by KUBOA
Frank was sure he’d pissed the bed. He woke to a damp feeling around his crotch and upper legs. Audrey was sleeping peacefully beside him on Egyptian cotton bed sheets that cost close to fifty pounds. She would kill him. He gently left the bed and went into the bathroom. A scent followed him into the room, one like uncooked pastry that reminded him of youth, loneliness and manufactured dreams.
Switch.
The light revealed a wet patch as big as a Frisbee on Frank’s pyjama bottoms. His hand slipped under the waistband. It returned back sticky. He paused for a moment and recalled what the Old Testament said:
"If there is among you any man who is unclean because of a nocturnal emission, then he must go outside the camp; he may not reenter the camp. But it shall be when evening approaches, he shall bathe himself with water, and at sundown he may reenter the camp.”
Frank removed his pyjamas and slips, took a gentleman’s bath in the sink and slipped back into bed.
In the morning, the sun pierced the curtains, the birdsong prompting him to rub his morning glory along the vertical cleft of Audrey’s backside. He kissed her nape gently and slipped his hand down her nightgown. The more Frank spooned the more Audrey shifted her weight further away. He whispered in her ear, “I love you, Honey Bunny”, and she replied with, “Your morning breath smells like shit.”
Frank and Audrey sat and had breakfast together, neither commenting on the incident in the bedroom. They dressed for work and left and then returned and sat again eating their evening meal, both muted by familiarity. Time came for bed again and Frank splashed a little cologne on his neck, brushed his teeth, and gargled for five minutes with mouthwash. He slipped into bed beside Audrey who was reading her novel with curlers in hair and dressing gown buttoned to her throat. He kissed her cheek and placed his head upon her shoulder, and in time, his hand drifted towards the small paunch below her sagging breasts where it remained for a few more minutes, nervous of rejection. Audrey advanced to lethargy, closed the book, placed on her eye mask and turned off the light, leaving Frank, once again, constitutionally inclined to gallantry.
