eyond the red ball of pain in her head was the smell
of her husband’s cologne, that powdery scent that clung
to him whenever he returned from his clandestine dates
with other women. Mary attempted to remember the name of
it, but
her mind was funneling up into consciousness and incapable
of focusing. Her head lolled to the side and her tongue,
suddenly too large for her mouth, emerged to taste
stale air.
A foreign body grazed her side beneath the sheets and Mary
sat upright, stars and angels swimming through her
vision. She supported her head with a framework of
fingers and glanced
down at the skinny arm that extended towards her over
the billowing white and blue sheets. She shook her
head carefully and tried to remember who it belonged
to. Modigliani,
she thought, but no, that was the cologne.
Mary wrapped the blue quilt around her shoulders and forced
her feet over the side of the bed. She focused her burning
eyes on a framed picture, a lily posed in a glass vase, one
of those cheap prints found in second class hotels. Holiday
Inn, she remembered, that’s where they were. The man
in the bed was... “Give it time,” she said aloud,
her vocal chords thick and rusty. Mary studied the naked
arm. It was delicate, like a woman’s, but with a frosting
of hair and halo of white encircling his ring finger. She
laughed and coughed out the foul taste in her mouth.
The dimly lit room was littered with the sins of the previous
evening. Her panties dangled from a drawer pull like a hanged
man, his pin-striped pants lay on the floor crossed at the
knee like the number four. Her fat, white purse sat in the
corner, its toothless mouth agape. The memories remained
submerged icebergs, their tips jagged.
The man snored lightly and adjusted himself. His head was
burrowed beneath the pillow and white sheets shrouded his
body. Mary watched a lock of golden hair spill out from beneath
the pillow. “Who is he?” she whispered. “Jesus,” Mary
cursed as she racked her sluggish brain. The icebergs inched
out, then dipped back down.
Mary stood carefully and closed her eyes as the room reeled
diagonally. She moved forward, the blue quilt trailing behind
her like a bridal train, and kicked over an empty bottle
of red wine. It matched up with the sudden foamy taste in
her mouth. She swallowed cautiously and motivated herself
to the side by side sinks just outside the bathroom. Mary
bent over the Formica counter and heaved a choppy red river
into the immaculate bowl, then coughed out a glob of yellow
phlegm that coursed down the side of the sink and disappeared
into the chrome drain.
She clutched the miniature bottle of minty mouthwash and
rinsed her mouth clean. Elizabeth, she thought as she spit
green, that’s where we are. New Jersey. The man’s
name still escaped her. Mary rinsed the stains of vomit from
the sink and then splashed her face with cold water. She’d
gone to Hoboken, she remembered, donning her husband’s
cologne as if stealing his war paint. There was a bar, dark
and upscale, a man in a suit, a smile. Two cars traveling
south on the Parkway.
“Woman,” he’d said when he laid upon her,
his thick fingers up her skirt. “Don’t be afraid.” He
undressed them both and took her quickly, a flash of light
in her mind, a whisper of their mutual appreciation. His
cock in her was an epiphany, each thrust reminding her of
what she had lost to her husband’s infidelity, her
ejaculation an anti-climax to the power that had been restored
to her.
Mary stepped into the bathroom and quietly closed the door.
She ran the water until the small room was full of steam
and then stepped in. The hot water coursed over her body
and washed away the previous evening and the stench of her
husband’s cologne. She opened the child-sized bar of
soap and lathered the smell away.
A new woman emerged from the bathroom, wafts of steam cascaded
to the ceiling like Venus born from the foam. She framed
herself in the mirror that ran the length of the double
vanity and loosened the knot on her towel, letting
it puddle at her feet. She studied her body in the
steamy reflection,
touched her sensitive nipples lightly, then cupped
the small bowl
of her stomach, certain a child bubbled within. The
woman bowed her head and closed her eyes with a smile. Now
we’re
even, she nodded, and walked stealthily back to the
bed.
[END]
© 2004 Elizabeth Donohue - Contributor's
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