Page 61 of Cut Deeper

By dinner time, I’d decided she could make a fuss of my birthday every single year. It had been open ploughing season on Anne for an entire day, and she’d done everything I asked.

Everything.

Unspeakable things.

I paused mid-dishwasher. I should have recorded it. A wasted opportunity.

I was mentally compiling next year’s list of depravities when the doorbell chimed and my head snapped toward the kitchen door.

Who was disturbing us on our fucking holiday?

“I’ll get it,” Anne sang, her feet tapping rapidly along the wooden floor.

I abandoned the dishes, washed and dried my hands.

Muffled voices drew closer, and that pissed me off further. I only had a few short hours left of my wife’s compliance.

The door swung open before I reached it. Anne stepped aside as a man in his mid-twenties entered beside a woman in her fifties.

“These are our guests for tonight. They won a trip to France,” Anne said—but she was shuffling in behind them, both hands hidden.“They’re from Farringbridge.”

The name rang a distant bell. Farringbridge.

I stared at the man, his dirty-blond hair, placing him. Placing his crimes.

A sudden buzz erupted, and the man dropped. Anne followed him down, taser in hand, cackling as he shuddered violently against the floorboards.

“Oh, come on, baby,” I groaned as a dark stain spread across his crotch.

The woman screamed and lunged for Anne—who sliced clean through her Achilles tendon with a knife I hadn’t even seen her draw. The mother collapsed.

Blood, piss, knives and taser.

Christmas and my birthday, all wrapped up in one.

The mother had run an online campaign on her son’s behalf, denigrating his teenage victim. The victim who had taken her own life. A young girl Anne had decided to champion, even in death.

“I fucking love you,” I growled.

I strode across the room, pulled her up, and kissed her.

The sobs and groans of pain beneath us were beautiful.

Best birthday ever.

The End.