'DOMESTIC BLISS' — a short story

  That crack in the corner of your kitchen ceiling is getting bigger. I trace it with my finger like a child trying to make out the shape of clouds. I think it looks like a trident. Shards of plate decorate the floor like an avant-garde garden. Petals of blood are weaved throughout the ceramic blades of grass. The kitchen tabletop is spotless because everything is on the floor. The kitchen door is swinging on its hinges, guiding a mild breeze from the opened windows. You've left again. The street is silent as a funeral, the sun hasn't even thought about arriving yet, the only light is from the dull amber streetlights.

      All I've ever wanted was to get under skin, like a disease. But you hold me at arm's length. So, I hold you to me instead, hoping you'll stick like a barnacle with the sweat from our skin. Of course, you never do. You always peel yourself away and run off into the night. I feel like an intern, waiting for the day you offer me a permanent position and pay me. Until then I run around fetching you coffee and whatever else you need.

      I'm done. You don't believe me, you lose it.

      I don't remember what started the fight. I try to, rummaging through my thoughts as if they're an unpacked suitcase after a holiday. It is snowing. For once everything is still outside. I haven't slept and instead my eyes are chasing the sun waiting for it to run over the terraced roofs. The streetlights can trick drunks into thinking it's daytime. Maybe there's something poetic and profound in mistaking the sun for streetlights, but I can't think of it. My legs shake like Bambi as I get up off the floor. I steady myself on the table. Thinking of anything beyond my next movement seems impossibly heavy. I start to make myself a green tea because they always say a cuppa fixes everything. As the kettle boils, I wander back and forth in front of the window. Too bruised to sit down I instead check if the plants need watering. The small heart-shaped cactus I bought you last summer is thriving. It was the hottest day of the year when I bought it; I joked it was as spikey and small as your heart and you bought me a chain of hearts while calling me a bitch. I can't say I didn't see this coming — this dull, throbbing pain is just what I get for being with you. They say you can't make a home out of human beings, but I have lived inside every man I've ever loved, thrown around between his heart and stomach.

      I probably said something that rubbed you the wrong way, you probably took it badly, like you always do. It was probably about her. I probably threw a plate like a frisbee over your head, you probably smashed yours over the corner of the table. A piece of your plate is probably responsible for the fresh scar on my arm. I'll probably be sore for a while now.

      I have a way of getting myself into situations like this, as if a bit if me enjoys a bloody nose every now and again. I feel like the greatest, an undefeated champion boxer and the adrenaline in my veins pounds and pounds always all night after. I breathe in and it hurts but I feel alive. The logical, highly-educated side of me knows my taste in men is my chosen method of self-harm. Kettle is done.

      The clock on the microwave tells me It's five in the morning. Figures why everything is so quiet. I don't remember for how long I sat in the corner, staring into nothing. In the silence I hear you saying again that if I can't trust you, you may as well cheat. I wish you'd hit me then, rather than the barrage of words I got first. You're smart enough to only really lay into me when I'm too drunk to defend myself, my sober tongue would cut you down to the size of my little toe. But my head was full of wine and I was unable to say anything except, 'I've never said you can't talk to anyone.' I kept on repeating this sentence like a hymn and you kept on shouting and I froze in your cold gaze. I forget how easy it is for you to turn your eyes such a cruel shade of black, even the soft crow's feet in the corners disappear. The tea is now a dark shade of green, almost a dirty moss. I take slow sips as I stride slowly across the kitchen. If the neighbours where awake they'd think I was mad. With what they heard tonight they probably already do. 

      I have to sort myself out, I start by assessing the damage. A full-length mirror in the living room is a nice touch when you're fucking over the arm of the sofa. But now as I switch the light on all I see is the tapestry of a battle played out on my skin. I peel of your t-shirt. I've got lucky, my skin just look like a small child was let loose with a red Crayola on my skin. No bruises have come up yet, but I can feel where they're going to be. My face is fine, that's the important part. I know if I wash the blood off and apply some aloe vera gel tonight I'll probably just wake up looking like I've fallen into a hedge drunk. That's the easy story to sell, I'm a mess and everyone loves you so they'll never question it. 

      I don't leave you because I'm not afraid. I don't feel anything except the pain in my ribs and I'm a little tired. But you were probably been pacing her apartment all night, hating yourself and your lack of self-control. But I will sleep just fine, sinking into the bed like water into a sponge. Soon I will feel like a teenager after ballet class, with sore thighs and a tender back, nursing the dull post-recital pain. See you're nothing I can't handle and I'm too competitive to leave first. It's like learning to do the splits — day by day I drop a little lower until I'm flexible enough to hit rock bottom. I've pulled up one of the straw bucket chairs up to the windowsill, I get annoyed by a neighbour's car pulling out of the driveway, disturbing my peace. Somehow it feels violating, my blood boils to the point where I find myself hoping his car crashes; nothing serious of course, just roughed up enough that he's late for work. 

      Looking back on my periods of blueness — everything seems fragmented, like trying to recall a TV show I only half watched while flicking through my phone. I think if I ever where to paint you, I'd do you in blue. The same kind of blue from the plastic coating of old 3-D glasses, you're tacky like that. I'd sketch you with charcoal first, carve out each of your smile lines before they fade when you wake, you'd be asleep, dreaming of all the women in the world. While I will be alone, awake at the side of the bed with my canvas propped up. Creeping in and out with coffee without disturbing you at all.

      I haven't put my clothes back on yet. I'm hoping some of the blood transfers and stains the blue velvet cushion. Not like it wouldn't take you months to realise anyway. I should shower before the sun rises. My train isn't until two but I don't want the morning to see me like this. I walk up the stairs. Cold wooden floorboards prick my feet on the way up to the bathroom. I throw the bloody t-shirt in the laundry basket as a postcard to you. Wish you where here. But you haven't been here for a while. Even when you sit next to me on the settee I feel as If I could flip my body over the back without you even taking a second look. 

      Your fist fits neatly into my cheek. There is a few seconds before it hurts. I don't feel as if I'm in my body. I'm watching myself fight like a child in an arcade. Shoulders barging into my body, tattoos shifting before my eyes and I can feel the dragon on your forearm laughing at me. I don't know if my feet are still on the floor.

      I understand you too well. You're so full of rage and I always thought I could take it because I was too. But yours is greater. It's not like mine. It's not even my father's. Your rage burns everything up like a Californian wildfire, whereas I can sit simmering on the stove.  

      With your hands around my throat I can see the green in your iris. I always thought your eyes where a flat hazel. I don't know you anymore, I try to remember your mother's name and if she did anything to you. The same way I forgot my dad's birthday. I keep my toes pushed into the ground and I try to slow my breathing, like a mouse playing dead for a cat. 

      I wrap one of the wool throws around me, cocooning myself, I wish I could rest forever. Not sleep. I want to be a sightseer, captivated by the angle my bedsheets are thrown at gazing out at the horizon. To bundle myself up. Sleep is such a waste, I don't want to be unconscious I want my eyes open to the world. Able to feel every inch of comfort. The bonus of Sundays is no one is going to make me move either.

      I'm not breathing. I don't feel as if I have lungs anymore. Then a sharp inhale as oxygen returns. Your boots heavy stomping out the door. Once I hear the ignition start, I turn onto my side. Safe for now. I get onto my knees. Tap out a four-beat rhythm with my fist. Nothing you haven't survived before. You mother didn't go through what she did for you to cry now — Nothing feels permanent, just maybe some bruises and stretched muscles.

      I go back into the kitchen for something to dull the pain in my neck. It's okay if you've left a mark because turtlenecks are in fashion again. It's not like I've never hurt anyone, all the boys I used to fistfight in Primary school and all the boyfriends whose hearts I broke. Mamma used to say my rage was genetic. Dusty hand-me-down from my father, something to remember him by. I was born screaming pissed at the world and as soon as I grew nails I think I started scratching them down my arms in cartoonish fits of rage. She used to call me 'the Tasmanian devil'. Anger is cute until you're eleven and then it's puberty and everyone thinks you're just in a strop but for split seconds I thought I could genuinely kill a man. I've wanted to tear you apart so many times, you're lucky you normally know when to leave so you miss me boiling.

      Behind my chest a wall is building, brick by brick, until it blocks my throat. I can't do anything yet. I ground myself. Wiggle my toes. No damage is permanent. I'm not winded anymore but breathing doesn't hurt any less. Ribs feel like resistance bands wound too tight. There's a dull throbbing brain in my temple and no one's going to fix it for me. I hold myself still on my knees for so long, breathing so quietly, I can hear the birds rustling outside and the wind whipping branches off the trees.

      My head feels like a hot air balloon trying to leave the rest of my body. There's blood or ketchup on the kitchen floor and I don't care enough to find out which one.  I think of calling someone, but I don't even really feel like talking. Sore gums throb.  I'm all out of paracetamol, which is just as well because I think I need something stronger. I stretch my hands out over the granite counter, the feel of cool stone against my skin puts some of the pain to sleep. Still I grab a glass of water, snapping two tabs of Solpadine into it and knocking it back effortlessly. It tastes like chlorine and suddenly I remember swimming lessons as a kid; the beige and pastel blue tiles of the pool floor and tight lycra swimming costumes and crouching in the corner of the group changing rooms, expertly taking off my knickers without taking the costume off like all the girls did.

      I'm sitting on the clean half of the kitchen table; the Solpadine starts to kick in and I feel the pain fade into the background. I flick through a magazine off the counter but the fog behind my eyes makes it too hard to focus. Instead I shut my eyes, but I'm too aware of my body to sleep, I feel the blood pulsate around my bruises.   Some nights when you're asleep against my chest, your hair feels like wool. Scratching against my breast and I want to pull you back by your curls and smash your face off the bedpost. This idea lasts only for a second, then I look down and your smoothed brow, completely at peace, and my rage cools off. They say love is work. Well I fancy going on the dole.

      A bath would fix things. That's what my mum would say. I'll feel better if I'm clean, I can't control you but I can control what my skin looks like. When children have been out playing in the garden, they have to wash their hands before tea. I walk to the landing, clothes thrown everywhere and most of them of yours. I can't remember if I did it in an act of passion or if I was trying to ruin your pastel shirts. I get a strange impulse to lay down and cry in them like a beautiful renaissance painting, but it wouldn't fix anything. With each step the carpet feels like it's clinging to my toes. I imagine falling back down and giving in to the beige carpet but that wouldn't make me anymore clean. I make it to the bathroom, it's mostly empty. Just how you like it — with no trace of life or dirt. The fluorescent light buzzes into action. I look dead. The kohl around my eyes, crusted red lipstick mixed with wiped blood and skin as pale as the tiles on the wall. But with each wipe of my makeup remover I start to come back, the flush returns to my cheeks and my eyes look a little brighter without the black rings. The blood isn't as bad as it first appeared, most of it came from a cut on my shoulder, only about an inch; but the blood has managed to wrap around my neck like a ribbon.

      It started over him. I could've just dropped it. But you also could've taken it better. They say jealousy is a green eyes snake, but black-eyed, blonde boys do it pretty well too. I call you a toddler, clinging to his favourite toy too hard. You call me a bitch. I yell why do you like it then? You scream why don't you just behave? Why can't you love like a normal people? Normal people can love without fists. Why do you push my buttons?  Why can't you grow the fuck up and get some fucking skin? Piss off and die, I wish you'd fucking kill me already.

      When we first met you told me you didn't really love anything. You claimed to believe in some alterative branch of stoicism or some shit. You where every indie teen girl's dream, with your leather jacket, slicked-backed hair and menthol cigarettes you never fully inhaled. I should have run. I would've saved myself four years of pain. Instead I dig down into you, through the leather, the t-shirt, the skin. I found your core rotten. I never believed you when you told me you never felt anything — for one thing you weren't even sure what a sociopath was, you kept on say it meant you could handle pressure well — instead I believe you feel too much, hate and love pour out of you like sweat. I bet you wish you were a sociopath, it'd make all this easier for you. 

      I have to get out. Not the next time, this was the next time. Now it is the last. But I have to wash first. I catch a glimpse of my back as I turn into the tub. My back looks like a map, faint sprawling islands of purple and light green stain my back like spilled[A1]  ink. I switch off the taps and I get in and I gasp. Like needles pricking my skin. Boiling baths are supposed to increase blood flow or some shit like that. I just know through trial and error if I do it once a day my bruises will heal far faster.

      I roll up a towel as a pillow. I lie back and pretend I'm anywhere else — it's doesn't have to be a sunny beach or sprawling city — just not here. I begin to sing to myself, old indie songs I used to play on repeat when I was thirteen and wore too much eyeliner. The bonus of you not being here is you can't yell at me to shut up. For a few minutes I forget last night, I even forget the pain. All I know is the music and the water. Then I open my eyes and see your aftershave on the windowsill. It all comes back to me. I can't hold the notes as well any more so I stop singing. Instead I stare at the walls, at all the tiles that look at least twenty years old, yellowed and chipped with age. The bathroom could be something special if you put some work into it. Add some patterned tiles and plants maybe. A larger mirror too.

      All I can take is one step at a time. I wash my face, exfoliating away everything I wasn't born with. I shave my legs, making sure I stop around the small cuts. Then I start to brush my hair, working from the bottom up to gently pull out the tats. Luckily there's no blood or bruising on my scalp that clogs my hair. I add the shampoo everything smells of grapefruit. I lather it up for a couple extra minutes. The sun has started to rise now and I'm being reborn in this tub. I leave the conditioner to soak in for ten minutes. I should book a holiday, get the girls together and go tear up one of those Greek islands, we could lounge by the pool all day and dance on every flat surface all night. I always thought Santorini looked beautiful in all those clickbait articles. I imagine the cold sun coming through the window is Mediterranean, the bath salts are white sand. The world is beautiful, you just have to be in right place.

      I still have to pack to go home. I don't want to. It's like vacationing in an asylum. I can't be bothered to give a long-winded explanation of my job to relatives who barely remember my name. I don't want to lay out my best black dress. Roll it up into my weekend bag with some Louboutins. I hate this kind of performance and I have no desire to watch my mum parade me around. The idea makes me sick — or that might just be the Solpadine, I pull the plug and dry myself off — I swear most the healing was already done. Maybe my skin is used to it by now. Like memory foam that bends around your fist I bounce back into shape after a while. I moisturise twice just to make sure.

      I wonder what you're up to now. Probably at a friend's house while he gives you your tenth beer and you can sit around and bitch about how psycho women are in between matches on the PlayStation. I however am in a state of bliss trying to decide what to wear for the train journey — leggings, jumper and a fur coat will do nicely. I apply a little more make up than usual, extra concealer just in case any tiredness is visible, I even add red lipstick. I recreate myself into the image of the successful young working professional and I'm incredibly good at it. I'll get breakfast at the train station, I don't feel like I could stomach anything yet.

I think about leaving you a poem on the dresser, but I can't think of anything nice to say. You always get upset because everything I write about you is sad. You want an epic romance when all the material you give me is only enough for a soap opera side plot. All the traces of snow have been evaporated in the morning sun. Even the slate roofs are almost pretty. I lock the front door and leave you to clean up the mess. I think if I was to leave you a poem it would say something about how you're an unreachable island, shimmering its rich forests at passing sailors while the dangerous animals hide in the shrubbery.