2. Envy

Envy eats nothing but its own heart ~ Proverb

Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a microscope. ~ Josh Billings

His bedsprings creaked in that all too familiar rhythm. I groaned, turning onto my back. Inches from sleep, inches from his bed, I had been so close to the comfort of slumber, but now, wrenched from the brink, my eyes were wide, staring into the darkness. A paper-thin wall separated me from the bed of the man I loved. And every night, like clockwork, I listened to him make passionate, adoring love to a woman. A fragile, slender, boyish woman.

I hated her. I hated the gentle pout of her lips, the self assured swish of her golden hair, the friendly warmth of her deep chocolate drop eyes. But most of all, above everything, I hated the wetness between her legs. I imagined it’s impossible perfection; lips like the petals of a rose, the pubic hair carefully trimmed, naturally maintained, her labia smooth silkiness, the opening hinting at her red heart. It was more than I could stand.

Before she had appeared, crashed into the simple timetable of our linked lives, my fantasy had been easy to maintain. He smiled warmly, laughed heartily at my jokes, and I could pretend, lying in bed after the TV had been switched off, my hand wrapped firmly around my aching erection, that he and I had gone to bed together, that his lips yearned for mine the way I yearned for him, and that, nightly, we writhed in passion together.

Rooms side by side, both content in our loneliness, I could have settled for it, lived like that forever. If he was alone, I could be alone beside him. The silence allowed me to indulge all of my deepest, most arousing fantasies. But I could do nothing as their wanton moans plugged my defiant ears, and I pressed my pained expression into the cold white pillow.

I found myself disrupting my routine, desperate for the little pleasure I could still enjoy. I took the bus home from work for my lunch hour, stroking myself to ecstasy in the delicious silence of our empty flat. Once I even found myself grinding into his faded sheets, imagining his beautiful body beneath me as I inhaled the intoxicating scent of his just-slept-in bed. I held myself at the brink for longer than I thought possible, my lust almost overwhelming. At that moment, just before I came, I decided I would stay there, displayed happily in my pleasure, until he got home. But the post orgasmic daylight shone very differently and I quickly cleaned up, straightened my clothes and returned to work.

When I got home, she was there, pouring golden wine into our chipped mugs, smiling as though we were friends, and all I could see was the imagined expression of bliss as he looked up from between her parted thighs. I shook my head, banishing the painful vision and downed the bitter, yellow liquid.

My envy consumed me, grew like a weed, clutching around my pounding heart and threatened to burst through my gritted teeth. I felt such unmitigated hatred for this nymphette who had stolen my love’s senses. But as my jealousy become stronger, my lust grew as well and slowly, night by night, moan by moan, the explicit sounds of their coupling came to arouse both my desire and my masochism. I became an active listener and nightly swore I could hear where their wet flesh met. His thrusts were audible and I timed my stroking hand with their fucking, hatred and envy boiling with each and every gasp her parted lips emitted.

The pain and unhappiness pushed the tight fist around my cock to move faster, harder. I cried out pleasure and devastation in equal measures and when I came – strong and violent, the whiteness of my cum marking the burning skin of my stomach, pooling in my navel – it was unprecedented. Perfect. The fulfilment of every unsatisfactory emotion I had ever felt. And I slept deep, peaceful as I had never slept before. Until I awoke and as the sunlight streamed through my bedroom window, so my envy began to grow again. All through the day I nursed jealousy, until, at night, I could assume my position of hateful voyeur once again.

• • • • •

The Seven Deadly Sins
1. Pride
2. Envy
3. Wrath
4. Sloth
5. Greed
6. Gluttony
7. Lust