AFTER ALL

AFTER ALL   After all these years the plain platonic panties in subtle pastel shades are gone: usurped along the linen line by fine-spun lace and slithery silk in shameless shades of flame and darkest night.   After all rejections of my requests for sexy stockings and suspender belts, “so comfortless and cold,” she shrugged and said: they are suddenly re-instated – on hygiene grounds, she says.    After all the meals of dietary neglect to pile on pounds this heedless greed is jettisoned, to leave long legs lithe and lean and muscles toned, as brave and bare-faced off she jogs – her trainer [lover] shares her jaunts. How kind.   After all the sudden sodden superfluity of showers, and unfamiliar perfumes hitchhiking aromatically on the steam, her tied-up hair is loose again agleam with henna and highlights, and nails in nacre and lashes curled.   After all the dozy days of slow reluctant slouching off work I applaud her novel zest and zeal for ‘getting on.’ and laud the [many] extra hours at work each evening, even conferences. [residential ones, of course]   After all the parties where her sometime skittish social skills have hit a new-found high; she dimples, now, and dances much, she sweetly smiles and circulates, and sometimes disappears. I don’t think to wonder why.   After all those less-than-peerless nights I delight, as most men would, in a recent rise of passion and sensual play where a twice-nightly need is not nearly enough and the cute and cosy morning cuddle continues through the day.   I observe, reluctantly, this drift of subtle signs of no known significance until connected each to each. Though friends imply much, I resist: I lack the needed wisdom, wit or will.   And finally, as truth insists, The freeze-framed penny, trapped in trust, Floats, frees itself and downward drops - I catch the blatant meaning after all. What friends and neighbours always knew I now know after all.

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The time I learned of my ex-wife’s string of affairs. I should have realised what was going on long before then – there were certainly enough clues if I’d had the wit to put them together. Lesson: never ignore the washing line and take your turn with the lingerie laundry.

Cliché it may be – but I was the last to know.