Post by Emma “Emmz” Squalor on Jun 3, 2008 9:24:10 GMT -5
Yay, 667 is back online! I can't even begin to tell you how much I missed this place and its people. I had quite a scare last night that I feel I should share with you guys. It seems that one of my friends on deviantART had her account broken into. The person responsible actually had the nerve to go onto her friend's page and leave some very cruel comments in the artist's galleries. Unfortunately, not many people believed her when she explained the situation. She has since deleted everything in her account and left deviantART. What makes matters even worse is that the same thing happened to someone else, although they were banned.
I know a few of you guys on here are on my deviantART watch/friend's list, so if you see any suspicious messages show up in your gallery, mailbox, etc. and you see my username, please know that it isn't really me. I would like to think you know me well enough not to believe I'm capable of committing cruel actions like that. Last night when my friend told me what happened, I got so upset that I started crying and my anxiety got really, really bad. Just the thought of having something like that happen, and people actually believing I'm responsible literally makes me sick to my stomach. Thankfully, my best friend was also online at the time, so I called her and she managed to help me calm down. I thought about deleting my gallery, but that would mean I would also be deleting more than three years worth of artwork. Instead, I just changed my password.
So, yeah, that's all I have to say. I swear, this is the only place online where I feel safe anymore.
Title: Shattered
Author’s Disclaimer: I do not own A Series of Unfortunate Events or any of the characters or places mentioned herein. They belong to Lemony Snicket a.k.a. Daniel Handler. Emma Squalor belongs to me.
Rating: PG-13 (for sensitive subject matter, brief nudity, and a sexual reference)
Genre: Angst/Romance
Story-Type: One-Shot
Summery: After a weekend at his family’s estate, Jerome returns to the penthouse and discovers that things are far from normal.
Author’s Note: This is part fanfiction/part autobiographical piece. Most of this stuff is fictional, with a few real-life details mixed in. I was also inspired by a scene in “The Beginning”, which is an RPG on here that my friend, Jenny did that I’ve been reading and absolutely love. I also included this little piece of conversation that May and I had a while back. I guess you could say that I used it for comic relief purposes. The idea for “Shattered” came to me on Saturday morning while I sat drying my hair, and since it isn’t going to leave my head I decided to write it down. I would also like to give a special thanks to Jenny (she knows why). I hope you all like this fic and that it doesn’t depress you too badly.
“Darling, I’m home.”
Jerome Squalor stepped into the penthouse, balancing a bouquet of two-dozen red roses for his wife in one arm and a small toy for his stepdaughter in the other. He shut the door behind him with his foot and looked around the apartment, taking in the unusual silence.
“Esmé?” Jerome said, just in case no one had heard him the first time. “Emma?”
When neither his wife nor his stepdaughter answered, Jerome set their presents down on the coffee table. Perhaps they’re sleeping and didn’t hear me, he thought optimistically as he began to advance down the long hallway.
However, he soon learned that his accusation was unlikely as he looked upon two long rows of doors, all of which stood ajar. He felt his breath as it caught in his throat and his heart as it took on a rapid beat. Not wanting to look but too overcome with worry to turn away, he forced himself to take a peek inside the first room on the left.
It was one of forty or so bathrooms, and what Jerome saw both confused and disturbed him. It appeared as though someone had taken a baseball or some other object of equal strength, and deliberately shattered the mirror above the sink.
Jerome turned toward one of the neighboring rooms— a sitting room —and poked his head inside. There he found another mirror, which also appeared to have been broken in the same fashion as the one in the bathroom had.
His heart racing, he began to flee down the hallway, stopping to peer inside each room with an open door and see that every mirror had been intentionally smashed.
Of course, Jerome’s first thought was that someone had broken into the penthouse during his absence and kidnapped or (God forbid) killed Esmé and Emma. The very thought that any harm had come to his beloved family was enough to bring Jerome to tears to go along with his panic. He was halfway to the master bedroom when he stumbled and fell flat on his face.
Distress overpowered his ability to stand, and so he was forced to crawl on hands and knees along the carpet. Tears blurred his vision, and he had to stop a few times and wipe them away before continuing on his way.
“Esmé!” he shouted in a voice worn out by sobs. “Emma!”
By the time Jerome arrived at the master bedroom, he was sobbing so heavily that he was forced to stop just outside the door to catch his breath. Still unable to stand upright, he more or less stumbled into the bedroom. Taking in a long, deep breath, he screamed at the top of his lungs: “ESMÉ!!!!”
It was at that moment when a tiny sob emitted from the built-on bathroom directly behind him. His body immediately straightened up, and his head jerked around.
“Esmé?” Jerome repeated, his voice softer this time.
He stood still for a second, wondering if perhaps his panic had caused him to imagine the sound he believed he had just heard. When a second sob followed, he took a few cautious steps toward the bathroom. The door was mostly closed, and he slowly pushed it the rest of the way open.
What he discovered waiting for him on the other side was only half of what he had expected to find. The mirror that hung over the sink had been removed and smashed beyond repair. Sparkling shards of glass were scattered about the ceramic tiled floor; some pieces were large, while others were as tiny as snowflakes. Sitting in the middle of the floor was Esmé, clothed in nothing but her white nightgown with the spaghetti straps. There was a small red stain located on the area that covered her stomach. Her faced was tear-streaked, while the smallest fragments of the broken glass lay scattered in her dark hair and on her pale shoulders. Beside her lay a hammer.
Jerome opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He was just so relieved to see that none of his predictions were true that for a moment he lost his ability to speak.
Esmé looked as though she wanted to say something, but wasn’t ready to explain herself just yet. Jerome was afraid that if he demanded an answer or if he sounded angry, then his wife would try to run and end up cutting her foot on the broken glass.
Instead, Jerome stepped carefully into the bathroom, listening to the glass crunch beneath his feet. He knelt down on his ankles in front of Esmé and reached out a hand to caress her bare arm. He could see that there were fresh tears rolling down her cheeks, and he tilted his head to the side in his overwhelming concern for her.
“All of the mirrors in the apartment are broken,” he explained gently. “What happened?”
Esmé shook her head, a few fragments of glass spilling out of her hair and into her lap as she did so.
“I’m not angry with you, Esmé. I just need you to tell me what happened here.”
“I did it,” she replied in a whisper. “All of it.”
Jerome’s eyes widened. “You did… but why?”
Esmé sent her husband a contemptuous glare, but even he could see the sorrow reflected on her tearful face. “Because, Jerome. I hate myself.”
Her voice was venomous, and for one brief moment Jerome found himself staring at Esmé as if he didn’t recognize her. He was just about to ask her why she felt the way she did when she did something that he had never seen her do before: she clenched the fists of both hands together and began punching herself in the head.
Jerome was quick to react. He seized Esmé’s wrists, squeezing tightly so that she wouldn’t be able to overpower his strength as he drew them away from her head. She whimpered and struggled, screaming through her tears at him to let go of her.
“Let go of me!” Esmé screamed. “I don’t… I don’t care! I’ll slit my wrists if I have to!”
Jerome felt fresh tears fill up his eyes as soon as she uttered that last sentence. He squeezed her wrists even harder, and she screamed louder.
“You’re hurting me!”
“So?” Jerome shot back, tears pouring down his cheeks. “What do you care? You just said a moment ago that you were ready to slit your wrists.”
“Shut up!” Esmé screamed. “You don’t know anything about what I’m going through, Jerome. So just… just leave me here and let me die!”
“Esmé…”
Hearing the concern in her husband’s voice, Esmé unclenched her fists and quickly dissolved back into sobs. Jerome released his hands from around her wrists and began to carefully brush the glass out of her hair and off her shoulders.
“I’m taking you to lie down,” he said, rising slightly. “I’ll clean up the mess later.” Putting one arm around her shoulders and slipping the other underneath her legs, he scooped her up and carried her out of the bathroom.
As tenderly as he could, Jerome deposited Esmé down onto their unmade bed. His eyes traveled from her devastated face, to her chest that rose and fell with each quivering breath she took, to the bloodstain on her nightgown. Slowly, he reached down and hiked the nightgown up until his eyes were resting on a small gash located to the left of her bellybutton. Jerome felt a tear slide down his cheek just as Esmé let out another small sob.
“Oh, Esmé,” Jerome gasped softly. “How could you do this to yourself?”
Esmé rolled over on her side where she buried her face in the pillow and continued to sob.
“Where’s Emma?” Jerome felt badly about not asking the question earlier, but he had been too busy trying to keep his wife from harming herself to ask about their three-year-old daughter.
“Her friend’s mother took them to the park. They said something about stopping by the Ice Cream District afterward,” Esmé replied from where her face was still hidden in her pillow.
“You broke more than our forty-two mirrors, you know,” Jerome said as he laced his arm around Esmé’s waist just in case she had any ideas about running away. “You also broke your promise to me.”
“What promise would that be?”
“That you would never again do harm to yourself. What were you thinking when you took that piece of glass to your skin?”
“That’s just it,” Esmé said, and this time rolled over so that she faced Jerome. “I wasn’t thinking. I never am when I do these kinds of things.”
As she lay there on the bed before him, he noticed for the first time a small bruise located just above her right eyebrow. Of course, it didn’t take a genius to figure out who was responsible. Even so, this didn’t stop Jerome from leaning down and kissing Esmé’s bruise. He did the same to her belly, but through her nightgown so that he wouldn’t hurt her.
“I don’t understand,” Jerome said with a sad sigh as he lay down beside her. “What could have possibly brought this on?”
“The other day I ran into one of my old associates from Mulctuary Money Management,” Esmé explained. “Emma was with me.”
“Which associate was it?”
“Does it really matter?”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Jerome said, having no desire to argue with his wife after all of the other cards she had been dealt. “Go on.”
“Well, if you really must know,” Esmé said, “it was Elinore Connelly.”
“The city’s eighth most important financial advisor.”
Esmé raised an eyebrow. “How did you know?”
Jerome smiled for the first time since he had arrived home. “Because,” he said, “I still remember the time she covered your car in silly string due to jealousy. It was right after you became the city’s sixth most important financial advisor. For weeks and weeks you went on about how Elinore Connelly had ruined your windshield. But what does she have to do with any of this?”
Esmé’s bottom lip began to quiver, and Jerome watched helplessly as two tears slid down her cheeks. “She said that I looked better since I’d had Emma,” Esmé explained. “Elinore said that my figure had filled out nicely and… and I… I…” Esmé trailed off, feeling fresh tears invade her eyes.
Had the circumstances been any different, Jerome would have gently scolded Esmé for being so silly and tell her just how lucky she should consider herself. But judging by the broken mirrors and the cut on her stomach, lucky was the last thing she felt at the moment.
“Esmé, all she did was pay you a compliment,” Jerome said finally.
“And you agree with her, I suppose,” Esmé answered, rubbing pointlessly at her tear-filled eyes.
“Well, yes, darling. But Elinore’s compliment and my opinion are solely based upon how much more healthy and lovely you look. What’s so wrong about that?”
“Nothing.”
Jerome sighed, not at all convinced. “If that’s really true,” he said, “then why did you destroy every mirror in the apartment and cut yourself with a piece of broken glass?”
Without a word, Esmé sat up and slid her nightgown up over her head. After tossing it aside, she slid off the bed and walked a few paces away from it. Jerome stayed behind, watching her closely.
“When I turn to the side,” Esmé said, “tell me what you see.”
Jerome nodded. He continued to watch as she turned her body profile-wise, her long arms resting at her sides.
Esmé stared straight ahead of her at the wall. “Well?”
Jerome knew exactly where this conversation was headed, and his eyes came to rest on the soft, sweet curve of his wife’s belly. It was the prettiest part of her body, aside from her face of course. He didn’t want to argue and he certainly didn’t want a repeat of what had apparently occurred while he had been gone (the only other thing left in the apartment to destroy were the windows, and the weatherman had predicted rain that evening). But if Esmé was counting on an honest answer…
“I see you,” Jerome said. “Esmé Gigi Genevieve Squalor. I see your little upturned nose and— when you look at me, the way you just did —I see the birthmark located halfway between your bottom lip and your chin. I see your long, swanlike neck and your beautiful breasts.” He swallowed hard, as he came closer to the answer that its predecessors were leading up to. “I see your buttocks and how”— his palms were beginning to sweat, and he rubbed his hands on the sheets —“how round and soft they are. And the same goes for your beautiful hips as well, my dear.” He rose from the bed and tugged a little at his pants, which had gotten very tight around the crotch simply from admiring his wife’s (mostly) naked body.
Jerome walked slowly over to Esmé, and knelt down before her. He lifted his hand and slowly trailed his fingertips across her belly, stopping briefly to press down on it gently. Even after three years, he was still so amazed by its softness.
“I see your belly,” Jerome went on, meeting Esmé’s eyes, “and I love how soft and beautiful it is. Apart from your face, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve always thought that you could afford to get a little soft around the middle, and I— I’m so glad that you…” He bit his lip, realizing that he had probably said more than he should have.
This thought was quickly confirmed by a ravaged sob, and Jerome watched guiltily as Esmé turned and fled the room. Terrified that she would make another attempt to harm herself, he scrambled to his feet and hurried after her.
Jerome didn’t have far to go before he caught up with Esmé in the hallway. She was standing in front of the wall, banging her head relentlessly against it while she wept quietly. Jerome grabbed her by the shoulders and twirled her around.
“Esmé,” he said, his voice almost angry as he shook her. “I must insist that you stop this foolish behavior at once!”
Esmé tried unsuccessfully to tear herself out of Jerome’s strong grip, and he squeezed forcibly down on her forearms. She screamed, squeaked, and struggled, only to have him wrestle her to the ground and pin her down on the carpet. When she had finally calmed down enough to look up into the face of her husband, she saw that there were tears flowing freely down his cheeks.
Just seeing Jerome like this was more than Esmé could stand, and she burst into loud sobs. She went to throw her arms around him, then remembered that she was still pinned to the floor. This only caused her sobbing to intensify, and Jerome pulled her up and hugged her tightly.
“You are my most precious sweetheart,” he whispered into her hair. “And you’re so beautiful I feel like I need permission just to look at you.”
“This pain is so overwhelming,” Esmé wept as she clung to him. “I feel as though I shall die.”
Jerome kissed her sweetly on the cheek, which was damp and salty from her tears. “I’m so sorry, darling. I never meant to make you feel worse.”
Esmé sniffed. “Do you really think my belly is beautiful?”
The question caught Jerome off guard, but he answered honestly anyway. “Undeniably,” he replied.
Esmé felt hot tears gather at the backs of her eyes, and she pressed herself even closer to him.
Rather than explain to his wife all of the emotions he was feeling at that moment, Jerome lowered his head and kissed the cut on her belly. The contented sigh she made completely distracted him from the taste of iron that the blood left on his lips. “Come back into the bedroom,” he said. “I’m going to put some mercurochrome and a band-aid on that cut.”
Jerome helped Esmé to her feet, and the two of them headed back into the master bedroom. While she went to sit down on the bed, he hurried into the bathroom where he dug through the cabinet for the bottle of mercurochrome and a box containing multi-colored pinstripe band-aids. He soon found what he needed and then hurried back into the bedroom.
“Will this hurt?” Esmé asked, as she watched Jerome unscrew the cap from the bottle of mercurochrome.
“It might,” he admitted, holding up the eyedropper as he made sure that it contained enough of the clear liquid. “It would probably be best if you lay down while I do this, darling.”
Esmé did so, and Jerome pointed the eyedropper toward her stomach, squeezing a generous amount of medicine onto the cut. The result was an intense sting that caused Esmé to dig her nails into the blankets and her right leg to shoot out involuntarily. Jerome reached for the box of band-aids and chose a pink-and-white pinstripe pattern. He placed the band-aid over the cut on his wife’s belly and then kissed her on that spot.
Esmé smiled at him. “Thank you,” she said. “You’re an excellent nurse. All that’s missing is the candy stripper uniform.”
Jerome chuckled. “I think you mean candy striper,” he corrected.
Esmé shook her head. “No, Jerome. I mean candy stripper.”
Jerome placed a kiss right below Esmé’s bellybutton and then one more on her pouty, bee-stung lips. “I love you so much, my darling,” he said. As he thought about all of the torture she had put herself through, he could feel the tears make their inevitable return to his eyes. “And I’m so very worried.”
“I’m sorry, Jerome,” Esmé said, reaching up to run her long-nailed hand gently over his cheek. “I never meant to hurt you. Only myself.”
“Don’t say that, Esmé. Please.” Jerome lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.
“I can’t help it.”
Jerome didn’t say a word. Instead, he crawled into bed and wrapped both arms tightly and protectively around Esmé. Esmé, who he worshiped beyond words and who was so precious to him. Esmé, who he would do anything for. Esmé, who had told him to let her die alone on the floor of their bathroom.
“’So just… just leave me here and let me die!’”
At that moment, Jerome vowed to never let Esmé out of his sight again. He loved her far too deeply to let her suffering go on, and was determined to do whatever it took to see that she got well.
Lost in the warmth and safety of Jerome’s arms, Esmé closed her eyes from where her face was pressed against his chest. “I love you, too,” she said, and sniffled back the remainder of her tears right before she fell into a peaceful and untroubled sleep.
I know a few of you guys on here are on my deviantART watch/friend's list, so if you see any suspicious messages show up in your gallery, mailbox, etc. and you see my username, please know that it isn't really me. I would like to think you know me well enough not to believe I'm capable of committing cruel actions like that. Last night when my friend told me what happened, I got so upset that I started crying and my anxiety got really, really bad. Just the thought of having something like that happen, and people actually believing I'm responsible literally makes me sick to my stomach. Thankfully, my best friend was also online at the time, so I called her and she managed to help me calm down. I thought about deleting my gallery, but that would mean I would also be deleting more than three years worth of artwork. Instead, I just changed my password.
So, yeah, that's all I have to say. I swear, this is the only place online where I feel safe anymore.
***
Title: Shattered
Author’s Disclaimer: I do not own A Series of Unfortunate Events or any of the characters or places mentioned herein. They belong to Lemony Snicket a.k.a. Daniel Handler. Emma Squalor belongs to me.
Rating: PG-13 (for sensitive subject matter, brief nudity, and a sexual reference)
Genre: Angst/Romance
Story-Type: One-Shot
Summery: After a weekend at his family’s estate, Jerome returns to the penthouse and discovers that things are far from normal.
Author’s Note: This is part fanfiction/part autobiographical piece. Most of this stuff is fictional, with a few real-life details mixed in. I was also inspired by a scene in “The Beginning”, which is an RPG on here that my friend, Jenny did that I’ve been reading and absolutely love. I also included this little piece of conversation that May and I had a while back. I guess you could say that I used it for comic relief purposes. The idea for “Shattered” came to me on Saturday morning while I sat drying my hair, and since it isn’t going to leave my head I decided to write it down. I would also like to give a special thanks to Jenny (she knows why). I hope you all like this fic and that it doesn’t depress you too badly.
***
“Darling, I’m home.”
Jerome Squalor stepped into the penthouse, balancing a bouquet of two-dozen red roses for his wife in one arm and a small toy for his stepdaughter in the other. He shut the door behind him with his foot and looked around the apartment, taking in the unusual silence.
“Esmé?” Jerome said, just in case no one had heard him the first time. “Emma?”
When neither his wife nor his stepdaughter answered, Jerome set their presents down on the coffee table. Perhaps they’re sleeping and didn’t hear me, he thought optimistically as he began to advance down the long hallway.
However, he soon learned that his accusation was unlikely as he looked upon two long rows of doors, all of which stood ajar. He felt his breath as it caught in his throat and his heart as it took on a rapid beat. Not wanting to look but too overcome with worry to turn away, he forced himself to take a peek inside the first room on the left.
It was one of forty or so bathrooms, and what Jerome saw both confused and disturbed him. It appeared as though someone had taken a baseball or some other object of equal strength, and deliberately shattered the mirror above the sink.
Jerome turned toward one of the neighboring rooms— a sitting room —and poked his head inside. There he found another mirror, which also appeared to have been broken in the same fashion as the one in the bathroom had.
His heart racing, he began to flee down the hallway, stopping to peer inside each room with an open door and see that every mirror had been intentionally smashed.
Of course, Jerome’s first thought was that someone had broken into the penthouse during his absence and kidnapped or (God forbid) killed Esmé and Emma. The very thought that any harm had come to his beloved family was enough to bring Jerome to tears to go along with his panic. He was halfway to the master bedroom when he stumbled and fell flat on his face.
Distress overpowered his ability to stand, and so he was forced to crawl on hands and knees along the carpet. Tears blurred his vision, and he had to stop a few times and wipe them away before continuing on his way.
“Esmé!” he shouted in a voice worn out by sobs. “Emma!”
By the time Jerome arrived at the master bedroom, he was sobbing so heavily that he was forced to stop just outside the door to catch his breath. Still unable to stand upright, he more or less stumbled into the bedroom. Taking in a long, deep breath, he screamed at the top of his lungs: “ESMÉ!!!!”
It was at that moment when a tiny sob emitted from the built-on bathroom directly behind him. His body immediately straightened up, and his head jerked around.
“Esmé?” Jerome repeated, his voice softer this time.
He stood still for a second, wondering if perhaps his panic had caused him to imagine the sound he believed he had just heard. When a second sob followed, he took a few cautious steps toward the bathroom. The door was mostly closed, and he slowly pushed it the rest of the way open.
What he discovered waiting for him on the other side was only half of what he had expected to find. The mirror that hung over the sink had been removed and smashed beyond repair. Sparkling shards of glass were scattered about the ceramic tiled floor; some pieces were large, while others were as tiny as snowflakes. Sitting in the middle of the floor was Esmé, clothed in nothing but her white nightgown with the spaghetti straps. There was a small red stain located on the area that covered her stomach. Her faced was tear-streaked, while the smallest fragments of the broken glass lay scattered in her dark hair and on her pale shoulders. Beside her lay a hammer.
Jerome opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. He was just so relieved to see that none of his predictions were true that for a moment he lost his ability to speak.
Esmé looked as though she wanted to say something, but wasn’t ready to explain herself just yet. Jerome was afraid that if he demanded an answer or if he sounded angry, then his wife would try to run and end up cutting her foot on the broken glass.
Instead, Jerome stepped carefully into the bathroom, listening to the glass crunch beneath his feet. He knelt down on his ankles in front of Esmé and reached out a hand to caress her bare arm. He could see that there were fresh tears rolling down her cheeks, and he tilted his head to the side in his overwhelming concern for her.
“All of the mirrors in the apartment are broken,” he explained gently. “What happened?”
Esmé shook her head, a few fragments of glass spilling out of her hair and into her lap as she did so.
“I’m not angry with you, Esmé. I just need you to tell me what happened here.”
“I did it,” she replied in a whisper. “All of it.”
Jerome’s eyes widened. “You did… but why?”
Esmé sent her husband a contemptuous glare, but even he could see the sorrow reflected on her tearful face. “Because, Jerome. I hate myself.”
Her voice was venomous, and for one brief moment Jerome found himself staring at Esmé as if he didn’t recognize her. He was just about to ask her why she felt the way she did when she did something that he had never seen her do before: she clenched the fists of both hands together and began punching herself in the head.
Jerome was quick to react. He seized Esmé’s wrists, squeezing tightly so that she wouldn’t be able to overpower his strength as he drew them away from her head. She whimpered and struggled, screaming through her tears at him to let go of her.
“Let go of me!” Esmé screamed. “I don’t… I don’t care! I’ll slit my wrists if I have to!”
Jerome felt fresh tears fill up his eyes as soon as she uttered that last sentence. He squeezed her wrists even harder, and she screamed louder.
“You’re hurting me!”
“So?” Jerome shot back, tears pouring down his cheeks. “What do you care? You just said a moment ago that you were ready to slit your wrists.”
“Shut up!” Esmé screamed. “You don’t know anything about what I’m going through, Jerome. So just… just leave me here and let me die!”
“Esmé…”
Hearing the concern in her husband’s voice, Esmé unclenched her fists and quickly dissolved back into sobs. Jerome released his hands from around her wrists and began to carefully brush the glass out of her hair and off her shoulders.
“I’m taking you to lie down,” he said, rising slightly. “I’ll clean up the mess later.” Putting one arm around her shoulders and slipping the other underneath her legs, he scooped her up and carried her out of the bathroom.
As tenderly as he could, Jerome deposited Esmé down onto their unmade bed. His eyes traveled from her devastated face, to her chest that rose and fell with each quivering breath she took, to the bloodstain on her nightgown. Slowly, he reached down and hiked the nightgown up until his eyes were resting on a small gash located to the left of her bellybutton. Jerome felt a tear slide down his cheek just as Esmé let out another small sob.
“Oh, Esmé,” Jerome gasped softly. “How could you do this to yourself?”
Esmé rolled over on her side where she buried her face in the pillow and continued to sob.
“Where’s Emma?” Jerome felt badly about not asking the question earlier, but he had been too busy trying to keep his wife from harming herself to ask about their three-year-old daughter.
“Her friend’s mother took them to the park. They said something about stopping by the Ice Cream District afterward,” Esmé replied from where her face was still hidden in her pillow.
“You broke more than our forty-two mirrors, you know,” Jerome said as he laced his arm around Esmé’s waist just in case she had any ideas about running away. “You also broke your promise to me.”
“What promise would that be?”
“That you would never again do harm to yourself. What were you thinking when you took that piece of glass to your skin?”
“That’s just it,” Esmé said, and this time rolled over so that she faced Jerome. “I wasn’t thinking. I never am when I do these kinds of things.”
As she lay there on the bed before him, he noticed for the first time a small bruise located just above her right eyebrow. Of course, it didn’t take a genius to figure out who was responsible. Even so, this didn’t stop Jerome from leaning down and kissing Esmé’s bruise. He did the same to her belly, but through her nightgown so that he wouldn’t hurt her.
“I don’t understand,” Jerome said with a sad sigh as he lay down beside her. “What could have possibly brought this on?”
“The other day I ran into one of my old associates from Mulctuary Money Management,” Esmé explained. “Emma was with me.”
“Which associate was it?”
“Does it really matter?”
“I’m sorry, sweetheart,” Jerome said, having no desire to argue with his wife after all of the other cards she had been dealt. “Go on.”
“Well, if you really must know,” Esmé said, “it was Elinore Connelly.”
“The city’s eighth most important financial advisor.”
Esmé raised an eyebrow. “How did you know?”
Jerome smiled for the first time since he had arrived home. “Because,” he said, “I still remember the time she covered your car in silly string due to jealousy. It was right after you became the city’s sixth most important financial advisor. For weeks and weeks you went on about how Elinore Connelly had ruined your windshield. But what does she have to do with any of this?”
Esmé’s bottom lip began to quiver, and Jerome watched helplessly as two tears slid down her cheeks. “She said that I looked better since I’d had Emma,” Esmé explained. “Elinore said that my figure had filled out nicely and… and I… I…” Esmé trailed off, feeling fresh tears invade her eyes.
Had the circumstances been any different, Jerome would have gently scolded Esmé for being so silly and tell her just how lucky she should consider herself. But judging by the broken mirrors and the cut on her stomach, lucky was the last thing she felt at the moment.
“Esmé, all she did was pay you a compliment,” Jerome said finally.
“And you agree with her, I suppose,” Esmé answered, rubbing pointlessly at her tear-filled eyes.
“Well, yes, darling. But Elinore’s compliment and my opinion are solely based upon how much more healthy and lovely you look. What’s so wrong about that?”
“Nothing.”
Jerome sighed, not at all convinced. “If that’s really true,” he said, “then why did you destroy every mirror in the apartment and cut yourself with a piece of broken glass?”
Without a word, Esmé sat up and slid her nightgown up over her head. After tossing it aside, she slid off the bed and walked a few paces away from it. Jerome stayed behind, watching her closely.
“When I turn to the side,” Esmé said, “tell me what you see.”
Jerome nodded. He continued to watch as she turned her body profile-wise, her long arms resting at her sides.
Esmé stared straight ahead of her at the wall. “Well?”
Jerome knew exactly where this conversation was headed, and his eyes came to rest on the soft, sweet curve of his wife’s belly. It was the prettiest part of her body, aside from her face of course. He didn’t want to argue and he certainly didn’t want a repeat of what had apparently occurred while he had been gone (the only other thing left in the apartment to destroy were the windows, and the weatherman had predicted rain that evening). But if Esmé was counting on an honest answer…
“I see you,” Jerome said. “Esmé Gigi Genevieve Squalor. I see your little upturned nose and— when you look at me, the way you just did —I see the birthmark located halfway between your bottom lip and your chin. I see your long, swanlike neck and your beautiful breasts.” He swallowed hard, as he came closer to the answer that its predecessors were leading up to. “I see your buttocks and how”— his palms were beginning to sweat, and he rubbed his hands on the sheets —“how round and soft they are. And the same goes for your beautiful hips as well, my dear.” He rose from the bed and tugged a little at his pants, which had gotten very tight around the crotch simply from admiring his wife’s (mostly) naked body.
Jerome walked slowly over to Esmé, and knelt down before her. He lifted his hand and slowly trailed his fingertips across her belly, stopping briefly to press down on it gently. Even after three years, he was still so amazed by its softness.
“I see your belly,” Jerome went on, meeting Esmé’s eyes, “and I love how soft and beautiful it is. Apart from your face, it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen. I’ve always thought that you could afford to get a little soft around the middle, and I— I’m so glad that you…” He bit his lip, realizing that he had probably said more than he should have.
This thought was quickly confirmed by a ravaged sob, and Jerome watched guiltily as Esmé turned and fled the room. Terrified that she would make another attempt to harm herself, he scrambled to his feet and hurried after her.
Jerome didn’t have far to go before he caught up with Esmé in the hallway. She was standing in front of the wall, banging her head relentlessly against it while she wept quietly. Jerome grabbed her by the shoulders and twirled her around.
“Esmé,” he said, his voice almost angry as he shook her. “I must insist that you stop this foolish behavior at once!”
Esmé tried unsuccessfully to tear herself out of Jerome’s strong grip, and he squeezed forcibly down on her forearms. She screamed, squeaked, and struggled, only to have him wrestle her to the ground and pin her down on the carpet. When she had finally calmed down enough to look up into the face of her husband, she saw that there were tears flowing freely down his cheeks.
Just seeing Jerome like this was more than Esmé could stand, and she burst into loud sobs. She went to throw her arms around him, then remembered that she was still pinned to the floor. This only caused her sobbing to intensify, and Jerome pulled her up and hugged her tightly.
“You are my most precious sweetheart,” he whispered into her hair. “And you’re so beautiful I feel like I need permission just to look at you.”
“This pain is so overwhelming,” Esmé wept as she clung to him. “I feel as though I shall die.”
Jerome kissed her sweetly on the cheek, which was damp and salty from her tears. “I’m so sorry, darling. I never meant to make you feel worse.”
Esmé sniffed. “Do you really think my belly is beautiful?”
The question caught Jerome off guard, but he answered honestly anyway. “Undeniably,” he replied.
Esmé felt hot tears gather at the backs of her eyes, and she pressed herself even closer to him.
Rather than explain to his wife all of the emotions he was feeling at that moment, Jerome lowered his head and kissed the cut on her belly. The contented sigh she made completely distracted him from the taste of iron that the blood left on his lips. “Come back into the bedroom,” he said. “I’m going to put some mercurochrome and a band-aid on that cut.”
Jerome helped Esmé to her feet, and the two of them headed back into the master bedroom. While she went to sit down on the bed, he hurried into the bathroom where he dug through the cabinet for the bottle of mercurochrome and a box containing multi-colored pinstripe band-aids. He soon found what he needed and then hurried back into the bedroom.
“Will this hurt?” Esmé asked, as she watched Jerome unscrew the cap from the bottle of mercurochrome.
“It might,” he admitted, holding up the eyedropper as he made sure that it contained enough of the clear liquid. “It would probably be best if you lay down while I do this, darling.”
Esmé did so, and Jerome pointed the eyedropper toward her stomach, squeezing a generous amount of medicine onto the cut. The result was an intense sting that caused Esmé to dig her nails into the blankets and her right leg to shoot out involuntarily. Jerome reached for the box of band-aids and chose a pink-and-white pinstripe pattern. He placed the band-aid over the cut on his wife’s belly and then kissed her on that spot.
Esmé smiled at him. “Thank you,” she said. “You’re an excellent nurse. All that’s missing is the candy stripper uniform.”
Jerome chuckled. “I think you mean candy striper,” he corrected.
Esmé shook her head. “No, Jerome. I mean candy stripper.”
Jerome placed a kiss right below Esmé’s bellybutton and then one more on her pouty, bee-stung lips. “I love you so much, my darling,” he said. As he thought about all of the torture she had put herself through, he could feel the tears make their inevitable return to his eyes. “And I’m so very worried.”
“I’m sorry, Jerome,” Esmé said, reaching up to run her long-nailed hand gently over his cheek. “I never meant to hurt you. Only myself.”
“Don’t say that, Esmé. Please.” Jerome lifted her hand to his lips and kissed it.
“I can’t help it.”
Jerome didn’t say a word. Instead, he crawled into bed and wrapped both arms tightly and protectively around Esmé. Esmé, who he worshiped beyond words and who was so precious to him. Esmé, who he would do anything for. Esmé, who had told him to let her die alone on the floor of their bathroom.
“’So just… just leave me here and let me die!’”
At that moment, Jerome vowed to never let Esmé out of his sight again. He loved her far too deeply to let her suffering go on, and was determined to do whatever it took to see that she got well.
Lost in the warmth and safety of Jerome’s arms, Esmé closed her eyes from where her face was pressed against his chest. “I love you, too,” she said, and sniffled back the remainder of her tears right before she fell into a peaceful and untroubled sleep.
The End