A Cheater's tale...short story

   A pigeon coos and beats it's wings against the windowpane. It's talons grab for purchase, scratching the sill and the noise almost hides the soft sounds of it's young calling from a foot away. She pours a cup of coffee and tries half-heartedly to shoo the mother bird away.
 "They cause disease, you know." She says, and he isn't sure to whom she's speaking, him or herself.

 When she waves her hand toward the window the belt of her robe comes untied and opens on her old faded plaid pajamas. The bottom button of the shirt is missing and he catches occasional flashes of her belly button when she moves.

 Suddenly, he wants nothing more from life than to kiss it. To feel the silky skin on his lips, to have her heartbeat dance beneath his roving fingertips. 

 A sharp pain shoots through his mind, and trickles painful fire through his chest. He knows the feeling well, has felt it more and more frequently these last few weeks, especially when looking at her as he is now.

 She's running a tired hand through her sleep mussed hair, auburn sparks catching the morning sunrays and his eyes burn to look upon it. One hand casually wipes the sleep from her eyes, and she turns to him; smiling.

 Oh god, she looks so much like the first time they woke together, even after all these years and he feels the familiar pull of her in his heart. An unwelcome, unwanted image fills his mind. An image of another mans lips pressed to the slight swell of her abdomen, someone else's fingers tracing the rhythm of her heart. For the briefest moment the guilt that burns in his gut is overshadowed by the rage the image provokes and he can't believe how he has let things crumble to this lonely state. How could he ever have thought to touch another, especially one so below the one before him; the one he loves.

 She laughs and he looks up into her eyes. "If only I had a penny for your thoughts just now," she says, "you had the strangest look in your eyes, like tortured bliss." 

 He smiles weakly and quickly kisses her goodbye, head spinning in guilt and shame as he heads to work.

 She watches from the window, tired and trying hard to reconcile her love for him with the newly growing hate and pain.

 Ramblin' Hoosier~