and followed herself mere days later. They were wonderful, and they let me go to ballet classes, which is how I ended up realizing my lifelong dream of being a ballerina.
Sighing, I cuddle up to one of my cats. They are my babies. My joy. My Dachshund too, Mr. Bojangles. He’s such a character and goes everywhere with me. The cats always stay here, and if we travel then my mother feeds them. She lives in a home paid for by my husband officially, but actually paid for by my blood, sweat, and tears. Literal blood, as my feet have bled and broken to achieve the comfort we now live in. Comfort Jasper lives in too, like the parasite he is. I’m the host, and one day there’ll be nothing of me left for him to feed off.
Later that night, Jasper comes to search me out. We have separate rooms and have for years now. I’m not Jasper’s type. I’m the type he likes to pretend to the world he desires, but Jasper’s taste in women isn’t petite ballerinas. Jasper likes his women curvaceous. He also likes them blonde and blue eyed. Tan. Everything that I’m not.
“What have you been doing with yourself all day?” he asks. He sounds interested, kind. The thing is, Jasper doesn’t only act for the outside world. He acts for me too. So long as I behave. So long as I don’t fuck up or make a mistake, this is the Jasper I get. Do something wrong, though, and the monster shows its teeth.
“I’ve been reading,” I reply with a smile. It’s as false as his friendly demeanor. The hatred I feel for him is always there, but it’s a bland hatred. I want him dead and gone from my life. The hatred I felt when I saw Bohdan was different. That was the hatred of broken dreams and long-lost youth. Full of fire and passion and hurt.
Jasper doesn’t hurt me anymore. Not emotionally at least. I’m immune to him. I think I’m immune to everyone and everything now. Except him. The fire I felt with my first glance at Bohdan was more electrifying than any applause from an enchanted audience. More charged than the first melancholy echoes of a violin as I prepare for a solo.
Jasper sits on the bed, and I stiffen a little. It’s a natural response. A learned reaction to a clear and present threat.
“Where did we go so wrong?” he muses as if we’re some ordinary couple hitting a rough patch.
I don’t know what makes me do it. I can’t believe what my mouth is saying even as the words form. Instead of smiling and sighing and saying I don’t know, darling, which would send him to bed, I dig my grave.
“I think it was when you decided to take everything I earned for yourself and treat me like your possession. Nothing more than a thing to earn you money and prestige.”
His face transforms. It’s like getting a glimpse of the real Dorian Gray. The portrait slips through the façade for a moment as evil shines through his generally easy-going demeanor. He narrows his eyes and sighs. “Get up.”
I don’t move.
He moves swiftly, grabbing my hair and pulling me off the bed as I scream at the pain in my scalp.
I’m only wearing my robe, and he yanks it from me so I’m naked. He drags me downstairs by my hair and into the kitchen. This is nothing new. He’s put me on the kitchen floor like a dog and made me stay before.
He throws me on the floor, then he gets the trashcan by the door, lifts out the plastic liner full of foul-smelling food, and throws it all over me. Okay, so this is new.
Ugh, it’s disgusting. I try to swipe it from me, but he grabs my foot and pulls me through it, laughing. The hard, stone tiles are uneven and cold, and they hurt as my too thin body bumps over them.
“You’re the one who made the money and developed the prestige?” He laughs. “Don’t make me laugh. You’re nothing but a stinking Russian whore, who would have been working in a factory back in St. Petersburg if not for me. Don’t you ever fucking forget it.”
He kicks my backside, and it hurts. “Don’t you dare move for at least half an hour. I will check on you, and if you’ve moved, I’ll go fetch the hammer. Don’t make me.”
With a disgusted sneer, he turns and