New suit

She’s upstairs preparing his clothes for another day at the new job when she hears the front door click shut.

He’s home!

See her smile? You could land a private plane on it.

She’s bought him another new suit for this new job for their new beginning. He’s in finance, a financial advisor, helping people with their money without ever touching it. It’s not as bad as being a banker. His friends resent him only a little. But it’s OK because life is now a postcard of Canary Wharf at night and the office lights glow like stars.

On the spur of the moment, she decides to put the suit on, so that he can take it off her.

Then, she tiptoes to the kitchen and hides by the wall beside the door. She creeps it open slowly and peeks in just enough not to get caught seeing what she’s already seen a thousand times before, each time like the first, again, please. He’s wearing the one she bought in celebration. He looks like an Armani advert.

He grabs a bottle of whiskey and hunts down a tumbler in one of the cupboards. He fingers the envelopes she forgot to pick up whilst stroking the rim of the glass with the other hand. Without realising it, she fingers the new silk tie; then runs her hands over her front, thrilled somehow by the feel of her tits sticking out against the straight, manly jacket front. She pulls it around her, tickled by the nearness of his hands caressing the glass.

She enters the kitchen, anticipating a guffaw or a lusty grab.

He doesn’t flinch.

But he sees the door open, and jumps. His mouth is a silent O. His face is scrunched paper. He sips from the glass and stares past her, at the door, at the darkness through the door, behind her.

After a minute, he calls her name.

I’m right here, she says.

He waits a bit longer before brushing past her, and as he does, looks back, seeing the bills on the counter, his briefcase on the floor drunkenly resting against a stool. He walks up the stairs like an old tired man.

He finds the empty suit box on the bed and her clothes lying beside it. He frowns, confused, and sips some more. She left the receipt in the box. He deciphers the figure and drains the glass.

Behind him, she peels off the suit and lets it collapse and fold in on itself to the floor. She forgets about the tie.

That’s when he turns.

He drains the whiskey and she steals some from his lips. He grabs her and pulls her inside him. They fall onto the bed like crashing glass.