For whatever reason, of all the domestic tasks, she despised cutting up fruit the most. The tedium it embodied could be matched by no other household or kitchen-related endeavor. There was no “special trick” (or “helpful hint,” as one of the “women’s magazines” or “home journals” she struggled to read would call it) to bypass the lengthy process of this kind of cutting. Or, worse still, peeling. But worst of all, cutting and peeling. If you had told her that her husband, Elliot Renson, was the kind of fruit lover that didn’t refer to men, she might have changed her mind before agreeing to marry him. But since he didn’t make his fondness for fruit known to her until after their honeymoon—all too short-lived at just under a week—by then, obviously, it was too late. And divorce was unheard of. Least of all divorce over something as “inconsequential” as finding yourself cutting up fruit for significant periods of the day while your husband was at work.

Charlene knew, of course, that there would be sacrifices when she got married. Not least of which was swapping out her last name, Delmont, for what she deemed to be the much less sophisticated Renson. It wasn’t like Mamie Eisenhower trading up from the dowdy-sounding “Doud.” But it was all in the name of “serving society,” she told herself. Besides, she was sure she could find ways to stay entertained during the day (that is, when she wasn’t cutting up fruit). If Lucy Ricardo was able to, so could she. Though hopefully with far less obviousness about how much “fun” she was having—for women getting into mischief always seems to equate with fun to those on the outside looking in. They never take into account that the mischief being gotten into comes from a place of general dissatisfaction, which Charlene could feel setting in almost immediately after the honeymoon.

And it wasn’t just that Elliot had sprung the full extent of his fruit obsession on her the first day she began her official role as “housewife,” but that she was saddled with the revelation that it was all truly over now. There would never be excitement or adventure again. Nor would there be learning or growing or erudite conversations. Like the kinds she’d had while attending Vassar. She had majored in English. When Elliot found this out, he laughed, adding, “Oh Charlene, you didn’t need to go to school for that, you can read books all day at home now.” The comment had made her hot with anger, but she couldn’t say exactly why. She knew Elliot’s sense of humor was often “that way”—undermining, cutting and otherwise derisive. In fact, she should have seen that as the first sign of trouble. And cutting up fruit as the third.

The second was the way their wedding night unfolded. Naturally, Charlene had heard all manner of horror stories before. Mainly from the girls at Vassar who flouted the so-called law that you had to be a virgin before you were married. The guys they had sex with, they said, usually “didn’t know which end was up” and could only last “a minute if you’re lucky.” That didn’t bode well to Charlene, though she was glad that she had been told these tales so as to lower her expectations. The Charlene before Vassar would have been excited about the wedding night, would have foolishly believed she might derive some form of pleasure from it. But the post-Vassar Charlene had been jaded by intel. Knowing now that the likelier scenario was that he would cum in about thirty seconds. Especially if he was actually telling the truth about being a virgin himself. Though Charlene didn’t believe that for one goddamn minute. Still, a girl could get far with delusions, even the ones that weren’t self-provided.

Alas, no amount of delusion prepared her for the introduction of fruit into her daily life quite like what happened on their wedding night. In essence, Elliot couldn’t get hard unless Charlene conceded to letting him watch her eat the chocolate-dipped strawberries he had ordered from room service. Even though she mentioned to him many times before that night that she counted strawberries among her least favorite food. But there was no reasoning with Elliot—he had to see her eating them in order to get erect. And since Charlene didn’t want to be the one blamed for “ruining” the wedding night (even though it was patently Elliot who had done so), she decided to go along with it. At great cost to both of them. Because the more strawberries that she shoved into her mouth, the closer she got to vomiting, which she ended up doing just as Elliot was finally sticking it in. And yes, it was the kind of projectile vomiting that caused Elliot to get hit right inside his mouth. This, in turn, causing him to vomit.

And so it became a night of yakking, with the two finally spent after about twenty minutes of taking turns being bowled over the toilet. In other words, neither one of them had the emotional or physical desire to continue their attempt at “consummating” the marriage. That task was left for the morning, whereupon Charlene quickly learned that she was not a fan of morning sex at all, while Elliot was clearly establishing that he was, annoying her with his early wake-up call so that she could “tend to him.” “Honey, I’ve got a little gift for you,” he said in a sing-song voice as he shook her back to consciousness. Gift, my ass, she thought. I’m the one giving you a fucking gift.

In the year to come, Charlene would indulge this sex schedule she hated all the more because it prompted her to go back to sleep for two more hours and wake up late. “What do you care?” Elliot would say. “It’s not like you have any place to be.” No, of course not. The only place she needed to be was at home, cutting up fruit. Though she would be damned if she ever handled another strawberry. That was an unspoken dealbreaker for her. Or so she thought. But then, on the night of their one-year anniversary, after three hundred and sixty-five days spent cutting up fruit for Elliot to enjoy as a post-work snack, he had the audacity to bring home a huge punnet of strawberries. Winking and smiling at her, he explained, “In honor of our anniversary, darling. I wanted you to think of our honeymoon. And I also thought that maybe we could try this again—without you vomiting this time, of course.”

Charlene was utterly shocked and appalled. It would have been one thing if he had been joking, but he very clearly wasn’t. He wanted her to stuff her gob full of strawberries dipped in chocolate again because that was his weird (and honestly, vexingly cliche) kink. Besides, he had already been a very “good boy” this past year by not asking her to do it. Until now. Since it was such a special occasion. Well, Charlene was going to show him a special occasion all right. Seeing as how she still had the fruit knife in hand from cutting up the last of the watermelon she was adding into an already very robust fruit salad filled with pineapples, a cantaloupe, apples, oranges, peaches and mangoes. He had picked the worst possible moment to approach her with this “desire.”

So when she plunged the fruit knife into his groin, he was just as horrified as she had been when he proposed the strawberry idea. An idea that was perhaps most abhorrent of all to her because, this time around, she would have to be the one to cut up the instruments of her induced vomiting. Not some hired hand at the hotel. And that, truly, said everything about what it meant to be not just Elliot’s wife, but a wife at all.