It was their tenth anniversary. Venus’ curlers were still fresh in her hair, the heat was hot to the touch and almost burning the scalp. She was never really fond of curlers anyway, but her mother always made her wear them for any big event. Her pink silk robe stuck to her warm skin. She put lotion on earlier and now her sweat was making her body feel greasy. It was mid-July, a day with a record-high for temperatures. It was ironic that the air met Venus’ temper on this particular day.

Venus’ heels clicked and clapped against the black and white checkered marble floor as she walked back to their bedroom. She allowed her fingers to brush gently across his unopened bottle of wine before snatching it off the table. Important papers on the table fell to the floor, which she ignored. She locked eyes with the fancy bottle of wine that her father-in-law bought at an auction years ago. He gifted it to them on their wedding day. The bottle represented how different this night was supposed to go. Well, one of the few representations.

With the bottle in her left hand, she opened the bedroom’s balcony glass doors with her right. It overlooked the sea and had a tiny circular table where he would have his nightly smoke and take business calls. As Venus overlooked the balcony, she realized how weak his voice sounded from standing up here. He’s two floors below her outside, holding his jacket in one hand and a fat cigar in the other.

He was hollering and dramatically making arm gestures at Venus. She knew he was either upset or angry, probably annoyed above all, but she couldn’t hear him. It is not that she was so far above him on the balcony that she couldn’t physically hear what he was screaming at her. Venus was just lost in her emotions, so deep in the rabbit hole of her own mind, that she could not process the words he was sling-shooting at her from below.

Though her mind blocked the vibrations of his sound, she could still see his sunken in face from above. His features, which were always strongly distinct, were even broader since he picked up unspeakable habits. His jawline was so defined it could slice a finger. His skinny nose had odd dents on each side of the nostrils as if they collapsed. His eyes were slit and long. They were a sad blue, like a cloudy day desperate for the sun to shine through; a dash of grey, a hint of blue. He was tall, surpassing six feet. His light brown freckles popped through in certain lighting and he had a light scruff around his face. His curly mousy brown hair was pulled back into a low ponytail. His long, thick brown eyebrows wiggled with his many expressions. Most of the time, his breath smelled like a mix of beer and mints as if he was trying to cover up his puke from last night’s withdrawals.

As Venus reminisced on a time when he wasn’t so disgusting to her, she showcased the bottle of wine from above him. She pranced back and forth in her heels, showing the bottle off like he just won it off The Price is Right. He waved his hands back and forth, spitting words that Venus refused to hear. She held it over the balcony and let it slip through her porcelain fingers, but not before parting it with a red lipstick stain.

One, two, six, curse words came out of his mouth.

She spun on one heel, walked back into their bedroom, and went straight into his section of the closet. As she tore clothes off the hangers, she continuously wished she never said yes when he presented her with a ring ten years ago. Maybe the ring, she thought, could be swallowed by the sea. The amount of clothes she grabbed weighed her arms down, but she continued to sashay back to the balcony.

As he waved his fingers upwards at her, she continued to showcase each article of clothing, dangling them over the balcony. She found enjoyment as she watched him squirm and threaten her. Even so, she threw them over and watched as they floated down to his feet on the dirty ground. He cursed Venus’ name at the top of his lungs as he reached for his belongings. If Venus could hear the words he was actually spitting, she may have stopped his punishment in time.

“Unlock the damn doors!” he shouted up at her.

But of all things Venus decided to hear, that was it. Sure I will unlock the doors.

She swiftly made her way into the hallway and down the staircase. Before unlocking the doors, she stepped into his Play Room. A room filled with all sorts of sports collection items, a room he takes much pride in. Her first grab was another gift his father gave to him. It was yet again, another auctioned prize – a professional baseball player’s bat. Venus couldn’t remember the player’s name, because she never cared for sports. She held it in her tiny hands and practiced a few swings before making her way out the front door.

He wasn’t there waiting as she expected. He was still by the balcony anticipating what else Venus was going to throw over it next. She didn’t have to walk far in her heels to get to his Baby. It was a classic Ford Mustang convertible. The car and Venus were not the only ones he was calling baby. Venus thought the car was pretty, but not as appealing as herself. As Venus gripped the bat, she thought the other baby was surely not as pretty as herself too.

She wiped the sweat from her forehead before running the bat over the hood of the car, deciding where to take her first swing.

She held the bat in her hands and with full force smashed his Baby, and then she did it again and again and again. Glass shattered everywhere, including onto herself, making a bloody mess of her hands as her rage she kept hidden for so long came out as a full tsunami. The mirrors were busted and dangled alongside the now chipped red paint, the hood was caved in, and the windshield was beyond cracked and crushed. The insides were now outside. For a small, petite woman with little to no muscle, she was doing damage that could impress Schwarzenegger.

It didn’t take long for him to figure out where Venus was. She didn’t realize she was screaming with every swing she took. He was on the move towards her, but she was yet to grasp how lost she was in her mind. Venus, herself, was missing, as her anger took over.

All Venus could comprehend was his face and body language when he saw what she had done to his Baby. He first stopped in his tracks, his arms lifeless, his mouth trembling. He looked absolutely devastated. His face screamed heartbreak, which made Venus’ serotonin dance. He began violently cursing at her as he marched over. He seized her from behind. Her bloody hands shook as she tried to fight back, leaving red stains on his white collared shirt.

She had the bat still in one of her hands and jerked it around to whack him, but was taken off guard when his hands grabbed for her bat. She didn’t get a strong enough swing. One of his hands yanked at the bat, and the other hand wrapped around her waist and shook her body. The chaos made Venus tighten her grip on the bat.

“What did you do, Venus?” he repeated as tears built up in his eyes. “What did you do? What did you do? What did you do?”

He threw her to the ground, smacking the hair curlers into Venus’s head. The pain resulted in her feeble hands to drop the bat. She didn’t anticipate their anniversary to end with her curlers burning her scalp, his favorite things destroyed, and his anger this poached. It was supposed to be about Venus chastising him for his ill-disciplined deeds.

“Stop this, Venus,” he gritted through his teeth, the tears now bursting. “You’re fucking insane.”

Venus ignored the pain and began to stand up as she grabbed for the bat again. Before she could get it, he grabbed one of her legs and pulled her back towards him. As her body slid across the pavement with his tug, it left a bloody smear from her clothes onto the driveway.

“Look what you did, Vee,” he panicked. “Look at yourself, Vee. Look at the blood.”

Venus looked down at her pink silk robe and realized it was drenched in red blood. She began shaking and felt as if a frenzy just ended. She looked over at the bat and she quickly comprehended it was also covered in blood. How could there be so much blood, she thought.

“What did you do, Venus?” he cried.

The once classic car, now completely stained in blood, held the bombshell that tore Venus and her husband apart. Bashed in and completely lifeless, lay the other woman in Venus’ husband’s life. Baby. Her limp body sprawled out in the backseat of the Ford Mustang convertible. The other woman was lying in a bed of blood with shattered glass as a blanket. Venus tried to comprehend how the scene could have possibly unfolded.

This day played out as it normally did. In the morning, he was gone at work and she was playing house-wife. It was their tenth anniversary. Venus was in her robe, just finishing her makeup when he got home. She could hear the car still running in the driveway. When she heard the front door open, but not the car turn off, she looked over the balcony at the car. There she was. All 5’9 of her. Venus knew she was the other woman in her husband’s life. Venus never knew her name. The only trace of her was her contact name “Baby” on his work phone. She had sleek, curled strawberry-blonde hair and was just as small as Venus. That’s all Venus could make out from the balcony. Venus spun around to find her husband standing in the doorway of the balcony. Why would you bring her here, Venus questioned. Instead of flowers and chocolates, he brought divorce papers. As the other woman waited in the Ford Mustang parked in the driveway, he set the papers on the balcony’s table. Venus felt the roar of betrayal and shoved him out of the bedroom, ordered him out of the house, and locked the doors. That is when her rampage began. Venus then destroyed everything that had sentimental meaning to him, including his car and Baby.

As Venus gripped the vast reality of being a murderer, she got on her knees, ready to run back into the house, but he shoved her back down with his forceful fists. He stood over her, glaring into her green eyes, yet, far past her. He crouched down and she squirmed, but he held her shoulders down.

“Do you think you are tough now, Venus?”

Even so, this form of threat didn’t scare her. She couldn’t feel genuinely scared of him with tears on his face. She didn’t feel an ounce underneath him even as he loomed over her. She was a murderer, that much she knew. This she could come to accept. 

He took her small head into his immense hands. Despite the heat radiating from the curlers, his hands remained locked. They both knew that with Venus’s tiny frame and his virile strength from the adrenaline, he could snap her neck in just seconds. With a grey grin plastered on his soaked face, Venus was aware he was thinking exactly that. Time froze for just a short moment and she looked back into his slanted eyes. They weren’t always this way. They were once in love. Before he got caught up in the game of work, before he got hooked on drugs and that other woman. Now, as Venus stared into his eyes, they were blood-shot; intense with fury, confused over the destruction. There was just one last thing to be destroyed in this tangle of murder on their tenth anniversary.

“Do it,” she challenged him.

His dry hands clamped tight on her rosy, blood-smeared cheeks. She felt his rough fingers tighten into her scalp and around the burning curlers. His bloody palms were ready to break through her bones with just the slightest pressure.

“Give me a reason not to,” he gambled.

Venus couldn’t.