Heaven Sent 1

Lie we back, smell our creation,

Skin on skin and fluid spent.

Two angels felled, find explanation,

Pulling closer into heavens scent.

-----

Melanie teeters, almost falling, longing for the rush... the headlong (sharp inward breath) downward plummeting, (pant-pant-pant) almost there, keep going... (I'll kill you if you move just one inch sideways) out of control.... (oh god, oh god) for the orgasm that she is promised. She can almost touch it. It's right... Oh god... There... It's so...

Ordinary.

Predictable.

Comfortable.

Over.

She watches him stand and pull his pants back up. Warm semen dribbles down her thigh. He has one chance.

One step, two steps, three steps and he's at the door. Will he? One strong arm reaches out and grabs the door handle. It opens. Four steps and he's gone.

He doesn't look back. Just finished - like some sex toy, some duty, some job round the house that had to be done. No cuddling, no eye contact, no moment together, (really together) afterwards. Just up and on with the pants and "kerflooosh" he's flushing the toilet.

Used? Not really. Pissed in? Maybe. Like a receptacle for a bodily function? No, still not quite right. A necessary biological consequence of marriage? Closer. A pleasurable one - he's never 'bad' about it. There's nothing really at all to complain about. It's just... Such an empty gesture. Like that feeling you get when you're at a party and someone shakes your hand, says the right words and everything but they are already looking at someone else.

"Oh grow up Mel! You're not a needy teen." She admonishes herself and rationalises her needs away... "He's busy and stressed at work. That's probably all he's thinking about. It's not his fault. Jesus hasn't he always given 110 percent for you and the kids. To the detriment of his health at times but if he's not thoroughly focused on the 'sex' it's because he's tired, doesn't mean he didn't fucken love it. Come on girl. Grow up."

"Shut up Mum," she says out loud to the critic inside her head.

"Still horny though aren't you?"

"Ahuh," She runs a finger or two or three - it's a bit like chocolate, who can count - straight to her sticky cunt and pushes them roughly in. That's it. Hard. Harder. Fast. Another finger? She can hear him change the channel on the telly miles away and works her arm so fast it almost cramps. "Will he hear me? God, I'm making some fucken sloppy noises, (gasp) that's it, (fuck) yup (fuck) yes, oh yeah..."

And floating miles away, her knuckles still buried in her sodden crotch, her pussy spasming on her hand and her thumb teasing her clit she thinks, "I need something. I don't want to hurt him. I don't want to lose all this. But god, a girl needs -- more. How do I wake him up?"

"What exactly does that taste like?"

She drifts slowly back and she raises her hand and looks at the sticky white consequence of freshly fucked then fisted on her hands. "Interesting," she thinks, giving it a tentative lick, "Kind of like -- sweet - snot."

Moments later as she showers, He pokes his head around the bathroom door.

"Gotta go love," he says, "you right to grab a bottle of red for me while you're out today?"

"Huh, sure. Variety?"

"Something simple, you know me. Seeya tonight."

"Okay then, love you."

But he's gone already and it hangs mid-air, forgotten in the comfortable everyday miasma of ordinary married life. How did they get so distant? She wishes she could grab him and shake him sometimes. Anything to get his attention. He was fun once. Alive even but now unless he gets it in a memo from work it doesn't register on his radar.

Taking a deep breath in she steps out and towels off her 'thirty something' body. The full length mirror on the bathroom wall appraises her with her own contemptuous stare and delivers an unkind but accurate reflection.

"Mirror, Mirror on the wall, go fuck yourself," she flips herself off in the mirror.

"Now, now - words can hurt."

"Oh great - now I'm personifying the mirror. First sign of madness is talking to yourself, I wonder how far along talking household objects is?"

"Not that far along; in any case you should be more concerned about toning that housewife bod dear, not your mental health."

"Fuck off, nothing wrong my bod. Look..."

She turns back and forth striking some imagined modelling poses and finishing with a power-lifters chest flex. "Hulk has nice titties." She mocks the mirror in her best marvel hero voice.

"Could lose a pound or two but I look the same as I did when finished college. 5'4", 120lbs, 34,24,34. Okay, 34,25,36. Now fuck off you judgemental glass bastard."

Wrapping a towel around herself she makes her way to the bedroom and dresses for her day. A comfortable bra, cream with nicely adjusted straps, a pair of floral print cotton undies, faded blue jeans and a plain pink baby doll blouse. A few minutes with some blush and lippy, a hair tie in her dark brown mop and a smile and she was ready for the world. She takes her handbag from the table, the car-keys from the dresser and picks up her phone off the charger on her way to the door.

"So, Siri, how's my calendar this morning?"

"I don't understand?"

"Why is my life so boring, Siri?"

"Would you like me to look something up for you?"

"No, what I would like, is for my husband to pay attention while he fucks me, instead of using me like a vagina vending machine."

"Searching for vagina vending machine."

"Siri, you're sweet but you're a fuckhead sometimes you know." She throws her phone on the seat of the hatchback and drives off into the morning.

The city is busy on Fridays and parking is difficult to find. Eventually she gets a space in a side street near the mall. It's spring and the gardens are flowering everywhere, sweet fragrant floral smells waft on the gentle breeze and the warm sun caresses her shoulders. The susurrations of traffic noises calm her morning mind and she loses herself in shopping lists and coffee shop menus.

"A bottle of red for dick-face. Some welding rods, some black paint, a few groceries for tea, milk and toilet paper." She lists, "What a glamourous life."

The welding rods are for her latest sculpture. An 8 foot tall, flowing and jagged arrangement of scavenged metal odds and ends that is meant to fit the theme, "From the ashes" but at the moment looks more like what happens when a robot throws up. Dad taught her to weld on the farm and she'd much rather the sporadic work from home producing these commissioned items than to have to navigate the social minefield of corporate employment.

Her business degree hangs on the wall in the den, testimony to three years spent in college feeling awkward, lonely and like a flowery peg in a pin striped hole. The study was easy, the dealing with people was something she struggled with, preferring less conflict and more time alone with a novel. She met Darren in the library. He was fun back then. All pursuit, dancing and flowers, books of poetry, late nights spent talking; plotting, dreaming and going at it like rabbits. She smiles remembering their insatiable love making.

"Should have been arrested a few times," she tells the rear view mirror.

"Now you probably need to handcuff him to get him to stop long enough to talk more than 4 words at a time." It replies.

"Good idea, I'll get some of those fluffy pink ones."

An hour later she seats herself in her favourite caffeine apothecary and begs for her drug of choice. She hands over seven dollars, her soul and a promise of her first born child for the cup labelled 'Mel' containing her dose of 'you all shut the fuck up now' and makes her way to her favourite table. It's an umbrella shaded table for two facing the street and as she sips her guilty pleasure she indulges in her other passion, people watching.

A twenty-something brunette at a table across from her is flirting outrageously with an older man. His back is to Mel but she can see his broad shoulders and flecks of grey in his hair. His business suit suggests to her that he is a secret agent with a licence to kill. This young smiling boob tube full of jellyfish is his mark and he works expertly to seduce the information he needs from her. Later he will ravish her in a luxuriously appointed hotel room and eat room service off of her bare arse.

A young waitress interrupts the couple with the bill and as they stand the couple embrace. It looks intimate and tender and a little awkward. She leans up and appears to kiss him briefly then she walks away, her pert derriere swaying like a bag full of pythons in the little black skirt. What she wouldn't give to have Darren follow her with eyes as drunk with lust as she imagines 'double-oh-fuck-me' watches his date. He turns to leave the café and Melanie's heart freezes.

Ice lances of fear and horror stab her heart as she recognises her husband. She hides behind her menu and giant lonely rocks drop one by one into her pounding heart. The first tears leave her eyes and it all starts to make sense. His pre-occupation, the late nights, the missed calls, the stale that has crept in. She watches him pay the bill and leave, making his way his car. How did she miss his car, she wonders. How did he not see her when she ordered? Who the actual fuck is that bitch! Who the fuck does he think he is?

Slowly, the horror and heavy in her chest is seeded with fury. Her coffee spoiled she makes her way home. The drive is tumultuous; tears then anger, grief and loathing, disgust then finally empty, hollow, sadness. She stands in the middle of the kitchen. The phone rings. She doesn't move. She has no idea how to move or what direction to even take. It's like her whole existence has vertigo and there is no up or down.

The answering machine kicks in. "Yeah love, it's me. I've got some stuff on this afternoon, I'll be late again. Fuck I hate this machine. Call when you get this ok?"

She crumples to the floor and cries.

-----

Some hours later she rises from the couch. Her face is salty and her throat hurts from sobs. Rinsing in the kitchen sink, her mascara stained Halloween mask fades and all that remains is a flushed, heartbroken woman desperately trying to make sense of things and find a path through her new jungle. Absently, she wanders to the garden shed and pushing tools and junk aside she digs and rummages, emerging finally with her prize; a crumpled packet of lucky strikes.

She sits and sucks great lungful's of nicotine in, hacking and coughing after 6 years of not smoking. When they had moved in together she gave away the 'filthy habit' as her mother called it, but as of right now he could go and get fucked.

"Nice choice of words, arsehat." She chides her inner critic. "I bet he's doing just that."

"Oh fuck, Mum is gonna love this." As nicotine caresses her frayed nerves and sinks its hooks back into well-known receptors a course of action begins to suggest itself.

"I need to think. I need to think before I act. He's just a man. It might be just a fuck or something. He might get it out of his system. Fuck him. Keep it in his fucken pants. Get fucked 'just a fuck'; I gave out no hall passes. Keep it together. If it is the end there's a lot to do and it all needs doing smartly. Why can't I just scream and smash his trophy cabinet or make a fucking scene like ordinary women. (She has a mental image of the Jerry Springer show.) Fuck. I need to keep my dignity. Easier said than done, you're going to your Mums aren't you."

A little more than half an hour, three cigarettes and a trip to the toilet to throw up later, she picks up the phone praying that she gets his message bank.

Ring ring, ring ring, ring ring --

"Hello Mel?"

She clears her throat but can't make words.

"You there? I left a message. I have a late meeting, won't be home until after nine. You there?"

"I -- " she bites her words and pushes emotions back behind the thinly walled dam, "I have things on too, I'm visiting Mum and Dad for the weekend. I'll see you Monday."

"Oh... Okay, I'd hoped to talk with you this weekend, I have some important things to discuss and we never seem to have time."

"I bet you fucken do," she thinks then continues, "Well, it was kind of a sudden decision. I'll talk to you on Monday."

"K then, drive careful --" She hangs up midsentence.

The dam wall is threatening to burst again and she's thankful for the distraction of packing. She finishes and zips the old suitcase up. "We've had some adventures, you and I," she reminisces, "I should ring Mum and let her know I'm coming."

The suitcase replies, "and say what?"

"I don't know smartarse; just that I'm going to be there and she can keep her fucking judgy mouth shut if she hasn't got anything helpful to say."

"Oh, that should go down well."

"Fuck you. Get in the car." Mel launches the battered suitcase into the back seat and backs out of the driveway.

"I'll think of something on the way."

"Like that time we 'ran out of fuel' on the way home from the Halloween dance but you were really sucking Billy Thorns dick?"

"Ha, she would have died if she knew."

"She aint gonna be real happy with this bit of news either."

"Neither is Dad." She could picture him getting the twelve gauge down off the mantel and sitting out the front to wait for Darren like he'd threatened to do to boys that broke her heart.

"Well it's just a fucken mess and we'll do our fucken best," she repeats her Dads own mantra whenever faced with a problem.

The white lines wink alongside and she drives into the cool spring night. It is a two hour drive to the farm and nostalgia grips her fiercely as she finally pulls into the cherry lined driveway. Pink blossoms as far you can see in the headlights glow, frame a gravel drive that crunches under the tyres and sings a song of home.

She parks at the stairs to the porch and the door opens out, spilling light on the steps. Dad's big frame silhouettes in the doorway and it takes a moment till his eyes adjust and he recognises her standing there.

"Hello girly." He hugs her tight refusing to let go. "This is my kind of surprise. Better than winning the lotto. What are you doing home?"

Mum sees her eyes and hugs her close.

"Stop fussing the child George. She's home. It's her home too and she has every right to just show up if she wants."

Dad looks quite confused as Mum ushers Mel into the kitchen. All family business happens in the kitchen. Judge Judy as they jokingly called their mother hears confessions, pronounces judgements and oversees administration, all from the comfort of the big wooden table and her cup of tea.

Mum makes fresh tea and calls, "Dad, will you have tea?"

"No-thankyou Jude, I'm fixing to empty this bottle of bourbon if you will relinquish your captive to assist me."

Mum huffs and pours tea for Mel then sits down and fixes her with her best one eyebrow up, 'you might as well spilt the beans' look.

"Oh Mum, you look just like that time I skipped school and went to the mall."

"Well, you look just like that time that Charlie Simpkins kissed Trudy Jeffers and you wanted to set fire to her barn."

Mel chokes back her breath but the dam wall chooses precisely that moment to fall and great sobs and tears and snotty sleeve wiping ensues.

"I figured as much." Holding her while she cries, "He's a man, they hurt us now and then. You make your peace with things here and when you want to speak on it we'll help you plan your way okay. For now you just soak up some home and work out what you need to do."

"What's going on in -- shit, girly you all right? Jude what's going on?"

"Just man problems George, you go drink your bourbon, nothing you can fix here."

He ruffles her hair in an awkward attempt at reassurance, then trudges off, dismissed from the kitchen.

"Hard to be a man when women are hurting, you have a care to find something your Daddy can do to help later, less he blows up his own head worrying about you okay."

They sit in the kitchen, not speaking just sipping tea and Mum holds her hand till eventually the feeling of being home steadies her sobs and she can clean her face. Mum hands her a warm washer and she wipes away the salt and breathes deeply, the smell of linen from home.

"Come now Girly, up to your room. Get a nights rest and we'll pick the bones of it all in the morning."

"Thanks Mum." She smiles apologetically as she walks into her childhood room. She is pleased to find her parents had re-furnished tastefully after she left and it wasn't some creepy shrine.

"Showers up the hall. Breakfast is at seven but you never made it on time even once," she laughed, "so we'll see you around eight or so as usual."

"Night Mum."

"Love you Girly, Now go sleep, you look like a meth addict raccoon."

Mel laughs and sits on the bed listening to Mum stomp her way back down the stairs. There is conversation and apparently Dad has thoughts about the situation. Loud thoughts. Then there's stomping and a screen door slamming and the sound of a rocking chair on the porch.

A simple truth occurs to her as she showers. There is never a shower as good as the one at your parents' home. One that is just the right steaming hot, just the right 'pay no mind to those water restrictions' flow and has the right kind of soft water that makes the soap lather and your hair wash just perfectly. A short time later, this simple truth was followed by another; if you fall asleep so much more easily under your parents roof than your own something has broken.

-----

She wakes to the sounds of the farm; a tractor working in the distance, crows in the barn loft, a dog or two and chickens. When she was little she used to like to lie in bed and count all the different types of noises she could and now, while she musters courage to go and face the questions downstairs she counts all the farmyard sounds she has missed in the city.

Eventually, the smell of raisin toast and fresh coffee wafts up the stairs through her open door. Her stomach presents some very compelling reasons to wake and face the day but ultimately it is her bladder which gets her out of bed and shambling down the hall. Ablutions attended to, her stomach again leads the charge to the wooden table and the delicious kitchen smells.

"Morning Girly," smiled Mum.

"Morning Mum."

"My big kid awake?" asked Dad from the porch.

"Morning Dad."

"Morning love."

And that, apparently, is all the conversation that is necessary.

Mum heaps toast on a plate and pours thick dark coffee in a mug and lets the medicinal silence of family work its magic.

As she eats and soaks up her parents love by osmosis Mel finds thoughts making patterns and hurt heartstrings finding courage. Eventually by the end of the coffee she is able to string more than a couple of words together.

"So..." Okay, maybe one word to start with.

"A mess?"

"Yup, a mess. I tell you what, you make me another cup of that mud you call coffee and I'll spill."

"Deal Girly," Mum pours coffee.

And somewhere around the third cup of coffee Mel has finished describing the awful shock at the café.

"You know, I blame myself, I should have seen it coming; things have been so stale. Even the sex was matter of fact and routine. I thought that it was comfortable and relaxed and good but it was something..." and she starts crying quietly again.

"I know those tears darling, those are frustration. Usually a sign you're ready to finish talking and start thinking about your options. How much you want me to tell Dad?"

"Woman, I'm on the porch. There aint a lot left secret now really."

"Well that solves that problem," they both laugh and Mum sets about the dishes.

Mel drags her fourth cup of coffee to the veranda and pulls up an old fruit crate next to Dad.