Ugly Behavior by Steve Rasnic Tem

hit her. He had no use for men who hit their
wives.
    But she should never have hit him.
    Something was coming from a long distance away, something had come
from a long distance, and now it was filling his throat. He thought that he
would choke. He ran to the toilet bowl and coughed something up from his
throat. It felt large and soft as if it were one of his internal organs as it
passed his lips and plopped into the water.
    He looked down. It was longish and pale, like an arm, and then it
dissolved into the water.
    Where was she, anyway? He couldn’t remember. If it had been her
making these noises of distress she would have expected him to come help her.
But when he was the one who was sick, she hid herself. Marriage ought to be a
two-way street.
    At least she could have fed him something. He was hungry. He
hadn’t eaten anything all day, and he’d had way too much to drink last night in
order to ease the pain in his throat and in other places he didn’t like to talk
about. He was hungry. Men had hungers. Where was she?
    The next cough practically split him in two. It felt as if it had
originated miles away. Something rushed through him, then past him as if on its
way to an important destination. Where was she? He looked down at what he had brought
forth from such a long distance away, and saw a soft, liquid, barely
recognizable version of his wife’s face floating in the bowl, a soft tinge of
blood in the lips and cheeks. The image started to break up even as he
impulsively jerked the lever to flush it all away.
    And then he remembered.

You Dreamed It

 
    Cheryl woke up abruptly and rubbed her eyes as hard as she could.
Her father had held her head over the toilet bowl; he was going to drown her.
She was sure of it.
    But then he had stopped all of a sudden, and she’d looked up into
his faraway face. The face had been dark, and although she knew it was her
father’s face she really couldn’t see it very well. Daddy? she’d said, but very
softly. She wasn’t even sure he could hear her. She wasn’t even sure she wanted
him to hear her.
    He hadn’t said anything. He picked her up, threw her over his
shoulder, and carried her from the small bathroom to her bedroom at the end of
the dark hallway. There was a bend in the hallway where the stairs came up. He
was careful walking there; it would be easy to slip and drop her down the
stairs.
    Maybe he wanted to slip, she thought. But he didn’t, this time.
He’d hit her head real hard against the door frame when he walked into the
hall; she’d sobbed once and held onto her cries, afraid he would get mad.   Looking at the big staircase falling off
into the dark helped her stop crying — it was so scary.
    When they got to the end of the hallway he’d thrown her onto the
bed. She made herself really stiff trying not to cry, but that made her back
hurt when she hit the bed. She gasped once, then gasped again when he started
pouring water on her. Glasses full of water, hitting her face harder and
harder. Soaking into the bed. Soaking into her pajamas. Making everything wet,
everything dripping with it. She finally began to cry; she couldn’t help it.
They would think she’d wet the bed again—Mommy and Daddy; she’d be in
trouble.
    He didn’t say a thing. After he finished wetting her bed he turned
and left.
    Cheryl looked at her bed and reached out carefully with one hand.
It was damp. So were her pajamas. She stared at the one window in the room,
full of bright light, like water. She couldn’t decide if she had dreamed or
not.
    Her father walked in. “Wet your bed again?” he said quietly.
    Cheryl nodded her head and looked away.
    “Well, that’s all right. You know what you need to do now.”
    Cheryl got up and began stripping the bed. It was hard for her;
the covers were tucked in real tight and all the blankets and the quilt were
heavy, especially once they were wet, but she had to do it herself. That’s what
her daddy called “the deal.”
    He