Slamwords is a Twitter thing. Happens once a month or so, with a series of ten prompts on Friday night and another ten on Saturday. The come every twenty minutes or so. I try to write a story, having no idea what the next prompt will be. It’s a challenge. Here is the one from February 8, 2020, without the prompts:
It was a difficult night. We both said things we should not have but couldn’t help. Now the first crest of morning hit me as I lay on the couch. I’d not pulled the shade and I saw a pastel-colored world as the sun rose. I hoped for a swift sunrise so I could apologize.
* * * *
I peed and went to the kitchen, putting on water for coffee. The wisteria were gently whispering in the chill morning air. As the water heated, I looked through the window above the sink, wondering whether my view of our marriage was real. Or rosy. True. Or False.
* * * *
My gaze wandered to the large tree in a neighbor’s yard. It had a tree knot, favored by squirrels, reminding me of the monocled Monopoly banker.
The whistle of the kettle broke the thought. I reached for a potholder, a monogrammed wedding gift from an elderly aunt.
* * * *
The dawn was fresh, and the house was quiet, the echoes of the night’s shouting having drifted away. With his coffee, he surveyed the kitchen. A catalog of gadgets for gadgets. His triathlete’s tools, pairs of swimming goggles and biking gloves, dangling on a hook.
* * * *
She knew he was up from the kettle. She was awake, staring at the ceiling for hours. What was his power over her? Some neo-modern sorcerer, an alchemist turning her heart into tears. Turning her life from simple to an intricate, byzantine design where she was lost.
* * * *
She looked in the bedroom mirror. She’d never been the intrepid heroine of her story. The fearless one. She craved love and security and was long afraid she’d have neither.
Then she met him. Not handsome. But intriguing. He made her feel safe and loved. She loved him.
* * * *
Things were difficult for her. The rough and tumble of being a child of divorce where neither parent spoke to the other except through her.
He? She didn’t know such a man existed. Sweet & gentle. Witty & kind, displaying an unimaginable and exquisite etiquette.
* * * *
Suddenly his arms were around her stomach, his lips brushing against her neck.
“Do you remember the day we met?”
“The monsoon?”
He kissed her neck again.
“The monsoon that made 85th St. eerie at noon and rain so thick we couldn’t see the Park.”
“You were my hero.”
* * * *
As our eyes locked, his right hand moved down and he put it inside my lace panties. Always the intrepid one.
I felt his touch, his hard hands like leather. My own gripped the pretty, polished brass faucets. A new use. I was soon drenched, as I was that day we met.
* * * *
We lay in bed on our backs, our hands touching. Oh, the depths into which we throw ourselves then the heights when we make up.
We share so many stories and we each have rings of keys, every one of which fits the lock of the other’s heart. At times we forget to use it.
THE END
Terry Brewer, Author 