Irrefutable evidence (standard:romance, 469 words)
Author: Sare	Added: Jan 24 2003	Views/Reads: 3412/1	Story vote: 0.00 (0 votes)
A woman finds some truths hard to swallow.

Lying alone and shivering in their bed, she wraps herself in darkness
and soft blankets, feeling hot tears as they trace rivers down her 
cheeks, falling at last to the pillow.  Her hands cup her belly as she 
lies on her side, her legs curled up into a fetal position, 
unconsciously mimicking and telegraphing her thoughts.  Her breath 
drags heavily, and her shoulders shake with each gasping sob.  She 
doesn't know how long she lies there, but finally her tears slow and 
she turns to lay on her back.  Her eyes close, her wet lashes laying 
against her cheeks.  Her hands remain against her stomach, but they 
seem less tense. 

Her thoughts drift to their first night in this bed; the already
familiar press of his lips against hers, the gentleness with which his 
callused fingers parted her soft folds, the rasp of his tongue, the 
slow thrusts that led to their shared frenzy, and finally to sticky, 
sweaty release.  She remembered how she'd woken in the night to find 
him still holding her, his arms locked around her even in sleep.  When 
she'd stirred his grasp had tightened and his lips pressed softly to 
her bare shoulder.  “I love you,” he'd whispered drowsily, before 
drifting back into sleep. 

With the memory her tears begin afresh, and she turns again onto her
side, facing away from the empty half of the bed.  For a while she 
simply weeps, but at length she falls into a restless sleep, her cheek 
still pressed to her damp pillow, her fingers still cupped 
protectively, though uselessly, over her belly. 

In her dreams they are all together, the three of them, happy and free
and with love almost palpable in the air.  In her favourite dream, 
they're laying in bed as they used to do, with her back to his chest 
and their legs touching, their feet over each other's, and his arm 
around her, and she holds the baby to her breast.  Indeed even in her 
waking hours this is the image to which she clings.  The baby at her 
breast, whether suckling or sleeping.  The image makes her arms and 
heart ache. 

Waking from these dreams with the baby's cry still ringing in her ears,
it never fails to hurt her to realize that this is all it was. 
Sometimes her feet have already touched the floor at the side of the 
bed before it hits her and she crawls wearily back into her empty bed, 
drawing the blankets round her, and cries herself back to sleep. 

With each night that she sleeps alone, her heart breaks a little more
and the tears flow a little easier.  Nothing hurts so much as his 
absence, not even the knowledge that she'd been wrong, as the scarlet 
blood had so blatantly and finally demonstrated.


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