Rotten Honey

     Today is me and my wife's two years anniversary. I was away on a business trip last year, but I'm home now. I can't wait to spend the day with her. 

    It was only 8 a.m when I woke up, sunshine streaming lazily through the cracks of the curtains. My eyes opened slowly—it is unusually bright today despise it being the middle of winter and there are more clouds than there is sun. I sat up, looking groggily around the room. My wife is nowhere to be seen. This has been going on for a while, probably since I caught her having an affair with one of my colleagues a week ago (or, as I awkwardly refer to it: "The Incident"). I did not make a fuss out of it, but she has been avoiding me by spending her time lounging in our basement. We'd go to bed together at night, then I'd wake up all alone, nostrils stinging from a pungent smell of room freshener. 

    My wife suddenly developed a penchant for that smell, so she began to use it for our basement. The scent is rather incessant—sour with notes of a fleshy sweetness. Like spoiled milk. I have tried to convince her to stop using it, but she never listens. We end up letting the odd fragrance permeate our lives. I get used to it after a while, though at times, the scent still feels like a rusted screw hammered into my ears and jammed so hard it cracks through my skull into my brain.  

    

    I got out of bed and made my way downstairs. My wife isn't here either. She's probably sleeping in the basement. I always find her there, but she'd go upstairs eventually. I walked into the kitchen to start making breakfast. As I cook, the odd smell rises up again. It blends into my butter, the sizzling of sausages being fried, and my coffee. I made an extra portion just like I always do. My wife hasn't been eating. Everything I have cooked for her this week all ends up swarming with flies or chewed up inside my stomach. It weirds me out, to be honest, because she hasn't been talking to me either. I find it agitating that she's acting morose when the one feeling so should be me. She cheated on me. 

    After I have finished making breakfast, I took some pills and waited for my wife. A breeze blew past the window, and it seemed like the furniture are distorting through my sleep-ridden eyes. My wife entered the kitchen after a while, still wearing her champagne-stained shirt from last night. The stain is no longer wine-red, but rather a brown-red. 

    

    "Good morning, honey." I stood up to give her a kiss. My lips meet hers, so soft it feels like I have barely touched her at all. As I hold her in my arms, I reached onto the table and handed her the bouquet of roses that I have prepared just for today. Her mouth fell open, then broke into an ear-to-ear grin. I have not seen her this happy for such a long time. She keeps on inhaling the flowers, murmuring something inexplicable. I can't hear her, but I caught a fetid waft every time she breaths out. I did not want to put my discomfort on display, so I stayed quiet. My wife falls into my embrace again. The sun brushes through, and her presence feels like it has rippled. I stand still, afraid that the smallest touch could cause her to disappear. 

    My wife still refuses to have breakfast, so I covered her plate and let it sit there. We went down to the basement after that. Usually, I would only come down there to check on her. She'd always be laying on the floor, reading a book and refusing to talk to me. I still can't explain why she has turned into such a taciturn person after the incident. It's like she barely exists anymore. 

    The basement is a spacious area. We have carpeted the floor (I later realized that it was a bad idea because my wife keeps on spilling champagne), installed a projector screen on the far end of the room, a mini-bar on the other end, as well as a set of couch and coffee table. We have a fish tank too, with only a goldfish my wife bought for our anniversary last year. The fish died a few days ago from overfeeding. What a shame, because I have invested a great amount in the aquascape. It looks like an underwater city with colorful lights and miniature of Mediterranean-themed buildings. We stand together in silence, watching the aquatic plants sway gently in the water—caressing the mossy building, unaware of its only resident that is now dead. Poor thing. I bet she died hopeless and lonely. I can't see anything in the algae-ridden water, but I am certain that our goldfish is floating somewhere, eyes bulged and bloating from the filth that had made its way into her. My wife stands there, eyes boring into the water as if disappointed in its decrepit ruins. "Is there something odd in there?" I asked, though my wife replied with a nauseating silence. She took my hand instead, walked me to the other side of the room, and laid us down. We lay there for a few minutes until I turned on my side and wrapped my arm around her. She smiled, snuggling up close to me. Her pungent odor shots up my nose again. I winced, but I didn't do anything else to stop it since I don't want to upset my wife.

    "Honey, I'm so glad. You seem really happy today." My wife flashed me a smile after I said that. Her stomach feels strangely soft and squishy against mine like there's barely layers of skin between us at all. She has not said a word, but I know that she's delighted now that we're here together on the thick but dampened surface of our basement. "Ah, you still haven't cleaned up the champagne?" I asked, the carpet brushing against me. It has dried up from champagne, leaving a brown stain and tangling all its fibers together. 

    I wanted us to make love, but an emetic sensation holds me back every time I try to touch her, so we ended up falling asleep next to each other. An hour later, I stirred awake to the scent of her room freshener lingering around us. It feels somewhat torturous now that I'm so close to her, but I can't help myself. She is easily the most beautiful person I have ever known. My fingertips trace down her back, feeling every single bumps of her spine and the scars on her shoulders. I then flipped her over, goosebumps ticking me at the sight. My wife is stiff, so pale and translucent it feels like I'm directly toying with her veins underneath. Venturing from her neck to her breasts and ribs, I can't help but feel a strange bliss at the lack of resistance. She's cold but fleshy, ashen, delicate—like a well-made wax statue. A thrill runs down my nerves when I finally stop just right below her breasts. 

    Her abdomen had been flayed open, blood had dried up on every inch of exposed skin. There are various cuts on her. They seemed wide enough... "Fuck." I muttered under my breath, suddenly feeling drawn to the scabby openings on my wife's body. "Have I ever told you that you're beautiful?" I whispered, then ever so slowly, stuck my hand into one of the cuts on her. A faint squelch greeted me when my fingers have dipped enough to gnaw at her insides. I squeeze and clutch at whatever I could, but they all seemed to break down the moment my warmth slips in. I pulled my hand out, her loose muscles spasming and closing in around me when I put my hand into a cut just right below her ribcage. "I certainly have, but I think you'd love to hear it again. You're so beautiful..." I twisted my hand around inside her, moving upwards. Her bones are still hard, covered in a slimy blood that pushes my fingers away whenever I try to grab at its host. "...So beautiful I can't bear the thought of seeing you with anyone else." No reply. I pulled back then pushed upwards a little. Everything is mostly mush at this point, except for her heart. There's still a comforting elasticity to it. I trace the veins and arteries but couldn't reach any higher, so I moved back down. The lungs and diaphragm crumbles around me, sticking to my carefully-trimmed nails. "You have promised to love me, have you not? I can't believe you broke our promises." I repeated and pulled my hands out, smearing the pulverulent carcass of my wife's lungs on her pallid cheeks. The smell is crawling through my nostril like a spider, sucking up every last bits of sanity I have in me.

    I paused to take a breath, then continued. My wife's shirt is rolled up to her neck, it has dried up from blood, clinging to her skin so much I was afraid that a single tug could pull the tissues of her entire neck apart. I wonder what lies beneath that pliant integumentary; if I could rip it down like velcro and feel the way it desperately grips at her veins and muscle. I would run my hand along her tendon, would squeeze it the exact same way I do in bed. But she would not reply; she would not react. There's nothing but my own guilt that could keep my from plunging my hand deep inside to pull out the most deepest secrets of her. Every tissues, cells, atoms,...are now of my own will to manipulate. 

With that thought, I sank my hand low again, this time in a cut on her lower abdomen. I meet her intestines. Them, just like the rest of her, is a mess. The rope-like structure loosely remains, though the majority has been digested by bacteria. I took everything into my hand and squeeze it tight, fiddling with its gooey remnants. "Why aren't you replying to me?" I rasped out under my shaky breath, then, all at once, pulled her intestines out. Some part is still attached to her, while the rest makes no effort to stay back. The corpse's acrid whiff whipped up my nose again as I clenched my fist. A clammy feeling licks at me when I stuffed her intestine back into another cut with a muffled "slop". I continued to do that, each time cursing under my breath. My wife's dead body lies impotent as I pull in an out of her. Her intestine is now stuffed from one opening to another, like a disordered tangle of electrical wires. I looped one end of the intestines through one hole, then tied a bow with it using the other one poking out from a cut just above her breast. It takes no shape of a bow, but this is the most I could do with her decaying corpus. By now, I'm already covered in sweat and my wife's festered organs. My head is starting to spin, so I pushed backwards, and with all of my conscious, admired the handiwork. She lies lifeless, her body annihilated with cuts, dried blood, and filth. The intestine is my favorite part, though it's barely recognizable. Would be wonderful I could get the chance to strangle her with that. I could already feel my own body give out. "How pathetic we are!" I laughed out loud, choking on my own words. Barely seconds later, the world went dark, and I collapsed.

    "No, baby, no. I'm sorry, please I can explain!"

    "SHUT UP! WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU DO THIS TO ME?"

    "PLEASE, I BEG YOU, PLEASE DON'T—"

Her hair feels silky smooth, smelling sweet of vanilla and tea. Such a shame it would soon be drenched in blood. 

   

     Blood. There's blood everywhere. On the wall, on her face, on the carpet, on my hands. I did not stop. The knife continues to plunge, opening up even more cuts on my wife. I could feel her skin and organs wrap around it, their warm elasticity urging me on. I could taste her blood's metallic odor on my tongue...

    I don't know how long it has been, but she is dead...

    Shit. She's dead. My wife. I THINK I KILLED HER. 

I ran my hand through her body, trying to put her slaughtered organs back into place, but that was of no use. Hot tears began to burn my eyes. I could not wipe them away, because my hands are so bloody, as well as the smell of rot and fear. The knife dropped to the ground without a sound, its metal blade glimmering...

    I—

    

    An hour later, I woke up on the floor. I was again hit by the smell of decay. It's persistent, eager to be the first thing to scratch at my senses with its dirty, grotesque nails. My hands have dried up, and my head is no clearer than when I fainted. I grabbed at my wife's cadaver and stood up, then stumbled to our fish tank at the nearby wall. I dunked my hands in, cold water and moss brushing at my skin. Our dead goldfish's body floated by, but the most I could do was to pinch the animal and feel its bloated stiffness. I stay there, until my arm is scarred by the tank's glass rim and my fingertips have wrinkled up. I wiped everything onto my pants. "No, why would you do this to me..." The sound left my throat, barely louder than a whimper. I have no other option now but to face the truth: the truth that I have killed my lover. The truth that she'd never come back, and that I'd have to confront reality after all the hallucinogens wear down.

    

    I crouched down to a drawer underneath the fish tank stand and, with my muggy fingers, pried it open. I took the item inside, then crawled back to my wife so I could lie down with her. "I think this can end now." I wiped my tears, then held the gun to my head. 

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P/S: I wanted to put some pictures for references but they might be too inappropriate and unnecessary . Researching for this story was nightmarish (literally). I'm a bit disappointed in the writing but I'm not ready to look at more pictures of dead bodies lol. 

Last edit: Nov 23rd, 2025