The Knife Never Left Her Hand -- Rhonda Dove

     The knife never left her hand and Samuel never left her side. Why was she so frantic that evening? He had never seen that side of her, the manic side, the side that wanted to hurt. But she lay still now and he gazed at her chest to see it rise and fall. It relaxed him and gave him pleasure and to know she would sleep tonight and see another day. But, he knew he would have to be her protector and watch over her that was his role. 

     Natalie had a temper, but at times she liked to be a voyeur and see the other girls swoon over her Samuel. Then other days she was like a night watchman with a rifle cocked ready for a token transgression. Reckless eyeballing, where a girl stared too long in her man’s direction, was not tolerated.  A girl was never invited to sit and chat at her table while she chatted with her man, offense two. A cell phone vibrating, ringing, dinging while her man tapped at it, fondled it and put it back in his pocket, drove her insane. Samuel had committed all of the above and on top of that he had looked past her at a chick in a miniskirt while she spoke deeply about her feelings of loneliness and despair. 

     He saw the shift in her expression the twinkle of lunacy that deepened as the night fell drowsy. It was bizarre he thought, she often spoke of a desire for a pleasurable threesome, but she would turn sour when he even lingered in his speech about another lady. He normally did not try to please her whims. He got a rather sadistic pleasure in her self-inflicted emotional turmoil. He would coax her and lead her down this path of frantic despair. At the end of this road she would be so unraveled she would need him to pull the strings from the hard knots and soften her again. She needed him.

     Tonight their dance seemed perilously out of control. She shook him with her eyes that demanded to know why he chose to go against her wishes. And without prior discussion he decided to lecture her about the fact that she was not his master. In fact he had said if anyone is the master in their relationship it was he and he would not be told where and at whom he could look. In fact if he wanted to get up and go across the room and find the most beautiful thing in the place and talk to her for 30 minutes, it was her duty to sit happily in her seat and wait for his return. He knew at a point the Brandy was expressing these sentiments and not he, but it was too late and by the time he tried to explain, he noticed that her third glass had only a puddle of the purple stuff remaining.

     She had become ignited with a fury that neither of them could contain. He watched her in a slow-motion haze sing out a rhythmic barrage of insults at him that made the whole restaurant hush in interest. She told him he could in fact, ‘fuck all the ho’s in the whole damn place’ and she could care less. But, she would kick ‘somebody’s ass’ on the way out. 

     Samuel had never seen her so crazed. He instinctively grabbed her as she grabbed the knife on the dinner table and he held her tightly to him. 

     “Natalie baby relax.” That was all he could muster, but he held that wrist tightly indeed for dear life. He motioned to the waiter to extricate his wallet from his slacks and take out the 100 dollar bill and keep the change. He drug her as she screamed like a wolf who had been half paralyzed on a desolate road by some speeding nobody. 

     “Why do you do this to me Samuel…why….why….Why do you want to hurt me, when all I have ever wanted to give you is my love?” 

    He shushed her like you would a wailing baby. He kissed her neck and pushed her into the passenger side from the driver’s entrance, still holding that hand safely away from their harm. 

    “Everything is going to be okay baby, everything is going to be okay baby, everything is going to be…”

     And so they lay in his king size bed in their Friday night best. She looked so beautiful and was so beautifully flawed in her sparkling body hugging dress. Her golden brown thighs beckoned him and he wanted to please her, to sooth the pain he had disturbed inside her. This is crazy he thought and the knife never left her hand and Samuel never left her side.