MAD BLACK WOMAN

MELT

Élan is drinking coffee, reading a newspaper right before he's off to work. Nanti is still asleep in their bed.
The sky is grey, their house is grey, and his coffee is bland.

He's wondering what happened, how they came from such vibrancy to the antithesis in three quick years. He feels like an old man trapped in a youthful body with a dashing face.

She does not call him Earth Boy anymore because somewhere in the midst of habit and formalities and conformity, the nickname disappears.

She is tired of him and she thinks they got married too quickly and she always wants to party.

He can see in her eyes that the love she has for him is waning like the crescent moon.

She never screams his name anymore when they make love, she doesn't even like eye contact anymore and she wants him to be rough with her sex.

He doesn't know who she is anymore and he guesses she feels the same way?

The newspaper is becoming a burden because his mind is not on that. His mind is on Nanti and why she is falling out of love with him so rapidly.

"We should've listened to my mother," she tells him one night, "we should've never gotten married."

And that nearly breaks his heart.

She doesn't wear his ring anymore.

She does not walk around in his oversized shirts anymore. He is convinced that she hates him.

But, why.

It is increasingly difficult to ignore the advances of his associate at his law firm. She is gorgeous, and she is hinting at things that a married man can't- shan't do.

Her lingerie peeps through her blazer and Élan knows this is yet another test.
He passes every time.

Today, however, he let his gaze linger a little longer because Nanti is growing so cold towards him and clearly Faye has hots for him. The tips of her orange lacy bra kindles a lust inside of him for her soft, pale skin and ash blonde hair. Her eyes are blue like the ocean, and he thinks those squats that he overhears her discussing are doing wonders for her ass.

He thinks about having sex with her, for the first time ever, and he does not feel guilty about it.

Nanti sits on the couch, flat-ironing her curls when Élan finally walks in from work.

It is eleven at night and he has a hickey on his neck.

She looks him up and down in the silence, resting the curling iron on the coffee table.

The party she planned on attending is the furthest thing from her mind.
Élan is still standing in front of the door he just closed and she thinks he is expecting her to yell.

She clucks her tongue and shakes her head when she approaches him; he thinks she looks like a mother about to reprimand a child, with her half-straightened hair.

He realizes that he wants to hurt her; he wants her to hit him or cry or do something that shows that maybe she still might be invested in this marriage.
Nanti wants to kill him; she is so frighteningly calm because she realizes she wants to stab a knife into his heart, rip it from his chest, and write her name on it so no one can look at him without seeing her.

She takes his hand and makes him sit on the couch, the smell of that bitch's perfume causing a slow ache in her skull.

She's standing up between his long legs and looks down at his eyes, his big sparkling eyes that are pleading for her to do something, please, pretty please with cherries on top.

"What" she says aloud, voice surprisingly controlled with all of the anger running through her veins.

He doesn't say anything just looks up at her with those glossy, dark hazel eyes and she wants to curse him for looking so fucking good even when he cheats on her.

She takes her fingernails and brushes it along that hickey. Nanti looks at Élan's left hand, his left finger with the golden band on it and a tear falls out of her eye.

It all happens too fast, he grabs her, pulls her down onto his laps to hold her but she picks up the curling iron and burns him where that hickey is and he screams.

And all she can think of is that Wicked Witch shrieking,
"I'm meltinggg, I'm melllttiiiinnngg!!!"