Mark stared at the ceiling fan, listening to the rhythmic whump-whump-whump of the blades slicing through the stale bedroom air. Beside him, Sarah slept soundly, her breathing a soft counterpoint to the fan's drone. He envied her easy unconsciousness. Sleep hadn’t come easily to him for the past three nights, not since she’d dropped the bombshell.
“Performance art,” she’d called it. A way to “explore boundaries” and “reignite passion.”
Bullshit. Or maybe not. That was the problem. He didn’t know what it was, not really.
He turned his head slowly on the pillow, careful not to wake her. Even in the dim pre-dawn light filtering through the blinds, she was beautiful. Sarah. His wife. Ten years they’d been together, married for eight. They had a comfortable life – decent house in the suburbs, his steady IT management job, her part-time work at a bookstore combined with the acting and improv classes she’d recently thrown herself into. Comfortable, yes. Steady. Predictable.
Maybe too predictable. Had he missed the signs? Had the routine worn grooves so deep they’d forgotten how to step outside them?
He let his eyes trace the familiar, beloved shape of her under the thin summer duvet. The curve of her shoulder, the gentle slope of her back leading down to the swell of her ass. He knew that body better than his own. Knew the exact shade of blue of her eyes when they widened in surprise or darkened with desire. Knew the way her lower lip, full and soft, trembled slightly just before she came. He loved the sprinkle of freckles across her nose that only appeared in summer, the way her fine blonde hair escaped whatever clip or band she used, framing her face in soft tendrils.
He pictured her standing in the kitchen just yesterday, making coffee, wearing one of his old t-shirts and nothing else. The cotton stretched tight across her tits – perfect handfuls, firm C-cups that still defied gravity surprisingly well after all this time. Her nipples would be hard from
