I awake to my wife hovering over me in bed. She says she loves to watch her prince in slumber, especially when I stop breathing and then gasp like an injured goose. She purrs that she could spend all night adoring my smacking mouth, the drool escaping my slack jaw, and the way my neck turns like I’m trying not to get splashed by something. She’s never sounded so horny.
A huge bang jolts me from sleep as my bedroom door flies open. My wife is in crotchless panties and says she couldn’t enjoy her wine downstairs watching The Crown because my chainsaw snoring pierced her like Cupid’s shaft.
I’m staying overnight in the sleep lab. I text my wife a picture of myself in a medical tunic with a nasal cannula and electrodes wired to my face and head, with the caption “Feeling sexy haha.”
She replies with a juicy peach emoji and photos of duck lips, tongue, and a full nip. “Show me what you’re really hooked up to.”
I text back, “They aren’t studying my dick?”
My wife dims the lights and puts on our mood music playlist while showering. After Lionel Richie, she’s added an autotuned sound recording of my snoring set to an R&B backing track. To make myself irresistible, I spritz her favorite cologne on the sheets and fall asleep open-jawed with my head hanging backward off the bed. She climbs me like a rocking horse and tells me to gasp like the bad little gander I am.
My wife begs to come along to my CPAP fitting. We choose a nasal mask that doesn’t cover my mouth, and the technician talks us through attaching a bendy air tube and tightening a chinstrap to shut my mouth so pressured air can’t escape. My wife listens with misty eyes like John Keats is reading her a sonnet. She pokes at my cheek, making little moans like she’s savoring lava cake until the air pressing into my nose hisses out my teeth.
I get into bed with the CPAP running. My wife lifts my tube gently and voices the tenderest elephant trumpet. She kisses me, and air gushing into my sinuses fills her mouth. “Blow my hair back, noble pachyderm,” she pleads, turning up to expose her neck. I try to say, “With pleasure,” but as soon my mouth opens, I blast her like a ’90s Pantene commercial.
My wife has replaced our framed wedding photo with a Photoshopped version. We are facing each other in the woods, exchanging vows. Strapped to my face are the mask and tube. On the other end of the tube is my wife’s mouth, cheeks inflated like a sexy blowfish.
My wife is now way into furry fandom and draws muscular elephants sporting bendy-tube erections. I am the elephants.
I brush my teeth in the morning and then notice my nasal mask is covered in lipstick kiss prints. Last night comes back to me with a thrill: my wife thought I was asleep and quietly rolled over to me. The slightest leak of air escaped my mask, and she drew near it and sniffed, whispering, “I’ve got you now, Bane.”
I surprise my wife by showing up at her office wearing a trench coat. Underneath I am completely naked except for the CPAP mask as a codpiece, with tube a-dangling. She pulls me into a supply closet, where there’s a secret cot, and gives me the mind-blowing release of a long nap.
I’m sleeping on the couch tonight. Earlier, I showed her how to use the CPAP on herself, and now my function in the bedroom is pretty redundant.
Planning a surprise anniversary gift: a tracheotomy.