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When M_ got home to his trailer he found B_ slumped on the sofa.  She was disheveled, her housecoat open and her nightie twisted around her waist, hitched up so her pale thighs were exposed.  Her eyelids were heavy and when she noticed him she smiled drunkenly.

“Hi baby.” she slurred her words as she flopped one hand in a halfhearted wave.

“It’s afternoon and you’re still not dressed.” M_ said.

“I know.” she admitted, “But I feel better.  I could sleep.”

M_ saw the small smudge of dried blood on her inner forearm centred on a pale blue vein under the surface.  The dark blood a shocking contrast against her ivory skin.

“Who did you get it from?”

“A friend.” B_ said, “Please don’t be mad.  Don’t deny me this relief.”

“Who?” he asked again.

“A friend who doesn’t like me to suffer.” B_ said, “I’m so sleepy.  I need to sleep.”

M_ considered, then went to her and helped her up, supporting her weight as he guided her down the hallway to the bedroom and then into bed.  She smelled of fresh sweat and faintly of sexual arousal.  As he tucked her in and stroked his hands through her hair he felt the dampness on her scalp.

“Thank you, lover man.” B_ sighed and closed her eyes, “It’s just for a little while, so I can sleep.”

M_ left her there, his wife starting to snore softly as he gently closed the bedroom door.

M_ checked the bathroom trash and found nothing, then looked under the kitchen sink and found the wadded up tissues in the bagged trash bin there.  They were wet and reeked of sex and clotted in the centre was a load of semen.

At any normal time with any other girl, Mac would have kicked the bedroom door open and dragged her by the hair back to the living room where she’d whored herself for a shot of heroin, and slapped the truth out of her.  But these weren’t normal times, nor was B_ another girl, and Mac felt so very weary.  He suspected who had defiled his pregnant bride and pushed poison into her veins , but that was too painful of a betrayal, so he pushed the thought away, it being too much to bear.

M_ dropped the tissues back in the trash and closed the cabinet door then sat heavily on one of the kitchen chairs.  How could this be happening?  How could things have gone south so quickly?  The Grim Sister’s fortune was a curse, he decided; a fair promise that had turned foul as it rotted in his hands.  M_ laid his head down on the table and wept, feeling the sickness inside him and ashamed of the sound he was making.

It was the sound of a hopeless man.

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