that made her the most angry.

Emi stalked across the room once more, flung herself onto the stairs, and stormed up them. Her hard shoes clumped on the metal. She was not a fat village woman, but she was not like the dolls: long-legged, large breasted, delicate of face. She was a woman who had worked hard to make a success of their lives, and Enver had ruined it all whether he admitted it or not.

"Enver! Enver!"

She called out as she pounded up the second flight of stairs where the walls narrowed and the ceiling was low. Her voice echoed back at her, and she knew she sounded crazy like Enver had all those hours ago.

Emi paused briefly in the doorway of the workroom and then plowed through it. She batted at the legs and the arms hanging from the ceiling.  She tore feet out of a box and threw them as far as she could. She shoved a companion, the one Mr. Smith had ordered - weren't they all Mr. Smith - red haired, broad hipped thing with especially prominent nipples on her low slung breasts. Enver named the doll as he always did, but Mr. Smith would give it another. Mr. Smith would pretend the companion loved him. Or he would believe it. Or...

With a great cry, Emi took a broom and swiped at the faces lining the wall above the worktable. Some of them bounced off the table, and clattered as they fell to the floor. Others went askew so that their parted lips and sultry eyes now stared, not at their own body parts across the room, but up at the grey ceiling.  With a great cry, Emi raised a heavy boot and brought it down on the face at her feet. It had been the pretty little face, like that of a farm girl. Emi crushed it.

Still Enver did not come.

"Enver." She cried for her husband and her voice caught.

Taking a deep breath, Emi trembled with disgust, and then she was calm and strangely at peace. There was nothing to be done, and so this horrible energy was wasted. It was for others to do things, and for them to wait.  The police would run themselves ragged, but they would find nothing. They would never find the man who arranged for the party and paid them for their services. He was only a contract. He was a money transfer. Let them play cat and mouse, the police and this man. Let them try to solve a mystery that really could not be solved.

Convincing herself that all would be well Emi went through the workroom, casting her eye on the things she had destroyed. Emi would have her work cut out for her when she put them back together. She found Enver standing where the bed had been. The frame was still there and the box springs, but the curtains and bedding were gone. The headboard had been dismantled and some of the carpet on the platform had been cut away. Emi wished the police had taken everything. This place meant nothing to her; it never had. This felt like standing by the grave of a stranger. Finally, Emi breathed deep. Her nostrils flared, her lips compressed.

"What did you tell the police?" she asked.

"I told them I held her, and that's how I had blood on me," he said. "I told them the truth, that I didn't know her. I told them I cut the doll to show those people she was not real. I destroyed my art because it is bad. I know that now."

He turned his head away.

"You didn't tell about him,