fiction #9- "presents aren't promises/kisses aren't contracts" part2.

i have no shakespeare this weekend so we off to rehoboth for a short, and i don't know if i'll post until next week, so i figured i should at least put up some more fiction before i run off. my goal is to post again just in time to enter this week's flash fiction friday, since we have until noon monday to complete the mission...meanwhile, here's the next 'chapter':

"As soon as she walks in, you start on her, but it’s her first time like this and she doesn’t like it. She puts up a fight and you can’t decide if that makes it better. But then she breaks away and runs out, shouting something about not using her like she’s your wife.
She didn’t give you what you wanted, and now you’re unsatisfied. Angrier. You want to call your wife and tell her send her new man home to his mother because you’re coming over to claim what’s yours. But you resist.
You’re developing a headache, interspersed with flashes of a thought that’s trying to establish itself but having trouble coagulating into a firm image. You start to feel incoherent in a way you haven’t since your last migraine. The headache isn’t quite at that level but the flashes that make no sense are causing enough confusion that it comes close to those day-and-night-headaches of nothing but pain, in a strange, once-removed kind of way. Maybe you need to sit. That would help. Your doctor's always telling you trying to relax would help keep the migraines at bay.
As you sit, the pictures in your head make a renewed effort to come into focus. You close your eyes and let your head hang back onto the top rung of the chair, allowing the thoughts to come. Through the headache fog you recognize her, looking like the first time you saw her, coming to comfort you. You tell your mind to stop playing tricks because you still have enough clarity to know she’s not in the room with you. But you still let the thoughts come. What else can you do with a headache anyway?
She approaches and stands in front of you, smiling. You imagine that you feel marginally better with her just being there. Your mind takes you to that wedding anniversary in the hotel with the rose petals, back when you pretended to be a romantic for her. You remember her lying on the bed, glorying in all of it, and you standing there, almost wishing she’d open her eyes and see your open disgust. But she didn’t, and you stayed together for years without her being any the wiser.
You think of her face with the red handprint that covered so much of it so easily, and her crying aloud about what she would tell her mother. You remember her choice later to say nothing, and avoid all questions by staying home for a day or two. You remember how satisfied her new look made you, and your subsequent choice to always slap her that way, so you could revel in it for days after. You think of her face on the wedding day, so clean and pretty, and in retrospect, you think you wanted to slap it even then, but you aren’t really sure if you knew that feeling yet. All you know is, if you saw her that way now you would save the kisses for after.
The phone rings and you try not to answer it, but reflex finds you walking over and picking it up. A female voice on the other end is trying to sell you something and what seems to be the same reflex asks her to come over. You point out to her that you are not buying whatever she’s selling, but you would be willing to buy something else that she usually gives for free, so how could she lose...
She’s taken aback and pretending horror at your audacity in that way that makes you think you may have a winner. She sounds like she’s intrigued and you know how to play that to your fullest benefit. You are the international man of mystery. This may be the most profitable telemarketing call ever answered. You’re using your MoviePhone voice and she’s eating it up. You know if you work it right, she’ll be over as soon as she gets off work. And if you employ all your skills, she’ll leave work early."

walk good.