Throughout the years, both Audrey and Pink grew distant from each other. It was both of their faults, though neither one believed it to be theirs.

She found her husband disappointing very quickly. As it turned out, making it in bed was a crucial part of their relationship. If all was right in the bedroom, all was right in the world. But things were pathetic in the bedroom. If she wanted sex, Pink would ignore her. It grew to be too much.

One day she got home from work to find Pink in the bedroom watching television. That wasn't new; he always had his face glued to the telly. She tried for one final time to get him to notice her. Slowly, she removed each article of clothing, peeling them off one by one until finally her breasts stood bare on her chest. Pink hadn't taken his eyes from the screen through all of this. She climbed onto the bed and purposefully shoved her breasts right under his nose. He leaned to the side in order to better see the TV. Audrey's heart broke then, but she didn't show it. She kept persisting, trying to get Pink to at least take attention to her. He ended up almost on his side, vainly trying to follow the football game onscreen. She gave up then, and left him to his ball game. Only when she was out of the room did a single tear drip down her cheek, soaking into her skin. She shivered, though she wasn't cold, and compensated for Pink's lack of caring by rummaging in the fridge for something strong to drink.

He was always away on tours, and she read about his shows in the papers. Apparently he was a very good performer. Audrey had never seen him perform. The only reminders of his fame were the awards that were shipped to her house, every few months. She busied herself in keeping them clean while Pink was away. Never mind that he didn't even look at her when he came back, let alone the awards.

She had long known of the presence of drugs in the household, and caught whiffs of them from the bedroom when she was staying up, late at night. It seemed funny to stay up all night in separate rooms, letting the silence between them grow thicker and thicker. By all rights Audrey should have run to the bedroom and let her husband in with open arms. But he wouldn't have taken her in. Sometimes, in the rare nights when she had the bedroom, she could hear Pink out in the living room, pounding away at his piano.

"Hello," she said carefully, tiredly, but smilingly as she returned to the house. He sat at the piano, plonking out chords. Audrey leaned over the piano and waved a hand in front of his face. "Is there anybody in there?"

Slowly, his vacant, drugged out eyes turned onto her. He stared slack-jawed into her face, gazing as if she were a new form of life on a distant planet.

"Do you remember me?" she asked, invoking sweetness. "I'm the one from the registry office."

He blinked, and then dropped his gaze to fall back on the piano keys. Sighing, she hurried back out the door, unable to take any more of it. No more of this…

She probably wouldn't have left him if she knew what was going to happen next.

The record company was thrilled with Pink's overnight success. True to their word, 'Another Brick In The Wall' made millions, and Pink was whisked away from his old life and into a new, upper class society of sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Everything should have been perfect.

There was one problem with the wife, however…

She was always hounding him about sex- for sex was the word for what she had done to him that first night, as he had found out. A one-syllable word of darkness and stifled fear. He tried to ignore her, but she kept getting on his case about it, undressing before his very eyes. Why did she want it so badly? Pink turned to the television for solace- it was something to do when he wasn't on tour. He also had his first run in with drugs, and found that he liked them very much. They helped deaden the pain of being mistreated by the world, helped fill in some of the empty spaces of the wall where he and Audrey used to talk. Had they ever really talked at all?

Pink was on top of the world. He had it all. And yet, something was missing. One night, a night when he was off tour, he sat awake and stared at his sleeping wife. She still inspired something in him, that dirty feeling that he had no name for. He knew what the results of it were- he had found that out on their wedding night, and even then the feeling wasn't entirely quenched. Should he try again, indulge her in this little thing called sex? They had had some wine before bed, which was probably why she was sleeping with him at all. Pink extended a hand towards his wife, meaning only to touch her on the shoulder, but she rolled away from him in her sleep, as if he had hit her instead. Feeling low, shameful, and lonely, Pink sat up in bed and hung his legs over the edge, rubbing the back of his neck and his hair. He wanted something so very badly- he just wasn't sure what it was he wanted.

One glass still sat next to the bed, a glass filled halfway up with wine. Pink remembered leaving it there before trying again to do what the wife wanted him to do. He reached out with his foot, not sure what he was intending to do. His toes tipped the glass over. Red wine spilled out, saturating into the rug like a bloodstain. Pink hurriedly climbed back in bed. He knew he should clean up the mess, but he was too tired and too weak, too afraid. He fell asleep in the wall's embrace, and dreamed of ways to fill up the holes where bricks had not gone.

Shall we set out across this sea of faces in search of more and more applause?

Shall we buy a new guitar? Shall we drive a more powerful car? Shall we work straight through the night? Shall we get into fights, leave the lights on, drop bombs, do tours of the East, contract diseases, bury bones, break up homes, send flowers by phone, take to drink, go to shrinks, give up meat, rarely sleep, keep people as pets, train dogs, race rats, fill the attic with cash, bury treasure, store up leisure, but never relax at all, with our backs to the wall our backs to the wall our backs TO THE WALL AGAINST THE WALL

Pink woke up screaming. His bed felt cold- the wife had already left for work, leaving not even an indent of where she had lain the night before.

He didn't see her again after that. He had to fly to America to perform on another leg of the tour. He hated America, but he wouldn't tell anyone that, last of all his manager. They would just force him to perform even more than he already was booked to. The thought never crossed his mind to tell his wife that he was leaving. He didn't know where she was anyway.

The trip to America didn't last long. Pink filled up the time by sleeping and smoking his drugs. He barely got to see the outside world before being herded into a limousine by his attendants. The windows were too darkly tinted to observe the city carefully.

Night after night Pink immersed himself in the secret world of sex. He knew of one way to fill up the empty spaces- groupies. No matter where he went, there were always groupies on hand, waiting to see if he would want their services. Sometimes he took them back to his room and let them indulge themselves, but most of the time he watched the antics out of his window and imagined what would happen if he decided to make an appearance. The rejected groupies always glared daggers at the one who was chosen, the lucky woman who got to undress Pink and learn the movement of his body. He had a feeling that the ones he chose were shunned by their fellow women afterwards. As for himself, Pink tried again and again to understand the allure of sex, but he always ended up feeling… strange in the morning. As if he'd gone too far this time. However, he couldn't learn from that emotion, and continued to call the women to him. "I am just a new boy!" he would yell to them, and they'd come flocking over. "A stranger in this town! Where are all the good times? Who's gonna show this stranger around?" The groupies would push themselves into his face, and Pink would make his selection, hissing in her ear, "I need a dirty woman."

But it wasn't these random groupies he wanted, not the faces that he forgot in the morning. Often Pink would think of his wife, the one he had left at home. He tried to call her one afternoon, as the light slowly drained out of the sky, transforming into evening. He stared at the Polaroid he kept beside his bed wherever he went. It had been taken in happier days, when he and Audrey were still dating, and the smile on his face was at least semi-real. Now he wasn't even sure if he could call that emotion back. Pink had fallen slightly ill here in America- he supposed the climate was giving him a cold, or allergies - and coughed as he waited for someone to pick up on the other end of the phone. No one did. If Audrey was there, she was letting it ring off the hook. Pink gave up and disconnected the phone line, bringing the wires up to his face as he rubbed at his temples, trying to help his headache dissipate. He always felt rather scared when he was sick, as if death could come any minute. He rolled over and hugged a pillow to his chest for comfort, thinking about his wife and his mother and all the women he slept with at night.

He only tried to reach her one other time. Just one other time. Afterwards he was in no state to even think about her again.

She ran out of the house, unsure of where she was going, just knowing that she had to get away from the deathly quiet of her home, away from the silent Pink. She stopped running when she came to the end of the street, and noticed a parade marching quietly down the other side. They were waving signs protesting the war. She had forgotten there was a war going on. How trivial her husband's lack of interest in her seemed when placed next to a life-threatening crisis.

She didn't have anything else to do but join them. They welcomed her into the group warmly and handed her a sign. Under the deep gray sky where rain should have fallen, the rallyers shouted and she bent her head to hide her tears. If they had noticed them, would they have thought she was moved by the protest, or would they have seen through her? She wasn't sure if there was anything to see through. She didn't know why she was crying herself.

The leader of the group certainly had a charisma about him. He roused the group with a smile on his face. After the march was over, he thanked everyone who had joined and announced that he was giving a lecture against the war the next afternoon. She felt him glance at her, briefly, as he said he would love everyone to make it. She went on home, feeling a little more whole than she had when she had left. The feeling didn't stop even when she found that Pink had left the house. Even when he didn't return for the night. She had known that he had a tour to go back to. Two continents could not separate them fast enough.

She ended up going to the lecture the next day. As he talked, she could feel herself leaning in. He was a handsome man with a lovely voice, better than Pink's, even. And Pink sure had a handsome singing voice… For a moment she put her hand to her face, right in the middle of the audience. The man seemed to catch the motion, and gave her a one-second reassuring smile. He held her spellbound.

After the lecture, when everyone else filtered out of the room, she stayed behind. She watched him pack up his things. Then he turned around, spotted her, and cracked that charming grin again. "You're still here?"

"I guess I am," she murmured, smiling back. "I'm Audrey Pinkerton."

He took her hand in a gentle but firm grip. "Stanley Richards, at your service."

They talked in that room for what felt like hours. She didn't give a thought to the words that were pouring from her mouth. All she knew was that finally, finally, someone was listening to her. Finally. Stanley hung on her every word with intent rapture. She found herself laughing when he spoke, something she hadn't done in quite a while.

She managed to invite him to a local pub for a few drinks. As they walked down the street together, his arm in hers, she realized that neither had said a word about their families, their personal lives. And to Audrey's surprise, that was all right with her. She didn't want to know where this man had come from, and she didn't want to know why. He was her savior, having rescued her from her old life and given her a new purpose.

Together they knocked back drink after drink and grew closer and closer. Finally, as the pub announced its shutting down for the night, she leaned in to her newfound partner and asked if he wanted to come home with her. His eyes sparkled with lust as he nodded. She left the pub with her man, feeling excited in so many ways that she had never felt before.

It was dark by the time they got home. At last she surrendered to his touch. They could barely keep their hands off each other as he angled her to the bed, falling down among covers. Fireworks went off below her skin. She had never tasted such freedom.

When their first performance was over, Stanley took her in his arms and snuggled close. And the phone rang. She broke away from their kiss to stare frightened at it. Her man handled it, reaching over to lift up the receiver. "Hello?" It was only a matter of seconds before he hung up again. She didn't want to know.

The phone rang again. Again, Stanley answered it. And again, he dropped the receiver with a clunk. "Someone's crank calling you. Just let it ring." They melted into each other once more.

Yet Aubrey's last thought before falling asleep was, I'm sorry, Pink.