Excerpt from 'Rain Fragments':

The Man

It’s a hot night. Almost tropical. The windows are open, flung outwards in the hopes of coaxing stray breezes into the room. White curtains twitch listlessly, despondent in the heat. I can feel the sweat gathering on my back, salty pools welling up, prickling drops — there, on the skin of my neck, in the hollow of my armpits, the backs of my knees. If I were to stand up, I’d leave a body print of sweat on this our cotton-covered bed.

Perhaps it will rain. Cool, cool rain. I remember once walking, dancing in the rain as a child. The smell of the rain explodes all around me, more fragrant than any woman’s scent. I can feel it, miasmic, mesmeric, seducing me to another time. Now cool relief pattering on my skin, running down my clean-limbed body, flowing from my feet.

Hard to get comfortable here, even on this bed. She doesn’t seem to mind though, this heat, the rivers of sweat. My wife. My sleeping wife.

Add up the years — how much are they? Ten? Fifteen? I remember that, on the nights of our early years, I used to love to watch the curve of light on her pale breast, the cat-arch of her body above me, the soft, suppressed noises of her pleasure. My skin loved her pliant own so much that they clung together, selfishly, almost painfully, dampened by the sweat of passion.

And now?

I can hear the house stretch, unkinking itself in the heat. The creaks and taps seem to hang in the air before the sound drifts away. A clock on the mantelpiece appears to time my discomfort.

There is no excuse really. For my adultery with a whore. But she has become the rain for me now; she slakes the thirst of my dry self. I do not delude myself. I know she is not love but a vessel for my lust. And money facilitates, communicates. And I do think we understand each other.

I feel my wife stirring, changing position. The thin white cotton-sheet rasps over her skin, the sound subsiding as she sinks back to a deeper sleep. She sighs, and it seems to signal a change. The electricity, the humidity in the air, the sky gives up its burden. On the roof, on the leaves of plants outside the window, splashes of water patter down, and soon it gains a quicker tempo as I listen.

I stand and look briefly at the body print I have left on the bed. White curtains billow out with wind as I lean outside the window and feel on my face the rising crescendo of rain.