The humidity had a way of permeating the walls and creating a thin film on everything despite the efforts of the air conditioning. His brow was always covered by a skein of sweat he no longer took the time to wipe with his hand. The skin beneath her hair at the back of her neck, where the atlas cradled the base of the skull, was perpetually damp. In between her breasts and at the small of her back, beads of sweat gathered to ineffectually conspire against their host. His back was slick and the musk that emanated from the couple lingered heavy over the bed.

Ten years ago they would be a mass of tangled limbs and broken cries. Ten years ago, she would have longed to feel the weight of him on top of her and their sweat would soak the sheets.

Now, her resentment for him weighed too heavily on her shoulders. Their coupling never produced what she wanted: a swollen warmth in her womb. She felt she prepared her whole life to be a mother but God had other plans. He gave her the equipment to bare children, the hips to carry them, and two hands to hold them through their life. Yet she fell in love with a man who was incapable of giving them to her. Sex quickly became unnecessary.

Her thighs straddled his abdomen and his hands came to rest, almost tenderly, against her hips. When she looked down at him she could see him thinking of the beer she had promised, it was in the way his eyes glazed over and floated motionless in their sockets.. Her voice was raw and coarse and no longer sought the sanctity of the original three words, the ones that bore no weight to her. For the past couple years she had developed her own:

"Make it hurt."

Her words used to drive a knife beneath his ribs, the cold steel of her tone twisting the blade to stir a series of protests that she would only dismiss with a casual shake of her head. Now, they had a sort of Pavlov effect. His mouth began to water and he could almost taste the hops against his tongue. Where it used to take ten minutes of convincing and begging on her part, now was virtually instantaneous.

The hands lifted and wrapped too eagerly around her throat, his fingers weaving carefully beneath her matted hair. Her eyes sought the way his muscles grew taut and flexed as his fingers constricted about her trachea. The pain was more internal: her lungs vying for air and her brain pulsing in revolt. The heat that stung her cheeks grew until it threatened to consume her.

His eyes drank in the way her thighs writhed against him and her lips parted of their own accord as if to suck in a breath he robbed from her.

A moment passed and she fell limp against him. He pushed her to the side and tenderly dabbed at her fevered skin with the sheets before placing a kiss to her temple and leaving to seek the promised refreshment. Jealously rimmed his eyes as he knocked back the first beer, standing naked in the center of the kitchen. By the second, his thoughts grew more benign.

Tomorrow would be his turn.