Archangel

Leah lay next to Raph, her back pressed against his naked belly. His arm sprawled on top of the quilt. She pulled it underneath and guided his hand, holding it with her own so that it cupped her breast. But when she let her hand fall, so did his, limp, uninterested. Her breathing quickened then, and a tightness took hold of her chest and throat.

Her thoughts began to dart back and forth between the past and the future. She thought of the not-so-distant past, when his hands used to travel over her skin as if they had hundreds of little eyes all over them, looking urgently for something they did not yet have but were sure to find, the eagerness of anticipation tingling electrically in the space between the two surfaces of skin. She thought of the very near future, of his upcoming work trip to New York, where there would surely be women. Lots of sassy, well-dressed business women, like the one with the long wavy hair and two piece suits she had seen on several of the pictures his colleague had posted on LinkedIn, of which one showed Raph standing in the middle of the group, next to her, his arm around her waist. Admittedly, everyone in the picture was touching each other or holding drinks, but still, his hand was there, on the woman's waist, whilst she, his girlfriend, worked from home in their South Downs cottage on the other side of the Atlantic, in happy anticipation of her man returning.

And so now as she lay next to him she longed to feel his touch, electric like it was before, signalling to her that he was fully there, in that moment with her, not wishing to be anywhere else. She took his hand again, placing it back over her breast, and pressed her bottom against him, only to hear, seconds later, his breathing slowing down and snoring setting in.

She edged further over to the side of the bed, pushed his arm away, then lay in the dark listening to his breathing, counting the days that had gone by without any intimate encounters. Fifteen days seemed like a very long time, or at least a length of time after which she could reasonably expect for his hand to meet her skin with some intensity. She felt sure that if he no longer felt any interest in her body then some other body somewhere else would awaken his slumbering desire, and, worst of all, his affections would be transferred to the said body's owner.

She wondered how she could rekindle the connection they had shared until just a few months ago. Nothing she subtly attempted seemed to have any effect at the moment, and she didn't want to risk the humiliation of rejection by making any more direct and obvious efforts. Only recently she had worn his favourite red lace negligée and stockings for him, those had never failed to produce an immediate response before, but this time he only absently ran his fingers over the satin as he fell asleep. She hadn't yet found an explanation that she could give him if he ever found the torn red lace, stuffed out of sight behind the drawers for now. Tearing through the material had brought hot tears to flow freely down her face, bringing her some relief. She had been able to sleep after that, in her flannel pyjamas, and the next morning he didn't notice she had changed. But tonight, she lay searching for ideas, only to rebuke any promising ones in fear of rejection.

Sleep was a long time coming.

*

The next morning, she sat staring through the window as her coffee went cold, oblivious of the dog watching her carefully, longing to run over the downs. His mistress didn't move, and his collar stayed on its hook much later than usual.

‘I have needs that simply aren't being met,’ she heard her ex-husband say, as if it were yesterday. ‘I'm a man, and men need a lot of sex. That's just the way we are. Once every two or three days seems like a reasonable minimum to me, and if you can't provide that, then you really don't have a claim to exclusivity with me. This is the only option I can see which will allow us to stay together.’

She remembered how her heart beat in her ears then, but he went on:

‘You'll still be my number one, the mother of my child, an indispensable cog in my mechanics, without which the machine stops.’

She thought how naive it was of him to think that he would have any form of cognitive control over the inclinations of his heart and the impulses of his body. The dull scratched cup he had been desperately sucking on for years but which never quite quenched his thirst, never truly parted with the sweet sap he longed to sip, no not to sip, rather to knock back and swallow in one gulp, this old cup could not compete for the attention of his lips and eyes with the shining, shimmering new cups that lined up to oblige him with endless supplies of warm milk and honey when he was melancholic, and ruby red wine when euphoria wrapped her voluptuous velvet cloak around his nakedness. The inclination to soak his lips in any cup that gleamed at him had until then only been kept in check by the rigorous structure of monogamy. Once that structure melted away the impulses revealed themselves as they had always secretly been: primal, selfish, all-consuming and by no means controllable by such a feeble thing as a human mind. And so, the dull cup that she was found itself quickly relegated, slipping down through the numbers. She flailed as she failed to keep a grip on number one, then number two escaped her, and as she slid further her foothold was looser on each successive rung of the ladder until she landed on the ground with a numberless thud. And at each stage of her fall she was reminded that had she been able to fulfil those primal needs herself, the protective structure would never have teetered and she would still be sheltered, albeit stifled, in the warmest, deepest chamber of his tepid, shallow heart, or at any rate the deepest any other human could burrow, which in reality was just below the surface, as only higher things were allowed to penetrate into the farthest darkest recesses.

And now as she sat watching raindrops drip down the kitchen window, she felt as if she was on a new ladder, still on the top rung, but she only had to look at her feet to see the other rungs reaching down into a thick fog, so that it was unclear how far the ladder descended and what was at the bottom.

She reassured herself that something would surely happen that evening, her man would come through the front door, like he had so many times before, and coming up behind her as she chopped vegetables would slip his arms around her waist, let his hands slide under her clothes and then spin her around to kiss her, signalling the beginning of an evening of suggestive games culminating in experiences so intense it was hard to believe in hindsight that they had begun in play.

But last night she had hoped for the same, and nothing had happened, just like every night this week. He had come in, kissed her absently, although long enough to make her own body tingle in anticipation, and then turned in indifference to other occupations which seemed to absorb him completely. She feared the same for this evening and so she dragged a heavy heart through the day, going through motions around the house, not sharing in her dog's quivering excitement when they went outside, and unable to focus on anything at her desk. She was glad, for once, that little Benny was at his dad's, as she had nothing to offer him today.

She cooked a steak that evening, with crispy roasted potatoes and caramelised shallots. Raph ate it appreciatively, asking what the occasion was that warranted the preparation of his favourite food. She told him there was nothing in particular, and he did not kiss her when she turned her grey face to him. Her red-rimmed gaze was met with an affectionate squeeze of her shoulder before he rose to wash the dishes.

*

She went to bed early that night and waited for him in the soft light, clean and smelling of perfume. He seemed to find a thousand things to do before joining her. Then he didn't bother to shower, just switched off the light and lay behind her, his still arm weighing on top of the blanket again. Now she couldn't keep the doubts to herself any longer, nor bear searching through her own mind for an explanation, and demanded one from him.

‘I just don't get it,’ her words cut through his drowsy state.

‘What?’ he seemed surprised, and still sleepy.

‘It's like your body no longer responds to mine,’ she expanded. And then: ‘I don't think you feel attracted to me anymore.’

As the words hung there between them she started to question her feelings, to doubt whether there was any truth in them at all, now they were out of her head and into the shared space. But she reminded herself how his hands hung lifeless, how his kisses had become shorter, less engaged, more affectionate than sensual, and her courage returned.

‘Don't be silly, of course I am,’ came his untroubled reply.

She sat up now and switched the light back on. He squinted up at her from his pillow, surrendering to the idea that he wasn't going to sleep as early as he had planned.

‘Then why do you not seek out my skin anymore? And why, when I put your hand there, do you just let it hang, all limp?’

‘Oh sweetheart, of course I want you, I just haven't been wanting to bother you.’

‘Bother me?’ her convictions began to waver.

‘Yes. You've been looking very down these last couple of weeks. Red-eyed even, sometimes. And every setback in your work seems to really make you plummet.’

Leah stared at Raph quietly for a moment then, but still felt there was more truth in his touch than in these words.

‘You don't bother me by wanting me,’ she replied, ‘and even if you were trying not to bother me, I would still feel some kind of frustration in your touch. If you needed me, you couldn't repress it completely for my benefit.’

‘Of course I can, and I do, because I love you,’ he answered, but she continued, ignoring the declaration which still did not convince her.

She couldn't stop the words now:

‘Is it porn? Is that what you're doing while I wait for you in bed?’

‘No sweet, I save all my energy for you,’ he tried to reassure her.

‘Or is there somebody else? Somebody whose body yours does respond to?’ her tone was sharpening now.

His ipad lay on the bedside table. She grabbed it and swiped up, turning it to his face to gain access. He watched patiently as she scrolled through his browsing history, not finding any porn.

‘Why are there so many car sale websites on here?’ she asked. She knew he loved his car.

‘Look at that open tab,’ he replied.

The window opened on the screen and pictures of a camper van appeared.

‘Flick through them,’ he suggested.

She saw the outside of the vehicle, an original 1970s Mercedes, painted a whimsical pale green, and inside, wood panelling lined the walls and ceiling, painted white. There were even patterned tiles over the kitchen sink, and checked curtains with ties.

‘Is that the kind of thing you were talking about?’ he asked.

‘Yes,’ she answered. ‘Only this one is even nicer than I imagined.’

But she wasn't done investigating. Her finger travelled to the Messenger icon and she opened his chat history. There were holiday pictures from his best friend, daily messages from his mother who leaned on him a lot in very many ways and who received only the sweetest replies, and the others were all from various car sales websites, answering questions about camper vans. She closed Messenger and her finger travelled to the Instagram icon.

‘No darling, not those, please,’ he said softly.

‘What are you hiding?’ she asked, the pressure building in her ears as she opened it, and her heart beating in her throat.

A message from his sister caught her attention:

‘That's great Raphy, I want to know every detail.’

She opened the chat and scrolled back a few messages.

‘I'm ready, big sis'. I've got the ring.’

‘My little bro'! Getting married!’

‘Hold your horses, she still has to say yes.’

‘She will. She loves you to pieces. When are you popping the question?’

‘Tonight.’

The messages were from that afternoon.

‘Oh,’ said Leah softly.

Then she thought back to the red eyes she had seen in the mirror that night before going to bed, and how quiet she had been whilst he ate his steak.

‘I don't think I would have proposed to me tonight either,’ she said.

He cocked his head and smiled at her, bemused.

‘So, it's really true then? You just didn't want to bother me?’ she asked.

‘Really true. Cross my heart,’ he replied.

She looked at him for a while, frowning, and biting her lip.

Seemingly minutes later she managed to formulate another question:

‘Why would you want to marry me, when I bring you so little? Nothing's happened between us for sixteen days now.’

‘Sixteen? Is that how longs it's been? And you feel like you haven't brought me anything since then?’

Her frown deepened in response.

‘Leah, each time I leave this house, you send me off with love, after pouring me a mug of love and making small talk about love over breakfast, and that’s between filling Ben's lunchbox with love and stuffing the dog's bowl with love. Then I come home, you greet me at the door with love, listen to me with love whilst I talk about my day, and pour love into my ears as you talk about your own. You serve me love for dinner and spread love on the dishes for me to find in the sink. The only days there is a little less love are the ones when it's washed away by tears I don't understand. And all I want to do is turn off that tear tap and I don't know how. Partly for me, because I want the love back, but mostly because I just want to see you happy.’

Leah was quiet for a long moment and then said:

‘I want to see you happy too. And I want you to bother me whenever you're in the bothering mood.’

He put his forehead on hers.

‘Can I bother you now?’

She kissed him in response.

His searching hands travelled over her skin. Occasionally he would stop them in their tracks as they spread their warmth over her shoulder or her forearm or the small of her back, and he would smile and say, ‘This particular patch of skin here, I really missed this one,’ until he had covered almost her entire body and declared every inch of it to be especially soft and missable. And her skin may have been covered in tiny light switches, so intently her eyes glowed, bringing a serious look over his own face, as if making tender love to her were a thing of grave importance.

*

Afterwards, he lay next to her, pushing back the hair from her eyes. Then he rolled over to the bedside cabinet and took something from the drawer, hiding it in his fist. He caught her hand under the covers and when he let go his warm touch left a cold metallic trace on one of her fingers.

‘It's a bit old-fashioned I'm afraid, it was my great-grandmother's,’ he said.

Three delicate stones were set in a line, a small diamond between two sapphires. They glistened even in the dim light.

‘No,’ she said. ‘It's perfect.’