Third installment
Dan sipped from a pint of water at the bedside and wondered at the protean nature of Karen's features, It seemd unfeasible that such a peaceful, untroubled face could all-to-recently have been capable of such anger. All apologies he attempted had been met by a vitriolic response;
"Leave me the fuck alone! We'll talk about it in the morning! Don't be waking me up with a fucking hard-on either!"
Not that Karen had had any time for Dan's advances recently, early morning or otherwise. He knew that some women enjoyed sex throughout pregnancy. Some even had an increase in their appetites. It had, however, become abundantly clear that Karen was not one of these women.
Dan had become aware of a resigned expression on his partner's face, her sighs and moans sounding forced. He had immediately withdrawn on such instances and made a piqued retreat to the living room sofa.
He wondered, "At what stage has our lovemaking ceased to be a symbiotic thing, an act of union." He felt parasitic, like an unwelcome virus invading his lover's body. His job was done, she was pregnant, she seemed to be telling him subliminally. As she was now full, she no longer needed him to fill her.
He knew that such thoughts were misogynistic, and he would never have uttured them out loud to anyone, let alone Karen. He could not help how he felt however, and what he felt like was a spare prick in crude terms.
He remembered the last time she had consented to his touch. She had lain there, barely moving, head turned resolutely from his gaze. He also remembered all too well the baleful look she had fixed him with after the act; an unspoken accusation as his semen cooled on her thighs. An acknowledgement that she had colluded in her own violation.
Dan knew that Karen would allow him to make love to her again, but any short term pleasure was vastly outweighed by the long periods of guilt after the deed. It was as if the little fucker was laughing at him, flipping the bird like a squatter moving into a family home, then proceeding to shit on the floor and chuck the furniture out the window.

"This is my patch now," the usurper seemed to be saying. Dan fancied he could hear the mocking laughter; a reedy Muttley-esque chortle. The kind of laugh one would hear when an inveterate 60-a-day smoker has been told a good joke.
"Hang on a fuckin' minute" thought Dan. The laugh was faint but definitely audible. He clapped his hands to his ears, then removed them gingerly. The sound continued.
"I'm not imagining it!" he thought. If anything, the chortling had gotten louder. Cautiously, he placed his hand to his fiancee's stomach, as if testing the temperature of a hob. He detected a small but constant vibration that ebbed and flowed with each wave of the awful laughter.
"Hee hee hee!" A pause for a whistling, rattling inhalation, then:
"Hee hee hee!"
"What the fuck?" Dan said aloud.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Sun 6 Jul 2008, 18:49, Reply)