continued from yesterday

A short precis for new readers: An act of subterfuge has led me to employ a cleaner whilst pretending I’m not employing a cleaner. As most people know, this is a dead-cert way to get a shag. However, I’ve locked myself out and all normal means of entry would involve exposure and ignominy and not getting a shag.

And here’s where I get my first stroke of luck.

The bathroom window is slightly ajar. I have forgotten my keys, but have left a downstairs window open. It is just as they say. If you lead a truthful, blameless life then the Gods will smile upon you.

“I can get through the window!!!”

She shoots me a withering glance.

“Stop messing about. Just come next door to Short Tony’s with me.”

By this time I am examining the window. Apart from a few tomato plants it is accessible enough. It is quite tall, and about the width of an amorous and slightly overweight blogger, but high enough off the ground to allow reasonable ‘head first’ access.

“It’s late and their kids will be in bed. Nothing for it. I’m going to try the window.”

“It’s only just gone... for fuck’s sake!”

I have wriggled through the window. At least – I have half wriggled through the window. My front half is there, my back half definitely is not. I do not know it, but my belt is caught on the window fastening.

Some sort of poky thing is pressing into my stomach, making it difficult to breathe properly. Beneath me is the bath, still slightly damp from earlier, and a large fake olde-worlde painful-looking-to-land-on tap/shower combo.

My legs thrash about helplessly.

“What the FUCK are you doing?” I hear.

I feel my ankles being grabbed, and then something is tugging at my shoes. This pulls me back and forth across the fastening, painfully. I cry out, and knock over some shampoo.

“If you’re going to fuck around doing that then you can at least take your shoes off,” comes the explanation. I feel them wrenched off my feet and then – crash! – I am face down in the bath.

A face appears at the window.

“You really are a cretin,” she says.

“Now unlock the door. I’ve got a long day tomorrow.”

No shag.

*

That was last Thursday. Since then, the secret cleaner has remained secret.

JONNY’S FINAL THOUGHT

You know – maybe it’s time to reflect on the nature of white lies and how they get out of hand.

Sometimes you tell a little tiny jokey sort of lie of no consequence at all. (Random example: ‘it was me who cleaned the kitchen, not a professional cleaner’.) And you think that you’ll be found out straight away, or own up later on, and you’ll both laugh yourself silly about it.

And that doesn’t happen for whatever reason, and you idly wonder for how long you can keep it going. And then you absent-mindedly tell a few more lies to support your story, and other people find out, and you laugh about it with virtual internet people who do not exist in the real world. And suddenly, it’s perhaps more of a bigger deception than you initially planned.

But there’s one thing that can’t be avoided – sooner or later you have to come out with the truth. It might be difficult. It might be unpleasant. But if you truly love one another, then there’s no other option to take.

Jonny will return on Friday.

Until then... take care of yourselves – and each other.