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The Satin Touch

Adriano Vasconcelos

    Nature weaves its trap
    Aunt Vivian dropped the bomb on Albert over the phone: she had the virus.
    At 79, a devout Christian, she lived alone and would not consider an old age home – the elephant cemetery, she branded it – and now she vomited, ran a temperature, felt ill and refused to go to hospital.
    “Young man: at my age, I’ll go there to die, or I’ll survive with a hole in my throat that won’t allow me to speak another word, let alone pray!”
    Vivian was Albert’s late father’s older sister. His daughter, Schylla, and he were her sole surviving relatives.
    Vivian believed that infection had occurred five days earlier, at a card game with pals.
    “Why didn’t you call me sooner, Aunt Vivian?”
    “Young man, I’ll take no reproachful tone from you. I’ll have you treat me with the respect my age warrants. Must I quote the Bible? ‘Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elders.’
Peter 5:5.”
    “But did you do the virus test?”
    “Of course not! I’m told that they drive a swab right up to your brain, fiddle with it so that you can’t think straight. I want none of that – I want my head clear and clever!”
    Vivian had also consistently rejected moving to a smaller place and selling her big two-floor family home with five bedrooms, a lift, two toilets, garage and a backyard with a vegetable patch.
    Albert and Vivian were not close, but she phoned when she needed help. He received that call warily: she seldom thanked his assistance and always found ulterior motives to his actions. He hated having to explain his every move, look, word, or sigh to her.
    “My nurse only comes nights. I could do with help: I need someone to cook, wash my clothes, and do my shopping,” Vivian spelled out.
    Given her age, and the severity of the current viral wave, Albert felt morally obligated to move in and help out until she recovered. He phoned his daughter and instructed her to call the family doctor if he caught the virus.
    He had a key to Vivian’s house. She would continue to use her room upstairs, with its own bathroom. She slept and kept her clothes and valuables there, using the lift to avoid tripping and falling down the round-shaped stairs which she so distrusted.
    Vivian vowed not to go downstairs until the virus had worked itself out of her system, to avoid potentially contagious contact with others. She indicated that Albert must occupy a room downstairs, by the kitchen. She expected him to cook and leave her meals, medicines and other necessaries outside her door.
    She expected him to collect, disinfect and wash the dirty dishes. Albert marveled at Vivian’s mental acuity and organizational capacity. He had to keep the house clean and glossy to standards matching the impeccable satin she loved to wear.
    Albert discussed those details over the phone, and Vivian pulled no punches about him staying well away from her ornaments, avoiding any familiarity with the night nurse, and ensuring no food leftovers to attract ants, cockroaches, or – God forbid! – mice. He could not picture any of those in her spotlessly clean house, but, mindful of her age and illness, he listened patiently.
    Germs also worried Vivian: “You’ll find bleach, disinfectant and other cleaning products in the pantry. I never allow those to run out!”
    He hoped that she would recover within the week, and life return to normal – but life complies with no plan, and he rapidly grasped that his aunt’s quirks and mood swings sometimes surpassed even the volatility of life’s vagaries.
    Vivian’s dos and don’ts
    One of the first things that she told him through her room’s door was that he must address her as “Aunt Vivian” – not just Vivian, which she regarded as disrespectful.
    He fought a laugh: he had always treated her as Aunt Vivian anyway!
    Vivian demanded that he not get up before 0800 am, go to bed after 1000 pm, or switch on the downstairs TV set because of the “infernal noise” – she heard it, even with the sound softened to near silence.
    He must prepare food in compliance with her taste and dietary requirements. Thus, she pinned a list on her room’s door: “No salt; no cooking oil, only olive oil; no red meat, including absolutely no pork; no cow milk; only goat milk, and fresh goat cheese; only zero percent fat yogurt; and no beans, cabbage, cauliflower, chickpeas, fava beans, other flatulence-favoring vegetables.”
    The steadiness of his aunt’s handwriting and her mental sharpness impressed him. He phoned his daughter: “She’s a tough cookie, won’t take no for an answer and woe betide anyone failing to abide by her do’s and don’ts!”
    Albert’s positive-minded daughter
    Schylla laughed: “Thank your lucky stars: that simplifies the menu, Dad!”
    Albert, no kitchen wizard, asked for her help and a few cooking tips, but she rated no culinary buff, either, and her doctoral thesis took up too much attention and time.
    Not to leave him feeling despondent, Schylla stressed that necessity drives all creation and highlighted the benefits of jumping in the kitchen’s deep end: “You’ll emerge a better cook, Dad! Then you can invite me to a yummy meal!”
    “Oh, the silver lining, Schylla! Yeah, my cooking will top all records – your grandaunt’s restrictions notwithstanding!”
    “Stop feeling sorry for yourself and get on with it, Dad!”
    Breakfast
    Albert doubted his capacity to please Vivian but he picked up his pocket music player and headphones, and danced up the stairs to her room.
    “Young man, when you run up the stairs the whole house shakes!” – Vivian thundered from within.
    Albert almost replied that at 52 he rated no youngster, but he checked himself and pleasantly chuckled: “I’ll be more careful next time, Aunt Vivian! What would you like for breakfast?”
    “Bring me a couple of poached eggs, rye bread, ginger and lemon tea, and half an avocado pear.”
    Albert scratched his head: “Do you have all those things here?”
    Silence. He waited for about 30 seconds, then rephrased: “Aunt Vivian: do I need to go out and buy some of those items?”
    “Think, young man! In my condition, how would you deal with it?”
    Wagging his waist to the samba, Albert had no idea: “Where do I find the skillet for the poached eggs, Aunt Vivian?”
    “How should I know? I stay in this room, completely alone all the time but for the night nurse – and you expect me to remember that?”
    “All right, I’ll go out and buy what I fail to find. I might take a while!”
     “No, you will not take a while, young man! I cannot take my medicines on an empty tummy!”
    “OK, I’ll be quick! And what will you want for lunch?”
    “Tsk, tsk – can’t you do anything without asking? Use your brain: surprise me!”
    Albert sped off to the nearby supermarket, crammed the trolley, and sped back.
    The moment he burst into the kitchen, he placed the eggs in water in the spanking new skillet, on low fire. Wiggling to the tune in his headphones, he turned on the kettle, removed the wrapper and a ginger and lemon tea sachet from the box, and dropped it in a large cup. While the tea steeped, he picked the ripest avocado pear, sliced it in half, and put it on a plate next to the rye bread. He had read somewhere that you eat with your eyes, so while the eggs slowly turned white and puffed up, he surfed the Internet for presentation.
    He then searched for a tray – “Found it, hooray!” –, covered it with a cloth napkin, and disposed the various items over it. Just as egg poaching approached perfection, a motorcycle revved loudly outside, overriding the samba and startling him.
    The front door bell rang, he sprinted there, the eggs now in minimal water. He opened it just as a young woman removed a large square bag from her back and laid it on the porch. “Glouton Eats, breakfast for Ms. Vivian Valelha,” she announced, “25 plus 10 percent tip: 27.50.”
    Albert stared at her in disbelief and scurried upstairs. Vivian shouted: “Young man, carry on stampeding up the stairs and I will die before my time!”
    “Sorry about that...”
    “You should be!”
    “Aunt Vivian: Glouton is delivering breakfast. Did you order it?”
    “I did indeed! Why – any problem?”
    Albert sighed: “Well, I went out, bought food to cook for you...”
    “Too slow! I take my medicine on a full stomach! Hello-oh!”
    “I take your point, Aunt Vivian. The charge is 27.50. Can you pass it under the door?”
    “Are you soft in the head, young man?”
    “What do you mean, Aunt Vivian?”
    “Use your noodle: my money, my card might pass you the virus, right?”
    “I get it now, Aunt Vivian...”
    “Pay the order, keep the receipt, and we will settle it later.”
    Albert ran downstairs, paid the woman, and found the kitchen in dense smoke spreading from the skillet. He removed it from the fire, turned on the smoke extractor, placed the Glouton poached eggs on the tray, raced up and laid it on the wheel trolley.
    “Breakfast’s ready, Aunt Vivian!”
    “Young man: any problem with your hearing? Stop charging up and down the stairs! And why does it smell like smoke? Have you set my house on fire?”
    “No, Aunt Vivian – the eggs got a little bit singed...”
    “Oh, spare me the details, I cannot abide firemen bringing hosepipes into the house! I must eat and take my medication, that’s all!”
    Albert tiptoed toward the lift just as Vivian opened her door to pick up the tray. She wore a red satin gown and the fierce black eyes above the mask contrasted with her wiry white hair.
    “That lift is for my use only, young man! No one else’s!”
    “I wanted to avoid noise, the stairs creak...”
    “Tsk, tsk! Worry about the noise but not about leaving germs on my lift?”
    She shook her head, collected the tray and closed the door.
    Albert returned downstairs, ate the rest of the Glouton order to avoid wasting, cleaned the dishes, and dropped the singed eggs in the toilet. He sat on the basin wondering what next from Vivian, and blew the chain when he was done. “If she can smell singed eggs downstairs, she’ll throw up if she gets a whiff of this,” he thought.
    He felt better as he freely spritzed the disinfectant and air freshener.
    Lunch
    By 1030 am, he began considering lunch. “She said I must surprise her, but I haven’t the foggiest about food surprises, so I’ll play it safe. In hospital, they’d give her boiled hake and potatoes – that’s what I’ll make!”
    He trotted out the hake from the freezer, defrosted it in the microwave, peeled the potatoes, added summer squash, and put it all on low fire.
    Come 1200, he went up to get the tray. Vivian opened the door and fixed her mahogany eyes on his: “What’s for lunch?”
    Albert smiled: “You said I should surprise you. I’ll bring it up in a couple of minutes.”
    “Do not forget my lunch medication. The list is on the fridge’s door, the meds in the wooden cupboard. There is also a cream for my skin: bring it! I have been battling an awful skin rash and the tube in my room ran out!”
    “That’s most unfortunate, Aunt Vivian! You have such a lovely complexion, such smooth skin!”
    “Cut the idle praise and get busy, young man – I am hungry!”
    “Hunger is a good sign, Aunt Vivian!”
    “I pray that it may be!” – she closed the door on his face.
    Albert read the list, dispensed the tablets onto a saucer and placed it next to the meal on the tray, including olive oil and vinegar. He remembered the cream – snail slime-based, the blurb said – and, for a touch of class, he put a silver cover over it. He tiptoed upstairs again, planted it on the trolley, knocked and silently returned downstairs.
    He heard her open the door, and waited to hear her comments.
    “Young man!” – she shouted, her satin gown swooshing as she moved along the stairs’ wood railing for a visual angle on him – “You’re using my silver! I expressly told you not to touch any ornaments! Are you hard of hearing? Need I repeat myself?”
    “I wanted to keep the food warm and I couldn’t find any other cover...”
    “And you call this food a surprise? Boiled hake! This is hospital fare! I told you I’d never go into a hospital, and now you’re turning my house into one!”
    Her annoyance ratcheted up her skin rash. Her mask slipped down just below her suddenly crimson nose and forehead. Her ebony eyes shot him one final exasperated glance: “You eat it. I’m calling Glouton for something edible.”
    He hated hake and boiled potatoes but he did not want to chance her finding food in the trash can, so he dropped it all in the toilet and flushed.
    Glouton delivered Vivian’s lunch shortly afterwards. He paid and took it up. She ate about half of it. Mindful of viruses, he flushed the rest down the toilet, and proceeded to the lawn, where he sat on his aunt’s bench listening to birds, crickets, and occasional calls by cats disputing territory. Lulled by nature’s sounds, tired, he dozed off.
    Micaela
    The nurse’s shift would cover the night from 0700 pm to 0700 am. Vivian had pointed out that she would make dinner and she praised the woman’s cooking, so Albert felt relieved and looked forward to a decent meal.
    She arrived punctually and introduced herself as Micaela. She was in her forties and Albert thought her good-looking, and her smile rather fetching, especially the dimples.
    She went into the upstairs toilet, removed her clothes and put on a Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) suit, complete with rubber loafers in plastic covers, rubber gloves, mask, goggles, visor and rubber cap. She trundled into Vivian’s room, disinfected it, and gave her vitamins and other immunity-boosting medication.
    Finally, she collected Vivian’s dirty clothes, dropped them in a bag and shoved them in the washing machine with a detergent-disinfectant mixture.
    As she was about to leave the room, Vivian called: “Young lady, my nephew is here. You probably saw him when you arrived.”
    Behind her visor, Micaela nodded.
    No hanky-panky
    “I must warn you, young lady, I want no hanky-panky in this God-fearing house.”
    Micaela nodded again, and raised her glove to appease her.
    She went to the bathroom, washed up, and then came downstairs to cook in the kitchen.
    “My aunt tells me you’re a fantastic cook! What’s for dinner?” – Albert asked.
    Micaela pursed her lips but smiled: “Not sure yet, but she wants nothing other than soup at night. I must look at the veggies in the fridge.”
    “Will there be enough for me, too?” – Albert gently rubbed her arm.
    Micaela nodded: “Oh yes! Just one thing; she wants no hanky-panky.”
    Albert eyed her thoughtfully: “That’s not very sporting!”
    “No, it isn’t!” – she sighed – “Downright dictatorial, actually!”
    Albert wrapped his arms around her waist. “Virus, social distancing – not ideal!”
    They kissed hard and long. Breath recovered, Micaela warned: “Watch it, your aunt has the hearing of a consumptive!”
    “How I know it! Let’s get a blanket and try the lawn! She won’t hear us there!”
    Protein soup
    They enjoyed making love in the open, starry night, before ants began biting. “They’re loaded with proteins,” Micaela remarked, and they began hunting and placing them in a plastic bag. Then they spotted snails, which promptly joined the ants.
    “It’s the famous snail broth,” Micaela explained, as she dropped those insects and mollusks in the pot. “The slime does wonders for the skin! Crème de la crème escargot! I’m turning the heat up so that any microbes, viruses, germs, anything, will die more completely than in hell,” she added between kisses.
    She used the magic wand to blend it all into a fine-textured soup.
    Micaela placed the soup on the trolley outside Vivian’s door and wished her good night.
    “Remember what I told you about hanky-panky,” Vivian yelled from inside.
    “All under control, Ms. Vivian!”
    She returned to the kitchen and cooked salmon and white rice for Albert and herself.
    Later, Vivian came to the railing and trumpeted out: “Nurse Micaela: this soup is the tastiest that I have ever had – well done!”
    “Glad to hear, Ms. Vivian! Lots of protein in it, good for your immunity and skin!”
    That night, Micaela got up at 0200 am and gently awoke Albert to an erection.
    “Hmmm – you have a nurse’s hands!”
    “Duh, I’m a nurse!” – she placed her finger on his lips as their pubes met – “I shouldn’t be doing this – I’ll get fired if my boss so much as dreams it!”
    “Won’t hear nothin’ from me, honey, not even a telepathic message!”
    She chuckled, but then frowned: “Vivian’s a God-fearing woman! I feel uneasy, Al!”
    “Yeah, feel guilty, have a good cry and pray for forgiveness, doll! I’ll lick your tears... just don’t stop, ‘love the way you rock!”
    “Shoosh! «Want her hearing us?...”
    The bed squeaked under eager pressure. They rolled to the carpet, and clasped again. Stroking her hair, Albert allayed her concerns: “If my aunt finds out, we say we’re building our biblical knowledge of each other – she should appreciate that it’s as religious as it gets!”
    Micaela winked: “I’m sure that will convince your aunt! Eh-eh!”
    Nothing spicy
    Micaela left at 0700 am, Albert got up feeling happy and confident, climbed the stairs and called out: “Good morning, Aunt Vivian! Are you going to order breakfast from Glouton again, or must I make it for you?”
    “Use your brain, young man! It costs a fortune to keep using Glouton!”
    “I agree! So what would you like for breakfast today?”
    “I’ve given it some thought: poached eggs, porridge, banana slices, and orange juice.”
    “Comin’ up, Aunt Vivian!”
    The meal smoked on the trolley outside Vivian’s room soon afterward.
    About 30 minutes later, headphones on, he swayed up the steps and collected the tray. She had eaten the eggs and banana slices, and drunk the juice, but the porridge lay intact and cold. Albert shrugged, cast it in the toilet, and flushed.
    He made chicken curry for lunch. Ghost-like, Vivian stepped out of her room in a white satin gown matching her white hair and mask.
    “It smells very good but virus patients should not eat spicy food,” she alerted from the top of the stairs.
    Oh, well – he ate some of it and down the pipes with the rest.
    Vivian’s condition improved over the next few days: of ever firmer voice, she confirmed feeling better and stood more solidly on her feet.
    Albert also felt good, especially at night in Micaela’s arms.
    Vivian doing better
    After eating her dinner on Thursday evening, Vivian suddenly announced from upstairs: “Young man, I want to get tested for the virus tomorrow.”
    That caught Albert with his pants down, so Micaela swiftly came to the passage: “Your nephew is in the loo, Ms. Vivian, but when he comes out we’ll book a test!”
    The patient safely back in her quarters, Micaela briefed Albert on test procedures. He booked one, paid it with his credit card, and they shared another avid night.
    The next morning, Vivian refused breakfast ahead of the test for fear of vomiting, so off with the goat cheese into the toilet bowl – but this time it did not sink on flushing!
    Mouth agape, Albert watched the water balloon right up in the bowl and bits of cheese drift all over.
    His heart beat wildly as he regained composure. It helped to know that Vivian did not use the downstairs bathroom but he had to tackle those tubes post haste, or her nose would pick it up.
    Right then, though, he had to drive her to the clinic for the test. He put on his mask and gloves, sat her in the back, took the wheel and nearly had an accident thinking about the blockage.
    “Watch your driving, young man! You nearly flattened that woman!”
    Albert gestured his contrition and drove more defensively – praying all the way that the toilet blockage would subside.
    While Vivian did the test, he phoned Micaela, but she knew nothing about plumbing and had her hands full with another patient.
    He phoned his daughter, explained his plight, pleaded with her to help, and Schylla finally agreed to swing by, once he returned from the clinic.
    Vivian lambasted the test, echoing her friend’s complaints: “God knows this hurts! They poke your brain with that swab, and now I cannot hear myself think because of all the noise in my noodle!”
    “So sorry, Aunt Vivian! ‘Wish I could help!”
    She stared at him: “I just hope I have no brain damage! I must phone my lawyer about the will before I go dilly!”
    Plumbing the pipe
    Prior to going up in the lift to her room, Vivian asked for a lemonade to take her medication. Albert complied and for good measure added a Xanax tablet for her to catch up on much needed sleep, while he dealt with the blockage. After peeping through the keyhole to make sure that she slept soundly, he fetched a small bucket from the storeroom, and began carting water from the basin, going through the lounge, and dropping its contents into the vegetable patch’s furrows outside.
    After about five brisk runs to the patch, the bowl’s water level went down – but a floater surfaced.
    Albert knew that blasting a jet of water into the pipe broke most blockages, so the sight of the yard’s long hose heartened him. He also found that he could push the nozzle into the bathroom through the window and drive it into the basin.
    One problem: he had to push the nozzle and hope that it would hold and not bob up and flood the bathroom once he opened the garden tap. As the toilet bowl lay directly beneath the rather high window, he had no sight of it – he had to sprint around the house to check. If flooding occurred, he would have to zip back and turn the tap off.
    He needed another person to keep the nozzle in the pipe and to make sure that it did not overflow, so he phoned Schylla again: “This is dire, my darling! We have to do this while Aunt Vivian sleeps. If she wakes up and sees it...”
    “...she’ll hit the roof! I know, Dad, you needn’t belabor the point! I’m getting my car keys and I’ll be over in a jiffy! Just keep your cool, you sound like you’re panicking! What’s in this for you, anyway?”
    “What do you mean, Schylla?”
    “I mean Vivian isn’t on the dole, she’s got property.”
    Albert would take any criticism from Schylla with love and right now his attention focused on unblocking the toilet. He nipped over to the bathroom, opened the window, put towels on the floor by the door so possible flooding would not spread to the rest of the house, closed the door, zapped outside again, and gently pushed the hosepipe through the window until he heard it noisily topple something inside.
    His heart dropped. If he could hear it outside, his aunt would certainly hear it inside. He zoomed up the stairs in his socks and peeped through the keyhole again. Thankfully, the Xanax appeared to be working. No movement from Vivian.
    And no sign of Schylla, either. He rushed back into the bathroom, and saw that the hose’s nozzle had tipped a shampoo bottle on to the floor and a toilet paper roll into the bowl, hindering his efforts to push the nozzle into the pipe.
    Albert’s gamble
    He looked at his watch. His aunt would be waking up and asking for lunch soon. He phoned Soraya again and she replied with a text message: “Stuck in traffic.”
    No option: Albert had to gamble - take action! He put his hand in, got the now brown toilet paper roll out, raced outside, dropped it in the street bin, galloped back into the yard and opened the tap – just a tad. He nipped inside and saw the basin begin to overflow. He sprinted outside, turned off the tap, sprinted inside and saw brown water, and two turds sliding on the toilet’s floor. He dashed to the kitchen, got hold of a hand shovel, picked up the turds, dropped them in a bag, off to the street bin, grabbed the bucket and mopped the floor.
    He was running outside again to empty the bucket when he nearly crashed into Schylla: “Dad, I’ve been tootin’ the horn for a couple of minutes! Where have you been?”
    He emptied the bucket into the furrow much to Schylla’s dismay: “That water has cleaning products, it’ll kill the patch!”
    “Schylla, darling, just turn the garden tap very softly when I say,” he said, and rushed back into the house.
    “OK, do it now!” – he ordered from the window, and held the nozzle down.
    This time, the water streamed in and did not rise in the basin, so he put his feet on the rim and ordered: “Schylla, please turn the tap full blast – now!”
    Schylla obliged, and Albert felt immense relief as he heard the hosepipe’s water gush down the pipes. After a couple of minutes, he told her to turn it off, and to coil the pipe back.
    “Yuck, Dad: I’m not touching it! Just drop it on the ground, and do it yourself!”
    “Ok, darling: thanks for your help, you saved my life!”
    Schylla eyed him dubiously: “Are you sure that pipe goes straight into the mains, nowhere else in the house, Dad? Remember: this is an old place!”
    “Never thought of that – the mains, I hope! I’m sure we’ll find out soon enough!”
    Very good news
    Albert put hose and shovel away, mopped up most of the ground floor, emptied it again, and restored it to its place in the storeroom by the kitchen.
    He heard Vivian roam about upstairs. She came to the railing and announced: “I’m feeling really rested. I needed that snooze. And I don’t have a headache anymore!”
    “Good for you, Aunt Vivian!” – Albert replied with a smile, from the ground floor.
    “I see that you’ve mopped up the floor, Albert – good job, it looks really clean!”
    Albert’s jaw dropped on hearing his own name: this was different! Nothing like feeling better after all the running, with praise from a more pleasant Vivian to boot!...
    “Thank you for your kind words, Aunt Vivian!”
    That afternoon, the clinic called: negative test result.
    Vivian victoriously threw her mask away, raised her arms, and hugged him: “Thank the Lord! Albert, you helped when I needed it. I cannot praise your patience enough!”
    “All in a day’s work...”
    “More like a week’s work! And I have not treated you well, have I?”
    “Now, now - what gives you that impression, Aunt Viv? Have I complained?”
    “No, you took all I dished out! I even thought that you might have ulterior motives, like trying to get something out of me. What an injustice, Albert – I’m sorry!”
    “Oh, don’t mention it, Aunt Viv – you’re almost making me feel guilty!”
    Vivian suddenly stared at him with a ferric glint in her eye: “You know what? I will be seeing my lawyer about my will – and I will leave everything to you!”
    Albert gulped, wide-eyed: “Thank you, Aunt Vivian. That is very kind!”
    “You deserve it!”
    “The main thing is that you’re in rude health, Aunt Viv! This is the real good news!”
    Vivian tee-heed: “And to think that I worried sick about this stupid virus! But – all is well that ends well!”
    “Aunt Viv, you’re pinching the words right out of my mouth!”

    All good things...
    The negative result rendered Micaela’s services unnecessary. Vivian gave her a large tip and a letter of recommendation in an emotional farewell. Professional to the last, Micaela placed a batch of clothing in the washing machine, turned it on, collected her effects and joined Albert on the porch, listening to birds chirping away in the sunset.
    “Ah, Mic... only you can compete with nature for beauty,” he said as she put her bag down, and threw her arms around his neck.
    They shared a hearty kiss and she sighed: “I’ll miss the hanky-panky.”
    “I’ll miss you. I’ll miss hunting ants and snails in the moonlight...”
    “All good things come to an end - back to my significant other now,” Micaela muttered.
    “Significant? Glad you’re only saying it now, if I knew...”
    “You wouldn’t bed me out of moral scruples! Eh-eh!” – Micaela guffawed – “Will you hang those clothes for me when the washing cycle is over? Careful, she’s very particular how they’re hung!”
    “I’ll be careful, sweet Mic...”
    He nipped over to the washing machine the moment it buzzed – only to find Vivian turning it off. She smiled: “Thanks, Albert! Let me do it, I like the feel of warm clothing just off the hot drum, the touch of satin – very soothing to my skin!”
    Schylla’s warning about the house’s old plumbing burst to mind and Albert’s heart skipped a beat. He had a vision of Vivian swinging the drum open, and the stench swinging her head back. He saw her run her hand over her shimmering satiny clothes, and shrieking in horror at the sight of turdy washing. He saw her cancel the meeting about the will.
    Vivian opened the drum and the fragrance of clean clothing floated in the air.
    Albert let out a sigh of deepest relief.

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