Scotch again. The bottle sits half-empty on the counter and begs me to leave, predicts the way the night will end. The silence in the house fools me into thinking he’s gone, until I hear the creak of a chair in the office. He saunters out, cigarette in one hand and glass in the other, and mumbles something about the skirt I’m wearing. I’ve heard it before, his indirect methods of demanding I change my clothes. He has a special closet in the bedroom. He calls it “Rebecca’s Secret,” stocks it monthly with new lingerie for the moments he wants a whore instead of a girlfriend. I resist it sometimes. But not when he’s drinking scotch.
     Inside the closet, I pick through the underwear, find something I pray will please him. Clothes off, lacy bra and panties on, I lie on the bed and wait while he refills his glass in the kitchen. He lingers in the doorway, eyes me like a prize kill from a hunting trip. Sips the scotch, the dangerous glow of his eyes growing with every swallow.
      He draws closer, sets the glass on the nightstand, begins to match me in my loss of clothing. But he stops, starts refastening the buttons on his pants. Unusual.
     He returns to his beverage, watching me with the same expression he wears when he watches bums eating out of a trash can or obese women wearing spandex. Behind the glass, his lips mutter to me, “Get up.”
      I follow him as he moves to the bathroom. He grabs my wrist and leads me to the mirror, pushes me forward so the counter melds with my stomach. His drink goes on the counter, his hands go on my waist. He squeezes. Hard.
      “When the fuck did you get this fat?”
      I eye the glass of scotch.
     “Rebecca Marie Flaherty, I just asked you a question.”
      He grabs the glass of scotch. Opens the drawer to my left. My cosmetics drawer.
     “I don’t know what I have to do to get a hot, thin, model of a girlfriend.”
      He pulls the cap off a tube of lipstick from my drawer. Flips me around as if we’re ballroom dancing, then holds me still and draws me a pair of “Hot Tamale” lips. He turns me back around, stares my reflection down in the mirror while he digs his fingers into my shoulders. “There,” he says, “see how a little improvement can go a long way?”
      He places the lipstick in my hand, his dense eyes never straying from mine in the mirror. “I want you to write this on the mirror, right in front of that stomach: I am fat.”
      Cheeks aching from holding back tears, I raise my quivering hand and scribble the words on the mirror.
      “Now,” he says, tilting my chin upward so I’m face to face with myself, “See where your face is in the mirror? That’s where I want you to write I am ugly.”
      My cheeks give in, letting a few tears venture toward my chin. He’s laughing, tightening his grip on me, and I throw the lipstick against the wall. I wriggle in his arms, afraid of the scotch that’s swimming through his blood. He lets me struggle, at least a little, before disappearing from the room. In the kitchen, I can hear it: the familiar screech of door of the safe opening, the haunting click when he readies his gun. I usually hear these noises when his weekly poker games get too wild; this is the first time I’ve heard it when it’s just the two of us.
      The gun appears in the doorway before he does. From behind the gun, his face bears a taunting smirk, one that only half a bottle of scotch could produce.
      “If you’re not going to do as I say, I guess I’ve got to give you a little motivation.”
      The gun is cold against my temple. He’s back in the cosmetics drawer, digging until he finds an eyeliner pencil. He hands it to me.
      “Now what was it that I asked you to write?”
      Would he actually do it?
      “Go on, you dirty whore.”
      Was he just messing with me?
     “You dumb bitch, don’t think I won’t pull this trigger. Write what I told you to write on the fucking mirror!”
      I press the eyeliner pencil to the mirror, but I don’t let my eyes leave his reflection. I begin to jot, “I-A-M,” and the tension between the gun and my head lessens. It is then that the images appear in my head. The rest of the scotch disappearing, his commands worsening, his inhibitions giving up on me, the bullet piercing my skin, my lifeless body falling to the bathroom floor while statements of low self-confidence remain scribbled on the mirror above me.
      I spell out the rest of the phrase. On my face: “I am ugly.” On my stomach: “I am fat.” Satisfied, he lowers the gun. “See, that wasn’t so hard. Let’s try this one,” he says, pointing at my crotch in the mirror. “Right there, write I’m terrible in bed.”
      Lucky for me, the scotch has slowed him down. He doesn’t expect that I’ll kick him. After he drops the gun, he isn’t quick enough to grab it before I do. He isn’t sober enough to be afraid of me. He should be. I’m not like him. I’m not afraid to pull the trigger.

      The cops are on their way. I told them it was self-defense.
      I close the bathroom door and quickly dress myself. In the kitchen, I replace the gun where it belongs in the safe. The detectives will want it, I’m sure. But I don’t want it out where I can see it.
      The bottle of scotch sits on the counter. He drank more than I thought he did. I grab it, take a seat at the kitchen table. The sirens become louder, close enough to be in the neighborhood. I watch out the window for the lights to appear, and while I do, I drink up the rest of the scotch.