Bathing & Strangling

Outside it was snowing, the type of snow that sits on the cusp of sleet, hard and tiny and white, blowing across the lights on the patio.  It was windy in the southeastern corner of Virginia, and it was flat so the wind came with an extra lash.  He could hear it rubbing against the house the way a cat rubs against a post.  Nudging, almost sensual.

Upstairs he had caught her, in her own sensuality.  At least to him.  He had opened the door to the bathroom where she had been bathing, and as she was standing there were a few droplets of water that fell from her.  Her back was to him, her nakedness pink from the hot water, her ends of her hair darker from the wet, and her fine shape was clear in the candle-lit room.  Outside snow spitted and blurred but her pale form was warming.  He announced himself with a slight cough and she turned her head to him.

Can you get me a towel?  She was coy, her back to him, the water droplets slowing their dripping as the water level in the tub slowly subsided.

He handed her a towel and walked out the door.  He knew when she wanted to be alone, and always without her saying it.

It had been that way for awhile now...this slow strangulation.  She would provide a bit of her, just enough sustenance to maintain.  Just a sliver to feed, like a starvation diet...just to keep barely alive.  He wasn't sure where it came from, but just like fall suddenly wakens up and it's winter...it was something like that.  Unannounced, certainly not discussed.

He heard her footsteps upstairs, and then again as she descended the steps.  There was some music on in the kitchen, something faint.  He couldn't hear any words.

Outside the snow had stopped and the sleet had started.  You could hear it on the windows, on the roof.  Against the front door.  The white flakes, so tiny before, turned into long dark gray lines.

She crossed into view and he asked her if she wanted something to drink. She held up a glass with a little bit left in it...he couldn't tell if that was an answer.  So he poured himself a glass over some ice...a large piece, very unlike the small pieces pebbling outside.

He went into the darkened living room, knowing he didn't have much time left.  Maybe just enough to finish the drink.  After a bath she was usually tired.  There had been times when the bath had been a pre-cursor...a cleansing, an anointing before they clutched and clung together.

Now it was a transition to her climbing into bed while he drove away, regardless of the weather.  She had fed him his small portion, she was still just slowly strangling the bits of him that she cared about. Such pieces were growing fewer.

He turned from the room and its cold windows and walked back towards her.  He neared her, and since she was holding the glass in her hand he gently reached out with his until they almost touched.  The gap between the glasses was tiny, it was millimeters...but it was separation.  And a border.  And whoever reached across had given in.

He moved his glass until it touched hers in a soft toast.

She didn't say anything.

He mentioned something about a goodbye, finishing his drink and putting the glass down.  She stood up, her hand coming up and resting briefly on his shoulder, moving to his neck.  Her fingers were cold from the drink...at least he liked to think that.



Outside the sleet had covered his car in an icy sheen, completely covering the windows and the roof.  It was still coming down hard and brutal, thrust by a wind and soaking his hair quickly.  He had to use his key to clear out the keyhole in the door and it didn't open at first, the ice freezing it stuck.  He pulled harder and it splintered and he let himself in.  He didn't have an ice scraper.

He turned on the engine, asking for it to warm quickly, shivering in the blast of the air vents trying to defrost the windows.  His hair had frozen a little, and was now melting, sending tiny rivulets down his back.  Tiny droplets, not too dissimilar to the drops that had fallen from her in the tub.

Outside it was dark except for the porch light.  When she turned it off he was in complete darkness, the sleet pulsing on the roof of the car.  He turned on his headlights and looked through the tiny hole the vents had created.  He tried turning on the wipers but they were still frozen.

He sat in the cold, bathed in a freezing drip of leftover snow, the crush of the night and the wind and the storm seeming to strangle his thoughts, dimming him to just very empty thoughts as he turned the wheel and tried to navigate back from where he once was.

His headlights barely raised a fuss in the sleet...