Bubbles

Nora stepped into the bath tub; the water burnt her skin in the most pleasant way, like collarbone kisses and butterflies. Slowly she let herself sink into the water, resting against a lover's hard chest, thick steel built below the surface of his skin. She closed her eyes to the world and just let herself live in the water. Henry’s fingers were snowflakes on her stomach, touching the tiny growing child beneath the love of her belly. All she could hear were the pop of the white bubbles, like the sounds of a crackling fire on a winter's eve. Under the heat of the silk water, all her worries leaked from the labyrinth of her mind and dripped into the water, still confined in the tub like fish in a bowl. Nora was gone, stuck beneath the bubble mountain in a world of her own. Slowly, she let her eyes open; the world came back to her, her troubles swelling inside her head once again. The man behind her disappeared, the familiar rough of his stubbled chin and gentle, eloquent voice was gone. It was just her and her body, sunk in an old bathtub and one lonely infant stuck just below her ribs. The last gasps of air slipped from her lungs, vanishing into the bubbles that crept to the surface of the water. Her lips silently parted, and the air that had gone from her lungs was replaced with water.