1
Don opened his eyes and stared at the spinning ceiling fan. He'd been awake for a while, but was finally conceding to the inevitable truth: he wasn't going back to sleep. It was still dark out and the blades of the fan spun silently, the edges illuminated by some unknown light source.
It had been a week since his wife had left, a month since his youngest daughter had gone off to college in another city, halfway across the state. Both of them, and his oldest daughter some years earlier, had gone off to start, or reclaim their lives. Lives that apparently did not include Don.
His daughters' abandonment was understandable, foreseen, but his wife's was a stunning blow out of nowhere. He came home from work to find her waiting for him on the couch, a small packed bag at her feet. She told him she was leaving. Just like that. "I'm leaving." He fell into his chair trying to make sense of this non sequitur. It was clear what she meant, but it was related to nothing that he could understand.
She stood up with her bag in hand. "The girls are gone. It's time for me to live again. I'm joining an artist commune on the east coast. I want to get back to painting again. I want to feel again. I can't do that living with a robot. When was the last time you kissed me, Don?"
Don just stared at her. What she was saying made no sense to him.
"Good luck Don," she said finally. Then she was gone. When he tried to call her later, he found that she'd left her cell phone at home. So that was it. She didn't even want to talk to him again.
Don spent the next week laying in bed and thinking. It was two days before he remembered to call work and tell them he was taking some time off. He had plenty of vacation time. He'd hardly ever used it except to help the girls or his wife with something.
Family vacations had pretty much ended when the girls were both in high school. And since then his wife had taken her vacations alone, to yoga retreats, artist workshops, and the like. Her plans never included Don.
So Don stayed home and "took care of things". He figured that was his job as head of the house, to assist everyone else to accomplish their dreams. It had never occurred to him that he should have his own.
Don lay in bed that week thinking about Sheila's final words to him. The first few days he floated in a dense fog of guilt and shame. But as time cleared the fog, Don's brain started working again and he was able to start really parsing her words, trying to make sense of them.
Live again? What had she been doing? She'd seemed pretty alive to him. Yoga classes, book club, happy hour with friends, painting... When she was around him, Sheila spent most of her time complaining about her life: "The yard looks like shit," "The house is too small", "The kitchen is disgusting," "Why won't anyone buy my art?" and on, and on. Her life sounded like a series of tragedies that were somebody else's fault. And since Don spent most of his time trying to rectify or prevent her complaints, her continued grievances felt to Don like a personal assault. Obviously, "live again," meant living without him, because he was to blame for her previous, premature death. But what was she going to do without him to blame for everything that went wrong?
Get back to painting? When had she stopped painting? Don had converted half the garage into a painting studio for her. She spent a lot of the weekend, and many week nights, in there painting, leaving Don to take care of the house and the girls. He wondered what she thought she'd been doing all that time.
Kiss you? He'd stopped kissing her when she started turning her head away from him. And it wasn't just kissing. Don hadn't been laid in over ten years. But it wasn't because of Sheila, not entirely. Sure, she'd shown no interest in having sex with him, but she also liked to complain about his lack of interest in having sex with her (naturally). And it wasn't a matter of him having a waning libido, though he did like to let Sheila assume that was it. Mostly it was resentment; resentment at being ignored; resentment at being taken for granted; resentment of having to listen to complaining about his not helping enough, and not caring enough, and about how everything was his fault; resentment about being treated like a robot by everyone around him, until that was all that was left.
For the next several days Don concentrated on his resentment which grew into bitterness, and anger. He wallowed in it, stewed in it. At times he positively roiled on his bed not knowing what to do with all that hot anger.
"Fuck it," Don said out loud as he watched the glint of light dance slowly up the length of each blade before jumping to the next.
What had holding on that resentment gotten him? Exactly this: emptiness. Don was surrounded by it, filled by it. What was the point of it? He'd never have closure. Even if he ever saw Sheila again, there'd be no point of telling her any of this. He already knew she wouldn't listen. She'd deny it all and tell him it was just in his head.
And in a way, she was right. He'd let this resentment build up until it became a wall between them. Letting it go probably wouldn't have solved anything, but at least he wouldn't feel like this. Maybe it would've given them both a little more room in which to work things out.
He breathed in deeply and then slowly let it out. He felt better, lighter. He stretched himself out and suddenly realized he had a raging hard-on. Was it stubborn morning wood or his new found release?
Don moved his hand down to slide over his hard dick through his underwear. It felt good. He couldn't remember the last time he'd masturbated. Hadn't it been a month? More?
He slid his hand under his shorts and began to stroke himself. He closed his eyes... but all he could think of was Sheila. He tried to think of other women. He imagined that young girl who worked at the grocery store sliding down his body, her tongue running down the underside of his hard shaft until she reached his balls. But when she looked back up at him, it was Sheila. He imagined eating the pussy of that redhead at work. But when he stuck his fingers in her wet, trembling pussy and looked up to watch her squirm, it was Sheila. He imagined fucking that hot milf waitress from his favorite breakfast place. He'd take her from behind fucking her hard as he played with her big tits. But when she looked back at him, it was Sheila begging him to make her cum.
"Goddammit," he sighed. He pulled his hand out, giving up. Already he could feel his hard-on fading. With a groan, Don swung his feet over and got out of bed. His phone told him it was 5am.
Don got up and took his first shower in a week. Then he made himself some breakfast, the first meal he'd eaten in a week that hadn't been delivered.
When he was done, it was still dark outside. He looked around at the mess that had accumulated around him. He sighed, not wanting to start cleaning just yet. He'd take a walk. 'Yeah, a walk would be nice.' He thought for a moment about what he needed to do before he left. But there was nothing, no one. So he grabbed his keys and headed out.
Don walked down the sidewalk not headed anywhere. The sidewalks were empty. The silence was only occasionally broken by the hiss of passing tires. The sky began to turn dark blue signaling the coming of a new day, at last. He made random turns.
