We weren’t allowed to scream. To have done so would have rendered us rebellious, unladylike and rude. We weren’t allowed to show our shoulders, talk back to boys or be defiant. Only in rage did the women in my house raise their voice. Only in rage could you hear the anguish shoved down through centuries of dissimulation, our silenced dreams recalled in high pitched tirades, spoken so loud that the walls shivered. We were all good girls once, poured into tight dresses and tighter shoes. We said our ‘pleases’ and ‘thank yous,’ did our make-up and remained girl like, lady like, picture-perfect, while the years of pent up rage and humiliation turned us slowly into passive cannibals.

I ate my first husband with a smile. He was probably a good man, but I didn’t wait to find out. The second one was cruel, he went down as smooth as butter, sticking to my ribs like a well cut gown. I’ve worn him long and well, his money, his name, his house in the hills, are all visible signs of my victory. I’m stuffed on victory, rolling in it. No man ever made me scream in child birth. No man ever made me change a diaper. No man ever made me grow old in silence.

Long hours stretch before me begging to be filled. Maybe I’ll buy a new dress today or maybe I’ll buy five? Maybe I’ll stop by a café and drink coffee with a friend, or maybe I’ll go to France or Morocco and find a new man to eat? Maybe he’ll be tall and handsome? Maybe he’ll be rich and plain? Or maybe he’ll be cruel in that especially delicious way, sliding down my throat like sweet cream on a hot day.

My rage is a palatable thing that no longer tastes of bile or blood’s corroded metal tang. It is sweet like pudding and revenge. It is the friend I turn to, the confidant who always has an answer. It is my alter-self and my master plan. My rage has given me a long memory. It recalls rooms filled with the silence of clocks that slowly tick out the interminably long hours of a pointless life. It recalls the shackles of obedience, the lie inherent in a false smile and years of unending, unendurable servitude.

Picking up my handbag I catch my image in the mirror. Hollow eyes see hollowed cheeks and elegant collar bones that protrude beneath the thin straps of a little black dress. Beautiful I am and beautiful I will remain though my eyes are sharp, cold, dead and haunted in a way that only a cruel man could overlook. And he’s out there somewhere…viciously vulnerable…made tender by lust…rendered delicious by desire.