I closed the door quietly behind me and sank down next to my wife on our bed. She was lying on her side, her back facing me, the blankets pulled up to the middle of her left arm. I laid my head down on her bare arm and sighed. “The kids are finally asleep,” I murmured softly, kissing her skin briefly before standing back up again. I unbuttoned the shirt I was wearing and pulled on sweat pants before lying back down next to Clare.
“Mmhmm,” she hummed acknowledging my news.
I grinned and leaned my mouth close to her ear. “You know what that means,” I
whispered. I started stroking her bare arm with my index finger softly.
“Sleepy,” Clare muttered, not moving her head from her pillow.
“Please,” I begged, not moving my finger from her arm. She rolled over onto her
back, her eyes still closed. I moved my arm to the other side of her body and supported my torso as I leaned in and kissed her lips. Her eyes jerked open and her hands caught me off guard, grabbing my shoulders and gently pushing me up.
“Taylor,” she said calmly. “I’m tired.”
“Aw, Clare,” I pushed, “we never get time alone anymore.” I moved her right hand off my shoulder and placed it on the small of my back. Her left hand remained on my shoulder, a weak force holding me off her. I shook the force by bringing my leg over and kneeling with one leg on each side of her. “You know you want to,” I said with a slight smile. I leaned in to kiss her, grasping for the waistline of her pants as I caught her lips.
“Taylor!” She said firmly, not allowing herself to kiss back. Both of her hands went forcibly to my shoulders. I was beginning to get irritated. I tried to kiss her again but one more time she shoved me away.
“God damnit, Clare!” I said, my voice a level above normal. I flung myself to my side of the bed and sat on the edge of the mattress. “What’s wrong with you?”
“What’s wrong with me?” She said in a shocked voice, sitting up and pulling her pajama pants back to where they were before. “What’s wrong with you? I said I was tired!”
“Bull shit,” I yelled, standing up. The anger was flaring up inside of me.
“Taylor, Please!” She said sharply. Her eyes were cast at the door. “You’ll wake the kids.”
“I waited,” I said, keeping my voice sharp but down to a level a little lower than my speaking voice. “I waited for nine months without having sex. It’s pretty damn cruel to keep me waiting more than a few weeks after those kids were born. It’s going to be a year, Clare, a fucking year.” My voice was back to yelling.
“I made you wait?” Clare shot back. “I can’t believe you’re saying such things. I was the one who was carrying those kids. I was the one who had to deliver them. Don’t give me that I made you wait crap. That’s the real bull shit here.”
I grabbed a sweatshirt off of a laundry basket and pulled it over my head. “I’m going out. Don’t wait up.”
“Don’t worry, I won’t.”
I slammed the door behind me.
There was the noise of something hard and breakable hitting the door from the bedroom. Clare had thrown something at me through the door.
What the hell just happened? What did I just do?
I heard crying come from down the hall, it sounded like Anya, but I didn’t go to her. Instead I walked swiftly down the stairs and out the front door. I didn’t even look back at the house when I left the yard, I just kept walking down the street unaware of where I was going. I hoped that wherever I would end up I would know how to get home.
“God, Taylor,” I said aloud, shoving my hands into my sweatshirt pockets, “what the hell were you thinking?” What was I thinking? I had no idea where the urge had come from, one minute I was fine, normal-Taylor, and the next minute I was demanding sex from my wife? “Pretty messed up if you ask me,” I muttered. I looked up at the street signs to find out which street I was on, “not far from town,” I announced to the empty street.
I continued to walk, continued to think. I definitely needed to apologize to Clare, perhaps buy her some roses to show what an idiot I was. No, not roses... diamonds. That might do the trick. It had to!
“Taylor, where can you buy diamonds at,” I glanced at my watch, “eleven at night? You can’t!” I shook my head at my stupidity. It would have to be flowers... and chocolates, yeah that’s it: chocolates.
By this time I had been walking for more than ten minutes, my hands were as cold as ice even though they were shoved down deep into my pockets. I shivered as a cold wind blew through my hair. I couldn’t feel my ears anymore, they were so cold.
I turned the corner to avoid the bone chilling wind, but I was unsuccessful, the street I turned onto was more of a wind tunnel than the last. I prayed for the wind to end but it kept coming. “Serves me right,” I said to the vacant but icy wind. I kicked a rock hard. It flew down the middle of the street, slowing to a bounce a few feet away from me. It rolled into a slope on the right side of the road that ran down the whole length of the street. “It’s getting colder in this ditch where I lie. . .” I sang sarcastically as I walked past the stone, starring at it as I walked until I couldn’t see it anymore. I hunched my shoulders forward as the wind picked up. It tossed my hair straight back as it blew. I leaned into the wind and looked up at the dark cloudy sky, letting the wind blow on my face. I could barely see the moon through the clouds, but I knew it was right in front of me so I kept starring.
The clouds were now moving swiftly across the black sky, a hole in a cloud herd allowed me to see the fullness of the February moon for a few seconds. I took a deep breath, the cold air freezing my throat as it went down into my lungs. The brisk air set in my chest, cooling me from the inside out. The lights of town shown ahead of me. I was
getting closer to my now determined destination
I starred up at the moon, hands in pockets, hair mussed, a thousand thoughts in my head, “I’m feeling older and I’m wondering why,” I sang softly as I walked slowly into town.