There she is. Right there, laying on the bed next to me.

Oh, and how beautiful she looks as she sleeps, how magnificent. Her raven black hair fanned out across the stark white pillows. How striking. I don’t need to touch it to know how silky it is, nor how fine. I know it has no knots, and I know that when she wakes it will be as straight as when she came to bed.

Her porcelain skin too, is beautiful. I reach out a hand, a single finger to stroke the smooth, unblemished flesh on her cheek. My finger moves, of its own accord to trace her lips. Usually she likes to paint them red, but now, while she sleeps, while she dreams, they’re coral pink, and slightly parted. And how I adore to kiss those lips, to press mine against hers, to feel her mouth mould around mine.

My finger trails downwards, to her pale white neck. It is long and slender, elegant and aristocratic, erotic even, for a neck. It represents her. Down again goes my finger, down, down until it hits the silk of her nightdress. I know what lies beneath the emerald silk; luscious breasts that, if touched, will make her moan in pleasure and writhe beneath my tender ministrations. My finger travels through the valley between them, and catches on her navel, far below. This stomach of hers is flat, and taut. She’s ticklish there too, but I won’t tickle her now, for fear she’ll wake.

I move my wandering finger onwards, and reach the dip at the apex of her thighs. How I long to take her now, to fill her with my seed. But my treacherous finger keeps moving, over her soft thighs, and traces circles on her shapely calves. They deserve to be worshipped, for it was these that first enticed me to her, to this enchantress. Just a glimpse of leg through a well placed slit in a dress, but enough to thrill me, enough to make me hers, and hers alone. I, and my finger pass on until we meet her delicate feet, so small and graceful. That first night, at the ball, she danced so alluringly on these wonderful feet.

I move upwards, suddenly struck with a desire to see her hands. They too, like her feet, are delicate and graceful, but on her third finger sits a ring. My ring. The ring that says that she is mine, my beautiful wife. I turn her hand over, gently, gently, I don’t want her to wake. I trace the lines on Her hand. Her love line is short, it seems to have ended, but I know it lies. She is loved; how could I not love her so? Her life line ends soon. I hope it lies. I couldn’t bear to lose her. Above her palm, my finger traces a wrist. I bring my face towards it, trying to catch a trace of a flowery scent.

My eyes flicker up her arm and then I see it. It taunts me, the only blemish on her perfect, porcelain skin. It insults me, claiming ownership of her, where there should be no claim but mine. It mocks me, the one place on her body that I cannot touch. My finger skirts it. I won’t touch it. I can’t touch it. I don’t touch it, but she wakes anyway. Her hand, clutching onto my wrist pulls my hand away from it, and releases me disdainfully. Her dark eyes bore into mine. I feel like a naughty child caught stealing.

“You feel it too.” She whispers, with a lazy smile on her face. “The need to be near to him. Don’t you love him as I do?” I nod my head slowly, but my eyes don’t meet hers. “Perhaps, my love, we could convince him to share our bed like he used to.” Her hands move then, to touch her breasts, and she sighs in contentment.

Then her eyes close once more, and her breathing evens out. Once she would have stayed awake to speak with me, or even just to berate, or to punish me. I miss the things she would say to me, the things she would do to me. Wonderful things, magical things. But now those things are for him and for her, not for I and her. I miss what she used to be. I miss who she was before he arrived in her life, and it appeared on her arm.

I wonder what he would say if he knew I wished that he had never been born, for then she would still be mine. He would kill me, this I know. Perhaps he will, and perhaps in death I should be free of her. Free of this woman who is not her, but who carries her face, her voice, her scent. But even then, I do not think I could be happy. For I am nothing without her, and she is nothing without him.

So I shall serve them both, and I will hope that she returns to me. That her mind returns from whatever land it retreated to in the dark times, when we were imprisoned, alone. But it has been so long already, that I fear she may never come back. Sometimes I wish my mind had followed hers.

I press my lips to her forehead, gently, gently, and I watch her closely. She is not who she once was, yet She is close enough for my heart to recognise her. And so I shall watch her forever, if I must. But I hope she comes back to me.