There She Stood with Defiance Written in Her Eyes

If I slit my wrists , whiskey would surely flow out like a sticky amber river and an exhaust of smoke would likely plume and draft through this wall-papered room. But I'm way too selfish for that sort of nonsense. It's merely a thought. Is there anything more unsettling than waking next to a flaccid blob paler than paper with a mouth yearning for you to prop it open and fall into, desperately? Is there?! What burns my skin is that she was once a ripe little peach, curved and taut. Full of the juice that churns and bleeds into your heart and pumps your organs alive. So willing to be ravaged. Oh, how time stole that spring in her, that elasticity, and dropped her ass nearly a foot. Those cumbersome breasts , at least another foot. Her gut gives like a squishy pillow and I lay there sometimes and let her stroke my thinning roan-colored hair as we fade into another muggy night, where all is taken and none given. She often pleads for me to climb her rear, that waking mound, and stab with ploy. I give in to her rarely. Most of the time her ass rolls back on me in waves and I eventually puke on her back. She doesn't mind much though. A real marriage.
Sixteen years, I'm forty-one, she's fifty and looks older, and I'm still sharing a roof with this aging lady, with her hoary, short hair like a silver flame caught fire to a haggard and carved face. Abrupt lips scarcely hide her yellowing teeth but she smiles often, proud that she still owns her actual teeth. Through our bedroom window an orange sun slips in and it's Monday morning, 7:16 AM. She's up already and on her second Camel sipping her black coffee with a slight sucking noise, airy and annoying. For the life of me I can't figure why, but she sleeps nude and her heavy body looks sloppy posted up there against the headboard with her knees drawn up, squeezing herself into a mushy, pasty ball. I yawn and rise and head to the bathroom where life seems a little more pleasant. Even though the bright bulbs poke at my sleepy eyes. Even though the ice-like tile floor stings my feet. Even though. I turn the shower on and the plumbing creaks and moans itself awake from a long slumbering sleep within the walls, and below the alluvial earth. I feel a little guilty for bothering them, the pipes, at such a time, but the stench of last nights sex and sleep is crawling over me like insects.
Life seen through fresh eyes is more promising. The shower inspired me a little so I shaved and dressed in the cleanest jeans and T Shirt I could find. A little loose and a little tight in all the wrong places. The broke can't sift through trash and find gold. It's not feasible. I understood that, so I was slightly freer than most.
"Your eggs are on the table"
"Thanks, Dear." I shouted as I vacated the bedroom.
She was always good like that. The cooking, and the fucking, unfortunately. If there was food to be made she would have it ready for me, magically, without me ever seeing her in the act of cooking. A phantom chef. I wonder if she hummed to herself or pressed one bare and gnarled foot on top of the other while patting the beat of a song on her puffy hip..Did she also cook in the nude? So much I didn't know about this familiar stranger.
I peeled off a scab from my elbow and staunched the flow of blood with a napkin as I dragged on a fierce Camel in between bites of fried egg. Cross-legged at the table, with my morning alone to think and talk myself out of things I know I should do, I was in reverie. The newspaper spewed with the usual bullshit it seems to print these days, but the day still held promise. If only to give me a couple more breaths in my own drab company, or a couple more bites of these delicious eggs, or a sip of whiskey in the backyard under a melting sun. These small things pushed me through an existence of mostly uphill climbs and downhill tumbles. But who was I to complain? I had a real marriage. And good eggs to eat. I couldn't help but picture Charlene, that's my wife, in our bedroom, still naked and smoking. Maybe crying because she could feel how much I didn't need or want her. I began to feel cruel and and selfish and thought that maybe I could re-learn to love her. Love is a disease and it spreads like a fever. It catches hold like a lie. A very sickening burden. Maybe I'd take her out to dinner tonight and let her hang on to my arm, and not be ashamed at all, or walk through the park and kiss like lovebirds, or see a movie like we used to before she filled out so much and ballooned into a flab of flesh. I could promise her I wouldn't act like we weren't together. That I'd be all over her , mauling her with the love that she wanted. I felt better. Knowing that I was working towards something. Not nothing.
The hallway was dark but I still saw her pallid moon-face appear, wobbling into the kitchen from the bedroom. Her bad knee being the cause of that shaky strut that bounced her cheeks like jello. She had her old brown leather suitcase stuffed tight in her left hand and a rainbow colored scarf wrapped around her stubby neck. Partly covering her chin. It was already 84 Degrees outside so I was a little puzzled. Who would wear a scarf in this weather? But there she stood with defiance written in her eyes.
"Hey, Darling. What's going on here?" I peeped.
"I'm leaving you Otis. I've met someone else."
That's me. I'm Otis.
"Ok, Darling." I dragged on my cigarette and clapped my hands and held them together. A loud pop echoed in the silent kitchen.
How could I argue with that?