Thong under the vacuum

I heard the vacuum from the stairs, between the third and fourth floor. Tuesday, seven in the evening; Tuesdays are his full clean. I let myself in with my own key and he didn’t come out to meet me: while the vacuum is running he doesn’t stop, that was my rule from the first year. Back then he would switch it off and run to the hall the moment he heard the key, and the cleaning stood still while he took my coat. Now I take my coat off myself.

I hung it up and went through to the living room. He was on his knees at the radiator, back to me, in a black thong and nothing else. T-shirt and trousers lay folded on the chair. The string ran between his buttocks, and when he turned, the lace at the front was stretched over his cage so I could see the shape of the steel. He switched off the vacuum and stayed on his knees.

“Kitchen, bathroom, bedroom done. Just finishing in here.”

I didn’t answer. He gets his answer after the inspection, and he knows it. He turned towards me on his knees and laid his hands on his thighs, palms up. That is how he waits while I go round the rooms. He may watch my back; he may not stand.

The finger

I inspect the same way every time and always straight away: coat on or off, before tea, before “how was your day”. The shelf above the television. One finger along it, clean. The windowsill, clean. The top of the door frame, which in the first year he couldn’t reach and hoped I couldn’t either. Clean. Then I crouched by the radiator, the same one he had been kneeling at, and ran a finger along the fins at the back, by the wall.

A grey line on my fingertip. I showed him the finger. He looked at it, then at me.

“Here.”

“I’ll redo it after dinner.”

“Now. Dinner can wait.”

In the bathroom the mirror had been wiped, but a smear was left along one edge: the dry cloth had gone over once, and it needs two. I didn’t call him. I left the door open and went back to the kitchen. He passed with the bucket, saw the open door and stopped.

“And here.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

The waistband

The thong for cleaning has been the rule since the second year. You can vacuum in jeans, and at first he did. But in jeans, half an hour in, he would forget who he was washing the floor for and start doing it for himself: fast and roughly. Lace on his hips and steel under it don’t let him forget. Every time he bends to a skirting board he feels where the waistband is and where the cage is. He put it more briefly himself: “in jeans I clean, in these I serve.” I remembered that and never explained it again. The cage under the lace doesn’t come off for cleaning or for anything else. When he washes the floor on all fours the steel pulls downwards, and he feels it more than standing. I know because I asked.

I poured tea and sat at the table where I could see the radiator through the doorway. He came back with a wet cloth, knelt and started wiping the fins one by one, pushing his arm right in to the wall. His back shone with the work; the string of the thong had darkened with sweat. I drank half a cup, got up, walked past him to the window, and on the way hooked a finger under the waistband at the small of his back, pulled it out an inch and let go. It snapped against his skin.

He froze with his arm in the radiator. Three seconds. Then he went on, and the cloth moved slower and more carefully. I said nothing and went back to my tea.

Sometimes I think the inspection is more for me than for him. Without it I would simply walk into a clean flat and not notice who had cleaned it. With it, I walk in to a husband on his knees waiting for my finger. That is why I don’t skip it, even tired.

He did the mirror a second time while I watched: dry cloth, wide circles, then a step back and a look from an angle, the way I look. No smear. He straightened up without turning to me:

“Done.”

I went the same route. Finger along the radiator fins, clean. Mirror from an angle, clean. I nodded, and only then did he get up off his knees.

“Good. Dinner.”

Before bed

He ate dinner in the thong, because I hadn’t told him to dress. He served, sat opposite me, ate faster than I did and got up first to clear. I watched him carry the plates to the sink: the lace cut in at the back when he bent, and he never once adjusted it. Five years have trained that out of him. We talked about his mother, about driving to see her on Saturday, and he asked twice what time suited me to leave. An ordinary dinner. Except that the person across the table discussing train times was in lace and steel.

After dinner I sat on the sofa with a book, and half an hour later he came over, in his house trousers by then:

“Tea?”

“Yes.”

He brought it, sat opposite with his phone, and we stayed like that until eleven. An ordinary evening, like most of ours. He knows I found two lines and that I remember. He knows the second time was enough. And he knows what happens when it is clean the first time: then, before bed, I call him to me.

I called him that Tuesday too. Not for the cleaning, for redoing it at once without bargaining. I lay down without taking my shirt off, opened my legs, and he went down between them onto the floor, the same place he takes at the radiator. He works with his tongue the way he works with a cloth: in order, missing nothing. I came quickly, my hand on the back of his head, and he stayed on his knees until I took the hand away. I didn’t unlock the cage. He didn’t ask. He will ask on Friday, if the week passes without grey lines. That is how we do it, and he counts the days more carefully than I do.

“The radiator again tomorrow.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

He lay down next to me, and as I fell asleep I could hear him breathing: evenly, just a little faster than usual. On Wednesday morning I ran a finger along the radiator fins before I put the kettle on. Clean. He stood in the living-room doorway and waited for me to show him the finger.

• Inspect the moment you walk in: before tea, before conversation. He should be waiting for the finger, not for “hello”.
• Inspect with your hands, not your eyes: the shelf, the back of the radiator, the top of the door. Let him know where you will reach.
• Found something? One word: “here”. He redoes it now, not after dinner.
• The cleaning outfit is always the same, with the cage underneath. His body remembers who he is washing the floor for.
• Clean means a short reward the same evening. Not clean means “again tomorrow”, without a lecture.