Stitches
by Vanessa Gebbie
Late at night, when Ann has finally gone to sleep, Frank thinks of sex and unpicks the quilt on their bed.
The fingers of his right hand move in the darkness, seeking out the single cotton thread he left last night. Like a blind man he tamps the quilt's surface, his fingertips alert, electric. They climb corduroy ridges and ditches cut from long-gone working trousers, walk the squares of gingham from Ann's maternity smocks and skate over patches of cool wedding-dress satin.When his fingers find the thread, they stop, one finger marking the place. He slides his left hand beneath the quilt feeling for the counterpoint. And, with infinite patience, he teases at the threads with his nails, drawing them through the quilt, below to above, above to below, until he has undone sufficient stitches and the threads are long enough to wind round his fingers.
Then he winds the cotton once, twice, three times round both index fingers. And he tenses his hands, pulling the threads taut.
He mouths to himself, one, two, three, and pulls his fingers apart, snapping the threads. Ann stirs.
The quilt is old. The stitches very small, precise, tight and even. He knows that in the morning his work will hardly show, that indentations will remain deep in the material even though the threads have gone. And that Ann, whose sight is not as sharp as it was, will not notice her handiwork being undone.
Frank lies there, unsleeping, feeling the blood pulsing in his fingers where the cotton winds, binds them tight, stopping the flow. It is as though his heart has two outposts, two small subsidiary beats. He feels them engorging, swelling, and he holds his hands in the air, stretches his fingers up towards the ceiling, imagines them hot and angry.
Then he puts first one then the other swollen finger to his mouth, feeling the skin hot against his lips. He runs his tongue round the threads where they constrict, feeling for an end, or a slight looseness where he can get a purchase with his teeth.
Frank chews the cotton off his fingers, scissoring it into smaller lengths. He collects the threads beneath his tongue and teases them out one at a time, pushing them to the front of his mouth between his front teeth. Then he bites each length into smaller and smaller pieces until his tongue dries with the effort.
He waits, his mouth crawling. And when his saliva returns, he swallows.
Vanessa Gebbie writes short stories and poetry and is polishing her first novel. She is author of the collection Words from a Glass Bubble (Salt Publishing 2008) and contributing editor to Short Circuit, a guide to the art of the short story (Salt Publishing 2009). Her work is widely published and has won awards at Bridport, Per Contra, Fish and The Daily Telegraph among others. She will be teaching creative writing at Stockholm University in the spring of 2010. For more information please see her website at www.vanessagebbie.com.