Shooter Literary Magazine

just think what they might put into them hexing herbs and corvid feathers egg shells and cobwebs money and thus autonomy – heaven forfend wedding rings, slipped out of sight seditious pamphlets, contraceptive pills masturbatory devices and (whisper it) menstrual accoutrements of which we’d rather not know the details

Will Garrison had always had a taste for sweet things. Amanda, his wife of three years, had a habit of supplying them. During the first four heady months after they met, Will had dazzled her with gifts and dinners out and weekends away. Anyone would have thought she was mad to turn him down when he proposed. Indeed, the thought never crossed Amanda’s mind, apart from a flitting awareness of the rapid pace. But she swatted away that and any other vague sense of uncertainty like an unwelcome insect. At thirty-eight she was glad to be planning her wedding and secretly spent far more time admiring the gleaming ruby of her engagement ring than any sane person would let on.

It all started with the ring. Not the ring Radney gave Roshelle over lasagna in candlelight ten years ago in September. Nor the gold band he gave her a year later. But the wrestling ring he built in back of their split-level ranch home with blue shutters and salmon brick in Montgomery, Alabama. Radney wanted to be a professional wrestler since he first saw Hulk Hogan with a blond mane and protruding pecs glistening on TV. Roshelle wanted Radney to be one too. When she was a kid, her dad used to take her to the armory every other Saturday to sit in the front row and watch grown men in speedos pin each other to a bouncy floor. Their sweat soaked her red dress, cotton sticking to her legs. “How’s that for a good show,” her dad always said as they walked into the night, the air chilling her wet skin.