Still breathless from the excitements of the previous ninety minutes, she closed the door behind the departed Malcolm and thought through Operation Clean-up. Mentally flicked through which rooms he'd been in, what he'd touched and handled (mostly her...), which traces of his tumultuous presence might need to be removed. He'd come into the hall, straight through to the kitchen where he had wine, swiftly up to the spare room where he had her, and briefly into the bathroom for his own tidy up. She decided to work back from where he'd last been.
In the bathroom there was nothing she could see. He'd put the toilet lid down (good boy!), but she quickly checked for splashes on the seat itself, and that he'd flushed. No mess around the sink or on the mirror, nothing looked to have been moved. One more check in the mirror. Was she herself passable? She nipped through to the en suite, brushed her hair, tidied her makeup, enough but not too much, and decided her clothes were just as they should be.
She moved on to the room where they'd had sex. And stood dreamily in the doorway for several minutes, reliving the passion and gymnastics that had taken place. No, she must get on. The sheets were stained (of course...), but once covered up and the bed made there was nothing to see. She hoovered the pillows for hairs as a precaution, but there really didn't seem to be anything that would be easy to spot. Henry never came in here anyway. May and Doug were coming to stay in a couple of weeks and she'd use that as an excuse to refresh the bedding before their arrival. All was well in the bedroom.
Back down to the kitchen and the most obvious giveaways that she'd had 'company'. Two wine glasses, and a half finished bottle of reisling. And a decision to make. Did she wash both glasses, dispose of the bottle (or hide it? - no, she didn't want her husband thinking his wife was an alcoholic) and hope Henry didn't notice a bottle had gone missing? Risky. Or wash just one, and offer Henry a glass as soon as he got in? She'd rarely got to the point of drinking in the afternoon in the past, so why would she have done so today? This was a question she'd pondered before, and still wasn't sure which option to go with. It would be hard to convince Henry that she'd had a legitimate visitor she'd plied with alcohol, so there had to be a reason for her to open the bottle herself. She'd already dropped any idea which might be undone through someone else failing to back up her story, so it had to be about her. Or Henry. Or because she was cooking something special that merited wine? - except that she had omelettes planned for dinner. In the end the best story was the one that was impossible to prove wrong. She'd simply felt like it. And why not?
One glass washed and dried and put away, another, for Henry, brought out and ready to use beside her own dirty glass. She worried it might give him 'ideas', but that was such an infrequent event nowadays, or why else would she have turned to Malcolm? Another look round the kitchen, but there was nothing to worry about. Mission accomplished.
Henry came in a usual and called out her name. She came into the hall as usual and came up to give him a hug. But before she did they both saw it at the same time. Bright blue, snaked across the top of the console table. She stopped, he spoke.
"Hello, where's this from?" He picked up the tie and looked quizzically at her. She hoped she looked composed, she hoped she looked innocent, she hoped and hoped and her brain raced to provide an explanation.
"I found it beside the gate when I got back in. Do you think I should have left it hung up there in case the owner passed by again? I thought it was a strange thing to lose." And stopped herself grinning at the memory of pulling it off her lover the moment he came through the door.
"Must have fallen out a pocket or something. I doubt he'd know where to look. Nice tie, I might just keep that for myself." He gave her a smile of acquisition.
"OK. Come and have a glass of wine. I've already started." she said slyly. And thought 'I've gotten clean away with it'.
