Empty Drawer

the prompt:

Let's get all steamy up in here and write about sex.
But you know us. There's a twist.
You can't write about the act. I don't want to read about any heaving bosoms or girded manhood (please tell me someone else giggled besides me).

This is part of Greta's Story, taking place between "Tears Will Fall" and "The Godmother," but it can stand alone as well.

Her hand hesitated on the brushed chrome.

James had been gone for over a month, and she had wiped his presence away in broad swoops. 

Photographs tugged from frames, haphazardly thrown into the trash or crumpled into boxes pushed to the back of closets.  The rug in their bedroom, the one she could finally admit she hated, rolled up and dragged to the curb to be picked up by a faceless woman with a rusted green van and strong, chapped hands.

This drawer held the last of him, the last, fragile remnants of her marriage.

Abruptly, she pulled it open, scooping the contents into her arms and dumping them onto the still-bare wooden floor next to her bed, wishing she would have remembered to bring a box or bag or garbage can into the room with her.

Silken bits of fabric, each holding a private memory, a glimpse into the life with a man no longer welcome in her heart.

Demure white satin pooled on the floor.  Greta had opened the pristine box holding the nightgown in front of her mother at a small, intimate bridal shower.  But on their wedding night, James’ lips sought hers the moment they fell into their room, trailing along her neck as his fingers urgently pulled at the silk covered buttons, the carefully packed negligee forgotten and unworn next to the bed.

She reached out to pull a crumpled bit of red lace away from her dresser.  Blushingly opened at her bachelorette party after a glass of wine, she hadn’t even been able to think about wearing it until after a cocktail on the beach and two glasses of wine three nights into their honeymoon.  She shouldn’t have worried.  James had more shocked than seduced, allowing his glance to linger on the scant lace bits for only seconds at a time before burying his head in her hair, his hands tracing paths his eyes wouldn’t touch.

Greta’s fingers slid into the pile, gently pulling out one of the few pieces that had been worn more than once or twice.  Light as air, the gossamer nightie was trimmed with lace, a soft, delicate blue, calming and familiar.  Even after the harsh words and heavy silences that announced the end of their marriage more surely than the divorce papers, this piece almost brought a smile to her lips as she remembered the comforting feeling of sinking into their bed, fabric billowing around them with a sigh.

Anger stopped her half-formed smile.

Her jaw clenched as she reached for the last piece of lingerie she had purchased.  Sheer lavender silk and black lace, contrived, designed to seduce.  Expensive and flattering, Greta had purchased it and planned its unveiling, offering herself to her husband when she had nothing left to give.

Cringing at the memory, she heard her sighs of pleasure echoing endlessly between her mind and the empty room. 

The morning after, she had woken slowly, basking in the warmth of sunlight streaming across their tangled sheets, a heartbeat passing before she realized he had already left for work.

The warm sunlight was suddenly a spotlight on her mistake.  Desperate, she had spent hundreds of dollars without blinking, counting on the connection she knew she could coax out of him as their bodies met in spaces their words couldn’t reach.

The fabric in her hands had been her hope for reconciliation but had delivered only lust.

Now, she wiped at her tears, unbidden, unstoppable, taking vicious note of the tracks of mascara dragging across the pastel silk.

It was all garbage now.