The Comfort Zone

Marion stared at the clock. She had been watching the time for the last fifty minutes, but now it wasn't the hour that bothered her - about a quarter past three in the morning - but the design of the timepiece. It was made to look like an antique, a faded white face framed with brass, but even Marion's untrained eye knew that it was a copy. What sort of person would choose a reproduction alarm clock? She wondered whether the bell worked or whether the alarm would be a disappointing electronic imitation. For a moment she was tempted to set the alarm for ten minutes later, just to find out, but that would mean turning on the light, and she had forgotten where the switch had been.

Having considered the alarm, her attention was drawn to the tiny noises in the room. In the distance, on the other side of the curtain, a car's engine rose and fell and was gone. She waited for another, but nothing came and she concluded reasonably enough that few cars used this street at night; it was after all on the edges of the town centre.

Breathing in, she momentarily caught the scent of an expensive perfume, and she rolled easily onto her back, eyes now fixed on the ceiling. Another car passed, quieter this time, and its lights traced a path across the swirls of white plaster. She thought back to all the rooms she had lived in, stayed in, slept in, and could not remember any ceiling that had been any other than flat. Marion tried to place herself inside the mind of the person who could have designed such a ceiling. Had SHE had it done? Had he? Certainly there were a few signs that he had contributed to the general layout and decoration of this house.

And he was lying there, breathing very faintly, his back to her. He was still naked but he had pulled the duvet right up to his neck, and only one small pink ear showed through the thick black hair. It was not that they had never shared a bed together. Of course they had. There was a hotel they would go to when they could both get away for an afternoon, or perhaps occasionally an evening. Afterwards they would lie together, but it was only now that she could recognise the sterile scent of freshly laundered hotel sheets on the beds they hired. On this bed, his bed, he hadn't even put on fresh sheets.

She rolled back, sliding her body against the cotton sheet so as not to pull it and awake him, to stare again at the clock. Ten past four. She was on the wrong side of the bed. She had told him. She felt her blood rush through her heart, fill her head and then the pressure fell away. Her body pulsed with the adrenalin.

She had told him, and he had ignored her. They had never before fallen asleep together. Previously, once the embrace was broken, he would get up first, stretch (making a very public display of flexing his biceps), and go to the toilet, washing himself at the sink. He would walk back in, smile at her, and tell her he had to go. But this time it had been different.

Marion thought back through the sequence of events. They had ended up in their familiar embrace. She expected him to get up and perform the routine that she knew. But he didn't. Instead, he kissed her on the forehead and told her that they should get some sleep. She had replied that she was on the wrong side of the bed, that she always slept on the side that he was on. He had laughed dismissively, kissed her with a finality that told her he was about to go to sleep, and rolled over, pulling the duvet up to his neck. She had wanted to protest, but this had happened so suddenly, and he appeared to have gone straight to sleep. Surely there was nothing that she could have done.

Then she remembered how he must have chosen the side of the bed as he rolled off her.

Marion reached out her hand to the clock, because her eyes had now become accustomed to the dark. She felt for a spindle at the back and saw that the one she chose moved the alarm hand. She set it for thirty minutes later. There was only one switch that she could feel, and she moved that into what had to be the 'on' position. Carefully replacing the clock on the bedside table, she scanned the pile of books. Trashy fiction, not her style. She hated bedside tables made of pine. The light fitting on the lamp showed poor taste. Nothing in her line of sight resonated with who she wanted to be. The smell of the unfamiliar perfume filled her head, seemed to be oozing out of the sheet, the duvet, the carpets, the walls, the ceiling.

Marion rose silently, barely breathing, and collected enough clothes to be decent. Once downstairs she found her coat, her shoes, her handbag and her umbrella. She checked that her phone was there, and walked out of the door.