Sofia Pt. 09 - Anabelle leaves

Her hair wrenched to its roots, and her body follows it. Face half smothered by the fabric of the sofa. Unwhipped skirt now bunched to midriff. The cool breeze stirs invisible vellus fuzz, conjuring goosebumps across her rump.

Pah

A hand-shaped gasp, hard palm across her behind, flat like a metal ruler. Breath. Again. Breath. Again. Again. Again. Less sudden hard now, cupped, rapider growing rhythmic. Pah - Pah - Pah. You could dance to its beat.

Pause. The cool breeze still lingers on her now sore high-pitched skin. She feels the absent hand rise like space opening. Waits, waits, waits. And the hand lays down softly. Shiver.

Pah -- Pah -- Pah. And on, and on. Her tongue tastes salt at the corner of her lips. And on, and on.

From throat like oomph of air forced out but like moles bleating almost silent but not at all in the room with only Pah and the old clock tocking. Never wanted this: needless, nasty. He had. Wanted this Pah-pain in her and, most of all, a certain look. To him it was different. Meant something different: he tried to say but didn't. Now the dark anyway, perhaps it would have been better to pretend...too late, anyway.

Blood keeps pulsing round around, pulsing welted skin and pulsing sex and pulsing temples. Arousal, not so surprising, but bitter like old dandelions. Empty pornographic pleasure: itch touch climax, close it now. This loved man pleasures in this pain at this ending. Finger parts folds probes pleasure. Yes, wet, and the touch is bucking, but then it's just so salivating walking past unwanted food street smells -- so, what of it? And on, and on, probing pleasure intermingled - what of it?

Tears. Beautiful, so often, and this less beautiful is the end. Ending with pleasure-pain he'd wanted and she hadn't. She, that other, once also loved, will, no doubt. This and more. So, welcome.

Enough, shame enough to full stop. Goodbye flint hearth and him. Not guarded against that sword, what's in poured out: on the sofa, on the ground. To she, the other, also enough, goodbye full stop. Exile both far from the lands of her heart. Let them share their exile. Pah -- pah -- and again. Better this end, maybe, in the end, than the beauty way. This pain is less pain than the beauty way of parting.

All Shimmers. Not like eyes, like water through a colander. Thoughts, that is, feelings, that is. Pah and Pah and Pah and Pah. Pain drunk, pain flight. So very here, but not much to do the being.

Hair wrenched again, body shoved roughly again, manipulated like a mannequin, body lifted until she's on her hands and knees. Pah, again. And then the sound of his zip unzipping. He's going to fuck her like this. Without love, at least without tenderness. Doesn't he understand that this is the end?

"Get off me!" Thwumk. "I said, get off me. I mean it!"

She found her feet and pulled her skirt back down to cover herself. He was still kneeling on the sofa, his trousers pulled half way down his thighs, cock hard and poking out like a lonely fat finger pointing at where she'd been a moment before.

"What? Where are you going? Anabelle, where are you going?" he said, tucking himself away and getting to his feet, confusion on his face.

Anabelle stood facing him. Suddenly she didn't even really feel sad, let alone angry. There was a heaviness, that was all, the heaviness of inevitability. "I'm done, Toby. I'm leaving. I need to pack some things, then I'm going. I'll get the rest of my stuff later."

"You're not serious, Anabelle. Where will you go?"

"I don't know. Mum's probably."

"Can't we talk about this properly?"

"We have. I don't think there's anything more to say. For now, anyway. I need to go."

"Anabelle, this is your home too. Wouldn't it be better for me to go?"

"What, so I can stay here with her? No thanks. Or do you think she'd go with you?"

Toby seemed unable to respond. She left him standing there stupidly, she noticed his fly was still undone.

Now she was moving numbchanically around their bedroom, folding clothes into her old travelling suitcase. This then this then this. She'd never imagined it could be so easy to pack away a life for ever. She zipped up the case and noticed her finger with its plain wedding band. She unsheathed it, finding she had to worry it over the first joint. She placed in on the dresser. She didn't feel like she wanted to take it with her.

She rolled the bag back down the hall. He was in the living room, sitting on the sofa with sleeves rolled up and a tumbler of iced scotch held absently in one hand. His face was drawn, the muscles of his jaw working, clenching and unclenching rhythmically.

"Goodbye, Toby," she said. She noticed how calm her voice sounded. How strange as calm as if this was a nothing. As if she was saying goodbye to go shopping or to see a friend. As if they'd see each other in a few hours, make love and sleep side-by-side in their bed that night.

"Anabelle I can't quite believe this is happening," he said. "Will you call me? Let's not rush into anything too suddenly. Let's talk again soon."

She laughed, with a sudden flood of bitterness, and then stopped abruptly. "Yes. Of course, we'll talk. Not immediately. I need time and space to think properly. Then let's see where we're both at."

Then she turned away from him. She opened the front door, stepped out, and closed it quietly behind her.