Winter Love

WINTER LOVE

by E.C. Dorgan

Content warnings: Gore, blood, violence, death

This 21st century has been good to us, I remind myself, while Hans and I wait in the boardroom for the meeting to start. We’ve slotted half an hour—longer than usual, but this new product update matters. “You must be Wendy.” A woman with sharp heels breezes in, smelling like meat. “What you’ve achieved with the company—remarkable!” I fix a smile and agree. She walks us through the details—normally, my assistant manages updates, but Version Six will be our first since going public two months ago. When we sign off, the woman smiles wide. “This is going to make you even bigger.” Hans reaches under the table and squeezes my hand. We have millions of dollars, and tens of thousands of followers, but we’re still hungry.

We didn’t start out like this. The business was an afterthought—something to keep us busy and make us respectable in our new life, like the kid. We were still getting used to being parents, then. Sometimes, I think we still are. Now that I’m reading parenting books, I understand these things better. Logan seems to be developing normally. But he’s an odd creature, that teenage boy. 

In the early days, Hans worked from a laptop in the old kitchen. He’d upload inventory to the online store while helping me debone meat. Back then, we sold things you could smell and touch. Now our kitchen is twice the size of our old house. The product we’re selling is virtual. 

•••

We’ve learned over time—business isn’t just business. It’s also the charities and the soirees. Tonight, there’s an event for the hospital. Hans sits on the board, and we’re among the biggest donors. 

I’m in French blue tulle, dripping sapphires—my stylist says they’re striking with my glimmering eyes. She also says a palette is important. Mine runs French blue to indigo. Though I’ve never worn clothes easily. 

The event’s like any other—glittery couples crowding around us, self-congratulatory speeches, tiny plates made into art instead of sustenance.

“Are you ready for Version Six?” A woman with pointed red nails leans into me.

I’m struggling to slice a poached pear—have never been one for cutlery.

“You’re not worried about your competitors?”

I sniff for the usual jealousy, but there isn’t any. I look up and recognize her face. She’s on TV—one of the talking heads who will opine, tomorrow, whether Version Six is a hit or a miss. I fix a smile and fake a relaxed yawn, though in truth, I’m pushing down a hunger pang.

The woman reaches into her purse for crimson lipstick. She refreshes her lips, then smacks. “Well, you might want to watch your back.”

•••

We’re up early on launch day. We eat brittle toast in the dark, looking out the kitchen windows. The sun isn’t up, but I can make out the trees just beyond. They’re why we chose this house, with its glass walls and tamed shrubs. Sometimes, at night, I step out into the yard, look out past the fence, and breathe in looming forest. 

Hans goes upstairs to get dressed. He returns, magnificent in a navy and black suit with bone cufflinks. I bury my nose in his armpit, then run my fingers down his starched seams. For a moment, we’re not in our glass kitchen—it’s just the two of us, in the woods again. Then our driver rings the doorbell, and I slip on my indigo-framed glasses—stylist-recommended, even though my vision is better than perfect. I walk out the door in alligator shoes.

The rest of the day is a rush. We’re radiant in the live-stream version launch. The IT works, and the audience claps and aahs when it’s supposed to. Hans shines on the stage. His eyes are too bright for the cameras. Such white teeth. I can taste his hunger, can’t look away. I force myself to smile and engage the audience. All the key influencers are re-tweeting us. When I tear my eyes from Hans, and look at my phone, my followers are up—first by 30K, then 70K. The thrill gives me goosebumps, though my face is all sweat from the spotlights.

The PR team calls us glorious. Not that I need the affirmation—Hans’s look, the new followers, they’re enough. The market agrees—our stock rises 18%. By the end of the day, our eyes are burned from camera flashes, our ears ring from popped balloons, and our fingers ache from cutting ribbons in front of screens. We’re leaving the office when my assistant catches me with an article. The journalist with sharp nails has weighed in—she’s calling us the “Number One Power Couple.” 

The calls and text messages start on the drive home—first from our financial team, then from our lawyers. Someone’s buying up your shares. We’re turning into the driveway of our house when my assistant forwards a new tweet. 

The journalist from the soiree is reporting that Ambra and Gregg Rickie are trying to get control of our company—and they’re launching their own product update, Version Nine, in two weeks. She’s updated the headline: “Which Power Couple Will Win?”

•••

We’ve been competing with Ambra and Gregg Rickie for years. We started out at the same time, working out of cramped kitchens. Now we both live in glass houses and sit on boards. They call us “thought leaders” and give us awards. Hans and I have more followers; Ambra and Gregg have a higher stock price. We’re all experts at fixing our faces for the camera, and our stomachs are hot and hungry. But that’s where the similarities stop. Ambra and Gregg grew up with butter in their soft mouths, in plush, carpeted houses. Their flesh is rough, and their eyes don’t glimmer. 

Before the parenting book, I wouldn’t think to talk to Logan about work. Now, I know better. Teenagers are connected to the world—they know what people are saying about them and their families. Parents need to communicate. 

The good thing about Logan is that he’s predictable. I used to lose him for days in this enormous house. Now, I don’t even need to sniff to know where he is. He’s always playing video games, holed up in the basement—not the one with the freezers, but the one with the screens and the speakers. Still, going down the glass stairs, I’m not sure what I’ll say to him. A live demo in front of millions is so much easier.

When I open the door, Logan is sitting in the dark, consumed by the screen. He lets out a loud sigh. 

I clear my throat. “We should talk about the product update.”

“Later, Mom, I’m busy.” He doesn’t look up.

I’m about to protest, but Logan sighs again. I take a breath, and Logan looks pained. I have a feeling he’ll roll his eyes next. Even without our bright eyes and sharp teeth, this creature has a fierceness. I close the door and start up the stairs, wondering how to reach him.

•••

Ambra and Gregg are suddenly everywhere—in my followers’ feeds, on magazine covers. One night, Hans and I are waiting for a table at the new trendy restaurant, and the host tells me I look like Ambra Rickie. Instinct awakens—Hans has to hold me back. Ten minutes later, Ambra and her husband appear—they don’t have to wait, they’re ushered to a better table. I’ve just finished raw steak—I smell the juices as it boils in my gut. 

Hans doesn’t say anything, but I know it eats at him. I smell him in the night, lying awake, sweating in our satin sheets. 

A few days later, Hans is late coming home from a meeting. I’m waiting in the kitchen, tapping French blue nails on the glass counter, fighting hunger pangs. 

When he finally walks in, his face is grim. “They took Jeff.” 

Jeff was our CFO, our first employee. He lived above the garage in the old house, back when Hans worked at the kitchen table. We barely charged him rent. He babysat Logan during meetings. When he bought his own house, we were guarantors for his mortgage.

“He took our files with him.”

The files are probably the worse betrayal, but it’s the personal aspect that bothers me. I repainted the garage apartment for him. Let him use our washer and dryer. I’d rip him to shreds if I didn’t have a gala to get ready for. 

Tonight’s event is for disadvantaged children. We rush, but we still get there late. I realize, stepping out of the car, that in my haste I chose the wrong blue satin. It sits stiff on my shoulders and bulges at my gut. They seat us at the table of honour, which has nothing to do with disadvantaged children and everything to do with donations. Ambra and Gregg are already there. The journalist with red nails, inexplicably, sits between us. Ambra compliments my dress—she’s noticed the stiff fabric, and I smell her rot-breath, and under that, an appetite like my own. 

We’re served tiny escargot, artistically plated, with gold flakes and poached Saskatoons. They don’t smell like anything. Ambra, knife and fork, eats like she was born for it, poised and gluttonous. The journalist, watching her, knows not to try. When I take the cutlery, the metal bends, and the blade snaps. I pick up the butter knife—there’s a metal scrape, and escargot flies. The journalist’s mouth tightens—either a grimace or an attempt not to laugh.

Ambra puts down her fork. “Would you like some help?”

My utensil snaps. Hans touches my thigh, and tension bleeds out. The journalist, quiet, reaches for her bag. I lean into Hans while the journalist writes.

•••

Later that week, I get hunger pangs in a meeting. It’s nothing special, just a late-night AMA with my followers. I’d prefer to cancel it, but the PR team insists these things are more important now than ever. I’m sitting at my kitchen counter leaning over the screen, looking out at the trees like I always do, when the first pang hits me. It starts at my sacrum, twists upward through my gut, then slams into the base of my skull, making powder from my neck bones.

Is she ok? someone asks in the chat box.

I blink. Hans rushes forward with ice water. I drink, and he puts his hand on my shoulder. Another pang hits, and I gasp. Someone puts a question mark in the chat. Hans moves his hand to the small of my back and takes the force of it. The next pang, his hand jumps. I lean back and feel the hunger shudder up his spine, and collide with his skull. He takes the pangs until the meeting’s done. I thought I mastered them years ago. 

We put away the computer, and Hans tells me, “Hold on.” He descends to the basement, and I wait, nails tapping, stomach juices sloshing. The basement was his idea, another example of his brilliance. The first time we stocked it, the delivery driver couldn’t believe it, said he’d never seen a whole floor of freezers and ovens. Called us his biggest-ever order, said, You must be really into paleo.

It feels like a lifetime before Hans starts up the stairs. My nostrils awaken with scent, and I salivate with every footstep. I can barely hold back when Hans appears in the kitchen, face obscured by steam. He places the hot marrow bones on the counter, and beside it, from outside, a bowl of clean, cold snow. He takes the chair across from me. We don’t say anything.

Our hands move in unison. I cup Hans’s face, he cups mine. Our cheeks are sweating over the steam, but our arms have goosebumps. We’re feeling each other’s cheekbones then, fingers climbing upward, exploring temples. When I look in his eyes, I see mine, glowing, and our matching, drooling mouths. I caress his forehead like I would a child, then tighten my grip on his skin. Like mirrors, we pull downward. We peel off layers of tight skin until there’s only the perfect flesh underneath. He takes my breath, every time. 

I sink my hands into the hot bones. Hans, my reflection, does the same. We suck, we slurp, and we crunch until steam comes out of our mouths and fat runs down our chins. Then we reach under the table with velvet, tallowed fingers and caress the seams of each other’s costumes. After the bones, we take handfuls of snow and fill our mouths until we’re finally, almost sated.

The proper meal does us good—it puts Hans right to sleep. He snores beside me on the pillow—none of that lying awake, tormented. I pick up the parenting book and read a few pages. It says teenagers need their space, but parents need to be present, even when it’s hard. I ponder that, then I pull out my phone. Can’t help myself, swipe to the news. The first thing I see is the headline. The red-nailed journalist has written another article. She references escargot and cutlery. But it’s the headline that gets me: “Wendy and Hans Spooked.” I’m full, but a hot pang hits me. 

In the morning, light streams into the bedroom window, waking me. I roll over to face Hans. He’s already awake, eyes shining on satin sheets. He doesn’t have to speak—I can tell he’s seen the article, too. The course of action is obvious, but when we get to the office, the lawyers need convincing. They try to talk us out of it. You want to do a hostile takeover? Of Ambra and Gregg Rickie? They give us a thousand reasons why we can’t. Tell us we’re better staying the course, keeping to the procedural route—exhaust our rivals through technicalities. You just need to trust in the process. I don’t know the meaning of the word “process.” I sure as heck can’t eat it. I want to explain, it’s not about assets—it’s about appetite. Hans, the patient one, stays late, talking it through.

I’m back in the glass house, waiting for Hans in the kitchen, feeling his absence in the small of my back. Relief when I hear the front door. But it’s not Hans who comes in to greet me.

Logan hesitates in the doorway, on the cusp of fleeing or freezing. I sniff, but there’s no fear, only heat turning his gut, and under that, a wakening appetite. He may have different eyes than me, he may be a wholly different creature, but I know how it feels to need nourishment.

“Go on downstairs, I’ll bring you a bite.”

His expression changes. Grateful? I would have missed it before the book. 

I wait for the sound of the basement door, then the distant thrum of a video game. It’s a shame the parenting book doesn’t contain recipes. There’s roast chicken in the fridge, salt and pepper potato chips in the cupboard. I open a bag and give the chicken a chip halo. Wonder if the book’s author would approve.

When I open the basement door, Logan is deep in a video game. His face is alive, his fingers are moving, and something bloody is happening on the screen. I put the chicken down on the coffee table—he moves to the left, so I don’t block his view. 

“Let me know if you need anything else.”

I expect a loud sigh, but when he looks at me, his eyes are soft, like prey.

•••

The next two weeks are harrowing. Version Nine is a hit—Ambra and Gregg’s stock price shoots up, 33% above ours, and their live demo gets 29K more retweets. They buy more of our shares through proxies, then push for an AGM—they say it’s to propose a sustainability plan, but everyone knows it’s to vote us out of our own company. Hans isn’t sleeping again. I smell him at night, sweating through the sheets. We hire a reputation management firm—they have me doing daily events, but even at the “friendly” ones, with longtime clients, charities we support, I’m getting hard questions. We’ve made it too far to turn back now, and I’ll be damned if I let Ambra win. But when I answer, I’m fighting hunger pangs.

We miss our quarterly sales targets. Our own offensive stagnates, courtesy of legal excuses. An influential analyst declares our stock risky, and we lose 42% in an afternoon. 

We run into Ambra and Gregg at another gala. I’m in French blue silk and silver-diamond earrings that look like knives or icicles. Ambra’s beside me, decked in red velvet and rubies. Her lips are crimson, and when she smiles, I imagine biting those lips so hot blood spills down her gown. 

Hans and I smile and clap through the mindless speeches. But the hunger pangs are close, even though I ate before leaving the house. Sometime after the main course—microscopic lobster with foraged truffle in a vertical tower, they announce “Donor of the Year.” I already know, it’s between us and Ambra and Gregg Rickie. We gave slightly more, but they’re also measuring “impact,” whatever that means. 

They project giant photos of Hans and I, and Ambra and Gregg, on a screen. Then, the light shifts to our table. Ambra and I squint into the brightness, feeling the audience’s eyes, stiffening our faces, and smiling blind. 

They drag out the announcement with speeches—we’re eating dessert by the time they name the winner. Hans reaches under the table and squeezes my thigh. I prepare my smile. We pose, but the name they call is Ambra’s. The spotlight shifts just as she takes a bite of raspberry trifle. Everyone watches while red juice runs down her chin. Hans and I clap, smiles stiff. 

We don’t talk on the drive home. When we get to the house, we eat a whole freezer of bones in the dark. The marrow has no taste, and the snow can’t sate us. 

We’re about to start on another freezer when there’s a sound at the front door. We pull up our faces, fingers fumbling, then rush to clean up our mess. Logan walks into the kitchen just as Hans throws the bowls in the sink.

Hans turns around. “You’re home early.” The skin on his temple is loose.

“So are you.” Logan, thankfully, is looking at his phone. 

I open my eyes wide at Hans, but he isn’t looking. I remember the book. “I’ll bring you some food.”

Logan nods. I hold my breath until he goes down the stairs. Then I fix Hans’s face while he wipes the counters. This time, I use sour cream and onion chips. There’s something therapeutic about the chicken-chip combo. I’m getting better at the halo—this time, it’s almost symmetrical. When I start down the stairs, I feel something new. Is this what it’s like to be a mom?

Hans is asleep when I slide into bed. I know better, but I pull out my phone anyway. Tomorrow’s headlines, under “Society”: the other couple’s win at the gala. Under “Business,” our favourite analyst predicts our stock will tank. Anger rises, but I run my foot along Hans’s leg, and it dissipates. Hans shifts closer. His scent infuses the air, and I put down my phone. I could lie here, smelling him, forever. We don’t need anything but each other. We have money and fame, we could hide away from the world in this house. There’s enough meat in the freezers, Logan has enough video games. I could make chicken and chip platters every night. We could watch the forest out the window, smell the heady trees. Be a real family.

I reach to the nightstand to switch off the light, but my mind is still dreaming. Maybe I’ll learn more recipes. Or try my hand at a video game. It’s good to have hobbies. We’ll be happy enough for a few years, long enough for the so-called “procedural route” to take its course. 

Somehow, I hit the lamp and it tips. I reach out to straighten it, but knock down my phone and the glasses I don’t need. The phone comes alive when I reach for it. There’s a banner notification—another article from the red-nailed journalist: “There’s a New Power Couple in Town.” It hasn’t gone to print, but already it’s trending. Under the headline, there’s a photo of Ambra and Gregg. And beside it—me and Hans, a big red “X” over our faces.

I nudge Hans until he wakes. Pass him the phone, no need to say anything. He’s not all instinct like me—I smell him thinking, considering his options, costing out the loose ends. When he frowns, I know he agrees: the procedural route would take years. Even if he didn’t, he’d follow my lead—he always has. We get out of bed without a sound. Peel off our faces while descending the glass stairs. Open the front door, quiet, careful not to wake Logan. Hunger surges, and we slink into the night.

•••

Ambra and Gregg’s accident changes everything. Our stock tanks, as predicted, but it’s back within a day, 11% higher. The hostile takeover evaporates. We launch Version Seven, and Ambra and Gregg’s former clients have no choice but to come to us. Our CFO grovels back. We’re barely in the news—it’s just over-the-top headlines and “special investigations” into the death of the other power couple. A handful of conspiracy-mongers point fingers, but that makes us look more credible. Even if the authorities suspected us, they couldn’t prove it. The autopsy says the injuries are animal bites. Let them try DNA testing, they won’t find anything human.

But despite our success, my appetite’s still there, smouldering. We have more assets, more followers, and bigger profits. The galas are now every night. It’s hard to keep track of them. Sometimes, I think we’ll starve on tiny slices of wagyu beef. 

One afternoon, I find myself in an interview with the sharp-nailed journalist. She’s asking  “gotcha” questions—my answers are perfect, and I’m not even thinking. My eyes wander past the screen, to the forest beyond the kitchen window. Somewhere in those woods, carrion birds are circling. 

What I would give to be scenting my way to whatever they’ve found. These glass walls, they used to contain me. Now I want to burst through and make them shatter. I can almost feel the cold under my feet, steam rising from hot flesh. I’ve grown soft in this house—how long has it been since it was just me and Hans, surrounded by snow, scenting the air, hunting in falling light?

We have another gala that night: “Entrepreneur of the Year.” We already know we’ve won. Hans comes home early, so we have time in the kitchen to eat. We pull off each other’s faces and entwine legs under the table. Steam rises from bowls of hot bones, and we put our hands deep into them. For a moment, I’m back in the forest, smacking tallowed lips and belching with my love.

There’s the sound of glass breaking. I’m back in the kitchen, and Logan is standing in front of me. He’s holding what’s left of a glass, his palm bleeding. When our eyes meet, he freezes like a deer. Hunger flares, and I lean forward. Logan’s face changes. I realize my mistake. The parenting book says this is a critical age, that teens are easily spooked, that betrayed trust at this age ruptures. He turns and runs out the front door, dripping blood on the snow. 

“Logan!” I take a step to follow, but Hans reaches out to me. 

“He’s grown up now.” His scent is less certain than his voice.

I push against his shoulder, then bury my face in his shirt.

“Think of us at that age.” He still smells torn.

It’s true—we were on our own in the forest, even before we were teenagers. But Logan isn’t like us, and these times are different. Hans should read the parenting book.

Still, I don’t protest. What could I say to Logan, anyway? I go upstairs to get dressed while Hans mops up glass and blood. There’s a feeling in my gut—not hunger, but an odd emptiness. I do my makeup, put on my gown. It’s French blue, but I’m tiring of this palette. I fasten icicle earrings, then look outside at those trees.

I return to the kitchen—for a moment, Hans doesn’t notice me. When he looks up, his mouth makes an oh. I feel better without a costume. I help Hans out of his face. He’s calculating, but like always, following my lead. We take hands. Hans leaves his shoes on the glass floor with the rest of this 21st century. The only thing we bring is potato chips. When we step outside, the air is alive with smells. The cold feels good under my feet. We walk on pressed snow to the trees. Somewhere far, I catch the scent of my son.