Cash Machine {MCR}

Silver Clouds with Grey Linings

With his hair in a jet black craze setting wildly across the pillow, the look of certainty slowly took shape upon his face. His eyes squinted open to the harsh sunlight that crept unwanted between the plum curtains that hung proudly from the rods.

"Good morning." Me, doing the inevitable and smiling. I could truthfully state that this was the best part of our morning. After our usual morning salutations, we took a silent two-and-a-half minutes just to admire each other in a sleepy haze, before we rolled into the pit of our sunken-in mattress and embraced each other.

I rolled counter clockwise off into his body which had been lying comfortably in the crater of our old mattress.

"Sleep well?" His voice groggily cracked. With my ear to his chest and his arms wrapped around my waist, I looked up to his shining eyes looking down on me.

"Of course I did." We shared a few warm kisses before retiring to each other's embrace again. "How about you; did you sleep well?" He hesitated on his response, trying to find the right connotation for how, in which, he'd slept. I frowned that he had to think.

"I don't know," Taking my eye contact away from him, I peered at the alarm clock briefly. He followed my gaze and submitted to the painful and mentally waring, portion of our morning ritual. "I keep having this nude dream..." He'd begun to say something that I can't quite recall, as I began to chuckle.

"I don't mean to burst your bubble there, but, you are nude." I retorted sarcastically, giving a small giggle as he shot me a dirty glance. Sitting up, and swinging the blanket off of his knees, he stood and stretched. His body popping and briefly aching, letting the sunlight sheeth his fair figure.

"No shit, Captain Obvious." He retorted as he made his way to my side of the bed. Without him being aware, I placed a firm slap on his bare left ass cheek. "Ow!" I giggled in pleasure. "And it's suppose to mean something," He replied in an ironically informative tone. "I read it up somewhere that it means that I'm battling some kind of insecurity..." He mumbled low, under his breath as he shrugged it away. But it would take a lot more for the doubt in his voice to go unnoticed.

As talented and ambitious as as he was about his work, he'd been insecure because he hadn't been doing what he set out to do after college. That, more than anything, had bothered him the most. He was a failure in his own eyes, his own worst enemy at times. He would allow himself to get the best of him, and most of the time over-think or second guess his decisions. Never letting that fleeting feeling of instinct in his gut, do the deciding.

In a more serious tone, I sighed softly. Planting my feet down onto the chilled, wooden floor boards. Standing up, I heard them creek under the balls of my feet. With the blankets draped down around my ankles, I softly took his free hand that had been dangling at his waist. Firmly wrapping my body against his soft exterior; taking in his morning scent.

"You are your own worst critic." I softly brushed my cheek against his soft shoulder blades. I stood there peering up at the largely formatted painting that hung above the wire framing of our headboard. It was a watercolor painting on a large piece of stretched canvas. It depicted a woman, casually and leisurely, taking a bubble bath. With her leg out-stretched and her toes pointed, her raven locks pinned up behind her and her smile never leaving the surface of her delighted face. That woman's happiness and joyous expressions never faded; not even after being laid-off twice and almost becoming borderline homeless. Her overjoyed expression never faltered after two years of living from paycheck-to-paycheck, she was remotely unaffected. All because she had him.

"There's nothing I can do about that, I can assure you," He was wrong, but all I could do was listen and try and help in inadvertent ways. If my opinion was being conveyed indirectly, he wouldn't be able to debate it with me.