The Long and the Short of It

Tat. 
Tat. 
Shwoo tat. 

Whipped-up wind gusts buffet tree boughs against my bedroom
windowpanes. Midnight chimed hours ago, and I lie tense
and abstemious in the dark as the telltale snare taps
and nails-on-chalkboard scratches assail my being.

Shwoo. 
Shwoo.

My foggy brain won't relinquish its role as pattern
finder and edgily taunts me to glean a message from the
white noise. I crankily ignore it. The Reliance peach
tree alongside this Victorian isn't a record player
needle I grouse. What about a Morse code key, my brain
retorts. Shut up, I irritably order.

In my four-poster, I finger the horn-handled pocketknife
for the fiftieth time. It's his, naturally. He stores it
in his night table. 

Shwoo tat tat shwoo.

Saw strongly a few times and the main blade would cleanly
sever a half-inch diameter peach limb. 

I positively itch to rise, jerk up the window sash, lean
out, and dock an arm-length branch. Or two. Or three.

It isn't silence I'm after however. 

Not only have I listened, I've eye-balled the peach arms
rat-tat-tatting the framed glass. No rain, few clouds,
and a Full Flower Moon silhouette supple, straight
lengths. Naturally, the leafy twigs must be stripped off.
But the main shoots are perfect for plying across... 

Damn. My analytical hub refuses to click off. Determined
to decipher the raps, my brain commands my wandering,
slurred consciousness: hear!

Tat tat tat. 
Tat shwoo shwoo. 
Tat tat. 
Shwoo. 
Shwoo tat shwoo tat.
Tat tat tat tat.

Triumphantly, my mind boasts: Shorts and longs! S - w - i
- t - c - h. Switch. The universe is in synch with you,
it smirks cruelly. 

Alone though I am, I blush head to toe. Okay, okay, I
ruefully groan, clenching my butt cheeks. Switches obsess
me tonight. I long to cut those virgin peach switches and
lean them there in the corner for him to find. 

For him to balance and test in his strong hand. 

For him to whistle through the air and lash my bared
bottom. 

For him to sting and welt my vulnerable flesh
mercilessly.

But I lie abed and don't lop off any tree appendages. I
continue to fondle the sharp knife, but I present a
sterile threat for I remain curled on my side under the
blanket, assaulted by the twigs' pane-thwacking:

Shwoo tat tat.
Tat tat.
Shwoo shwoo.
Tat shwoo shwoo tat.

Wimp. That's me, I concede, sighing self-pityingly.

Paring those switches would be for naught. Spying them,
he would take each one and crack it over his knee, then fling
the broken, untried sticks into the room's old-fashioned
fireplace, never meeting my pleading gaze. 

My deepest yearnings scandalize him. He's determined to
starve my desires into nonexistence by ignoring them,
believing my resistant emptiness just penance for my
perversity.

Tomorrow when he comes home, he'll strip me and love me
as he sees fit. It won't be bad; just not everything I
want...and need.

Tat tat tat.
Tat shwoo.
Shwoo tat tat.

Indeed.


_______________________________


Story Endnote:

Morse Code:

A   short long
B   long short short short
C   long short long short
D   long short short
E   short
F   short short long short
G   long long short
H   short short short short
I   short short
J   short long long long
K   long short long
L   short long short short
M   long long
N   long short
O   long long long
P   short long long short
Q   long long short long
R   short long short
S   short short short
T   long
U   short short long
V   short short short long
W   short long long
X   long short short long
Y   long short long long
Z   long long short short