Cabbages

She sat with her ass on the edge of the bed, and her back turned towards me. She had just realized she was going to be late for work and was rushing about the room, picking up black shirts from the floor, smelling them, throwing them into a pile, like the harvester of some strain of strange cabbage. She found the best-smelling cabbage and went into the closet.
When a woman begins to change her clothes in a closet, with the door open only a crack, or in the bathroom, or when she kicks you out of the room to change her clothes, when before she would change before you openly, plainly, without any thought to hiding the wonder of her nakedness, when she does that you know you’ve done something to change her thoughts of you.
When you’ve been lovers and it was the consummation of a longing that began the instant you really knew each other, two years back, that time you ran across her at the hobby store, you were looking for a picture frame and maybe her because you’d seen her car in the lot, and you left together and had drinks and got drunk together. And the two of you talked on your bed and would have kissed in another lifetime, maybe if she were Audrey Hepburn and you were, say, Carey Grant. When you’ve been lovers like that you know you’ve done something wrong.
She used to have the urge to display her body to you, to dance toward you, then away, to show you that what had been yours five minutes prior was not really yours, but was for everyone she loved. She would stand before you, her nipples like twin ruby medallions, her pubis, her ass, still visible through her underwear, and you would be happy sitting there on the bed and you would be happy knowing you could never have her. Back then she would purr like a cat being scratched when you’d brush your lips across the back of her neck.
But now you’ve been demoted, chopped down from your mighty tree, and now she changes in the closet. You’ve done something, all right! You maybe didn’t WOW! her in bed that day, or you said something in passing she thought insensitive about another woman’s ass, or you bored her, or frightened her, or maybe she just changed her mind while hidden in a closet. She went in still finding you intriguing and came out in her work shirt and a thick coat. Any which way, it’s your fault.
Hey, I’m not complaining! Please don’t think that about me – I don’t like to be thought of as a complainer. I’m just saying, for your benefit Bub, you had better get used to it. When a woman has no need of you anymore, that’s it for you, and you can’t go around getting all bent up about it. Just be glad you made it into the pile of cabbages.