How Things Happen

I wrote this story a couple of years ago when I was entranced by "micro-fiction."  I'm sure the style has acquired many other names by now.  I imagine that this is how married people are.  At least affluent married people.  I like knowing that I re-read this story before posting it because I get to be the first person to judge it, as if it wasn't mine.  It is mine, just when I was a different version of myself.  Maybe the present version of me will re-write it...



How Things Happen

Their wrists were banging together impatiently, waiting for the water to get warmer. Four hands, twenty fingers, all waiting for their turn, like teenage girls pushing their way to the front row of a concert. He asked, "Is the water OK now?" The hairs on his knuckles were knotting and smashed. She said, "Yes, it just fine. Hand me the soap." Her fingernails were chewed down so far that the tops of each finger looked like a newborn baby head, pink and raw and sick. One nail even began to bleed as the water infiltrated that incalculable space between her different kinds of skin. She wasn’t embarrassed, and he didn’t notice. He said, "This soap smells like smoke and birthday cake." He wrinkled his nose and thought about shoving his fingers into her mouth. She said, "And now, so will you." Their wedding bands were beginning to glare at them through the foam. They knocked clumsily into one another and tried making a spectacle of themselves, knowing that they meant something only slightly better than banal.
When he washed, he squeezed one hand inside the other and pulled the soap off like a glove. When she washed she wove her fingers into a little fence and rubbed them vigorously back and forth like cricket legs.
The sink looked blue when it was dark outside. He said, "This used to be charming." He felt like he was betraying himself, washing away all the work he had done during the day. She said, "That was when we were in love." She said it apologetically, but without tribulation. He began to think about what it might be like to touch her with a tainted hand. What it would be like to put a his palm between her legs and know that he was giving her the memory of his day.  He wanted transference, mixing the debris of his tiny existence with the newness of her body’s sexual extrusion. Never in all the time he had known her had she given in and had sex without requiring the ceremonial hand wash. He said, "I don’t mind your germs." He looked at her, not hopefully, but just in case she broke down at that very second, just in case she started to cry. She said, "Thank you," and scrubbed a bit harder.
Usually the wash was a silent one, a routine that required no dialogue or discussion. This time he said, "I feel like I’m going into surgery, like I have to operate on you." He thought about opening up her stomach with a scalpel and squishing around inside her until he found something he liked, until he came out with a souvenir and sewed her back up. She said, "You wouldn’t have the precision for surgery." She didn’t mean to be malicious; she was trying to take away the comparison so he wouldn’t imagine it that way. He pulled his hands out of the sink and slapped them savagely into the clean towel dangling from a hook.  The hook was an afterthought. She looked up nervously, still washing. He crossed the threshold into the hallway and headed for the front door. His ankles were heavy and one hand still dripped a tiny procession that followed him on the carpet. He thought about how dry his mouth was just then. She called after him, "Where are you going?" She still wasn’t sure if he was upset or had just changed his mind about the sex.  The soap was interfering with the signals. He mumbled something about medical school and slammed the front door behind him.