He couldn't remember the last time he felt hungry.
He couldn't remember the last time he had cooked for himself. He couldn't remember the last time he'd left for work, his breakfast nothing more than an apple to eat on the way. No. Breakfast was something she'd wormed into his life, without notice. Without consent. Bacon butties, grease permeating brown paper, left beside his briefcase. Pancakes presented, piled on a plate, before his head had even left the pillow. Eggs Benedict placed stealthily over the sports pages of the morning paper. Porridge so thick the spoon could stand up in it. All of it served with twice as much toast as he could stomach, slathered in soft blankets of melting butter.
Lunch was worse. Sandwiches lovingly layered, meat on meat on cheese on mayonnaise on margerine, stacked in Tupperware, crusts cut off. Accompanied by cookies or sponge or brownies. Things she'd baked behind his back. Thrust into his backpack with love letters scrawled onto neatly folded napkins. Eat up, darling! Made with love! Sometimes she turned up at the office for lunch dates - his choice, her treat - or to drop off the lunch box he'd forgotten, delivered with a kiss.
He couldn't remember when his jeans had started cutting into him at the waist, or when his top button began to choke him as the day wore on. He couldn't remember when he'd last weighed himself (where had their scales gone?) or the last time he'd been to the gym (where was his membership card?)
And dinner time was the worst of all. He'd return from work each night to find her in the kitchen, wide smile, expectant eyes, dishes laid out before him like a banquet, smells nauseating him with their deliciousness. Starter. Main Course. Dessert. Painstakingly prepared, cooked to perfection. Made with love! Eat up Darling!
He couldn't remember the last time he'd eaten dinner without her watching him.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd left food on his plate without crushing guilt.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd left the table without nausea sitting sickly in his stomach.
After dinner he'd collapse before the television, whilst she'd tidy, satisfied she'd done her wifely duty. Tonight he felt sick. Sick with realisation. Sick to think of the misogyny-by-proxy he'd unwittingly fallen guilty of. Sick to see the enjoyment it gave her. Sick to wonder why she does it. Sick to see his swelling body in the mirror.
He undresses in the dark.
And when he gets into the bedroom, she's asleep already after a long day working herself to the bone in the kitchen, feeding him like a prize pig. Feeding him with every last morsel of her energy. Feeding him, it seemed, with herself, for when he turns on the light, he can count her vertebrae. Her every rising, falling rib. His beautiful wife, feeding only on devotion. Loving him with nourishment. As though it were the only way she knew how. And it was leaving her starving.
He couldn't remember the last time he'd felt hungry.
But nor could he remember the last time he'd felt this empty.
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