Chapter 8: The Trophy Display
The digital scale sat in the center of the bathroom tiles, a flat, silent judge. Louise stood before it, naked, the morning light cold through the small window. She watched the numbers flicker and settle. Marcus crouched beside it, a notebook open on his knee, a pencil behind his ear.
“One-oh-one point two,” he announced, his voice clinical. He scribbled it down. “Now, height. Stand straight against the doorframe.”
She pressed her heels to the molding, feeling the wood grain against her shoulder blades. He placed a hardcover book flat on her head, leveling it against the frame. He made a small mark with the pencil.
“Sixty-two inches exactly. No change there, obviously.” He measured the distance from the floor to the mark with a tape measure, its metal click loud in the quiet room. “Okay. Come look.”
He’d pulled up a BMI calculator on his phone. She stood beside him, the scent of his morning coffee on his breath, as he input the numbers. He tapped ‘calculate.’ The result loaded instantly.
15.7.
He let out a soft, satisfied sigh. “There it is. See?” He turned the screen to her. The words were plain, blocky. Severely underweight.
“It’s real now,” he said, his thumb stroking the nape of her neck. “It’s not just my opinion. It’s medical fact. You are officially, scientifically, a fragile thing.”
She stared at the number. It felt like a grade. An A+. A validation of every skipped meal, every dizzy spell, every agonizing hollow in her stomach. It was proof she was doing something well.
“We should celebrate,” he said, pulling her away from the doorframe. “But first, I want to see it. I want to see what fifteen point seven looks like.”
He led her into the living room, to the full-length mirror leaning against the wall. He positioned her directly in front of it. “Look. Don’t look at your face. Look at the landscape.”
His hands settled on her shoulders, warm and heavy. They slid down her arms, mapping the sharp deltoids, the thin ropes of her biceps. He turned her sideways. “Look at that,” he whispered, his lips near her ear.
Her profile was a stark cut-out. The gentle outward curve of a healthy stomach was gone, replaced by a drastic inward slope from her ribs to her pelvis. It was a concave space, a missing volume.
“It’s like a sculpture,” he said. His hand spanned her torso, his thumb pressed into the soft hollow below her ribs, his fingers splayed across the vertebrae at the small of her back. His entire hand covered the area where her waist should have been. “I can hold your whole middle in one hand.”
He turned her to face the mirror again, standing behind her. He met her eyes in the glass. His were bright, fascinated. Hers were wide, dark pools. “You see it, right? You see how perfect you are?”
She nodded, her throat tight. She saw a stranger. A woman made of angles and planes, skin stretched taut over a blueprint of bone. Her collarbones were deep, pronounced shelves. She saw the division he worshipped.
“I want you,” he said simply, his gaze locked on her reflection.
He didn’t lead her to the bed or the floor. He kept her there, facing the mirror. His hands guided her hips back, bending her slightly at the waist. He unfastened his jeans. She watched it all in the glass—the way his large form enveloped hers from behind, the contrast of his tanned, muscular forearms against the pallor of her skin. He gripped the sharp points of her hips, his fingers digging into the spaces above them.
“Watch,” he commanded, his voice husky.
She had no choice. Her eyes remained open, fixed on their entwined reflection as he pushed inside. She saw her own mouth fall open in a soundless gasp. Saw her eyes flutter, then widen again as he filled her. He moved slowly at first, a deep, deliberate claiming.
“See how you take me?” he murmured, watching their connected bodies. “See how your body makes room? It’s your only job now. To be this. To be empty, so I can fill you up.”
His pace increased. The image in the mirror became a stuttering, rhythmic blur. Her thin arms braced against the wall, the tendons standing out like wires. His hands on her hips pulled her back onto him with each thrust, the bones of her pelvis prominent beneath his grip. She watched herself unravel. Saw the tears that tracked silently down her cheeks even as a faint, grim smile touched her lips. There was pride there, in the efficiency of her form, in her ability to be so thoroughly used.
He came with a shudder, pressing his forehead between her shoulder blades, his hot breath on her skin. For a long moment, they stayed like that, a panting still-life in the mirror.
Afterward, he lifted her. She was so light he did it with one arm under her knees, the other behind her back, like carrying a child. He took her to the couch and settled her in the nest of blankets, wrapping her up. He disappeared into the kitchen.
He returned with a small bowl. In it was a single, perfect green grape, still beaded with water from the rinse. He sat beside her, the couch dipping under his weight.
“You did so well,” he said, his tone conversational, light. “You saw it, didn’t you? You saw how beautiful it was.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
“Open up.”
She parted her lips. He placed the grape on her tongue. It was cold, taut, a tiny globe of sweetness that burst under the slightest pressure from her teeth. The flavor was shockingly vivid, a concentrated punch of sugar and life in her barren mouth. She held it, let it dissolve slowly, savoring every molecule.
“That’s your reward,” he said, smiling as he watched her face. “For being so good. For being so perfect.”
She swallowed. The sweetness trailed down her throat, a faint, fading ghost.
He pulled her close, tucking her under his arm. He flicked on the television, some mindless game show filling the room with cheerful noise. He played idly with her hair.
“Think we can get to fifteen flat?” he mused, his voice casual, as if discussing the weather. “Just a little more. Just to be safe.” His hand drifted down, his fingers tracing the rim of her hip bone where it pressed against the blanket. “I’d just feel better, you know? Knowing you’re securely in the zone.”
Louise rested her head on his chest, listening to the steady, powerful beat of his heart. The grape’s sweetness was a memory on her tongue. The number 15.7 glowed in her mind. A goal had been met. A new, lower one was already being set. The path forward was clear, narrow, and descending. She closed her eyes, the buzz of the television and the warmth of his body lulling her into a fragile, obedient peace.