A Companion for two

She inspected his collar as he slept on the sofa.  Gravy.  She never cooked gravy, unless it was with the Christmas dinner and as it was mid October, she highly doubted it was from last year’s offerings.  Besides which, this stain was fresh.  He must have been somewhere else last night, eating the food from another woman’s humble kitchen.

Their relationship had changed since Becky had gone back to work after working from her home office four days a week.  Their endless lazy days pottering around the house together, had turned into the odd quiet night in snuggled up on the sofa.  If she went out with her friends she’d come home to find him out too, or worse completely vegged out and comatose on the sofa, which is where he’d remain until the following morning.

Becky had noticed he had been going out a lot more of late, especially in the evenings, which was out of character for him.  She didn’t question him about it, because she felt it was the attention which he was craving.  Instead she left him to his own devices, whilst she stayed at home and pondered over his whereabouts.

The gravy stain wasn’t the first clue he’d been enjoying home luxuries somewhere other  than their small dwelling.  Apart from the fact he’d been putting on a few pounds, he often came home smelling of ladies floral perfume.  One evening in fact, she could almost see a pink haze around his coat, with a sickly rose smelling poison hitting the back of her throat like a dagger to the tonsils.

It wasn’t long before the two of them merely existed in the same residence, dancing around each other’s routines and politely glancing at one another rather than asking where the other one had been or how their day was.  Becky felt intimidated by the unknown and scared of confronting him, just to be given another cold shoulder.

After a restless nights sleep, of him on the sofa and her upstairs listening intensely to each snore, she decided enough was enough.  She got up to her alarm and after her morning routine, got into her car as usual ready to go to work, but instead she only drove it off of the drive and a little way down the road, before she parked up around the corner, and switched of the engine.  She sat and waited.

It took an hour, but she soon caught sight of him walking down the garden path and turning up the street, in the opposite direction of where she hid.  Like a predator watching its prey, she sat rigid, the only muscles moving intentionally were her eye lids and internal organs.

The months of internal questioning inside her worried head and blank looks when she confronted him were about to be realised.  She watched as he shot up the alley way at the end of their street, and she leaped from the car and darted behind his shadow’s ambience.  She followed him for several minutes and even managed to manoeuvre a busy road without him seeing her.

It suddenly felt like she’d swallowed a wasp as her breath and heart both gasped and left her short of air for a split second.  She watched as he went down a driveway and a more mature ladies voice welcomed him excitedly and made kissing noises on the doorstep, before Becky heard the door slam shut.

She watched from the end of the driveway, peering through the branches of the shrubs, with ruby red leaves, almost crisp, but not yet autumnal enough to shed.  Her chest was breathing very slowly, as if each breath was a sound barrier between her and them.

She watched as the two-timing-cheat stood in the kitchen, the modernised spot lights highlighting his swindling face.  His eyes were fixed on the lady in red, his head moving like a clock pendulum as she sauntered around the kitchen.  Becky guessed her to be almost twice her age and was wearing what seemed to be a silk red robe over her black night gown.  Hussy.

As Becky gazed heartbroken into the kitchen of another woman, she could see the two becoming more in sync with each others movements, as the over-familiar female fed him smoked salmon from her fingers tips.  Just like Becky and Butch had once been, the pair looked inseparable.  She had seen enough and although it was a painful decision to walk away, it was clear that her feline companion had opted for the grander standard of living.