The Muted Bride

And so they go around again - silent coldness pervades the air.  Unsaid frustrations, anger and hurt simmer below the surface as they awkwardly meander about the house, both trying to act nonchalant; neither fooling the other.  It is the same pattern of behaviour and with the same sense of beaten down resignation, she retreats into her inner world, playing out the confrontations in her mind, allowing the bitter resentment to grow and fester as her soul slowly decays.  But she no longer risks the naked exposure of speaking her true mind and she no longer tries to smooth the waters, to placate his volatile temper - she is simply too tired.

Inside she is screaming and enraged and frustrated.  There is a passion in her that has been so dampened, the once furious fire that burned and raged inside her simmers in silence, wondering if it will ever be allowed to burst forth once more to light her life and her eyes.  She was once proud of that illogical and quintessentially feminine fury that at once frightened and intrigued him.  It gave her drive and ambition.  It gave her power.  She loved that feeling of power - there was nothing like it in the world and it made her feel so utterly female and sexual.

Sex.  How great that could be.  How totally primal and all encompassing, when they literally breathed each other in!  They didn't make love - it was beyond that and so much more.  It raged from primal animalistic fury to exquisite moments of tenderness when they were so utterly one and when the whole expanse of the universe seemed to reflect in each other’s eyes.  How she loved that feeling of wanting him; of needing him with every fibre of her body.  That deep yearning that tingled and ached with desperation deep inside her, and that made her hunger him, his taste, his smell, his sex.  Together, they had explored each other and others.  Their sexual liberation only served to further strengthen their sexual connection.  It brought them closer together and oh how they got off on it!

She knows that it is still there, somewhere in the morass of work, children, ironing - the banality of suburban marriage.  But at this moment, sitting sedately, anger eating away at her happiness, she is not sure where to start looking, and she is tired.  She is tired of the same old arguments.  Of going over the same ground, of re-hashing worn-out betrayals and hurt.  They never seemed to resolve the seething resentment, never seemed to be able to really forgive and forget, and the bitterness often insidiously worked to flip the coin of emotion from love to hate.