He lies. Starfished across the entirety of the pillowtop queen, splayed beneath the full complement of sheets, quilts, and pillows, limbs askew, limning stylized violence like a cartoon bird having flown comically into plate glass. A casual observer glancing into the room would see only an unmade bed with dressings strewn at random. He takes a secret pride in this ability to lie flat, concealed from view. Whose view is beside the point: it's the small comfort of hiding in plain sight, of being unobserved, unknown. He shallows his breathing, imagines blood cells requiring the minimum of oxygen, squeezes the third dimension until the weight of blankets could be mistaken for concrete and impetus recedes nearly beyond reach. The heaviness of responsibility dangles over him like a grand piano. If only he could disappear.
Against his express wishes, morning coalesces, solidifying like gelatin. Sharp intrusions follow, knifelike. A scalpel brightness slices open the blanket boundary. Running water, the more distant disturbances of clinking cutlery, combative screeches, something about the television. A sound of drawers rumbling open, banging closed, and a pink sliver of passing flesh, fleetingly visible through the gaps in his cotton cocoon.
Cocoon. Is that what this is? The typical usage — being wrapped in womblike comfort — yes, but what about the implications? New life, etc? The thought is too optimistic to be had before coffee. What if I just lie here? Would they forget? He hopes and dreads that they would.
The unwanted answer comes almost immediately. Another glimpse of flesh and suddenly the blanket is lifted, an icy hand touches his hamstring, and he is officially awake. He takes note that there was affection in the gesture in at least equal measure with malice. Cold comfort. He grabs desperately at the blur of brightness and manages to catch it — her — in one arm, arresting the movement. Stifled laughter, halfhearted resistance, and she is beside him, drawing the blankets to her chin, obviously hoping to take advantage of the opportunity — the children having been bribed into armistice with breakfast and netflix — to lie in bed a little longer.
The brief struggle has rendered her slightly winded and the physicality of her quickened breathing makes him suddenly, forcefully, aware of her body. And he remembers last night. Was it a dream? They haven't had sex for months. Issues. Undeniable problems. No one's fault. Just the cruelty of the past precipitating the mess of the present. He's been mostly patient, if somewhat quietly self-congratulatory about it, and she feels guilty. They both know it is entirely possible to acknowledge the necessity of a course of action, to acknowledge that it is outside of one's control, and still to feel the weight of assumed expectation both external and self imposed.
Lately there had been evidence of a thaw: signals. In his frustrated state he took them with an intellectual grain of salt, but there had been a certain novel confidence in her movements, a tender kiss while cooking dinner, a tantalizing glimpse of freshly shaved skin beneath sheer fabric. He was determined not to push too hard. Then Thanksgiving dinner, the warmth of wine, the obfuscating jets of hot water in the cool autumn evening. They had found themselves briefly alone in the hot tub. He had kissed her, she had kissed back, a flurry of hands beneath bathing suits and then interrupted: sugar fueled kids and alcohol fueled grownups filling the water. Having assumed the rendezvous was over, he was surprised to feel her hand on his wrist, stealthily maneuvering him toward the crevice of her legs, which she opened and which his fingers entered while she applied her own fingers to the area of her arousal. She had proceeded to surreptitiously fuck herself, ass arched toward his fingers, as she reached over with her free hand and pumped his hard shaft below the bubbling surface of the crowded tub.
After driving home and putting the kids to bed, he had stayed downstairs to work for a while. Still incredibly horny and a little dazed by his good fortune, he had found himself reading erotic fiction about a man and woman who make love in a hot tub and end up back in the house in front of the fireplace, where the man forcefully takes the woman's asshole.
