It had been approximately seven months, twelve days, and nine hours since he had last felt the touch of a woman’s hand. Now, as they walked, she brushed her hand hesitantly against his.
Her fingers were small and soft. He sensed the neat curve of the nails and, almost by osmosis, the scent of her womanhood. He touched her palm with his thumb, tightening his hand diffidently around hers. With infinite care he gently caressed it.
As he did so, a thousand furious, howling gargoyles screamed of his failures—as a husband, partner, and a man.
Could he ever love again?
Descriptive vignette. The last line poses the main character’s problem, but I long to see how this character resolves or fails to resolve his inner conflict.
Thank you for your comments Cassandra – and for seeking a resolution to the question the story poses.
I like writing these romantic stories for grown ups – I NEVER do porn, soft or otherwise – and there are a lot more in my latest collection of short stories – “A Sixpence in the Settee” which is available as a Kindle from Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07P7XG36D/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_bibl_vppi_i4
or a paperback (and it really is beautiful said the proud book Daddy) from http://www.frankmelling.com
Best wishes
Frank
The time statement in the first line is not approximate; it’s exact.
Thanks for your comments Glenn. The point of “approximately” was to stress that the character had literally been counting off the months, weeks, days, hours and minutes since he had last felt physically close to a woman.
If he could, he would know how many milli-seconds it had been since he had wanted to touch a woman, the enormity of the absence had been so great.
Clearly, he could not have literally been keeping a chronological record of the precise time – it just felt like that to him.
If you have a look at the response to Cassandra above you can see a link to “A Sixpence in the Settee” which, since I am an English author, is replete with irony! We come out of the womb with satire and irony embedded in us!
Unfortunately, as I’ve been there, trite.
This is good