Karen sighed as she picked up the phone and cradled its breathy silence to her ear. She knew already who it was, and why he wasn't speaking.

[More:]

She examined her face in the mirror. Her nosebleed seemed to have stopped but her left eye felt puffy and sore. Karen looked at the red wine stain trickling down her yellow wall to the broken glass on the wooden floor beneath her bare feet. She lit a cigarette, her hand shaking slightly as she raised it to her mouth, and slowly puffed a curl of smoke into the phone. She knew he was listening.

The very first time they'd played this game, it had been exciting, sexy, like when he'd described his fantasy of a threesome with her best friend Mel, not that she had ever told Mel. But this time she knew it was not about sex but power: and he was waiting for her to apologise.

She focused carefully on the breathing on the other end of the phone: heavy, fast but regular.

It was like this every time they rowed. Karen looked at her watch. Fifteen minutes, he was normally shouting by this point. She frowned. Obviously, he was still waiting for her to grovel. But Karen knew now that it was better to keep her “ dirty whore's” mouth shut, as he always told her. Anything she did say would be wrong. Besides, silence suited her.

The only time Mel had ever mentioned Karen's frequent 'accidents', she had advised her friend to talk to someone, go to the police. But silence was Karen's best weapon, her means of fighting back in the battle to see who would give in first. So she kept quiet, kept breathing; waiting for the bone-breaking crash click blip of his receiver into the wall.

11 November, 2007