The Lacey/Dana porn flick replayed itself on the curtain of closed eyelids, the distant splatter of water in the shower as soundtrack to the sweaty events of past.  But her body felt nothing now…no arousal, no desire for touch or breath or heat.  They’d fucked…that was it, exactly…fucked all night long and not once had she thought about her wife…wondered what she might have been feeling, besides her inexplicable absence.

Holding her place, weighting down her half of the bed, she breathed slowly into her own stone weight as the bathroom door snicked open and her wife…her wife…rummaged through drawers for underwear to bind her unsuckled breasts, her unfulfilled cunt damp only from the steam of the shower, tight jeans zipped to corset her longing, a shirt to cover her misery.  All of which, should have been Dana’s duty as a loving wife and partner to see to all those desires and needs.  Not tonight.  Perhaps never again she told herself in her minds conversation.

All this, lying still and silent, Dana could watch unfold…with her ears, her skin, her memory to supply the images.  She could taste bewilderment in the air, but what could she say?  Her words could only bite and drop like stones…I don’t love you…I never did…this was a mistake…I fucked someone else rather than come home to you.

She only relaxed when she heard the opening and shutting of cupboards, the clack and whir of coffee being ground between iron teeth, the metallic thunk of a skillet laid a little angrily on the stovetop, and knew she was free to be alive again.  Even in pain, Tonya followed her small rituals.  She would not come back upstairs again for hours.

She rolled over, let her hair spread across the pillow like gauze, and opened her eyes.  They burned with unshed tears as she thought again of the bitter social trap of her life. 

Lacey!  For god’s sake, why her? 

Because Jo wouldn’t have me, her mind answered.  Jo was the flame to her moth last night, and she had snuffed herself out rather than let Dana incinerate herself to ash in the heat she felt.

Jo.  She closed her eyes and tasted Jo’s lips with the tongue of memory, and edited last night’s scene in her mind, hand drifting slowly down her belly, now waking to hunger.  The silken wetness that resided there surprised her, she parted her lips with no gentleness at all but with needful fingers.