Still Life

Life was like that now, Harry, leafing through a magazine, would spot a photo of a single vase and lose himself into the image. The soft porcelain curve reminding him of his wife, a glimpse of her in bed, her naked body partially exposed from beneath the rumpled sheets. Looking closer at the photo in the magazine he would see more, the delicate folds of the solitary rose in the vase took him between her legs, his tongue gently opening the blossom and finding the nectar within.

Sliding back on his empty bed, he would enter his vision, pressing his tongue deeper into the wet folds, savoring the tangy taste, breathing in the earthy scent of her. He would feel the soft skin of her thighs brush against him as she wrapped her legs over his back, raising her hips up to his face, grinding on him as she moaned loudly. In their early years together, she would come quickly and often, later it took much longer until his jaws would ache. In spite of the pain, he would continue carrying her into the trembling throes of her orgasm.

After she came, Harry would pause, letting her wetness dry onto his face as he simply breathed in the humid, fragrant air between her legs. When they both had caught their breath and her trembling subsided, he would move upward, running his tongue through the dark, kinky pubic hair up over the curve of her belly and onto soft fleshy mounds of her breasts. Rolling his face over her hard nipples, he would slip them between his lips, run his tongue over them and feel the firm texture.

Unable to hold off any longer, Harry leaned onto his back and imagining his cock slipping into her wet pussy, he wrapped his fingers around himself and began to gently stroke. Thinking of the moist softness inside her, he moved his hand up and down over his cock, almost feeling the soft folds of his wife open to him. He quickened his pace, remembering how she encouraged him, whispering, "Come on, yeah, give it to me Harry."

Her voice would fire him as he thrust himself deep inside her, feeling his balls slap against her ass and seeing her breasts bounce jiggle with the impact. Lost in the image and sensation, Harry looked down at his cock, and seeing the purplish head disappear and reappear in and out of his fist, he would remember the sight of his cock slipping in and out of her. The pleasure jolted though him as he watched his cum spurt lightly over his fist and out into his pubic hair.

Remembering the thrill he often had thinking of the cum he had left inside his wife, he reached over to the stainless steel toilet and unraveled some toilet paper to clean up. Dabbing the thick globs of cum from his hand and hair he dropped the paper into the toilet and pulled his pants back on. Picking up his magazine he laughed to himself.

"All the other guys have porn and here I jack off looking at Architectural Digest and the paintings in art magazines," he said to himself a bit too loudly.

"What's that Harry? You talkin' to me," came a voice from the next cell.

"Nah Johnny, just talking to myself," he replied.

Dropping the magazine onto the floor, Harry picked up his sketchpad and a pencil, continuing something he had been working on earlier. Trying to remember the shape of a pear, the way the sun reflected off the skin, the transition from shadow to bright light, the gentle feel of her skin...

He tossed the pad to the ground in frustration and closed his eyes. Try as he might, he couldn't stay focused to sketch the image, any single image. The pad was full of unfinished drawings, a single vase with a flower, any number of different fruits, each one realistically shaded, precise in dimension, yet only half completed. It was always the same, regardless of the original image he started to sketch, it would be wrong, unbalanced. Sadly, Harry knew the problem, it seemed each time he started to work on the single image he would compose the page as if for a second image, a second fruit, a second vase. Each time the sensuous curves of his drawings brought his wife to mind, that second image was there goading him, haunting him.

In his magazines he could find and study any number of individual images where the artist could focus on a singular fruit, a flower, a woman without anything more. But for Harry it was impossible, that other object, another fruit, that other person was burned forever into his consciousness.

"Hey Harry, I heard they reduced your sentence," Johnny called out.

"Yeah, some technicality; they think they can beat one of the decisions," Harry replied monotonously.

"That's good man."

"Good? They still got me for what I did to her."

"Yeah, but now it's better, you might get out, especially with parole."

"Parole?'

"Yeah Harry, good behavior and all that, I mean you cause no trouble, that's got to mean something."

"Johnny, for parole I have to have remorse, I have to show I'm sorry. I'm not sure I can do that."

"Can't you fake it man..."

"Fake it, not when I see it every day, it's burned in my head Johnny."

"You really loved her."

"I really loved her," Harry replied, his voice cracking.

"Still man, they cut your sentence, there's got to be hope... somewhere there's hope."

"No Johnny, don't you see? It's still life," Harry groaned, "It's still life."