Scrolling for spirals to make herself feel better, Madam reached for her tumbler of scotch and tipped back another swig. Nothing was really satisfying, and she felt more depressed and empty than was healthy to feel. She didn’t want to go through the whole bottle, and she hated having flashbacks this bad, it happened every year during this month - her month. Memories of when it was good with someone who wasn’t around anymore, haunting her, teasing her, and it made it hard to be with the good partner she had now.
Said partner was asleep in the other room. She’d nursed him and then once he was asleep, she took her tit from his mouth and he rolled over, and his mind was swaddled in his own REM cycle instead of her arms. She lay in bed trying to let herself fall asleep too, but she was horny and agitated and restless and everything felt cranky. Her good life, was comfortable and happy on the surface, but she felt cranky. Dissatisfied.
Ever since she got that diagnosis that explained so much of her life, but also just made her paranoid of when this good partner would leave like all the others. She hoped never but her therapist said that was not only irrational but unfair to ask of anyone. Forever love was a myth, her doctor said. And the sting of realism deflated any hope she had at happiness because it diffused a long-held belief, a belief that was a core belief and influenced and wrapped itself around every element of her life.
And now she was without it. And was trying to start over from scratch at find something new to define her life by. Reaching for another sip of the scotch. It was now too much burn to offer her any comfort, so she slid the glass away and was about to open a new tab to look for some music, when the sound of the floorboards creaked near the door and she startled, turning to see him.
Standing at his six foot four height, his pajama bottoms worn low, showing the indentations on his hips down to his groin, making a v shape groove, he called it his love slide, but she’d looked up the term once and learned it was called an Adonis Belt. It was very prominent on his body, and the happy trail of hair from his navel down to his groin kind of made it look like a giant arrow to an amusement park ride.
He was frowning at the glare of the computer screen and the dim lights of the room from the fluorescent stars all over the walls and ceiling. Idle and chaotic light, no indication of any constellation pattern, at least none in this galaxy, maybe they existed somewhere else beyond the reach of Humanity’s development of science.
“Philip, what are you doing awake?”
“You’re not in bed,” he said, his voice half in Little space, and half the groggy bass note of the forty-six-year-old man he was. “Why?” he asked.
She looked up at his disheveled hair, and his dark eyes - his eyes were black, like a kind of void or vortex, his hair was brown and loosely curly. His long lashes were trying to stick to each other as he reached up to rub the gunk away from them so he could see better.
“I couldn’t fall asleep. I didn’t want to wake you by being on my phone, so I came in here trying to find something to help me sleep.”
Philip exhaled a sort of huff. “Didn’t want to cuddle me? I thought that helped?”
“Most nights it does but tonight I just … “ she shook her head and looked away.
Philip tilted his head at the sadness she was trying to shield from him and moved closer, til he was standing right next to her chair. He placed a hand on her head and ran his hand through her dark hair, and she leaned into the touch of his hand and then turned so that his very large hand slid down to her cheek. And she looked up at him, still frowning at being half asleep, but there was worry there.
“You wake me when you get like this, don’t leave me in ignorant bliss like that when you’re suffering. You hear me?”
Her eyes went wide at the tone of his voice. “I …” she started to protest, but his thumb pressed against her lower lip. And he tilted her head up more - trying to reinforce and give more emphasis to the eye contact in the moment.
“You. Wake. Me. When. You. Get. Like. This. Do you understand? I need your word.”
“Yes,” she said.
And her eyes closed and her jaw went tight as her face kind of crumbled with emotions. Then she shook silently with tears, as he caressed her face and her hair. She pulled him closer and hugged his waist, her arms wrapped around his hips. He went real still, and let her cry into his pajama pants, and slowly, he watched her calm her crying and realize how close she was to his dick.