Heart In A Cage

Epilogue

The man watched the lady every day, and she always knew.

A love admission was the reason he had openly stood over her as she filed at her nails, raked his attention up and down her body while she prepared for a night out, gazed at her soft features in the middle of the night with the help of the light flashing from her phone, smiled endlessly when she'd try guessing what new combination of ingredients he'd stir into her pancake mixture.

But now, as he gave in to his impulses to watch her, the look on his eyes was pleading. His weight was on the teetering edge of plummeting onto her chest, and his thighs kept her arms restrained. He hushed her, insisted she stops wriggling in her failed attempts to escape.

"Andreas, get off of me." Again, she tried twisting out from beneath him. Another miserable fail. The man tried settling her down. He brushed her hair with his fingertips, massaged her shoulders, requested she calms herself. It only frustrated the lady more that he only relied on the seat he took atop her to thwart her frantic efforts. She was not nearly amused; she sighed angrily and gave up.

"Baby, peace," he told her. "Promise me your anger will not arise."

He caressed her lips with his thumb in hopes of easing the rage he stoked. She snapped her head away from him, and he tentatively took his hand back.

"Fuck you," she spat.

"I need you to―"

"You don't need to sit on me just so you can show me a gift!" She yanked her head towards the door, but diverted her attention back to him as she caught a flash of movement. "What was that?"

The door to their bathroom was slightly ajar, and she saw it slide open a fraction. At first, she assumed the breeze flowing in from the windows of their new house did it. But she wasn't confident in the idea, because from the opening, a yellow palm-sized creature emerged. It waddled a few tiny steps.

Tiny steps were all the ducklings small feet could manage.

The lady glared at the man and spoke with a deadly quiet. "Tell me you didn't get us a pet duck."

The man opened his mouth, urged a few words to come out, and nothing came. It's only when he was pierced with a demanding glare that he found the courage to speak. "She was the closest thing I could get to a child."

The lady didn't harbour any of her enraged feelings; she writhed until the man finally let her go. She sat up and furiously watched the duckling cross the room and stop at her feet. She had inhaled and exhaled. Twice.

"Andreas," she spoke calmly. "It's either a real child or a duck. You choose."

On the other side of the bed, the man stood and monitored the fury of the lady begin to seep out of her calm exterior. With even that in clear notice, he still decided to steel himself and commit to an outrageous answer.

He rolled his shoulders and spoke nervously. "A duck."

The lady gently took the duckling in her hands and stroked it with a supple finger. "No sex for a week," she said.

On days where the man wasn't as irritating, the two would act more civilised. She returned from work and met him in his most recent pursuit―a newer, finer property that he, after months of planning and recovering from his previous business loss, dedicated his focus to.

The heel of the lady's boots clacked against the store's porcelain flooring as she moved through lanes with golden clothing racks that held the finest of attire in the entire mall. Silver and spindly mannequins hoisted on raised display cases were dressed in opulent finery, their posing limbs flaunting suits of richest leather and gowns of upmost modernity. The lady adored almost every snake-skin purse and handbag she went past, pausing at a tiered table to browse over them before reaching the front desk.