We pick up the grim story of the Trellis household where we left it
last week . . . encouraged by another
pictorial prompt from Willow. Cleanliness, they say, is next to Godliness. Do the Trellises agree?
Trellissimo: So Caddoc, paint and brush in hand and feeling very far from grand, crossed the yard to paint the shed, muttering inside his head...
"My tender portrait was in vain. Beloved strafed me yet again and packed me off to paint, alone. . . I swear she has a heart of stone."
And Caddoc, though he loved her madly, resigned himself to painting, (badly) the potting shed. But wait! Indoors, Ada gets up from scrubbing floors. Fronts the portrait, smiles, then thinks
"Perhaps I've been too much a minx. He's honest, sober, kind and true. So many things he does not do, like gamble... flirt... or smoke a pipe. Perhaps, perhaps the moment's ripe? I think I'll go and take a shower...sweet perfumes may enhance my power! "
Now what's this? Ada is singing! This time surely she'll be flinging caution to the winds of chance. What is life without romance? Meanwhile, Caddoc coming in, perhaps to fetch another tin of paint, or maybe some paint-thinner, doesn't dream he's on a winner.
"Ada! Ada! Where's... ?"
Where's Ada? Surely he can't have mislaid her? She's in their en suite, damp and steamy, and in his eyes a look that's dreamy now appears, as through the glass he spies Beloved's buxom -
"Pass my bathrobe, Caddoc dearest - I must admit to you, the queerest feelings have beset me- I feel like saying 'Come and get me?' What can have caused this great reversal? Is it an
undress rehearsal for some acts of wedded bliss? Do you suppose something's amiss?!
"No, Beloved, it is normal! Life need not be dull and formal. Loving can be lots of good fun, when you find the certain someone who can make your heart beat faster! It is far from a disaster that at last you'll drop defences, and instead let's mend the fences which have long kept us apart. Come here to Caddoc, my dear heart!"
"You naughty man! Forget the bathrobe! Take me! Kiss me! Lick my earlobe!"
Ada, shedding shower water stands before him. Now he oughta seize his object of desire, bear her off to quench their fire. Instead... he faints as there appears landscapes he's not seen in years.
"Now this passes all belief! Where's my bathrobe? Where's my briefs? Husband Caddoc, you've been warned! Hell hath no fury like Ada scorned."