This is my first story submission. Please leave comments. I would love to hear from other writers. Thanks so much to Snowbear for editing this piece. I really appreciate it.
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I am standing in our kitchen preparing his favorite soup as I watch the snowflakes fall outside the window. It blankets the ground in a thick layer, as if it is trying to protect it from the ice storm to come. Protection, that brings about memories of him. I wasn't always a breeder, I used to be a CPA in one of the top 5 firms in the country. However, this is the story of how I came to leave that life behind and become so much more than his wife.
"Honey!" I called as I entered our home. We had been married for 2 years and had comfortably settled into our new lives. "Marcus, where are you?" I called.
After I hung my coat in the closet I turned and saw him striding toward me. He looked as if he was angry with me, so I searched my mind to find what might be the cause of this, but came up empty. As I sat on the bench in the foyer to remove my shoes, he came to a stop in front of me.
"It is 7 o'clock in the evening, you were supposed to be off at 4, why did you work so late?" he asked me in a tone that suggested an argument was about to ensue.
"Marcus, I called you earlier and told you that if you wanted to have this weekend just for us, I was going to have to work late and finish up the bookkeeping on my accounts. Otherwise, my work would have had to come home with me, AGAIN! Why are you so angry with me? I just walked in the house!"
At this point I was barely controlling the anger that was bubbling inside of me. It had been a long day and I had already had enough bullshit to cover the next week. He was looking at me with such anger in his features, his breathing was ragged, and he was crumpling the paper in his hands. Wait... paper, what was that?
"What is that?" I asked, as I pointed to the now severely creased paper.
"These are our test results" he said as he shoved the papers in my face. "As you can see, my sperm count is high, your egg count is high, and there are no abnormalities. Apparently, there is no reason we shouldn't have gotten pregnant already."
Oh, for heaven's sake. This argument again. I threw my hands in the air and begin to head towards our room. It seemed that getting pregnant had been our only topic of discussion for the last 3 months and I was tired of hearing about it.
We had been trying to get pregnant since our honeymoon and nothing had happened yet. So, we decided to get tested, and now, since the tests had shown that there was nothing to be concerned about, I was content to let nature take its course. As I reached our room, I begin to undress. Marcus had been talking the entire way up the hall but I had tuned him out. I had had a long, hard day at work and all I wanted was to come home and relax with my husband. It looked like I would be relaxing alone now.
"Are you even listening to me Marissa?"
His question cut through my thoughts and I snapped.
"No, Marcus! I am not listening to you. I have had a long day and just wanted to come home and relax. So I am going to take a shower and go to bed. I am utterly exhausted and since you can't seem to understand that, I am going to continue ignoring you."
I said all of this in barely controlled rage. I was almost screaming. I had no idea where this intense anger had come from, but I needed to remove myself from the situation. As I tried to escape the room, Marcus grabbed my arm and pulled me to him.
"Let me go!" I yelled.
"You really didn't hear a word I said, did you, Marissa?" Marcus asked in a suddenly soft and soothing voice.
By calming his voice, he was able to reduce my anger from about a 10/10 to maybe 6/10. "No Marcus, I explicitly told you I wasn't listening. Now let me go take a shower. I need to calm down."
"Angel..." Marcus used his pet name for me... taking my anger level down another notch. "Angel, if you had been listening to me, you would know that I was not fussing about YOU exactly, but about your JOB."
"What are you talking about Marcus?" I huffed impatiently, putting my hands on my hips.
"Even though there is no physical reason we cannot get pregnant, there is a hormonal one. The results show that your Cortisol levels are through the roof. Apparently, this is a stress hormone and it is wreaking havoc with your body. Because your levels are so high, the embryos will not implant. Also, this is the reason you are having trouble sleeping."
"How did you know I was having trouble sleeping?"
"You are my wife, my best friend, I have known you for 5 years. I know how you look after you have had a night of rest and when you haven't."
After hearing this news, my anger level slipped down to a cool 3 and I sagged into Marcus' chest.
"I am sorry" I said. "I shouldn't have yelled at you."
"It's alright. I shouldn't have approached you the way I did. Go and take your shower. I'll order in some Italian from the place you like and we will talk about you quitting your job when you're done."
As I started to walk away, I turned slightly, cut my eyes back over to Marcus and said, "The fact that I am your wife does not mean that I am yours to command. I will take my shower whenever I please and we can talk when I am good and damn ready."
I saw his eyes spark with something that I had never seen before. Almost as if I had just issued him a challenge that he was more than willing to accept. As the look on his face intensified, I started to inch backward away from him. He looked like a predator, and I was his prey.
"Go and take your shower, now. You have 20 minutes to shower, lotion, and dress. In whatever manner I happen to find you after those 20 minutes, I will be taking you to the dining room for dinner. Do not complain, or argue or dally. It is of no use. You have 20 minutes and I will come back in here and drag you out kicking and screaming if I have to."
With that last statement he walked out of the room and slammed the door. I stood there slightly shaken as the vibrations from the slam of the door worked their way across my body. Never in our whole relationship had he ever spoken to me in that manner. Had this been any other day, I would have snatched open that door and marched right out after him and told him where he could shove it. But just in that moment, my body took hold before my mind could overly analyze what had just occurred.
I finished removing my clothes and got into the shower. I let the water cascade down into my hair. It felt as though there were tiny fingers working their way through my hair, soothing the headache that had begun to play in the corners of my brain. As I stood there, under the cascading water, the door slid open. Before I could manage a peep, I was pushed against the opposite wall and pinned there, breasts mashed against the cold tile.
I was not afraid. I knew it was Marcus. I could smell his aftershave still lingering on his skin. I could feel the rough calluses on his hands as he pinned my own hands down at the wrists behind my back.