I'm half asleep-half awake when Cash finds me. I don't hear him so much as smell him. Normally delicious, today I just can't tolerate his soap. I fumble up onto my knees and proceed to choke and spit and gag into the toilet. Right in front of my husband.
Awesome.
"I'll be out in a minute," I manage when it seems the worst of it might be over.
Even with my eyes closed, I sense Cash disappear from the room. The air feels different when he's not around. It feels emptier, lonelier. He fills every space in my life-internal, external, metaphysical-with happiness and pleasure, and I always prefer to have him around.
Except for maybe right this minute.
Right now, I think I'm better off without him anywhere near.
Before I can get too comfortable on the floor again, Cash returns. He falls to his knees and gently slides his knees under my head until I'm cradled against him. I let him move me around like a rag doll. It's amazing how much energy a lot of vomiting saps from a person's body. I doubt I could get up and walk very far at this very moment.
I rest lifelessly against him, comforted by him even though his soap makes me queasy. The only thing I can think of to do is breathe through my mouth. So I do. And that helps. At least for the time being.
Cash brings a cool, wet dishtowel to my face and makes long, soothing swipes over my skin. Across my forehead, over my temple, down my cheek and under my chin. Over and over he wipes until I'm calmed and feeling a little better.
I open my eyes to find his. They're dark and worried, focused directly on my face. "I'm taking you to the doctor. No arguments."
His eyes are glassy and they pierce me all the way through. He's genuinely concerned that something is wrong with me. Of course, at this point, I'm getting a little freaked out myself.
I nod.
He starts to stand, curling me against his chest like a weighted bar, but I stop him, closing my eyes against another swell of sickness breaks over me.
"Hold still for a second," I beg him softly, curling my fingers into the worn fabric of his shirt. I take several breaths in and out through my nose, praying I don't puke all over his delicious chest.
When the worst has passed, I look up at him. "You know I love you and normally I love the way you smell, but for some reason your soap is killing me again today. I don't know what it is."
He carries me swiftly out of the bathroom and down the hall into the bedroom. Lovingly, as though I'm made of the world's finest and most delicate glass, he lays me on the bed and then rushes toward the master bath. I hear the water running for a few seconds, the rustle of clothes and then, less than three minutes later, he emerges completely naked.
Now, I might be sick, but I'm neither blind nor dead. My body doesn't respond as it normally does, of course, but my eyes and my brain take in all his glory and appreciate every square inch of this man I married.
His wide, wide shoulders are perfectly formed, deltoids round, collarbones straight. His chest is broad and muscular, and his stomach is a set of golden, satiny stairs that lead to the incredible thickness between his long, powerful legs. He's perfect. Quite simply perfect. And somehow … in some kind of cosmic miracle, he's all mine.
I watch as ropes of muscle shift and bunch under his skin as he pulls on fresh clothes. "What did you do?" I ask, feeling a little dizzy just from gazing at him. Despite how icky I feel, he makes my head spin.
"I washed off. Now I'm putting on different clothes. Hopefully I won't have any smell."
"You didn't have to do that, babe."
He pauses just before pulling his shirt on over his head. "I'd do anything for you. How many times do I have to tell you that?"
"One more, evidently," I tease, wishing I felt better.
After pulling his shoes back on, Cash sweeps me up into his strong arms again, kisses the tip of my nose and then wastes not another second getting me out to the car.
φφφφφφφφ
The one thing I can say about being at the urgent care is that the smells don't bother me. It smells clean, but not too strongly of antiseptic. It's actually a nice reprieve for my olfactory sense. Otherwise, the visit is just as unpleasant and humiliating as I expected.
After explaining to both the nurse and then the doctor the nature of my visit-the embarrassing truth about being unable to conceive and my husband's ex giving me an herb to help with fertility-the proceeded to poke and prod me in ways that I never expected. They've collected specimen after specimen and, evidently, they've run test after test. I half expected them to stick something down my throat, one of the only places left a mystery to them, but the doctor made the comment that my stomach contents wouldn't be of any help to them at this point, so long after ingestion of the herb.