"You're a dead mother fucker."

The words rolled so easily off her tongue. She had not expected that. She didn't even have to think about them. They were just there, a gift from the gods. She pressed the cold, steel barrel deeper into his skull.

"You want to beat on somebody, do you? You want to take your fists to them? Take your fists to THIS, sumbitch."

JAB! JAB! JAB! went the gun, punctuating her words, encoding them indelibly in that little soft spot right between his eyes.

She had finally gotten the drop on this sorry mother fucker. Finally. After all these years. Every dog has his day, dude, and this one looks like it's got my name written all over it. How does it come to this? How do you pick yourself up off the floor one day, grab a .45 automatic, and point it between the eyes of the man you vowed to love, honor, and cherish? Course, she had also said, "Till death do us part." Looked like the parting might be at hand.

Where did things change? When? How? Little by little, she recalled. It started right after the wedding. First he asserts himself here, saying he really wishes she wouldn't do this or that. Then he asserts himself there, pointing out something else she is doing wrong. Next he is demanding this, that, or the other, the "pleases" and "thanks yous" fading into fond and distant memory.

Day by day he reminds her in all kinds of little ways that she is inferior to him. That she must learn her "place". He is always testing her. This little question, that little question, each strategically designed (to aerospace precision tolerances) to determine whether or not she is lying to him about something. It is a game he plays with her. There is never any trust, there never was. Gradually this fact raises its hand and begs to be recognized.

The temper flares when demands and guidelines are not met. The voice, deep, booming in anger, rocking the walls with its power. The ebony eyes flashing fire; the aura black and crimson, striking fear in her heart. The endless sermons about her rebelliousness, her disobeyance, her myriad failures and shortcomings.

"No wonder your father never loved you," he tells her.

One day he emphasizes his rage by striking her hard across the face, WHACK! She can't believe he struck her! Still, she sprawls in the corner where the blow deposited her. There is no denying where she finds herself. She gives her head a quick shake and tries to focus her eyes. That is the beginning. From that moment on, all solutions lie within the power of those volatile fists.

The beatings become more and more severe. They occur more frequently. Some mornings she cannot bear to comb her hair. Every strand cries out in agonizing pain. Tenderly she places her fingertips to her scalp and explores the lumps. She looks at the black eye. The gash in her cheek. She sees the face of death in her own eyes. It glares back at her from the mirror, accusatory, unforgiving. You can stop this but you're a pussy, it says. She leans back against the wall, turning away from the telltale glass. She cannot bear to gaze there any longer.

And then one day he raises his fists to her and sends her reeling across the room. CRASH! She hits the back of the closet wall. WHAM! OOMPH! The breath almost leaves her as her back connects with the knotty pine. He is screaming obscenities at her from his vantage point near the bed. She gasps for breath, struggling to regain control of respiration, of oxygen, of life. Of HER life.

Her eyes go to the shelf above the shoe rack. They rest upon the handle of a .45 automatic. The clip is in it. Of course it's loaded, it's always loaded. No sense in having a gun if it's not loaded, he always says.

He is on his feet now, heading for her. She bounds from the floor, grabs the .45 and cocks it in one smooth motion which terminates with the barrel pointed right between his eyes. Right in that little soft spot.

"You're a dead mother fucker."

Later she sold the gun on the street.