The rest of the weekend was otherwise uneventful. The newspapers ruffled discreetly on Serene’s lap. She was no longer wielding her sceptre like a firebrand in the night. Thus did the female ego prevail over the weekend. But on Monday night, Danny brought home some flowers and hey, presto! He finally moved back into their bedroom. By bedtime, the baby was back in the baby’s cot. Dick sat up attentively.

But Dick was somewhat confused. The signals seemed somewhat garbled. The special smile was absent from Danny’s face. When Dick hopped into bed with Serene, it was not the soft inviting lady he used to find on such nights. She lay stiffly on one side of the bed, waiting for Danny to fill the void on the other side.

Danny flashed Serene an exploratory smile.

‘Good night.’

The lights went out.

‘Good night,’ Serene echoed.

The curtains danced gracefully in the evening breeze, mocking at the stillness in the room.

‘So, tell me about the video tape.’

Danny’s eyes sprang wide open. He froze.

Dick’s ears pricked up instantly, like antennae homing in on the signals. Lying between the two of them, he was in no man’s land.

‘It’s just a tape,’ Danny mumbled guardedly. ‘It was a silly idea anyway.’

‘But you brought it all the way home. It must mean something to you.’

‘A criminal offence. They could have arrested me.’

‘But tell me abut it anyway.’ Serene was persistent.

There was a pause. Dick could imagine the cogs wheeling in the man’s brain as Danny tried to fathom whether this was a new line of assault on his male psyche.

‘What do you want to know?’ The reply was guarded.

‘I only caught a short glimpse of it. What did they do?’

Serene had not shifted from her ramrod position.

‘They kissed…’

Danny was not sure what this question was all about. He waited for some reaction.

‘They took off each other’s clothes…’

Still no reaction.

Danny turned to look at Serene apprehensively and continued with his descriptive account of the video tape. At every pause he expected a barrage of insults and condemnation from the other half of mankind. He was on a slow boat up the River Kwai and heading to self-destruction. Or a guilt trip with Sigmund Freud regressing from adolescence to childhood. From his first wet dream as a 13-year-old boy to the unlicensed passions in his Pandora’s box. From the first lewd photograph that little boys passed around under the table in school to the audio-visual explosive climaxes (faked or otherwise) locked up in his closet. He expected judgement. Divine retribution.

But Serene did not explode. Instead, she wanted to know more. She wanted detailed descriptions of all the emotions and sensations that accompanied each stage of the bedroom antics. And Danny found himself speaking more than he had ever done before. He found himself exploring deeper into his sexual being than he had ever cared to. It was not an easy process. There were too many layers of cobwebs and dust gathered over the decades of neglect. Too many layers of masks that hid the soul.

Dick did not dare to move. He could feel the tension in their bodies as they searched for understanding across his no man’s land. He listened as the halting monologue progressed into an adults-only talk show minus the humour. He listened as the descriptions strayed from what he had seen on the video tape to antics gleaned from… other tapes? The other woman? Or the inner recesses of the Pandora’s box?

The questions and answers petered out. The words had to sink in before comprehension could lead to acceptance.

But something troubled Danny’s mind. He wanted some answers as well.

‘You know, before all these things started,’ Danny began vaguely, ‘we were quite close… especially in the beginning of our marriage…’

Serene stared into the darkness between her and the ceiling, waiting for the question to take a more concrete form. The question took a long time formulating itself.

‘… whenever I kissed you then… or touched you then… from head to toe… did you think of it as a sex slave then?’

‘No.’

Serene understood what the vague question referred. There was a pause. Her answer sank slowly into the murky waters of introspection.

‘Why not?’

Serene turned over to face the question and the questioner.

‘Because you loved me then.’

She answered bravely, secure in her feminine logic, a logic that divided the world into those who loved and those who lusted. As clear as the light of day is separated from the dark of night. For her, there was no middle ground.

Dick’s ears pricked up. The radio waves that jostled for attention above the electromagnetic static were tense and volatile.

‘I love you now.’

Danny spoke anxiously, beseechingly. His was a statement. But more than that. It was a cry for love. There was slight shimmer of tears in his eyes, caught in the moonlight streaming in through the window.

‘Do you still love me?’

There was a pause as Serene struggled within herself. A strangled sound escaped from Serene’s throat. She could not speak. Dick could not see her expression. Her face was cast in shadows. But Dick could see her neck muscles tightening with emotion. She reached out across the no man’s land to touch the other’s arm and hid her tears in the bed sheets.

‘Then you wouldn’t be a sex slave, either,’ Danny whispered hoarsely.

His voice was broken too. He was struggling with the torrent of feelings that flooded through his heart like a baptism of fire burning through his soul. He had difficulty speaking.

They had crossed the Rubicon. Behind them lay a chasm of fears and misunderstanding. Beyond them lay an unknown terrain and a new frontier. They held each other for a while. They hugged each other for a moment. It was a moment when even the angels held their breath for fear of disturbing their union. A moment when Dick kept as still as he could despite the crushing discomfort of their combined weight. Except for his tail. His tail was joyfully whisking from left to right across the foot of the bed.

Dick would have barked and pranced around in joy. Members of his kindred did not have difficulties expressing their emotions. But humans… their words failed them at their most tender moments. Perhaps it was the complexity of their human emotions. Or of their speech. Perhaps they should learn to be less complex.

Dick whisked his tail from side to side.

XY

END

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