Inspired by the short story "The Crack", by G.E. Watson

THE CRACK
By Gregory E Watson

The crack in the mirror split his face in two as he lathered it with soap. It wasn’t an old mirror, they’d bought it new when they’d redone the bathroom in their first flat. It’d slipped from his hand while he was putting it up but they’d decided to keep it anyway because she thought it added an antique touch, though mostly they were broke.
They had moved several times since then. But the mirror had remained.
He used an old-school shaving brush, with an ivory handle and genuine badger hair. He liked old things, the sense of propriety that emanated from them. He brought the gold-plated razor to his right temple and moved it down to his jawline in slow, deliberate strokes. Then he rinsed the razor in the marble basin and looked up at his severed face again: the right half pink and fresh, the left still dark and bristly.
She was waiting for him downstairs. Some social function or charity event; it was hard to keep track these days. He’d followed her around the world: Paris, London, New York, Milan – wherever the job took her, in private jets and chauffeur-driven cars. They stayed at the Bulgari, the Ritz, the Savoy and dined in restaurants that took out insurance on their tableware. No cost was too high, no expense too frivolous.
Life was good. If not excellent.
Moving the razor down his left cheek, he considered how far they’d come, how lucky he was to have found her. She’d filled his head, his heart, his life. Given him things far beyond his reach, for which he knew he would never be able to repay her. He could only hope his presence was still enough to make her life complete, that he still brought something to the table that no one else did.
He rinsed the razor again and brought his face closer to the mirror, focusing on the tricky bit between his nose and his upper lip. He liked to align his nose and philtrum with the crack in the mirror, slicing his reflection into neat, symmetrical halves while he dispatched the stubble on his upper lip. Then he wiped the lather from his mouth, held up his chin and scraped away at the soft, slackening skin of his throat. Finally, he shaved off the stubby tuft of hair beneath his lower lip before starting on his chin.
The click and clatter of high heels on Venetian marble echoed up the stairwell. She was never one for patience, especially on nights like these. Large gatherings of people, even now, made her nervous and jittery, though he knew that his presence stayed and anchored her. He was almost done shaving when he nicked his chin. A droplet of blood welled up as she appeared in the doorway behind him. Sidling up to him, she kissed him on the temple and, with a quick flick of her tongue, licked the blood off his chin. She pressed him close, and they stood like this a while, leaning into each other, gazing into each other’s eyes, each taking in the other’s cracked reflection.
“Oh darling,” she sighed as she nuzzled up to him, detaching her gaze from the mirror “we really must get rid of that ghastly thing.”