Plough Kings

Linda lifted a hand to her bruised cheek. Her red hair tussled about her face, her blue eyes welling up with tears. Dinner lay strewn across the floor. Hero, her husband, towered over her, his sour yeasty beer breath puffing into her face. He raised his open hand. With a sob Linda spun and fled. Hero's unrelenting string of obscenities, dominated and humiliation pursued her up the stairs and into the bedroom. Hurling herself across the bed, she burrowed into the pillows and covers, sought refuge in blessed silence. But, muffled though it was, she heard the noises downstairs. Hero laughing. Hero swearing. Things breaking. But, mercifully, not the sound of heavy boots clumping up the stairs. She listened, barely breathing.

 She heard him talking. After a long while she heard the front door open and close, then the sound of a car driving away. It was just another day for Linda. Hero had owned her for years, dominated her, used her. And while at her very core lived a last bastion of defiance, she had no power, no way to make her needs known. She was young, in her mid-twenties, strong and hale in body, but suffering in spirit. She didn't think she loved Hero anymore, but she could not think what she would do without him. Nor was confined just to her husband. Like a contagion her humiliation seemed to be all around her