>>64486383
“Agatha Stevens here, yeah, that’s me, newly minted middle-class wife of the century’s finest husband. Gather ’round as I unpack this goddamn revelation.
I remember the day we decided to finally move into what I thought was our “nice house.” You know the type — tidy suburban facade, manicured lawn, picket-fence, the sort of place you'd build when you intend to retire there with your finest china. I grew up with money, darling — Daddy’s had air conditioning straight from Carrier Corp. I thought I knew what comfort meant.
Then I walked through the front door, and things started feeling… off. The ceiling a little lower than expected. The stairs that led to bookshelves. The realtor’s smile a little too fixed. And then I found the trap-door. The stairway. The cold metal treads descending into the earth, the hum of something decidedly -electrical.
Turns out, my dear husband—yes, that one—had been building a house on an old missile silo. Underground. Two, three, maybe four levels below surface. Concrete walls. A second living room that’s basically a cement cylinder, windows nonexistent, but clever interior lighting so you’d hardly notice. Spiral staircase snaking down like the sort of thing Philip Marlowe would climb on the way to a femme fatale’s lair. And I, in my silk scarf and high-heeled loafers, standing on the threshold of something that screams lunacy.
I’ll admit: on paper it ticked all the boxes. “We built it ourselves,” he said. “A modern appliance palace,” he joked. And honestly, I laughed. Because honey, I believed in romance. I believed in stepping stone terraces and rose gardens and Sunday brunches on the patio. Not reinforced blast doors and ventilation ducts.
So there I am, unpacking our silver-plated cutlery, and he’s down in the subterranean wing, tinkering with control panels and who-knows-what. I find the guest room. It’s sleek. Minimal. Too sleek. No windows.
(cont)
