When saying "I love you" doesn't express how you feel

She could feel the chocolate run over her cut lip and down her chin, like a thin sheet of blood oozing out her mouth as she puckered her lips and then abruptly smacked them open for another bite. She shoveled the loaded fork of cake into her mouth. She almost swallowed the fork as she mashed down on the pasty but pulled it out of her tight lips, cleaning every tine as she sucked off the chocolate with a deep inhale. She pushed down through the slice of cake on her plate again making sure to get a fork full of cake, icing and chocolate syrup that was glazed over a scoop of vanilla ice cream, and raised it to her mouth again. The base of her fork was waxed in red lipstick that began at the end of the tines, from several shovelings of dessert. She wasn’t even talking anymore, she had become so enamored by her desert that all she could do was only open her eyes to look for her plate each time she was done with the previous bite.

Rahul had paid special attention to the sauce on this particular dessert. A mellifluous ganache of extra dark chocolate, cream and framboise, pooled across the top and rimmed with a scalloped circle of dark chocolate buttercream. It was viscus enough to ooze down the side of a cake and out lips but not so much that it poured off the whole cake top when cut. The two inner layers had been filled with a chocolate and raspberry mousse that was the color of day-old, dried blood but Rahul would just say they were purple from the raspberry puree and chocolate being folded together. The crumb of his chocolate sponge cut effortlessly, with knife or fork. Thousands of air cells broke away as the cake was cut, exposing the inside of the perfectly circular cake with the first slice.

“Let me serve you.” He said to her as he pulled out her chair and gently as possible with all his weight tried to push it back in. With a snort of derision, she lifted herself and let him fall into the back of the chair as she just as quickly sat back down, now perfectly centered in front of her setting at the table.

Rahul had a stack of two plates next to the cake. Two forks, paired side by side were next to the plates. The ivory handled cake knife was long and serrated on one edge, but the serration was dulled to only be used on pastries. It was laying on a folded square serviette that had been folded four times to make a rectangular bed for the knife. All of this was laid out onto a round café table that had been dressed with a short white table cloth with gingerbread laced edges.

All this time she had been talking, mostly about herself and how miserable she was about others. Her parents didn’t love her anymore and her friends had all abandoned her and her coworkers could care less about her. But none had been as bad as her Rahul had been to her, he was the disappointment of her life, and she had no qualms about sharing this with him. He had not become the success she wanted, and he was not the outgoing vivacious life of the party. He worked all day and when he got home, he would spend hours cleaning or doing dishes or spending time in the yard. Her frequent quote to him was “Thank god we didn’t have children, can you ever imagine how they would have turned out?”

He had imagined having children before his parents had arranged for him to meet her. They would love to play outside and draw or paint and he could cook with them and they could share recipes together as they grew older. His children had become successful in education and technology or art, he just knew they would be happy once they had learned to have enough.

“Would you like another slice dear?” Rahul looked up at her from his small slice of cake and grinned through his glasses as she sucked down the last forkful of cake and ice cream.

“Why yes, I would. Such a good dear, it must have taken you days to make this, or did you buy it?”

“Oh, no, I made it, especially for you.” And with that, he sliced her another quarter cake-sized slice of cake. “More ice cream dear?” She nodded briskly, her fat cheeks jiggling up and down.

Once again with the ivory-handled serrated knife, Rahul plunged into the center of the cake and decisively pulled the knife down and out towards him as he separated another slice from the whole. He gently twisted the knife and made the slice fall onto the plate he had waiting to catch it. The ice cream was much softer now, so the second scoop seemed much easier to get out and he gently laid it alongside the cake on the plate.

She gobbled it down, even faster this time, as if to give no time to taste it at all. When she was done, she dropped her fork from her hand as it was resting on the table, and it clanked onto the plate with a reverberating clang.

“If you don’t mind dear, I’m going to go and lay down. I feel incredibly tired all of a sudden.” And with that, she got up and went straight to the couch and laid down turned on the television, and fell asleep with the remote in her hand.

Rahul had met the paramedics at the front door, still dressed in his pajamas and night robe. They had pushed him aside as he had opened the door and pointed towards the living room where his dear wife had laid down to take a rest and watch television while he cleaned up the dishes from their desert. He had gone to bed since she was still watching her shows and fell asleep expecting her to join him eventually. When he woke in the morning and her side was cold and not even undone, he got up, put on his robe, and went about making coffee, as he did every morning. It wasn’t until the coffee began to brew, he began to suspect something was off, or that’s how he explained it to the officer who showed up shortly after the EMTs. He realized he had been ungracious not offering the paramedics or officer coffee, but then again, there would not have been any for him to offer.

Little did they know this was the first morning Rahul had made coffee and enjoyed the sunrise. Knowing that he was finally, for once, in what seemed like forever be able to sit and drink a cup of coffee in peace and quite that wouldn’t be interrupted. He contemplated how long he had planned out the recipe and how to disguise the bitterness. How he could be able to enjoy some of what he was serving her but still be able to give her the proper serving. He had eaten many cupcake portions of this recipe to build up his tolerance. Now, if anyone suspected anything he would look as much the victim as she was, but he knew that wouldn’t happen. In everyone’s mind she just died of a heart attack and the way she lived her life, no one was surprised.

Rahul began his favorite daydream again. Painting in the backyard as dinner simmered in the oven and his children were there with him.