Cruelty

Whenever he was like this she had to fight back rage. She supposed it was unreasonable to feel so strongly. Yet, each time he began to cry she felt, first repulsion, and then anger. It often happened after sex. They would make love, often well, and then his sobs would penertate the post-cotial fog. He would curl into a ball by her side, sobs shaking through his bony body. Initally, she cried too, curling herself around him, holding him to her. It killed her each time, this happened, made her desperate to make him feel better. After he would tell her about how much he hated himself. He was repulsive. "Can't you see how ugly I am?" He would ask her. "Why are you with me?" And he would come up with answers himself. It usually invovled his famousness. He did not think that his fame might arise from some talent of his own. Instead, the fame gave him yet another excuse for why people might be attracted to him. Initally, it made her feel slightly in awe of him. How someone so beautiful, so sexy, so talented, could hate themselves as much as she hated herself. She had imagined that having admirers at his scale would make her finally feel desirable.

Eventually, this proof that salavation did not lie in admiration made her hate him. Throughout the day she could love him. She loved watching him cook for her in the kitchen. She loved when they lounged about in the study, each with a book. She mostly loved watching him on stage. She loved the way he wrapped a character on himself. And she even loved watching the women, and men, mob him afterwards. She took a smug pride, then, in that she knew him in ways they never would. Often in the midst of that crowd, he would look up and smile at her. His mouth would be twisted into a slight smirk, and one eyebrow would be crocked.

But when they made love, after she touched his body, kissed it, worshipped it really, all the while feeling deep inside that her own body was not worthy of such perfection, he would cry. His tears came to be a mockery of her own feelings. If he was ugly, she thought, what was she. She already questioned everyday why he wanted her so much. He, who everyday had beautiful women, begging him to fuck them, choice her. Her, a rather mousy, short, blowsy kind of woman. She was no longer thick as she had been in high school but she still had large breasts and a bit of a tummy which always made her feel sloppy and dumpy. How could he cry? How dare he feel repuslisve in her presence? And ulimately, their insecurities made her cruel.

She became cruel, initally, in little ways. She would pretend to sleep when he cried. Eventually the cruelty manifested itself in greater detail. She began to critize his clothes, his cooking. She mocked his reading choices, and became superior when they discussed books, falling back on her degree when he attempted to disagree with her. She began to skip shows; especially the ones he asked her to be at. She flirted with his enemies at parties. And each small act of cruelty gave her power. Each act of cruely bonded him closer to her, until he was nothing without her cuts.