Frigidaire

He plucked his casual fuzzy fall and winter gloves from the cubby in the closet where they kept all their hats and scarves and things for chilly weather.

One foot in front of the other, toes first rolling past the arches and finally to the heel, he placed his bare feet one by one onto the black and white checkered vinyl kitchen floor.

He was naked and beautiful and walking with a mischievous purpose and a straight back. Almost gliding. Perfectly nude, except for the fuzzy gloves.

He proceeded to the refrigerator. It was a model from the 1950’s. A single solid door that read “frigidaire” about a foot above and to the right of the silver plated handle in lettering that was spaced just so.

He opened it and the cool breeze and light whispered around his skin in the dark of the room. His right gloved hand held open the door while his left rose to meet the freezer compartment.

Ice cream was what his heart desired. Heart. Why does that word bother me so?

Just to the left is the drawer. In the drawer are knives. Butcher knives. Bread knives. Pairing knives. Butter knives. Chopping knives. Large knives. Small knives. He fumbled around in there with his gloved hand leaving a bit of lint and fuzz on everything and causing a bit of a rumbling. And then he found it.

With a satisfied feeling, he allowed his left gloved hand and the notorious ice cream scooper emerge from the drawer without removing his gaze from the frozen glory that sat on the counter next to the frigidaire. He pulled it from the drawer and slid the drawer closed seductively with his palm facing up and thumb and three fingers closed as if telling it to take the tip and mind it’s business like a good bell boy.

He looked at the ice cream box and popped the top off the lid and all he could see was her clavicle.

Then he looked again. He saw her rib cage below bare breasts right under her clavicle and this is where she hid her heart.

He looked upward now blinking. It was the nape of her neck where he remembered seeing a pulsating of her skin there once. Her neck led to her jaw and earlobe, but if you follow her jawline the other way you can see her supple chin which is just below her lips.

He plunged the scoop into the ice cream and he saw the rib cage that hid her heart.

Again and again he plunged the ice cream scoop in. Faster and faster into the oozing mess trying to slop it into the bowl on the counter next to the ice cream box. Blood was everywhere. Her chest was barren. Her bones were exposed as he’d force his hand past her sternum until finally he just dropped the scoop and parted her rib cage with both hands, gloves still on.

At the sight of her pounding heart, he leaned back a bit propping her body up with his hips, he removed his gloves one by one with a bit of a smirk and a glimmer in his blue green eyes as they steadily gazed at their prey.

The blood poured out. The limp, pale, powdery face was offset by the fire engine red of her lipstick and blue black depth of her hair. Shoulders, head and hands splayed backward and out as he feasted in her chest cavity with the still velvety smooth viscosity dripping off his elbows.

He looked at his hands and closed his eyes for a moment. What had he done? He placed the entirety of the large slick soiled metacarpi over his face and slid them down over his neck and to his chest whereupon his eyes opened like flood lights turning on in the middle of the night. He was filled and overflowing with power and pleasure.

Suddenly, the brown and brass hanging light in the center of the darkness in the kitchen illuminated the room.

There she was. She just stood there. His eyes opened wide. The ice cream was all over the counter and the floor and dripping off the refrigerator and it looked like he went swimming in it or something. They both looked at the floor for a moment and there were the fuzzy gloves laying there helplessly, one slightly turned inside out.

She turned off the light. No glass of water was worth losing a life for after all by a crazy man swimming in ice cream. With a whirl of her nightgown, she hiked back up the stairs back to bed.

​And there he stood alone in the dark by the cool light of the frigidaire.
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