Author: R. J. Erbacher

She was seated on the closed toilet, legs crossed, just a bath towel wrapped across her breasts, water still dripping from her brunette hair onto her pale bare shoulders. She pulled the straight razor along her skin, her fingers laced between the shank and the tang, thumb on the heel. She wondered why Achmed even owned a straight razor.

From the bedroom, on the other side of the slightly ajar door, he expostulated on her lifestyle as he dressed for work. His reproach was a combination of righteous accusations and learned diagnosis. She was listening but not hearing any of it.

What she was in the mood for was – an iced coffee. She produced one. On the side of the sink, in a to-go cup with a lid and straw, condensation on the outside of the plastic. Filled with chunks of ice, a touch of caramel creamer. The dark liquid was the same color of Achmed’s skin. It was his skin, muscular, hairy and fragrant, rubbing up against hers every night when they made love that was one of the pure pleasures in her life. But the consequence of her desire meant she had to listen to him berating her each day. All the words up until now were abrasive white noise that didn’t register, until something he said filtered through.

“Entities are not to be multiplied without necessity.”

Bastard.

She contemplated her cup of iced coffee, pause, and produced another one. And another and another and another, until they filled every inch of the bathroom counter top. She gazed disgustingly at her vindictiveness.

Achmed talked for several more minutes before coming into the bathroom to brush his teeth. His voice halted in mid speech when he saw the abundance of identical cups in neat rows. His line of sight tracked from the peevish display of potency to her defiant stare, his face displaying a tense mixture of anger and revulsion.

She tightened her grip on the wood handle of the razor until her knuckles lost their color. He nodded imperceptivity, walked out of the bathroom, slammed the bedroom door behind him. A minute later she heard the car starting in the driveway and the small squelch of tires as he accelerated from the house.

For long moments she sat motionless as each drop of water gave into gravity and fell to her skin.

If he came home tonight, and if she was still here when he did, it would probably start off very badly. Things would be shouted that would be hard to forget. He would show amazing restraint in his effort not to hit her, as would she, in not producing something malicious. Then the moment would come when they would tear at each other’s clothes and make violent love, leaving bruises and bite marks. And as she laid there recovering, Achmed snoring, she would dot the inside of their bedroom with fading stars the size of fireflies. That would moderately pacify her into sleep.

For this morning, she just continued to shave her legs with his razor, and ponder what would be the consequences if instead of sliding the edge of it across her skin, she dragged it sideway just above her femoral artery. She supposed lots of people had similar notions in varying scenarios and like mostly everyone else she was far too much of a coward to attempt anything beyond visualization.

The simplest solution was not always the correct one. Sometimes, there was no solution.