Issue #191 : Underneath It All

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Gerald looked over the sleeping form of his wife. As if sensing the caress of his gaze, she put on a half grin and mumbled something he didn’t understand. A strand of her hair drifted down across her face and he gently pulled it away. She did not wake from the touch but said something else, as if conducting a conversation with an invisible third party.

The house was silent around them as the soft summer night breeze made the window rattle slightly in the frame. He knew that he needed the sleep but it was moments like this that he lived for, the moments that made all the rest worthwhile. Seeing her so content in the bed next to him made him feel his essential worth.

Thunder rolled in the distance and the sound of it made him immediately feel drowsy. He let his eyes close as he prepared to succumb to the tidal wave of inevitable sleep.

As he neared slumber, he smiled at the sensation of his wife’s hands running up and down, starting at the nape of his neck and running down his back. He felt sleep approaching again.

The realization hit him slowly but when it did, his eyes popped open to check the sleeping form of his wife, still lying in front of him. From behind him, the caresses continued, not his wife’s hands but that of something else. He moved to sit up and was immediately stopped as the once soft fingers elongated and penetrated his skin with the now protruding, razor-sharp claws.

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