book on the table and said,
“Starting today, you’re going to bake this pie every morning.”
“Every morning?” I laughed. “Why?”
He didn’t laugh.
“Just make it. It’s important.”
The book contained an ordinary apple pie recipe. There was nothing unusual about it—flour, butter, eggs, apples, and
cinnamon. On the first day, I made it without asking any more questions. When I took the pie out of the oven, Victor asked
me to leave the kitchen for a few minutes.
“Why?”
“I want to serve it nicely for you.”
It even seemed romantic at the time.
A few minutes later, he called me back. A single slice of pie was waiting on the table. Victor sat across from me and watched
until I had eaten every bite.
The same thing happened the next day. And the day after that. I baked the entire pie, but as soon as it came out of the oven,
Victor always sent me out of the kitchen. When I returned, he would place a slice in front of me and carefully watch me eat it.
He never ate any himself. At first, I didn’t think much of it. But after a few days, I noticed that my slice sometimes tasted
different. One day, it was more bitter than usual. Another day, it had a strange metallic taste.
“Are you adding something to it?” I asked.
Victor froze for a moment.
“No.”
His answer came far too quickly.
That night, I couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about the tension on his face and wondering why he insisted that I be the only
one to eat the pie.
The following week, I began feeling weak. Sometimes I became dizzy. I felt nauseous in the mornings, and my vision
occasionally went dark while I was at work. When I told Victor, he seemed strangely relieved.
“That was expected,” he whispered.
“What was expected?”
“I told you not to worry.”
That was the first time I became genuinely afraid of him.
I remembered that Victor’s first wife had died several months before we met. He almost never spoke about her. He had only
told me that she had been ill for a long time. But what if her illness hadn’t been natural?
The thought terrified me. The more I tried to push it away, the more suspicious everything seemed. Victor’s secretive
personality. His first wife’s death.
The way he sent me out of the kitchen. The changing taste of my food. And most importantly, the fact that he never touched
the pie himself.
One morning, I decided to test him. I baked the pie and placed it on the table as usual. Victor waited for me to leave the
kitchen. But this time, I watched him through a narrow opening in the doorway. He pulled a small white container from his
pocket. He opened it, sprinkled something onto my slice, and carefully mixed it into the filling with a spoon.
My heart was beating so loudly that I was afraid he would hear it. When he called me back, I sat at the table but didn’t touch
the plate.
“Eat,” he said.
“You eat it today.”
The color drained from Victor’s face. I pushed the pie toward him.
“Take a bite.”
“I don’t want any.”
