— I need two hundred thousand. Urgently. I’ve already told the girls we’re going to the best spa club in the city. On Saturday.
Angela fluttered into the kitchen like a bright tropical bird that had accidentally flown into a gray city apartment. The air instantly filled with the thick, sweet scent of her new perfume—orchid mixed with something else, just as expensive and just as out of place in a space that smelled of fried potatoes and yesterday. She stopped behind her husband, expecting him to turn around at once, smile, and start asking clarifying questions—questions that were only a prelude to unconditional surrender to her wishes.
Igor didn’t turn around. Slowly, with a deliberate, almost theatrical calm, he set his fork down on the edge of the plate. The metallic clink against the porcelain was quiet, but in the sudden pause it sounded like a gunshot. He finished chewing, swallowed, and only then turned his head. He looked at his wife as if he were seeing her for the first time—not as the beautiful woman he once loved, but as an unfamiliar, predatory creature wrapped in silk and smelling of money he no longer had.
— Two hundred thousand, he repeated. His voice was flat, stripped of any emotion, like a voicemail recording. For one day at a spa club. Did I understand you correctly?
Angela felt the first faint prick of anxiety, but immediately pushed it away. He was just tired. Tired from his stupid job, that was all. She only needed to add a little charm—her usual female magic that always worked without fail.
— Well, honey… — she flirtatiously fixed the perfect curl that had fallen onto her shoulder. — I have to keep up, don’t I? Can you imagine Lena’s face when she finds out where we’re going? And Svetka’s? They can’t afford something like that. They’ll die of envy! It’ll be our little triumph. I already bragged that my husband never spares anything for me.
She gave him her most disarming smile—the one that erased any frown from his face and opened his wallet. But this time nothing happened. Igor smirked, but it was only a grimace that bared his teeth; there wasn’t a drop of amusement in his eyes. He stared at her for a long time, studying her, as if weighing on invisible scales every word, every gesture, every penny spent on her over the years of their life together.
He calmly finished his potatoes. Wiped his lips with a napkin. Stood up from the table, sliding the chair back without a single squeak. He stepped almost right up to her, and the sheer calmness of him made Angela genuinely uneasy. She was used to his flare-ups, to arguments after which he always gave in. But this icy, dead indifference frightened her to the point of trembling.
— Listen, my dear—if you want so badly to show off in front of your girlfriends, then go find yourself a job or a new husband, because I’m not paying for this nonsense. Not for anything.
She recoiled as if he’d hit her. The coquettish mask slid off her face, revealing fury and disbelief.
— What? How dare you! You’re humiliating me! I already told everyone! How am I supposed to look in their eyes?!
But he wasn’t listening anymore. He silently walked into the room, picked up his laptop from the couch, and returned to the kitchen. He sat down at the table where his dirty plate still stood and flipped open the lid. His fingers began to dart across the keyboard. Angela stood frozen, watching him, not understanding what was happening. This wasn’t the script she was used to. He was supposed to shout, make excuses, beg forgiveness.
A minute later he turned the laptop screen toward her. She saw an online banking page. He opened the transaction history: a large amount—almost all his salary—had just been transferred from their joint account to some other one, marked “Savings.” Then he clicked and showed her the balance on their shared card—the very one she used to pay for her dresses, restaurants, and dreams. A number glowed on the screen: 10,000.
— That’s for food until the end of the month, his voice was absolutely emotionless. He closed the laptop and looked her straight in the eyes. — Show off.
Angela’s first reaction was laughter. Not cheerful, not genuine—short, sharp, like the yapping of a small angry dog. She stared at the number on the screen, then at Igor’s unreadable face, and her mind refused to accept this new reality. It was a joke. A stupid, inappropriate, drawn-out male joke. He’d just gotten offended. He decided to “teach her a lesson” like a misbehaving child—and tomorrow morning, smiling guiltily, he’d put everything back and add extra for emotional damages.
— So you got offended? — she still tried to hold on to her usual patronizing tone, but a metallic edge was already breaking through. — Little boy Igor got offended because nobody praised him for dinner? Honey, that role doesn’t suit you. Stop this performance and put the money back on the card.
Igor silently got up from the table, took his plate and fork, and went to the sink. He turned on the faucet, and the sound of running water became his only answer. He methodically, unhurriedly washed the dishes, rinsed them, and set them on the drying rack. Every movement was measured and calm. This didn’t look like hurt feelings. Hurt is fussy—it demands attention. But he seemed to have forgotten she existed at all.
She stepped closer, stood beside him, invading his personal space. She still smelled of expensive perfume, but now that scent felt suffocating.
— I’m talking to you! Do you even understand how this looks? A man who saves money on his woman. That’s rock bottom, Igor. Absolute rock bottom. Everyone we know will laugh when they find out.
He turned off the faucet. Dried his hands on a towel and hung it carefully on the hook. Then he turned to her. In his gaze there was neither anger nor resentment. Only cold, endless exhaustion.
— This isn’t saving money, Angela. This is ending the funding of a pointless project called “My Friends’ Envy.” The project is shut down due to complete unprofitability. And I don’t give a damn what anyone thinks of me. Especially those “friends” who see me as nothing but a walking ATM.
He stepped around her and went into the bedroom. She stayed alone in the kitchen, surrounded by the smell of fried potatoes and her expensive perfume. The realization that this wasn’t a game began to seep into her mind slowly, like poison. Rage mixed with panic.
Morning brought no relief. She woke up determined to give him a real scandal—one that would make the walls shake. She was used to her yelling and accusations always getting under his skin, making him feel guilty, and finally backing down. She walked into the kitchen ready for battle, but found Igor had already had breakfast and was getting ready for work. One empty coffee cup stood on the table. The coffee maker was off and cold.
— And what is this supposed to mean? You’re playing the silent treatment now? — she snapped. — Put the money back on the card and we’ll forget this circus. I’m ready to forgive you for yesterday.
Igor, tying his tie in the hallway mirror, looked at her reflection.
— There’s no game. There are new rules. Your entertainment, your status, your “triumphs”—that’s your responsibility now. My responsibility is these ten thousand for food. And only until the end of the month. I’m late.
He picked up his briefcase and headed for the door. She rushed after him, blocking his way.
— You’re not leaving! We’re not finished! You can’t do this to me!
— I can, he said calmly. He took her by the shoulder—not to hug or soothe her, but simply to move her aside like an inanimate object. — And I already have. By the way, there are a couple of sausages and eggs in the fridge. You’ll make yourself something for dinner.
He left. She heard the key turn twice in the lock. And in that moment it finally hit her. This wasn’t a psychotic episode. Not temporary insanity. It was a carefully planned, coldly executed revolt. And she—the queen of this small world—had just been overthrown and reduced to the level of a servant who’d been left ten thousand for groceries. She looked around the apartment—Italian furniture, designer renovation, paintings on the walls. She’d thought all of it was hers. And with horror she understood she had nothing. She was just another expensive piece of interior décor—one that, apparently, had been decided to be written off as unnecessary.
Three days passed. Three days of hostility, thick and icy like jelly. At first Angela tried to keep her composure, pretending this ridiculous independence game didn’t affect her at all. She demonstratively ordered expensive food from restaurants, paying with what was left on her credit card. She spoke loudly on the phone with her friends, discussing the upcoming “luxury weekend.” But her bravado melted with every hour. The phone lying on the glass table buzzed more and more often, turning from a status symbol into an instrument of torture.
Lena’s messages were the worst: “So, goddess? Getting ready for Saturday? I already bought sandal-scented massage oil so I’ll at least sort of match!” Angela read it and her stomach twisted from a mix of rage and humiliation. She was trapped in a cage she’d built herself out of bragging and lies.
On Thursday evening, when desperation peaked, she decided to change tactics. Aggression hadn’t worked—so she needed to return to the tried-and-true weapon that had never failed her. She spent an hour in the bath, put on lace bodysuit lingerie, black as sin and so expensive its price could have covered a month’s rent on a decent apartment. She let her hair down, dabbed a drop of perfume onto her collarbones. When Igor came home from work, she was waiting in the bedroom, languidly leaning against the doorframe in the most flattering pose—one she’d rehearsed hundreds of times in front of the mirror.
He entered the room to grab a clean T-shirt. His eyes slid over her like they would over a coat rack in the hallway with a forgotten raincoat hanging on it. No surprise, no admiration, not even irritation. Emptiness.
— You’ll catch a cold, — he said, taking the shirt from the closet.
— Close the door behind you.
That was worse than a slap. She’d been devalued. Her main weapon—her beauty and allure—had been dismissed as irrelevant, like a draft from an open window. A hot, blinding rage surged through her. The seductress mask cracked and crumbled.
— Who do you even think you are? — she hissed at his back. — Office plankton! Sitting in your little cage from nine to six, shuffling papers, and you think you’re a man? Men solve problems! They achieve things! They spoil their women! Lena’s husband runs a business, Svetka’s got a big shot in oil. They give them cars, not ten thousand for sausages! You can’t even earn enough for one spa trip for your wife! You’re nothing, Igor. A nobody!
She waited for an explosion. Insults. Shouting. Any reaction that would bring them back into their familiar battlefield where she knew how to play and win. But Igor simply changed into home clothes, tossed his work shirt into the laundry basket, and walked out of the bedroom without looking at her.
Ten minutes later, the smell of frying meat and garlic drifted through the apartment. Angela, pulled along by that smell as if on a leash, went into the kitchen. What she saw there finally broke her. Igor was sitting at the table eating dinner. In front of him was a plate with one perfect steak, a mound of fresh salad, and a glass of red wine. He’d bought it all on the way home. For himself. One serving. He ate slowly, with pleasure, watching something on his laptop. He’d built an invisible cocoon around himself—one in which there simply was no place for her.
She stood in the doorway in her expensive lace lingerie, humiliated and hungry, and watched her husband enjoy a life in which she played no role anymore. He didn’t argue, didn’t justify himself, didn’t get angry. He had simply crossed her out. He began living a parallel life inside their shared apartment, and that tactic was more terrifying than any screaming match. She was a ghost—an invisible, bodiless being whose attempts to get attention were nothing more than a light breath of wind that couldn’t even make a candle flame flicker. And she realized she had only one last move left.
Friday. Tomorrow was looming like a storm cloud, ready to burst into an icy downpour of humiliation. Angela’s phone was blowing up with messages from her friends, already discussing what swimsuits they’d wear to “that very spa club.” She couldn’t postpone the inevitable any longer. In the evening, when Igor was calmly reading a book in the living room as if nothing were happening, she understood she had one last bullet in the chamber. The biggest caliber: an ultimatum that was supposed to snap him back to reality and put him in his place.
She stood in front of him, blocking the light from the floor lamp. He reluctantly looked up from the page.
— I can’t do this anymore, — she began, putting every ounce of steely resolve she had into her voice. — If you don’t stop this circus immediately and put everything back the way it was, I’m filing for divorce.
She expected anything: shock, anger, pleading. But he only calmly set the book on the armrest, marking the page with a finger.
— Okay, he said as simply as if she’d offered him tea.
That reaction knocked the ground out from under her. Her ultimatum—her strongest weapon—had done nothing. She continued on momentum, raising her voice to convince herself of her own words.
— You didn’t understand me? Di-vorce! That means division of property. This apartment, the car—everything we’ve built! We’ll see how you sing when you have to give me half. You’ll be paying for this humiliation for the rest of your life!
Igor looked at her, and for the first time in days something like interest appeared in his eyes. The interest of a researcher observing the final death throes of a lab animal. He slowly stood up.
— Yes, you’re right. We need to clarify things. Wait a second.
Unhurried, he left the living room and went to the hallway closet. Angela remained standing in the middle of the room, her heart pounding with a bad feeling. Something was wrong. Everything was going completely off-script. A minute later he returned holding a thin blue cardboard folder. He placed it on the coffee table and opened it. Inside was a single document, folded in thirds.
— You probably don’t remember this sheet of paper, — he began in that flat, lifeless voice. — We signed it a week before the wedding. You laughed, said prenuptial agreements were a silly formality for oligarchs, and signed without reading—between the dress fitting and choosing the cake. Let me refresh your memory.
He took the document and began to read it aloud, point by point, like an announcer delivering a sentence.
— Clause one. The apartment we live in is my personal property, as it was gifted to me by my parents two years before the marriage. In case of divorce it is not subject to division. Clause two. The car is also my personal property, purchased before the marriage. Clause three. All bank accounts opened in my name, including savings accounts, are my personal property. Only the funds in the joint account are subject to division, — he paused and looked at her. — And as you remember, there’s about ten thousand there now. We can split it fairly—five each.
Her face turned into a white mask. She stared at the paper in his hands, and her world—built on certainty in her power and his money—collapsed into dust.
— And the most interesting part, — Igor continued, and a note of almost scientific curiosity appeared in his voice, — clause four. If the marriage is dissolved at your initiative, except in cases of proven infidelity or violence on my part, you have no right to any maintenance or alimony. You’re filing for divorce because I didn’t give you two hundred thousand for a spa day? I don’t think they’ll consider that a valid reason.
He neatly folded the document and put it back into the folder. The silence in the room grew so thick it felt like you could cut it with a knife. He looked at her—a woman who a week ago had been the mistress of his life—and saw nothing. Empty space in an expensive silk robe.
Then he did something she never could have expected. He calmly walked into the hallway, took her purse from the console table, pulled out the apartment keys, unclipped them from the keychain, and slipped them into his pocket. Then he went to the front door and opened it wide. Cold, dusty stairwell air rushed in.
— That’s it, — he said, turning to her. His face was perfectly calm. — You’re free. You can go. Go show off to your girlfriends in whatever you’re wearing. You can start by telling them you don’t have anywhere to live now.
She stood rooted to the spot, staring at the dark opening of the doorway. This wasn’t just the end of their marriage. It was total, deliberate, merciless annihilation. He wasn’t just throwing her out. He was erasing her from his life like an unnecessary contact in a phone book.
— The door, he reminded her just as calmly.
And she, like a sleepwalker, stepped over the threshold. He didn’t wait. The door closed in front of her face. She didn’t hear a slam—only the quiet, dry click of the lock, cutting her off from her old life forever