infinite black

Jennifer woke up. Daytime. Wrecked again, but something was nagging at her, right behind her ear.

She'd been thrilled her husband fucked her that way too — loved it almost as much as making love, well, maybe not quite as much, or maybe exactly as much, it was just different. But every single time before, she'd wanted it first, and he'd given it to her — not last night. She'd hoped it would be sweet; she'd wanted that. It wasn't. Complaining that your husband put you in your place wasn't her style, and she didn't want to dwell on it, especially not when he did it like an actual god. Still, it nagged at her — those little things always did, even the dumb ones, even without knowing why. He wasn't in bed with her that morning. Not that unusual on its own — he was probably out taking care of the girls — but not getting a good morning was strange too. That made three things now. Starting to bug her too much.

She opened one eye. Noon. She'd slept in badly. And Rose hadn't come up with breakfast...

"Stop that. Nothing bad is happening."

She sat up suddenly and found her husband sitting on the couch, watching her.

"I swear to you, nothing's wrong."

He wasn't lying, but he'd said "nothing bad" first, then just "nothing" — so something was happening, just not something bad. Last night had been deliberate — he'd needed to wear her out, needed her to sleep straight through until now.

"What are you up to."

"Sometimes I get curious what life's like with that brain of yours, but usually I just end up staring off like a cow watching traffic go by."

"Nick!"

He was enjoying torturing her a little — given the gift he was about to give her, he figured he'd earned it.

"I just did something monumentally stupid."

"You're scaring me."

"Not at all, you know nothing bad's happened, but not knowing what is eating you alive."

She'd forgotten — the damn smell. No cards left to play.

"I give up."

He stood, walked toward the bed.

"You? Give up? You never give up, that's exactly why I love you like crazy, and exactly why I just did the most stupid thing I've ever done."

At the edge of the bed, he turned around, showing her his back.

"Nick, what—OHOHOHOH MY GOD."

Her panties hit the floor, metaphorically — if she'd been wearing panties, it would've punched straight through the center of the earth and turned up in Australia... on its way out to orbit.

Nick had a massive tattoo covering his entire back — folded angel wings, insanely realistic.

She crawled toward him and started running her hands along his back — couldn't touch the wings themselves, they seemed to lift right off his skin, absolutely perfect, a dream come true, except it wasn't a dream at all, it was as real as anything, even if he couldn't see it — he couldn't, but he'd done it for her anyway. She needed to hold him, tell him how much she loved him, tell him he'd come to save the world, that none of his sins mattered, they never had, that he'd arrived to carry them all to heaven, and it was a certainty, a science — she wanted to say so many things, but her body wouldn't let her, her body didn't care about any of that, just saw the sexiest thing she'd ever seen in her life, and the fact that he'd done it for her... god, the words would have to wait, instinct took over, her legs already giving out. He turned back around — beautiful as an angel, no question, a perfect creature — and kissed her. If only he could make love to her from behind so she could keep admiring the artwork. He lifted her, sat on the bed with her on top, sliding into her slow and careful; she lost herself in his eyes, same as always, on that same bed, and then she glanced up over his shoulder and caught her own reflection looking back — the full-length bathroom mirror, on the other side of the room now, god knows how he'd moved it without waking her. The sight of her angel holding her from behind sent her somewhere else entirely for a few seconds; when she came back, she begged him not to stop, wanted to live inside that image in the mirror forever, and he didn't stop. Not once.

They kept going a long time, but suddenly her husband dropped her onto the bed and ran out of the room. She thought she'd caught a flash of something in his eyes — fear. She wanted to go after him but had no strength left, too much between the night before and today; she regretted asking for so much, that he never told her no to anything, felt selfish about it.

Terror had connected the dots for her. How much time he'd been spending with Helen — the only one who never asked him for anything — the swearing, the tension, all of it wearing on him piece by piece, and he'd refused to see it, especially not the piece where his own wife had asked him to save all of humanity — how could he have been so selfish, made her get an idiotic tattoo just to fulfill her idiotic fantasies, piled that impossible weight onto the man she loved.

Nick flew down the stairs like the wind, and on the last flight, momentum slammed him into the floor. Helen was in pain — real pain. He shoved her door open, tore it clean off its hinges, and hit the ground with a crash.

Her pain eased up fast. Nick managed to catch his breath, though a wave of fear still hit him — Helen was sitting at the table, tattoo machine in hand, working on her own arm; the pain had come from her tattooing her own forearm.

"Stop, please," he begged, desperate.

"What are you talking about, it's coming out really—oh... sorry."

"Just stop. Wait until I'm out of the... house, or something." He was gasping now, vision starting to blur.

Fear everywhere. Every girl in the house had heard the crash. He couldn't think straight, and his wife — oh god, she was right on the edge, moving slowly through the floor above, terrified beyond measure, sadder than he'd ever felt anyone be, ever.

He had to save her. God, what was he doing, terrifying all of them. He tried to run to his wife, tried to want to, but he couldn't — he was just falling, falling into infinite black. He felt her slipping further away, wished he could actually fly the way in the dreams that amaze her. He could save her instead of falling, but the wings were tragically just ink, failing her, unable to keep his promise, not the man she deserved, never had been. The darkness swallowed him whole and there was nothing he could do about it.

In that hotel bathroom, he watched Jennifer flee in terror after confessing the truth to her; he couldn't breathe. The man standing in the water looked back at him — wore his face — watching with a sadistic, inhuman expression. He'd never felt fear like it.

Then, mercifully, he stopped feeling anything at all.