Timothy Rienford did not sleep. He tried. He tossed. He turned. But the fact of the matter was that the couch wasn’t even a fraction of the comfort that his bed would provide. He couldn’t bring himself to lay with his wife, though. It didn’t matter that his dick didn’t end up in another person this time. She wasn’t going to believe him. He was stupid to think otherwise.
And, honestly, who could blame her?
No marriage was without its problems. That’s a phrase he liked to repeat to anyone who cared enough to listen. Nobody was perfect. Everyone made mistakes. What he didn’t like to acknowledge was the fact that some mistakes were bigger than others, and his was near the top of the list.
He didn’t think of himself as a cheater. Cheaters had motives and plans and schemed their way into other people’s beds. Rienford did none of the above. Every time he woke up next to another woman, it was after something out of his control. He’d go out with the guys and have a few too many. He’d weigh his options through the haze of smoke and strobe lights, and ultimately make the wrong choice. The music flowed through him and their perfume awakened something inside himself that could not be tamed. That was the difference between him and other men, though. Other men hated their wives and girlfriends and were scoping out the playing field. Rienford always loved his wife.
When they started out, sure, perhaps he took advantage of her young love and planted a few lies here and there, never imagining they would grow. He was faithful for seven years and counting, but to Tish, it didn’t matter. It didn’t stop the doubt festering in the back of her mind.
Rienford wiped the tears from his cheeks impatiently. This whole thing didn’t hurt as bad as he expected. A little weight on the chest and nothing more. For now, he was feeling fine. A little sad, a little distracted, even, but fine. The hurt hadn’t absorbed yet.
Normal would have to find a new normal.
He smiled to himself, to the ceiling. What was he talking about? What was he thinking? This was just a fight, just like any other they’ve had and just like all the ones they would have after today. They’d get over it and move on with life. Come morning, she’d crawl up next to him on the couch and whisper how sorry she was, or he would give her a hug while she gave him the cold shoulder in the kitchen until she broke down and accepted his apology. All he had to do in the meantime was get some rest before work and wait the tide out.
His thoughts wandered on and on like this, until at last his eyelids were too heavy to possibly keep open any longer. He closed them, then peeked back open; one long blink. Again, the same motion. He stared at the popcorn ceiling, watching the way the lights from the street flickered and moved as cars drove by outside the window. Again, the same motion. But this time, he faced not his ceiling, but something big, something black and hooked and pronged, its fleshy throat wet and exposed, its teeth lining the sides of the open hole, and a long, purple, almost black tongue hanging down, almost touching his hand.
Rienford jerked his hand to his chest, sitting up and scooting away from the thing that loomed over him as fast as he could manage. He blinked, faster this time, and found nothing there. Nothing but the empty room.
It was his imagination, nothing but an overworked brain after a long, stressful day at work. All he needed to do was get the images, the hallucinations, out of his head. Just think of something else. That easy. Like watching a funny movie after a horror flick before going to bed. Same exact thing. That was all it was, just one big bad dream.
He stared at a fixed point on the ceiling, not letting his eyes dart this way and that, because every time he did he swore there was something moving just out of the corner of his vision. Happy thoughts. He stared and thought back on when he graduated college. His mother stood in the crowd, trying her best to blend in with everyone else even though she couldn’t have felt more out of place. A big black woman in a sea of California diet blondes. When the rest were busy snapping photos of their sons and daughters, his mama looked only at him; the only thing blocking her view was her own tears running down her plump face. He’d steal glances her way while he walked up to the podium to get his diploma. Only glances, lest her pride seep into him and make his heart swell just as much as hers. He’d never seen her so happy in his life. The cancer took her six months later. God rest her soul.
Rienford smiled as the tears ran down in little streams to the shell of his ears, gathering there until they runneth over onto the fabric of the couch. He closed his eyes, and saw a snake thing with a dripping tongue. It licked the man on the ground until nothing but bone fragments remained. He couldn’t smell the death initially, but it wafted his way in due time. A mix of scents, like when his wife threw a few different wax melts into the warmer. But this was bleach in hot water, burning hair, something acidic, something a little like sour milk, an underlying sweetness. It made his stomach churn.
Rienford’s eyes shot open. The room was dark. Quiet. His heart pounded behind his eyes. Again, he closed them. And again, he saw it. It slithered here and there with its crescent moon head, its empty eye sockets. Its tongue, long and flat, moved in and out of the hole in its neck. Every drop of saliva left a burning hole in the ground.
And Death stood before him, not draped in black robes and a scythe, but in a plain sundress and army boots, extending a long, bony finger in his direction.
He opened his eyes once more, sitting up fully, swinging his feet around to the side of the couch so they rested on the floor, trying desperately to ground himself. There would be no sleep tonight.
He wanted nothing more than to walk to the bedroom he and Tish normally shared. He wanted to touch her shoulder, to shake her gently to consciousness. He wanted to confess everything; everything he saw, or at very least thought he saw.
Would she believe him? Not a chance in hell.
Had roles been reversed, would he have believed her?
There was a card in his deck he could pull if he wanted to, but Rienford had a gut feeling that it would only make matters worse. Bringing another woman into the matter would only seal his fate as a cheater and conspirator. It’d be best for all three of them if Abbigale remained a secret.
He should have called her. Plain and simple. He would have come home a hero instead of whatever this was. Instead of being banished to the couch, he’d be in bed with Tish, worshipping her body like when they first got married and the getting was still good.
Rienford’s dreams were all the same that night. Restful sleep did not come, and would not come ever again. By morning, he was shivering and soaked with sweat.
He walked to the bedroom, quiet lest he wake Tish. She clung to his pillow tight, eye makeup dried against her cheeks and fists and sheets. Her mouth, even in sleep, was set in a frown. He sat at the bottom corner of the bed and just watched for a long while, letting his thoughts roam between his marriage and that skeleton girl in the alley. Death punctuated everything.
Rienford got up from the bed and went to the shower, setting it to something just shy of scalding. On one hand, it upset him to make her so upset. On the other hand, there was this grim sort of satisfaction in seeing that makeup smeared everywhere. He didn’t like the feeling, but it was there.
He’d let Tish have all the space she needed. She’d come around eventually. When he was done, he wiped the steam from the mirror, smiling at his reflection. He didn’t do anything last night, and sooner or later, she would have to accept it. She’d either get over it or die angry.
Manda Kay Writes 