Antarctica

 Every time the happily married woman went away she wondered how it would feel to sleep with another man. That weekend she was determined to find out. It was December; she felt a curtain closing on another year. She wanted to do this before she got too old. She was sure she would be disappointed.
Cold was moving in, spilling into the house, filling up the rooms. She shivered. Cold air falls, she thought. Eventually the shivering stopped. Chronic numbness spread through her: she imagined the blood slowing in her veins, her heart shrinking. The cat sprang up and landed on the bed. prowled the mattress. Her dulled rage changed to terror That too passed. The curtain in the next room slapped the wall faster now: the wind was rising. She thought of him and felt nothing. She thought about her husband and her children. They might never find her. She might never see them again. It didnt matter. She could see her own breath in the gloom, feel the cold closing over her head. It began to dawn on her, a cold, slow sun bleaching the east. Was it her imagination or was that snow falling beyond the window panes? She watched the clock on his bedside table, the red numbers changing. The cat was watching her, his eyes dark as apple seeds. She thought of Antarctica, the snow and ice and the bodies of dead explorers. Then she thought of Hell, and then eternity.