by James Heaton

They say a woman scorned is a demon in human form. Stories are told of a woman’s rage. It isn’t a beautiful thing; no it is the scourge of the Earth. Something that no man truly wants to face. The scorn of a woman done wrong.

Rage is a horrible thing, it opens the Earth and lets the lava flow, it breaks open the surface and cracks the soil, bringing the destruction of the world to the surface for all to see. People run from the chaos of the Earths rage and isn’t the Earth a woman? Isn’t it called Mother Earth for a reason. For no man could cause so much damage in his rage. It takes a woman to destroy the Earth.

I had a man whom I loved with all my heart. A man who was sweet and caring and he was weak in all his greatness. He had wandering eyes but I had his heart. Samuel was everything to me, he saved me from all that I was, he saved me from myself.

I was lost before I met him, and everyone knew this. My own mother said I was a wild stallion that needed to be broken in and trained. I never saw that; I just saw freedom and I wanted nothing more than to run free.

It was the winter of 1941 and I was a single woman when Samuel came into my life. He was sophisticated, a man of means and knowledge. When he went off to the war I was but a teenage child and I saw as a child saw. The world was not open to me as it was to him. He learned much overseas, and when the war was over he wondered the European continent as I aged daily. I put myself through school to become a learned woman.  I studied English and biology. I studied history and I became an intelligent woman, a woman he would grow to love.

But Samuel was a complicated man, a man broken by the war. Taking a humans life had changed him, and he took many German lives. The war was over in the Forties and even though it was over with the death of Hitler, he needed to find his way. He needed to rectify what he had done. He thought helping the people he met could help him retrieve his soul. He wasn’t the only expatriate to wander the world. He was but one of many. An entire population of men and women who found peace in the streets of Paris, learning about the world outside of America.

But I was betrothed to him and he promised he would return to me as soon as he had purged his soul of the wrong he had done. I tried to understand and I promised to remain his until he returned.

But in the month of January 1946 he returned to me. He was a changed man, and he brought me many gifts. A necklace from England, a broch from Ireland. He brought me a dress from Paris and many other wonderful gifts. It almost made it worth the long wait, worth all the pain of living without him. He would never know the pain I suffered for the years he was away, how could he? He had been trying to ease the pain he had known from death and I knew nothing of such things. How could I? I had never taken a life as he did, all those men dead from his rifle and knife. He had been a war hero and had saved hundreds by taking the life of the enemy as he so proudly did.

I tried to be understanding and in my heart I was. I had compassion for him, I knew that the pain of taking a life must be something so heavy that it weighted a man down. For what would I ever know of that pain. I looked into his eyes and saw a depth that overwhelmed me so deeply. He was lost in there, in his mind. He was dead inside. I vowed to bring him back to life and little by little I did. I used my skills as a lady to bring him back to me, the constant affection and the sex that he loved so much. It was just our two bodies at first and then after a dozen or so times I began to notice that he was actually enjoying himself. He engaged with me. I was no longer just the tool he used to purge himself of the manly juices that built up in his body. I was his lover.

But there was another. She was named Helen and she was beautiful. She was the teller at the bank that we used together on our joint account. Our joint account that had both of our names on it. She saw my name and she knew he was with me. But she flirted something fierce with him. She used her eyes to seduce him, to turn his head and make him blush. She loved it all, the attention and the affection that he was so willing to give up. I stood in the front of the bank watching the entire thing and knew she had seen us together.

“What was all that?” I asked.

“What was all what?” Samuel asked. He knew what I was talking about, no use in playing stupid.

“The teasing and the stroking of the hair, all that she was doing to show you that she would be yours if you just asked.” I said. I sounded insane, but it was how I felt.

“You see things. I told you I only have eyes for you.”

I left it alone but I knew her type, and she needed to know mine.

I left Samuel at the bar with his friends and I told him I was headed home.

Instead I went to the bank and waited for her to get off of work. I watched and waited as she exited the bank and headed for the parking lot across the street.

I followed.

I snuck up behind her and pinned her to her car and with a straight razor I held her head in my hand and the razor against her throat.

“You liked to flirt with Samuel today. Make it a habit and I will slice you open like a rag doll. Do we understand each other?”

She was so nervous she pissed herself in the parking lot standing beside her Buick. She shook her head and acknowledged that she understood.

“Tell anyone about this and I will give you a world of hurt. I was never here.” And then I left, I walked away while she laid her head on the top of her car and cried.

See I waited for Samuel for so long. So damn long. I thought he wasn’t going to ever come home. And momma said if he really loved me he would return but if he didn’t I needed to prepare myself. She sat me down at the kitchen table and we had coffee. She told me how my father had been a wandering spirit after the war and that she had waited on him. He made his way through the whore houses of Europe before he came home and gave her VD. She took the meds and got better but she said she never let him forget it either. She said it was a mistake he would take with him for the rest of his life. She said men were like dogs and you had to train them. Train them to sit and when to talk and when to fuck. She said that the world treated women harshly, it looked at them as second rate citizens the way it did with the colored folk. She said she felt for them, how they were just the same as we were but society saw them as second rate. Just like it did with women.

She told me of how she went to buy a new kitchen stove and that the man wouldn’t sell to her, he would only sell to the man of the house because he needed his permission to sell something so expensive to a woman. Mother pulled out her straight razor and told old man Robinson that she didn’t need permission to cut off his balls and fry them up in the frying pan and make him eat them, he sold the stove to her and had it delivered. She said all men were pigs and that we only needed them to do the things we couldn’t. But that was the thing she was trying to teach me, that women didn’t really need men for anything but reproduction and company. She said dad was good company now, because he was afraid of her.

I didn’t want Samuel to fear me, I just wanted him to respect me. And in the fifties that was tough, men just didn’t respect women. I never wanted to hurt Samuel, but I needed him to know who was boss. I needed him to know that I was in charge and that he was there for my company and for a child if I wanted one. And god forbid I had a boy.

I sat Samuel down that night and told him how I had watched him with the girl at the bank, and that I never wanted to see that again. He played it off but when I lost control and slammed a plate against the wall he woke up from his sleep of ignorance and listened to me. I meant it, no more looking at other women. I knew I scared him; I knew he would listen to me from here on out, but was I the ignorant one.

Helen had eyes for my man and she wouldn’t be stopped with a mere threat. She told Samuel of our little meeting in the parking lot and he said he would talk to me. He approached me and said he needed to talk. We went into the kitchen and he said he knew about the threat I made to Helen, how I had scared her shitless. Good, she needed it. He said what I did was psycho, how dare he use that word to describe me.

I told him that I had waited for years for him to return to me and that I wouldn’t stand by and let a woman of her type to swoop in and steal him from me.

“Nobody is trying to steal you from me. She was just being flirty; I think that all tellers do that.” He tried to ease my mind.

“Honey, she could have you arrested for that little stunt. I begged her not too and she said that as long as you left her alone she would forget the entire thing.” I agreed to keep my distance but I swore to him that life would not be easy for him or her if I caught wind of anymore flirting.

Maybe I didn’t want to see the affair that was unfolding before my eyes. Maybe I wasn’t like my mother and I had made my point.

The next week I went with mother in her car to see my aunt Veronica who was recovering from a broken hip. She was in a cast and needed a nurse to take care of her. Mother and Veronica were both the same woman, they thought alike, they looked alike and when it came to men they shared the same core beliefs. They believed men were just wild animals and like a good dog, needed a lot of training.

Veronica told me that if I didn’t get a good hold of my man he would be whoring until he was an old man, and what kind of woman would that make me in the eyes of the town? I would be laughed at and made into the town joke. The woman who waited at home for her man who was out fucking other women.

What I didn’t know, and wouldn’t find out until a week later was that Samuel had Helen over to our house. The house we shared together. She was in my bed and he would have his way with her in the very spot I laid my head to sleep. I learned this from Mrs. Acker who lived next door.

“I didn’t want to tell you. I didn’t want to be the neighborhood spy but I saw them come in and she left the next morning. Wearing the same clothes she came over in. Your husband is trash for doing that to you.”

And what do we do with the trash? We take it out. I bid my time and made my plan. I told that whore if she ever looked at my man again I would slit her throat, guess she didn’t hear me.

I went to the feed and seed and bought a knife, a big hunting knife. I told Mr. Wilson that it was a gift to my husband. He said he would keep our secret. I left with the biggest hunting knife he sold. It was ten inches from the edge of the handle to the tip of the blade and it came in a beautiful leather sheath. I kept it under my pillow at night.

They say in the Indian village near our town that a knife isn’t alive until it tasted blood. I was going to make sure my blade was alive.

I waited up for Samuel on Friday night when he got home from the bar and sat at the table drinking coffee. He came in all liquored up and tried to have his way with me, I knocked him out with a cast iron pan and tied his body to the kitchen table and chairs.

Then I went after Helen, she was in her bed and surprise, she was liquored up as well. Getting her body out of her house and into the car was tricky but I did it. Dragging her into my house was the hard part. She had been at the bar with my husband and they had been drinking together all night. I didn’t need to see it with my own eyes, a woman knows.

I had them both tied to the chair when they came too. I had fixed a big plate of food that I sat down and ate as the two awoke from their drunken stupor. They were both surprised. Surprised more that they were together than being tied to a chair in my kitchen. The kitchen I worked hard to clean. The kitchen I made my man his meals. And now the kitchen where I would kill them both.

“Are you two comfortable? Happy to see each other?” I asked.

“Helen I am sorry; I didn’t know she would go crazy and attack you.” Samuel said.

He was defending his woman, how sweet. How sickeningly sweet.

Helen tried to talk but her mouth was dry, I offered her water. I needed her to be able to talk and tell me just what she was thinking.

“Go ahead Helen, tell me what you were doing in my bed last weekend. When I was away taking care of my aunt. Tell me how you made love to my husband in our bed.” I said.

I pulled out my new knife, its blade was a sharp as a razor and it shined like the moon in the night sky.

They both looked frightened but my husband tried to talk sense into me.

“Honey, it was an honest mistake. I promise never to do it again. I promise to make this right.” He fumbled with his words.

“How exactly are you going to make this right. You soiled our bed. Now we need a new mattress and fresh linens. You know how hard I work to keep this house for you. You know how hard I slave over the laundry and the dishes and the cooking. I spend all day while you are at work. And you never say thank you. And then when I am away you bring this whore into our bed and fuck her. That’s what you did, you fucked her.”

“I only did it the one time, I will buy a new mattress and hire you a maid. With what I’m making at the factory I can afford it. I promise, just let us go and all of this will be forgotten. We can go back to the way it used to be.”

Helen was crying, snot rolled down her nose and into her mouth. I wiped her face and told her to compose herself like a good little whore should.

“It’s too late for making it right Samuel. I gave her the one and only chance to back away from you. She laughed in my face when she climbed into my bed.”

I grabbed my knife and ran it down Helens face, cutting her beautiful cheeks from side to side.”

“See she isn’t so beautiful now.” Helen cried in pain.  I slammed the knife down in front of her, shoving it into the table. My beautiful oak table. Now it had a cut in it. I would need a new table.

“Stop your crying it will all be over soon enough.” I said.

“Mary, come to your senses. It isn’t too late. We can still fix this.” He pleaded. But I knew he cared more about her than he did me. I knew he was too far gone to ever love me again. I waited while he made his way through all the whores in Europe, just like my father did. What was it about them that mesmerized the American Soldiers? They just couldn’t help themselves. Just like my mother said, they are all dogs. And dogs either want to eat, shit, fuck or fight. And a good dog knows when to hold back those instincts. When they are trained. Well I didn’t train Samuel good. He was a bad dog.

My mind was spinning. I looked down at the knife; it had tasted blood. Now you may have thought that was enough to put a good scare in the whores heart. But I needed more, I was shall we say, invested in the chaos. I wanted death. And such a strong thing that is, to need death, to taste the blood and want more. It says a lot about the person with the knife in their hand. And there is a power that flows through you when you hold a good knife. It becomes an extension of your body; it becomes the weapon that you want your hand to be. It had an excellent weight and felt right, right in my hand. I tightened my grip and held up Helens chin. I put the knife on the left side of her throat and carved a line all the way across her neck. The blood spilled out all over my clean floor. What a mess it made.

Samuel cried and cried. He knew he was next, or maybe he didn’t. Maybe he thought this was just another lesson I was trying to teach him.

I sat down and finished my toast. I put grape jelly on one side and took a bite. He just sobbed like a baby. Hard to imagine a decorated soldier crying at the sight of a dead whore but I guess he really had feelings for her.

“What was your plan Samuel?” I asked calmly.

“What plan, she was just an easy lay. It was just sex. I didn’t have a plan.” He said through the tears.

“Tell me the truth or I cut off your fingers.”

He looked horrified. I just finished my toast.

“Okay, okay…. We were going to run off together and I was going to divorce you. I wanted to be with her. She was exciting to me. I got wrapped up in it all. I am so sorry. Just let me live, we can ditch her body and be happy. I promise never to do it again.”

“I want to believe you. I really do. But see when a dog bites a man you have to put it down, once its tasted human blood it always wants more. See I let you free and in a year you will be back doing the same thing all over again. And I already look the fool. Our neighbor saw her come in the house. And pretty soon she will tell someone and they will tell someone. Gossip. It’s almost as bad as a dog that bites a person. I have to put you down Samuel. It’s really what is best.”

I grabbed the knife and rammed it into Samuels chest as I pulled up a chair and sat beside him as he died. A wife should always be by her man’s side as he dies. To hold his hand as he passes into the next life. It’s what a good wife would do for her man.

I sat in the kitchen with the two lovers for what seemed like hours. I told you a woman scorned was like a natural disaster. The way the earth quakes and destroys whatever is in its path. Well I was that woman. I had killed my husband and his lover.

I pulled both their bodies into the back yard and dug a single grave. It took me all night, who knew digging a hole was so much work. I covered them with dirt and then the next day I went to the feed store and bought a bunch of seeds and covered the grave with wildflowers. In the spring they would bloom and I would have a nice garden where my husband and his whore were buried.

I spent an entire day cleaning the floor, getting up every drop of blood that stained my beautiful floor. I did the dishes and cleaned the house.

When Samuels work called I told them he had run off with his girlfriend. Then the bank called Helen and tried to reach her but they never did. I didn’t fool with the cars, I guess if I had been a real killer I would have covered all my tracks but I really didn’t care.

Later that week the police came calling and I told them Samuel told me he had met someone new and they were going to California together. They bought a new car and he packed his things and left. I told them I was heartbroken and ashamed. They comforted me and called him a dirty rat. He was a dog not a rat, at least a rat is sneaky.

The cops wrote it off as a man who left his wife and home and headed to California to be with his mistress. They didn’t search for him or her. They did find it interesting that she hadn’t packed anything but they said she would probably just buy new clothes and start a new life.

That spring the flowers grew in the spot where I buried the bodies. I kept the knife, never knew when I would need it again.

I remarried five years later and Evan was a great husband. He didn’t need much training and his eyes never strayed.

I had a good life, had two daughters with Evan and I taught them what my momma had taught me, that men are like dogs and they needed to be trained. Neither of them ever had a problem with their husbands, they were good men.

When I was ninety six I was in an assisted living home, enjoying my last days. Evan had died four years earlier and the girls came to see me every week.

The family that bought my home decided to put in a pool and that was when they dug up the backyard. They found the remains of the two lovers in the ground. They called the cops and I was the first one they came to see. I played it off that I was too far gone in my old age to remember that time.

But they knew it was me. The district attorney toyed with the idea of having me arrested but I died before they got their chance.

I’m somewhere else now, and I don’t regret anything I did. I had to train him, train him to be a good husband.