Free Domestic Violets by Matthew Norman Page B

we’ve had and all of the regrettable things we’ve said to each other since our first silly fights over stupid shit when we were dating. They all seem to have culminated into that.
    “It’s done, by the way,” I say. “I finished it.”
    I wonder if she’s even heard me, if she’s simply fallen asleep beside me. “Really?” she asks, finally. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
    “It’s been a long time since you asked.”
    I’ve been working on this thing for so long, and now it’s done, but it feels stupid now. Years ago, when I’d just started writing it, I used to print pages for her as I went and she’d read them in front of me. I used to imagine bringing it to her, finished, in a box, surprising her with it.
    “I’ll read it on the train when I go to Boston,” she says, and then she says nothing else. Katie read my novel in two days. This girl who shouldn’t even give a shit took my book to bed with her and snuck away from work to finish it, and my wife wants to save it for her upcoming work trip.
    Anna is absolutely right. I’m not my father. By the time he was my age, he’d published four novels, won two major literary prizes, and left his first wife.
    I wake up sometime later, in the middle of the night. My head is throbbing steadily, my stomach hurts, and I’m sweating. I’m thinking of Katie, because, I realize, I was dreaming of Katie. It was as vivid a dream as I’ve had since I was a kid, so vivid that it takes me minutes to fully accept that it didn’t happen, that she didn’t come into my office, close the door, and start kissing me.
    Beneath our sheets, my cock is so hard that I actually gasp in the dark. My normal, average-as-can-be penis has been replaced with something cartoonish and chemically altered, like a penis from the future. I close my eyes and try to do the impossible, to allow that strange dream thread to continue on again. Katie is there, and she smells like shampoo and her corduroy jacket is the only thing she’s wearing. As I kiss the dream version of this lovely girl, my mind wanders.
    I’ve pretended to suffer for my art, telling my wife and even myself that I’ve suspended my life and stayed at my ridiculous job out of dedication to my book. But that book is done, and I’m lying in bed looking forward to tomorrow because I will walk into that dreadful office and the first person I see will be Katie.
    I don’t want this dream to be over. I want to stay here where I am, but Anna rolls over, sighing in her sleep, and I’m fully awake. Dream Katie is gone. Anna kicks me, and in the perpetual half dark of our room, sighs again, and one sleepy arm drifts back and rests over her head on the pillow. The other arm soon follows and she kicks the blankets down until they rest on her hips. Her nightshirt is pulled against her breast, crooked and tight on her body, and a shadow falls across her stomach. She sighs again, which becomes a soft moan from somewhere deep in her chest. I sit up, and she’s whispering something, but I can’t understand her, more sighs and half words. When she moans again, I recognize it and her breath becomes short and fast.
    “God,” she says, barely a whisper, and she arches her back.
    She bites her lower lip and her face is beautiful but from this angle, in the low, shadowy light, it’s like the face of a stranger.
    “Fuck me,” she says, but it’s so soft that maybe she hasn’t said anything at all.
    I am next to her, listening to her. I want to touch her but I can’t, because she’ll wake up and I’ll have to explain this. I want to touch her, but I can’t, because I’m angry at her and she’s angry with me, and even though I love her, I don’t like her as much as I should.
    She’s right next to me. I’m alone and she’s alone. We have never been farther apart.

Chapter 10
    I watched Letterman all the time when I was a kid, and then in college, but I can’t remember the last time I saw more than his monologue. He’s gotten