ENOUGH is a Rumpus series devoted to creating a dedicated space for essays, poetry, fiction, comics, and artwork by women, trans, and nonbinary people who engage with rape culture, sexual assault, and domestic violence.
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The sun is slowly melting into the Red Sea as our eyes follow it through the floor-to-ceiling windows of the restaurant. The sky is ablaze, imparting a burnt orange glow to the white poplin tablecloths and our still faces. Chrome surfaces reflect our uneasy glances—married for seven years, we are back in Sharm el Sheikh, our honeymoon destination, to celebrate our anniversary.
He’s watched me through the bottom of his wine glass throughout dinner, and now the blood vessels in his eyes sprawl like cobwebs, borrowing their color from the sea on fire. With each sip, the corners of his mouth curl tighter and tighter into a sneer and there is almost nothing left of the verve that animated him when we walked in. His hands, which for an hour told stories of growing up and painted faraway landscapes, are now tightening around the glass’s stem as his words pull the curtains aside to reveal familiar old shadows that regularly join us for our evening meals. His overbearing mother, his often-absent father, his callous older sister, his unfeeling first wife, his cheating second one all gather like dark clouds and gyrate around the table in a minuet of wrath that poisons his blood, curdles his voice. I am wife number three, a silent extra in this grotesque recital.
I see the signs of what is to come and begin twisting the gold band around my ring finger faster. It’s tight, too tight to take off, just like this marriage that encloses me like a stifling corset squeezing the breath out of my lungs. His impotent rage against them, against the entire world, lashes out at me—Cow! Piece of trash!—and I cave in on myself, hunching down over my dinner plate. The steak in front of me releases its scarlet juices, and as I push each piece down my constricting throat, I swallow the venomous sounds escaping his mouth, opening wider the gashing wound inside. Put your whole face in the trough, sow—his hand holding the fork, forcing a piece of meat past my clenched teeth.
I am seven again, I am eight, I am nine, my father’s bellows cover my mother’s whimpers, and I retreat into that safe corner deep in my body where nothing can reach me. I am underwater, drowning, and all I hear is the sound of fear throbbing in my blood. I stop trying to understand if it is now or then, if I am even present in this tribunal where I am tried and found guilty of someone else’s crimes. My eyes dart through the restaurant, silently begging someone must be able to notice this, please help! But the waiter in his red plaid vest barely understands enough English to bring us the check. Outside the windows, the black sky has dissolved into the now-inky sea.
Back at the hotel, he staggers down the corridor and I, two steps behind, pray he won’t be able to open the door. But the lock clicks and I enter the hotel room cell carrying in the pit of my stomach the life sentence I have chosen. I know there is no escape. Not now, not later when, at the height of his anger, in the dark, his hand puts the incandescent red tip of his cigarette out on my skin, not even afterward when the same hand delves between my thighs and lights my body on fire with a violence I mistake for desire.
