***Author's Note***
I both assume and hope this is a given, but would still like to make it abundantly clear that this story is solely for the purposes of entertainment. Sexual assault in real life is abhorrent and unjustifiable.
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It was in the midst of a simple Santa Barbara home in the spring of 1953.
Marital rape was, unfortunately and unsympathetically, considered an oxymoron. Divorce was hard, being a divorcee was perhaps harder still, and independence for women certainly wasn't easy to obtain.
Irene, a cotton-skinned brunette, knew this all too well. Her husband taking her in her sleep, through her headaches, even after her miscarriage... she was used to it.
But anal? Anal was taboo. Unheard of in polite society, as it were. And that, she wasn't used to. Last night, he'd anally raped her for the first time.
For the last time.
The two sat in the silence of dinner, quietly eating their minced potatoes, mixed vegetables, and chicken, in between sips of rosé.
"If you're not going to say it, I'll say it..." her husband Harvey started, his tan, masculine face and greying hickory hair looking somehow garish beneath the kitchen's lights.
He ran fingers across his evening robe, perhaps soothing himself, calming his nerves.
"Yesterday, I wasn't exactly myself, I know..."
An outright lie, whether to himself, her, or both.
"And uh, it wasn't the most natural, but you've got to understand it's not that I don't love you... I do love you, really. But after you burned dinner yesterday, I got so angry and yet you were there being so beautiful, and I just couldn't help but want something more."
Irene wouldn't look at him.
"Irene. I'm talking to you."
She ignored him still.
"Damn it, Irene, I'm trying to apologize!"
He slammed his fists on the table before sighing and silently counting, mouthing up to five.
"Listen, I didn't mean to be harsh. I really didn't. I love you, Irene. How about we go into our savings a little bit and I'll buy you something real nice? What do you think about those sapphires you like so much? Would you like that, darling?"
She blotted her face with the napkin. "I'm only tired, Harvey. I'd like to rest."
"We can rest together."
"Of course."
Of course he would say that. Perhaps it was because he'd be there for her every move, or because her small breasts cushioned his head, or maybe he truly wanted to rest. No matter the reason, he always did this; she was counting on it.
He rested on his abdomen, as he so often did, and Irene forced herself to stay awake as he started to drift off.
"Harvey?" she whispered.
No response.
With a Devilish smile, she crept out of bed, slow and careful as can be, handling the ropes she'd already planted beneath the bed.
