Have you ever smelled soap and blood?

I remember being very small and looking at a red spot in my mother’s kitchen. It was on the floor, a big slimy red spot. I remember asking her what was it, she looked confused, then smiled and laughed a bit. "It's just sauce sweety, I will clean it after dinner."

We ate dinner and the red spot was in my mind.

We watched TV and the red spot was in my mind.

She tucked me in bed, yet the red spot was still in my mind.

I had red dreams that night.

I remember waking up in the middle of the night and going to the kitchen. I guess mother forgot to clean it, as the red spot was still there.

With a wet paper towel, I cleaned the red spot. And finally, I could breathe again.

As the years went by everyone would talk a bit about my cleaning obsession. "It's a phase she's just a kid." "These teenagers, you know how they are." "She's so clean and organized, I am so proud of my daughter."

I didn't care for the words, I grew up a stern woman, with a good eye for dirt and a good hand for cleaning.

My grandfather told me that was the reason why I fell in love with his work. You see, grandfather owned a butcher shop, as I grew up, he would take me to work sometimes, and the smell was the most addictive thing I have ever had the pleasure to feel. Soap and flesh.

The walls inside the shop were shiny and spotless. When I was younger, grandfather would allow me to clean the shop after school.

Grandfather's butcher shop was the family business, but his two sons decided to go to college, leaving the old man alone in the shop.

His sons would sell the shop the second their father was in the ground, that was the plan.

But grandfather's word was the last, and still alive, he passed the shop directly to my name. Of course no one but grandfather and I were happy.

I've heard "But do you really want it?" "You have no idea how rich we could be if we sold it." countless times. And when grandfather died, the voices became angrier. My uncle and father wanted the money, they didn't want the shop, the family tradition, and they didn't want the love grandfather and I felt for the shop.

Those greedy bastards and their stained bones.

I endured it for a long time. Years went by and I tried to cut ties with most of my family. Mother was still married to father, and she understood me a bit, yet she also understood father's side. I kept in touch with her, now and then she would tell me about his rants, about what a whiny brat I was, keeping a fortune to myself.

I didn't care much, I allowed myself to be swallowed by my work. My uncle was the first one to disappear, and the easiest one. He was skinny and didn't have much flesh. The bones were easy to clean.

It was a pleasure I had never felt before. Cleaning the walls, and the floor, moping, brushing. Nothing felt the same, nothing smelled the same.

You have to try it to understand it. Soap and flesh, and bones, and blood. So similar to the butcher shop, yet, somehow more addictive.

I understand I couldn't do it every day, all the time. Only if I needed to.

Yet I remember the exact sound of my mother's tears hitting the ground as we had the closed-casket funeral for my father. Of course, it was closed, they didn't have a body. Even if, somehow, they were able to find it, it would be just clean, white, shiny, bones, hidden within the pile of animal bones at the butcher's shop trash can.

My routine was easy, wake up before the sun, clean the shop, get the flesh ready. My employees would come in around 9am, and the shop was open. At 5pm the shop was closed, and I would stay there, peacefully cleaning until 9pm. Go home, eat, clean, sleep, repeat.

One of my employees disappeared, I didn't mind it much, I actually wanted to fire him, so it was convenient for me.

He was fucking disgusting. He would never clean his knives after using them. He would leave blood and flesh stains on the tables, on the floor, and his apron. He would clean his hands only once.

That's how I met my husband. A lazy stupid cop came asking questions about the employee. I told him what I told everyone else "He was a dirty bastard, didn't come to work one day and I didn't mind."

I think my husband fell in love with me the day the put his eyes on me. And I noticed how clean he was. He would come around every week or so, buy some pounds of meat and talk with me a bit.

Mother was asking me about marriage, so I allowed it to happen.

A few months went by and the dumb cop asked me on a date. A few years went by and he asked me to marry him. Sure, why not.

Somehow I stopped. Three was enough.

Years went by without me picking at human bones.

Until the day my husband looked me in the eyes and asked me "How much is your shop worth it?"

We weren't struggling with money, my shop and his job kept us fine.

But, oh greedy bastard.

You have to believe me, I pushed it down, I hid it so well, that feeling, that need, that rage. My wish was to clean his bones.

I laughed it off, and said I would never sell my grandfather's shop, my dream was to pass it down to our children. He laughed nervously and said he was just wondering. But I knew the truth.

I walk into the kitchen, he was making dinner, my favorite he said. I wonder if he was afraid of me, did he know something? Did the stupid lazy bastard finally understand why three people around me went missing? No, he wasn't capable of thinking.

But the slimy red spot on the kitchen floor.

"What's that?" I asked.

"Oh dear, sauce. Sorry, I will clean it up."

He didn't clean it. We went to bed, and once again I had red dreams.

I woke up, wet towel in one hand, soap in the other, and I cleaned it.

With soap down the bastard's throat, I dragged him into the car, into the butcher shop. It was 3am, Sunday. The shop was closed.

I had the whole day to myself, to scrub his dirty bones, all stained with red spots. Soap and flesh and blood and bones.