At Dusk

Tears in rain

She wasn't paying attention to the door when he came; she was just focusing on the relaxing feeling of the warm water on her skin. 

His sudden presence behind her and the touch of his hands on her bare back sent a shockwave all the way down her spine. It had been a while since they were intimate.

It was difficult to say who had started it, but after the first months of marriage, they both had come to an unspoken agreement that bureaucratic scheduling was the best approach for everything. Including sex. It was a rather diplomatic and adult solution to life, she'd always thought,  congratulating herself on being so pragmatic. It shunned away all the drama.  

Whenever they were together, it felt like they were two actors rehearsing for a play. Things were expected of them and so they played their part. He had never said that he loved her but mutual respect and affection had undoubtedly sprung between them.   

His coming into the bathroom, while she showered, no doubt represented a breach of protocol. 

Her hands were holding the soap while at the same time hiding her breasts when she turned to face him.  What was she hiding? Hadn't he seen her naked a thousand times already?  As if he could read her thoughts, he took her hands in his and kissed them. 

She shivered, and not from the cold. This was the first time she felt the need to return his attentions. Well, the first time in a while. A long long while. 

She touched his face and stood on her toes to kiss him, trying to ignore the fluttering of wings that had gotten hold of her stomach. 

Mathias was a handsome man. His beauty was effortless. He was already a handsome boy when they met, in their long-past school days. Tall, lean, with lustrous black hair, green eyes, and a smile that wouldn't be out of place on a magazine cover. All the girls wanted to be near him, giggled when he arrived, sighed when he left. 

At the time, he had a constant supply of new girlfriends and never gave any indication that he cared much about her. Why had she married him in the end?  It all seemed a bit blurry now, like an old and faint photograph. 

Yet none of it mattered when his hands traveled through her body like they were doing now. There was a dazzling intensity to this new contact, something that had eluded all of their past intimate encounters. 

Little by little, she started feeling an urgency to surrender, not to him exactly but to a feeling of excitement that was all-consuming. She had known this feeling in their first few days together, perhaps in the first few months, but it had dried out ever since.  

All the muscles in his back moved as he moved his hands, as he grabbed her legs and brought her up onto his lap, finally pushing himself inside. She was slick with moisture and moaned with the sensation of being filled.

After a few minutes that felt like heaven, they collapsed on the floor. When he pulled out he replaced the erection with his fingers, caressing her until a wave of pleasure melted her from within. She let her head fall to the floor and let out what sounded like a gasp mingled with a giddy laugh; for pleasure, because of pleasure, she couldn't say. She just felt her body weightless and warm.

The water was still falling over their tangled bodies. 

"That was different," she said after a while. He looked at her and nodded, smiling in a way that made her feel as though they were accomplices in some hideous crime. She liked that more than she could ever admit to herself. 

"Do you think about her when you look at me?" The question popped out of her mouth before she could hold it in. Fuck! Where did it come from? 

"What?" He asked, looking at her, surprise stamping on his eyes. What else... fear? Hurt?

They had never talked about Laura before. She never asked, he never volunteered. It was as if they had an unspoken agreement not to mention her. But their recent encounter brought to her heart and mind an urgency to know. Now felt like as good a time as any. 

"You know what I mean," she said, looking him squarely in the eyes.

"No..." he replied after a while, getting up. He started washing away all the mess they had made. 

"No? You don't think of her or you don't know what I mean?" She bit the inside of her cheek, and continued: "don't lie, please."

"I'm not, Angy..." he said, though not as firmly as she would have wished. "Maybe... maybe I thought about her a bit in the beginning, but not anymore. Certainly not now."

"But?" She probed. It felt like his sentence was not finished. 

"But I don't think she is dead. I don't believe it."  

"You don't believe it or you don't want to believe it?"

"You tell me," he replied. "You know her better than I do."

Angela sat in an upright position and hugged her knees. She thought about what she had seen yesterday. Laura's screams... calling for him. When she finally looked up, she saw he was still expecting an answer. It broke her heart. 

"Yes, I believe Laura is dead," she said with a wickedness she did not know she possessed. "I know for a fact that she is as dead as a doornail."

Mathias wrapped himself in a towel and exited the bathroom. She lingered.