“Pasta again? Natasha, we’ve been eating these sticky carbohydrate tubes for the third day in a row. I’m not a garbage can that you can stuff with cheap starch and rubbery sausages bought on sale.”
Sergey poked his fork into the plate with disgust, pushing away the portion of dinner that still had a thin, watery steam rising from it. He sat at the kitchen table, sprawled in his chair with one leg crossed over the other. He was wearing perfectly clean, ironed house pants and a fresh T-shirt — all of which Natalya washed on her rare days off. Next to his plate lay an expensive latest-model smartphone, bought on an installment plan that she herself had been paying for over the past eight months.
Natalya stood in the kitchen doorway, leaning her shoulder against the frame. She had not even had time to change after a twelve-hour shift at the logistics center. Under the soles of her work sneakers, a dirty puddle spread from the wet snow stuck to them outside, and in her fingers, clenched so tightly that her knuckles had turned white, she held a heavy plastic bag from the discount store, its handles mercilessly cutting into her skin.
“I want meat,” her husband drawled without looking at her. He was focused on scrolling through his phone feed, irritably tapping the screen with his finger. “A proper piece. Ribeye or striploin, medium rare. So the juice runs. And you turn our everyday life into a dreary survival routine. Today I listened to a podcast by some business coach. Do you know why I still haven’t launched my project? Because the environment isn’t right. A woman is supposed to set the standard. Bring aesthetics and lightness into the home, inspire achievements. How am I supposed to generate ideas when my dinner looks like a construction worker’s ration?”
He finally raised his eyes to her. Sergey’s gaze was full of condescending reproach, as if he were looking at a negligent servant who had once again failed at her direct duties. In his own picture of the world, he was an unrecognized genius, temporarily in a creative search — one that had dragged on for two and a half years.
“You’ve stopped trying altogether,” he continued in a lecturing tone, seeing that his wife remained silent. “Look at yourself. Always tired, kind of gray. No feminine energy. Instead of creating comfort and motivating me to look for high-paying contracts, you drag cheap food and your irritation into the house. A man needs to be fed properly so he has the resources to earn money. Pasta with tomato paste doesn’t give resources, Natasha. It only gives apathy.”
Natalya slowly placed the bag on the floor. Inside, cans of cheap stew clinked dully, and a packet of the most ordinary black tea rustled. She did not scream. She did not wring her hands or throw a tantrum. Inside her, with a deafening, final click, the fuse responsible for patience, understanding, and feminine self-sacrifice simply burned out.
She looked at her husband’s shiny face, at his well-groomed beard, and remembered the products for it that she had transferred money for from her last salary. She remembered her day: the cold warehouse, the shouting shift supervisor, the pain in her lower back, and the nauseating exhaustion in her legs on the ride home in an overcrowded bus. Then she looked at the plate that this healthy, well-fed thirty-two-year-old man had pushed away from himself in disgust.
Natalya took three steps toward the table. Her movements were frighteningly precise, mechanical, without the slightest fuss. Sergey, expecting the usual excuses or a sluggish argument, tensed slightly, but did not change his posture. He only gripped the fork in his hand more tightly.
“You don’t like that we’re eating pasta instead of steaks?! Then lift your backside off the couch and bring some money into this house! You live at my expense, use my shampoo, and still dare to criticize what I earn?! I’m not your maid and I’m not your ATM! Starting today, you eat only what you’ve earned yourself — which means nothing!” his wife declared, snatching the plate right out from under her husband’s nose.
Sergey did not even have time to blink before her hand sharply pulled the porcelain dish toward herself. The pasta slid toward the edge, but Natalya kept the plate balanced, turned on the heels of her sneakers, and walked over to the sink. Under the sink stood the trash bin. She pressed the pedal with her foot, the lid flipped open, and the entire dinner — neatly boiled spirals, sliced sausages, and the remains of tomato sauce — flew straight onto potato peelings and an empty kefir carton with a wet, squelching sound.
“Hey! Are you completely insane?!” Sergey jumped up from his chair, knocking his phone onto the table. His face instantly broke out in red blotches of indignation. “I’m hungry, actually! I haven’t eaten anything since morning except scrambled eggs!”
Natalya calmly dropped the empty plate into the sink. The earthenware clanged loudly against the stainless steel. She turned on the tap, rinsed a stray drop of sauce from her fingers, wiped her hands on the kitchen towel, and only then turned to her husband. There was not a drop of remorse in her eyes — only the cold, dissecting calculation of a person who had finally thrown off the heavy, foul-smelling burden of someone else’s expectations. She simply stood there and watched as a well-fed, lazy parasite lost his comfort zone in an instant.
“Do you think this is funny?” Sergey gave a nervous laugh, although notes of uncertainty were already clearly cutting through his voice. He sat back down on the chair, demonstratively crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re staging some cheap performance over criticism. Take out the frying pan and fry some eggs. And slice some bread. I’m not going to tolerate your PMS nonsense on an empty stomach.”
Natalya ignored his tone. Without a word, she picked up the grocery bag from the floor, pulled out the packet of cheap tea and the cans of stew, then headed to the refrigerator. Sergey followed her with a condescending look, certain that his wife was simply letting off steam and would now, as usual, start cooking.
Opening the refrigerator door, Natalya methodically and without hurry placed the purchased groceries inside. Then she swept the remaining cheese, the opened stick of sausage, the tray of eggs, and the container with yesterday’s leftover soup from the shelves, tightly packing everything onto the lower shelf. Closing the door, she went out into the hallway, leaving her husband staring after her in confusion.
A minute later she returned. In her hands was a thick anti-theft bicycle chain covered in black vinyl and a massive hardened-steel padlock.
“Hey, what are you planning?” Sergey tensed, leaning forward.
Without saying a word, Natalya wrapped the heavy chain around the paired refrigerator handles, threaded the shackle of the lock through the links, and snapped it shut with a loud metallic click. She calmly dropped the key into the pocket of her work jeans.
“Are you completely insane?!” Sergey roared, jumping to his feet. He rushed to the refrigerator and yanked the handle, but the tightened chain would not allow the door to open even a millimeter. The metal clanged pitifully. “Take this crap off right now! My food is in there!”
“There has been no food of yours here since the moment you quit the car dealership two and a half years ago, citing burnout,” Natalya said in an absolutely even, emotionless voice. “This refrigerator was bought on credit in my name. The food inside it was bought with my salary. The electricity that powers it is paid for by me. Starting this evening, a new economic model of our cohabitation comes into effect. It is called full cost accounting.”
She turned and walked confidently toward the bathroom. Sergey, breathing heavily and still gripping the handle of the locked refrigerator, hurried after her, searching for words for a retaliatory blow.
Turning on the bathroom light, Natalya pulled a thick black trash bag from the cabinet under the sink. She approached the glass shelf above the sink, which was packed with men’s cosmetics.
“What the hell are you doing?! Put that back!” Sergey shouted, bursting into the bathroom.
With one sweep of her hand, Natalya knocked a bottle of craft beard oil into the bag. It was followed by expensive sandalwood-extract shampoo, face wash, imported shaving foam, and a heavy glass bottle of branded cologne. Bottles and tubes fell to the bottom of the bag with dull thuds.
“Those are my things! I forbid you to touch them!” Sergey tried to snatch the bag, but Natalya sharply stepped aside, making him grab empty air.
“They are not your things, Seryozha,” she replied, enunciating each word as she tied the bag into a tight knot. “They are my investments in your appearance, investments that brought no dividends. I paid for your polished face while you searched for your mythical inspiration on the couch. The investment period is over. The fund is closed.”
She bent down, opened the bottom drawer of the cabinet, and took out a piece of ordinary brown laundry soap. Tossing it onto the now-empty glass shelf, she looked her husband straight in the eye.
“This is your current comfort level. It washes dirt perfectly and requires no financial investment from me. I took the toothpaste too. You can brush your teeth with baking soda. It’s in the kitchen cabinet. For now, it’s free.”
Sergey stood in the middle of the bathroom, clenching his fists. His face twisted with rage and humiliation. His familiar, cozy little world, where he was the center of the universe and the main consumer of benefits, was collapsing before his eyes at a frightening speed.
“You think I’m going to tolerate this?” he hissed, looking at the piece of stinking soap. “You’re sinking to the very bottom. A petty, greedy woman who would choke over a single kopeck. Tomorrow I’ll transfer you the money for that shampoo, just so you can choke on it!”
“I’ll be waiting eagerly,” Natalya smirked dryly, squeezing past him into the hallway. She dragged the bag of cosmetics behind her. “We’ll split this month’s utilities in half. Your share is four thousand three hundred rubles. The bill is on the nightstand in the entryway. Payment is due by the twentieth. If there’s no money, I’ll unscrew the fuses in your room and disconnect the router. Good night. Get inspired.”
She entered the bedroom, closed the door firmly behind her, and turned the lock. Sergey was left standing in the brightly lit bathroom, inhaling the remnants of expensive cologne, which were quickly fading and giving way to the sharp, sour smell of cheap soap. His stomach treacherously growled, reminding him of the pasta dumped down the trash chute, but now the path to food was blocked by a thick steel chain. The conflict had only just begun to gain momentum.
“You disconnected your card from my delivery account. What the hell, Natasha?! I spent an hour and a half trying to order pizza and sushi before the app finally gave me the bank’s refusal!”
Sergey loomed over the kitchen table, leaning on the tabletop with both hands. Over the past twenty-four hours, his showy polish had faded considerably. Without his morning warm shower with the usual men’s gel and without carefully styling his beard, he looked rumpled, and his eyes, red from lack of sleep and dull anger, made him resemble a cornered but still aggressive animal. He had spent the entire long day in fruitless searches for something edible. Natalya had proven pragmatic to the point of cruelty: grains, pasta, sugar, vegetable oil, and even the opened loaf of stale bread had disappeared from the cabinets, safely relocated to the locked trunk of her car, in which she had driven to work.
Natalya silently unzipped her jacket, carefully hung it on the hook in the hallway, and walked into the kitchen. She wore the same worn work sweater, but today her movements radiated the absolute, icy confidence of someone who had taken full control of the situation. With a dull thud, she placed a thick paper bag with the logo of an expensive farm supermarket on the table.
“Your account, Seryozha. Your orders. That means the bank card should be yours too,” she said with complete calm, laying out the purchases. “I am no longer sponsoring someone else’s appetite. Especially the appetite of an adult thirty-two-year-old man who made it clear yesterday that my food offends his delicate inner world.”
“You really are completely insane. You decided to starve me because of one phrase?” Sergey hissed, unable to tear his eyes away from her hands. His Adam’s apple jerked nervously.
Natalya did not even honor him with a glance. She tore open the thick kraft paper and brought out a massive, thick piece of selected marbled beef. It was a perfect, premium ribeye with a dense web of snow-white fat marbling. The very steak Sergey had raved about so enthusiastically the day before while disdainfully poking at cheap pasta with his fork. After the meat, a sprig of fresh rosemary, a large head of garlic, and a block of quality butter appeared on the table.
Sergey swallowed convulsively. The sound was loud, almost indecent in the dry acoustics of the brightly lit kitchen. His stomach, completely empty since the previous evening, twisted with a painful, pulling cramp.
Natalya took out a heavy cast-iron pan, set it on the stove, and turned the heat to maximum. She acted slowly, methodically, as if taking part in a master class for chefs. A drop of olive oil slid across the blazing hot metal, and then the piece of meat landed in the pan. A loud, aggressive sizzle filled the room. The kitchen was instantly saturated with the thick, primal, maddening aroma of frying beef, quickly mixing with the spicy notes of rosemary and the sweetness of caramelizing garlic.
“You’re a mercenary, petty woman,” Sergey spat, unable to take his eyes off the pan. His nostrils flared predatorily, greedily inhaling the delicious smoke. “I live with a real monster. A normal wife supports her husband when he’s going through a productivity slump. She becomes his support, his reliable rear! And you stage this cheap show with chains on the refrigerator and eat delicacies right in front of me!”
“A productivity slump, Seryozha, is when a person is suddenly laid off from work and spends three months knocking on office doors, going to interviews, and surviving on night shifts in a taxi,” Natalya said, enunciating each word. She deftly hooked the steak with kitchen tongs and flipped it to the other side. The browned, perfect crust looked like a work of art. “But when a healthy grown man spends two and a half years growing his backside on the couch, sleeping until two in the afternoon, leveling an elf to level eighty, and talking about finding his purpose — that is not a slump. That is terminal-stage parasitism.”
She placed the finished, steaming meat on a wide wooden board, letting it rest slightly. She sprinkled a pinch of coarse sea salt on top. Sergey involuntarily took a step toward the stove. Physiological instincts were taking over what remained of reason. He was ready, right then, to reach out, shove his wife aside, and sink his teeth into that piece of meat, completely ignoring the burning heat and drops of sizzling fat.
Natalya caught his crazed gaze. She took a sharp kitchen knife with a wide blade and, in one smooth, confident movement, cut off the first slice. Inside, the meat was flawlessly medium — tender pink, oozing clear hot juice. She speared the piece with a fork, put it in her mouth, and slowly chewed it with emphasized pleasure.
“Very tasty,” she stated, looking straight into her husband’s eyes, inflamed from lack of sleep. “Exactly what you need after a twelve-hour shift on your feet. Excellent, high-quality protein. It restores the resources you were speaking so eloquently about yesterday.”
“Give me a piece,” Sergey forced out hoarsely. His male pride had been completely trampled by ordinary, primal hunger. He no longer tried to lecture her arrogantly about energy and femininity. He simply asked for food.
“No,” Natalya cut off a second slice, even juicier and more appetizing than the first. Thick meat juice dripped from the shining blade of the knife onto the wooden board. “You didn’t earn this steak. You didn’t stand half the day in a draft, sorting heavy boxes with invoices. You didn’t freeze for half an hour at a bus stop waiting for a bus. Your only labor today was a pathetic attempt to order pizza at my expense and useless aggression when the free feeding trough closed.”
Methodically, piece by piece, she finished her dinner. Every bite, every metallic tap of the knife against the wood, was refined physical torture for Sergey. He shifted from foot to foot, clenching and unclenching his sweaty palms until his knuckles cracked. His face twisted into a grimace of furious, powerless rage. It began to dawn on him that this tired woman in a shapeless sweater no longer responded to his usual manipulations. She felt not a drop of pity, not a shred of imposed guilt. She had simply and harshly crossed him off the list of people to care for, leaving him one-on-one with the severe, cold reality where every piece of bread had to be paid for with one’s own effort.
When only a small puddle of meat juice and a charred sprig of rosemary remained on the wooden board, Natalya exhaled with satisfaction, wiped her lips with a napkin, and tossed the knife into the sink. Without saying another word, she left the kitchen and went into the hallway. The intoxicating, dense smell of fried beef continued to hang thickly in the warm air, cruelly mocking Sergey, who remained standing in the middle of the room with an empty stomach and the chilling realization of his total collapse.
“You’re applying the leverage wrong, Seryozha. Take the crowbar from the pantry. That flathead screwdriver won’t cut through hardened steel — you’ll only gouge up the plastic on the door.”
The light came on suddenly, striking his eyes with sharp, cold neon brightness. Sergey flinched with his entire large body and dropped the tool. The screwdriver hit the tiled floor with a ringing metallic clatter and rolled under the table. It was close to three in the morning. Dressed in stretched-out gray sweatpants and a wrinkled T-shirt soaked with sour sweat, he was kneeling in front of the locked refrigerator, gripping the thick bicycle chain with both hands. His forehead glistened heavily with perspiration, and his breathing was heavy, broken, and hoarse, like that of a driven horse. A grown, physically healthy man had spent a full half hour trying to break into his own kitchen appliance for the sake of a piece of yesterday’s dried-out sausage.
Natalya stood in the doorway, calmly crossing her arms over her chest. She had not been asleep. She had been waiting for this moment, fully understanding the physiology and psychology of a parasite suddenly deprived of its usual food supply.
“What the hell are you sneaking around for?!” Sergey barked, hurriedly and clumsily rising from his knees. He tried to assume a threatening posture, squaring his shoulders, but after crawling around on the floor, it looked as pathetic as possible. “Open this damned thing! I haven’t eaten for two days! I’m shaking from hunger, my sugar has dropped! You have no right to starve me in my own house!”
“In my house,” Natalya corrected him in an absolutely even voice, devoid of the slightest emotion. “The apartment was registered in my name before marriage. And you are only temporarily registered here. And judging by what I’m seeing now, your praised masculine resource — the one you’ve been singing about to me for the last two years — has been spent on picking at a padlock like a cheap burglar. Where is your aesthetic? Where are the high vibrations and inspiration?”
“Shut your mouth! Just shut up and let me eat!” Sergey took a sharp step forward. His face broke out in crimson blotches, and the veins on his neck bulged grotesquely. He loomed over his wife, trying to crush her with his size. “I’m a man! I’m not going to humiliate myself in front of you! Open the lock, or I’ll smash this kitchen to pieces along with that damned refrigerator!”
Natalya did not even flinch. She did not take a single step back. She looked straight into his bloodshot, crazed eyes with the cold, disgusted curiosity of a biologist studying the behavior of primitive organisms under a microscope.
“You are not a man, Seryozha. You are a decorative lapdog that imagined itself a seasoned wolf. A man takes responsibility. A man solves problems. And you only know how to eat, sleep, and philosophize at my expense. And as soon as the free feeding trough slammed shut, all your male pride sank to the point of sneaking around at night, breaking someone else’s property with a dull screwdriver for a piece of food.”
Sergey growled dully, recoiled from her, and kicked the lower kitchen cabinet in a rage. The wooden front cracked pitifully, splitting across the surface.
“You drove me to this! With your beastly attitude! With your stinginess! I tried for you, I carried a global project in my head, I searched for the right paths! And you chained me up like a stray dog! I won’t stay another day with you in this miserable poorhouse!”
“Excellent decision. I support it fully and unconditionally,” Natalya said, sharply turning away from him and walking with firm, measured steps into the living room, which for the past two years had served Sergey exclusively as a gaming den.
Sergey, clearly not expecting such a reaction, blinked in confusion and lumbered after her down the dark hallway.
“Hey, where are you going?! What are you planning?!”
He burst into the room at the exact moment when Natalya decisively pulled the thick power cable of his beloved latest-model gaming console out of the power strip. The very console for which he had supposedly been “studying the modern game design market,” sitting in front of the monitor for twelve hours a day. She tucked the heavy snow-white console under her arm, grabbing the tangled wires and controllers with her free hand.
“Put it back!” Sergey screamed hysterically. His voice broke into a shrill falsetto. This was his main and only treasure, his portal into an imaginary world where he was a great strategist and winner — not an unemployed freeloader. He rushed at his wife, ready to tear the electronics from her by force.
But Natalya moved lightning fast. She spun around sharply, nearly hitting him in the face with the plastic corner of the console, hurried into the entryway, and flung the heavy metal front door wide open. The stairwell met them with the dim flicker of a hallway lamp and the persistent smell of stale tobacco.
Natalya stepped over the threshold and carefully, without the slightest fuss, placed the expensive console on the dirty, trampled concrete of the landing. The wires lay across the cement floor like black snakes.
“Your project, Seryozha. Your purpose. And your only source of life energy,” she said harshly, looking straight into her stunned husband’s face. “Take your property. Go build your great empire.”
Sergey let out an incoherent, hoarse cry. The animal fear for his precious equipment, which anyone could now kick with a dirty boot or steal, instantly overpowered hunger, rage, and what remained of reason. Wearing only house sweatpants and barefoot, he shot out onto the cold concrete of the stairwell, roughly shoving Natalya aside with his shoulder, and frantically grabbed the plastic console, pressing it to his chest.
“You’ve completely lost your mind! It costs a fortune! I’d grind you into dust over it!” he wheezed, crawling on his knees across the icy floor and feverishly gathering the scattered cables.
Natalya silently stepped back into the warm apartment. She calmly looked down at the grown man kneeling in the dirt, clutching a piece of plastic filled with microchips.
“Now that is your personal problem,” she said in an icy tone.
Natalya grabbed the massive door handle and pulled it toward herself with force. Sergey lifted his head, his inflamed eyes widening with the sudden realization of what was happening. He jerked forward, stretching out his free hand, but the heavy steel slab slammed shut right in front of his nose with a dull, uncompromising thud. The mechanism of the thick safe-style lock clicked four times in a row. Natalya cold-bloodedly turned the key all the way, cutting him off from her home, her food, and her life.
Finally and irrevocably.
