Hook bites his tongue, and the wine filling his mouth tastes of blood. Monica knows he hates her snobbery; the only time her decadent airs turn him on is in bed. She returns to her chopping, mashing, blending: all that energy to create a woodburger. Why does he eat this tofu, this bean?
Monica addresses him through her sheeny hair. “Anyway, how did it go?”
Hook takes off his jacket and hangs it over the desk chair. Van Gogh scowls through his ginger beard, hair swept back like a greaser.
“How did what go?”
“With Jack.”
Hook frowns at his wife’s bobbing behind. When does a quickie turn to rape? What are the signs? Is she too drunk to consent? Is he too sober to fuck?
“How did you know I went to see Jack?”
Monica looks over her shoulder, cheek pinking. “You sent me a text, remember?”
He doesn’t. Hook sips his wine before risking a reply. “I thought you didn’t have your phone?”
Monica stops chopping and looks back at him with increasing exasperation. Why not move round the table? What’s she hiding?
“What is this? I’m just asking, okay? Still no news about the Will?”
Hook watches her behind as she bends to the oven. No, no signs. Yet he’s her husband - what sign does she need to send out, what pheromone telegram? Should he just take her now, right there on the floor, or would that be crossing some line? According to an American professor he’s read, women sometimes orgasm when they’re raped: it’s down to evolution. Women who don’t get wet get hurt. Do rapists kiss their victims? That seems worst of all, somehow, that self-deceit...
“Not yet,” says Hook, acclimatising to the wine.
Now Monica practically has her whole head in the oven. What with her accent and her tights it’s like chatting to Sylvia Plath. What does that make him?
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