She Screamed

by Pervin Saket
(Pune, Maharashtra, India)

She screamed and she screamed. She fell back, her body limp and tingling.

He rolled over, still holding her waist, and grinned. “You’re welcome.”

She laughed and bounced a pillow over his head. “You wolf! I’m not a scoreboard. It hurts.”

She pulled her knees to her chest and hugged them, thin contours of perspiration rested along the crevice between her breasts.

He kissed her eyelashes and his breath warmed her face. He grazed her eyelids with his lips, moved lower and nibbled her cheek, until finally he found her lips. They were open and trembling and he wrapped them in his tongue.

Her arms enclosed him and her uneven fingernails scratched his back. He liked that, she knew. After ten years of marriage one knows a lot. Including that they never made love more than once a night. No, not even on their honeymoon. And tonight, they had already had two sessions and he seemed all geared up for another.

She bit his lips and sucked at his tongue, digging her nails deeper into his skin, but still the tear found its way down her cheek and to the corner of her mouth. She felt its salty taste on her tongue. The dam broke. Heavy drops fell on her mouth, which they both swallowed.

Why didn't he notice? She pulled her face back and stared at his wet cheeks and red eyes. He sobbed too.

She took his face in her hands and licked its wetness. Fondling, wailing, groping, hurting, they ate each other.

Neither mentioned the file in her purse signed by important-sounding men. The two words she hadn’t told him. Malignant tumour. But he knew. After ten years of marriage one knows a lot.



Pervin has published a book of poems, but this is her first published prose. Read more at www.pervinsaket.blogspot.com