How to Beat a Dead Horse

This story is part of The 750 Word Project. Thank you jezzazz and Laurel for organizing this year's event!

Thank you for reading, and I hope you enjoy!

All characters are over eighteen. All rights are reserved.

The first thing to keep in mind is that you're attacking something that's dead. Caput. So, don't presume this exercise is anything like beating a living horse. It takes dedicated effort to get yourself nowhere.

Take a proper grip on your instrument. The work is cleaner if it's a blunt object; more effective if it's heavy. Wind up, and start with the head. That initial blow needs to come down hard.

Be precise. Don't hesitate. It takes nerve. Fight down any nausea.

Because after that first blow, he'll pretend that all this is new. That the lifeless, grotesque hide of this dead horse has never been offensive. He'll sit there a moment in stunned silence before finally replying: Wait, what're you saying? He'll ask: I give you everything you want; why aren't you happy? And then say: But... I still love you!

Remember when we were so broke we couldn't afford that trip, so we packed a suitcase and drove into the woods and made love in our car? That Labor Day we went to Jones Beach and a seagull chased you into the water? When we sang 'Somewhere Over the Rainbow' like we were Patti LaBelle, and laid in the middle of the floor laughing hysterically? How we re-named the dog three times before anything stuck?

You'll have to swing multiple times before bruises appear, so make every blow heavy and direct….

It helps to drink beforehand.

How can you just flush five years down the toilet? How can you say you don't need me? Those twitches aren't signs of life; merely dead muscles contracting involuntarily as the carcass decays. Adjust your grip and aim for the body cavity.

Throw your weight behind the swings to the rib cage. Repeat until you hear bones cracking:

Force yourself to lay limp under him as he thrusts into you. Don't return his kisses. Don't thread your fingers through his hair. Bite back a moan when he touches just the right place. Shout someone else's name as you come (even someone you don't like). Afterwards, immediately roll onto your side away from him.

Sometimes, stomping on the body cavity helps to crush the heart:

Pretend to forget pet-names. What he gave you for Christmas. The strawberry-Nutella pancakes you shared the first birthday you celebrated together. The name of that diner in Rego Park where you had them.

Blot out all memories of his cock thumping your rear under body-warmed sheets, physically ready even though he's asleep. Offer only bite and bile of yourself when replying to anything he asks you. Leave him confused, frustrated that everything he says sparks another fight. Wash the sheets until they smell only of you and sunshine, and send him, limping and exhausted, to the sofa.

You're crazy, he'll say, you're fucked up in the head.

So, next: the legs. They can no longer kick. But they still nonetheless must be broken.

Bitch, you ain't shit. I got you where you are now. He'll throw in your face that year you took off to write the next Great American novel but never found an agent or publisher. That you would still be living in that mouse-infested two-bedroom uptown with Danny and Lindsay if he hadn't co-signed for this apartment you could never afford on your own.

Not with your shit job! You'd be nothing without me. Nowhere.

How will you know when the work is done? That's a skill honed from experience. But you're quite an expert if your girlfriends sip their cocktails without comment as you tell them no, seriously, you've left him "for real" this time. If they stop even trying to persuade you that he's no good for you; stop trying to beg you not to take him back. You're an expert if you can hear your mother's tears in the silence over the phone when you swear to her that this time you're done.

"It's different this time. We're through."

And of course, if you hesitate before putting your key in the lock of your own front door—tentative because he's still there even though it's weeks since you told him to leave—but you enter anyways. And if eventually, he asks you what you want to do for dinner—whether you want to try that new place on the corner, or just order something—and you answer, "Let's get the usual".

If he moves from the sofa back into the bedroom. Without currying favor. Without even asking.

And you're back in the saddle.

Thank you for reading!

Truth and light,

Vix