The windows stopped letting in light.
Not literally—sun still filtered through the dusty panes—but it felt like the house had learned how to keep the warmth out.
Like it knew.
Like it approved.
The bakery closed a week ago.
Eve said she needed time to "reformulate the recipe."
But really, she just wanted Micah all to herself.
The world outside could burn.
She had everything she needed right here—flour, knives, and him.
---
He wasn't allowed to leave anymore.
Not really.
Not without asking.
And when he did go—for groceries, or air, or breath—she timed him. Checked his texts. Sniffed his shirt when he came back like a hound hunting the scent of betrayal.
"You wouldn't cheat," she'd said once, laughing as she traced his lips with a piping bag tip. "Not because you're loyal. But because you know what I'd do."
And the thing is—she was right.
He knew.
---
The house became a mausoleum of shared madness.
Curtains were always drawn.
Mirrors were covered.
Rooms once filled with flour and light now held echoing tension and the smell of burned sweetness—as if the very walls were beginning to rot in sympathy.
Micah started sleepwalking. Or maybe not sleeping at all.
He'd wake to find Eve watching him from the corner of the room, completely still, holding a pair of rusted tongs like a rosary.
"Just checking you're still breathing," she whispered one night.
Then kissed him with cracked lips, smeared in jam like blood.
---
Her obsession became ritualistic.
She began baking for him only—but never letting him eat until he earned it.
One night: a cinnamon bun, glistening with icing.
He reached for it.
She slapped his hand away.
"Beg."
He stared.
She tilted her head.
"On your knees, Micah. Beg like I'm God."
And he did.
Because he was hungry.
Because he was hers.
Because he was already dead and didn't know it.
---
But something worse began to happen.
It wasn't the bruises.
Or the rope burns.
It was the moments he started smiling first.
The days he whispered, "I missed you," even when she hadn't left the room.
The time he told her, voice soft and blank
"If you ever kill me, make sure you use a bread knife.
I want it to mean something."
---
Eve cried that night.
Not out of guilt.
But because she finally realized—
He didn't belong to her anymore.
He was her.
A reflection.
A creation.
A monument to every scar she'd ever received and every wound she'd passed on.
They weren't two people.
They were a recipe gone wrong.
---
And the house?
It didn't just keep out the light.
It began to creak with every moan.
To sigh with every thrust.
To whisper their names through the walls like it remembered what they did in the dark.
Like it approved.
---
One morning, a neighbor knocked.
No answer.
The bakery sign was gone.
The windows were smeared with something red.
And in the silence inside, only two sounds could be heard:
The slop of batter being stirred...
And a voice—low, sweet, singing—
You're my favorite thing I ever made."
End