Bleary Morning. Weary. Dawning.

The dream was warm and suffocating. There were flashes of light. Gasps of air. Moans floated from above. A familiar voice, with a slight echoing quality to it. He wasn’t in darkness, but something blocked out the light. A pressure on his face. He opened his mouth and tasted drowning, wonderful wetness. He knew where he was now. The weight of thighs around his head, squeezing his ears, wet pussy crushing his hungry lips and tongue. And the smell… that distinct, damp, heated smell… of her…

“Mmmm yes daddy… eat my pussy…”

And then light. It poured in, blinding, and washed through the mind until the dream became the forgotten reason for that morning stiffness...

The feel of silk sheets was always nice to wake up to. When he stretched, their cool caress on his arms made him feel like he was floating, then he noticed the way the blanket resisted, pulled against his movements. He rolled over and found the warm, heavy presence of his wife. She was a hill in the sheets, a wall made of back muscle under a thin cotton shirt and Casey drew himself in, pressing his bare chest to her. He put his face into her chestnut brown hair where it reached the back of her neck. There was a sharp smell of soapy shampoo, perhaps a bit too hastily rinsed, that tickled his nose.

A murmur from the sleeping woman seemed to indicate an awareness of her husband’s clinging embrace, a minor tremor rolling across the bed. It settled with a deep, slumbering breath. Tiredness weighed the mattress. Casey wondered what time she had come in. It must have been well after he had gone to bed… though he had trouble remembering exactly what time that had been…

He indulged in the solid warmth of Charlotte’s back for a couple more minutes, contemplating rubbing his strange morning stiffness against her behind, before her gentle snoring indicated that sleep would be continued. He backed off and got out of bed. Once on his feet met the carpet he had the briefest sense of vertigo and a pulse bloomed in his forehead. It wasn’t quite a headache, and faded into the background to be replaced by a dryness of the mouth that made Casey smack his lips. Just a sip too much wine last night. He looked down at himself and was a little confused. Was this pair of underwear he wore different to what he thought he had put on before? Maybe more than a sip too much…

The ensuite had a separate bath and shower, but was a rather narrow room. Even someone as slight as Casey would need to press himself up against the sink to let a second occupant pass him on the way to grab a towel. The cool tiles on the soles of his dainty feet made him strangely apprehensive, but he pushed that down as a matter of course to smile at his reflection in the mirror. Today would be another perfect day, he told himself, like he had every day. The fact that every one of those days had been far from such lofty ideals didn’t seem to matter.

This wasn’t lying to himself, he reasoned. The books and podcasts all said to picture your ideal life and shut out all of the bad things. He had been good at that second part. He’d gotten so much practice at it. His wife’s late nights couldn’t be helped. The faded lipstick on her shirt collars washed out easily. Even the pairs of men’s underwear he found on the floor of the car that he knew weren’t his could simply be thrown away. Right into the trash. Where the bad thoughts belonged. Just focus on the good. He had a spacious two storey house. A successful wife and … strong willed daughter. He was a good cook! Daphne always wolf downed the meals he made for her. She was a growing girl… He kept the house clean and neat. Well… most of it. He thought back now and pictured stained women’s underwear on the floor, daring him to play housemaid and whisk it away to the laundry hamper. His lazy daughter would never do it. She was too busy-.... Then a flash of that image… of Daphne on her bed, sweating and dripping pussy juice all over the sheets.

But that wasn’t the only suppressed thought reasserting itself into his tidy mind. There had been… sneaking. The wine had made it seem like a good idea at the time. A warm, cozy plan to finally put the last bit of his ‘perfect’ little world in place. He remembered the pile of dirty tanktops. The smell of Daphne’s exertions as he hugged them to his chest after… he’d gotten caught. Caught cleaning? No… caught spying. Had he really gone in there to pick up her socks, or had he hoped to see that strong, athletic body in the quivering midst of another, sweaty, hormone fuelled session of self-love?

A twinge of guilt… then a flush of panic. Casey saw his reflected eyes widen as the wine coloured haze receded like a tide and the sordid details of the night all flooded ashore. The fwash of cold, shocking water. The shadow of Daphne over him, heat and anger radiating off her wonderfully solid form. Her hand… the soft, searching fingers… that firm grasp. He gasped at the memory, his own grip tight on the edge of the sink. She had snarled at him. Squeezed him. Made his knees tremble. Pressed her relentless strength against his scandalous hardness until… Until that shameful, heavenly spill… the memory of it pulsed. Over and over. The heat of it. It had just kept going. There had been so much of it. He remembered being on the floor, looking up after eternity had passed, and no time had passed, to see his sticky, rotten shame all over Daphne’s fingers… and then she tasted it. He remembered that smile that cut across her face. His heart fluttered at it, at watching her lick her knuckles clean like a lioness after devouring a kill. He remembered how he had begged… like prey…

The ensuite felt cramped. Confining. Claustrophobic. Like the room had been filled with his confusing, disgusting, beautiful, lustful thoughts. He turned to escape, to run from the leering man in the mirror. His fingers knocked over a white ceramic tortoise, hexagonal holes in its shell holding a pair of toothbrushes. It half turned, half spun, falling through the air. It had been a wedding gift. The first one they had unwrapped, he remembered. Exactly the kind of thing Charlotte would appreciate… and just like her cute little turtle husband. A perfect gift. It shattered on the cold bathroom tiles. A thousand pieces of perfect Casey couldn’t hope to put back together.