He feels like he is the last person on earth holding on to her; that if he lets go she will be lost for all time. It is as though she slipped under the ice and drowned, and he is holding on to the tips of her frozen blue fingers, unable to let go, even though he knows she is dead, because if he lets go, her frozen body will drift down to the bottom of the lake and she will be truly and utterly gone.

‌Floored

She has lain down for the locum on the forest floor. In a den of twigs and ferns left by weekend survivalists, with Achilles guarding the entrance, she has pulled the substitute doctor inside her. For weeks she has imagined how it might feel; the different flesh of this different man. Imagination has cooked her into such a state of desire that now she cannot have enough of him, and as she feels him getting close to the brink of release she says no, no, holds him still, goes dead beneath him, so it will not be over just yet.

But reality is bothering her. She imagined his stubble sandpapering her cheek and that full-up feeling of a man inside you. But she didn’t imagine the damp leaves sticking coldly to her thighs or Achilles panting very loudly close by, as though she is drawing their breathlessness with a cartoonish marker.

She has helped the locum tug down her underwear and pulled him into her. Now it is done. She has completed the circle of unfaithfulness. Should Finlay ever ask her, she will not be able to lie. And if he asks why, she will seek these words. He is bright when you are gloomy. He is attentive when you are neglectful. But the true answer will be I am empty and will never feel full. Empty of what? Of love, of love, of love.

Slowly, then, she says, loosening her arms, allowing movement again. She knows the urge is possession. The excitement, the ancient and animal one of claiming another male’s mate. His thrusts are about obliteration. He is obliterating her husband. She is almost not there. But then, as if he had sensed her thoughts, he remembers her, and is furiously kissing her mouth, like he must resuscitate her, bring her back to him. As though he understood her mind had drifted off from its mooring, and instead of being moved by her lover’s thrusts, had sensed their annihilation of her husband. Tugged back inside herself by his kisses, she finds what is waiting for her is not desire, but sadness. She is full, she is empty. She is full, she is empty. She is full, she is empty. And she has failed.