Short Stories Across Time And Place

She looked at him, emotionless. This man was definitely not who she once swooned for.

The Norman she fell for was toned, ambitious and had money to at least take her out once a week. He wasn't a bitter, pudgy insecure man with smelly breath who now stood before her.

He glowered at her nakedness.

"You aint come home in days and this where you been? You don't deserve me, hoe." His American slang, she once thought was cool, annoyed her now.

Nina glanced at her equally sweaty naked partner, Jay, who seemed more annoyed at being interrupted than scared.

"You know your way out, ashy ass nigga." She spit back. She might have been a hoe, but at this point she was a tired one. Tired of his shit.

Norman would have lunged for her there and then but the man who had been eating his fiance's ass a few minutes ago before he busted in showed no intention of leaving first and he was quite too well built to take on. He found his gaze dropping to Jay's crotch. What he saw there made his anger escalate to a fever pitch.

"I loved you, wanted to marry you, and this is what you do behind my back!!?"

Maybe at some point he had. His love had lit her up the first few years but it eventually became suffocating and she was drained.

Nina was bored with routine monthly family dinners, his endless job hunting and living in their washed out apartment with his smug sister and her bastard kids.

His volcanic tantrums and occasional beatings had kept them going throughout their 5 year engagement. She had mistaken all of it for passion.

Her reverie continued as he proceeded with his rant.

"...mum's death"

- "...lost my job"

-"...day I proposed"

-"...really miscarriages, not abortions?"

 -"...never taking you back again"

As she watched him leave, she wondered what time the pizza joint down the street would close up.