Work Text:
Sunday morning after breakfast, a disheveled Rebecca Welton DeWoolf was in her laundry room, sitting on a cardboard box, sorting through another cardboard box of old clothes that she was going to send to charity. It was the third such box this week.
Bedsheets, pillowcases, Matthijs’s old shirts, their old jeans, a couple of their old coats, and Jelka’s clothes that she seemed to outgrow every quarter back during her primary school years.
Rebecca was relieved to be finishing this particular task. There was just one more piece at the bottom of the box. It was dark ... and looked a bit dusty; crumpled on the bottom like a discarded piece of paper.
She pulled it out and gasped. Matthijs’s robe!
Technically, it was his. Black with white vertical stripes; it must be about seven years old now. Probably older, because he’d had it for some time before she put it on and fell under its spell.
She stood and shook it out, dust motes making her cough a bit. Holding it up in front of her, she opened her mind to a stream of memories: memories that brought a softness to her heart, and a gentle smile to her face – like the first time she saw Jelka’s bedroom on the boat – all pink and precious and girly.
The robe was painfully old and worn out:
- thin and threadbare from a thousand washings and scrubbings;
- the once-bright white vertical stripes condemned now to yellowish gray;
- the hems on the sleeves and bottom now mostly undone, leaving them looking lobsided and shabby;
- its limp collar had also come unsewn.
Every inch of his robe – well – their robe, really, proudly announced the intensity of their very active sex life -- the thought of which now had her grinning like a loon.
- Grease stains – from when they would eat takeaway while one of them was wearing it;
- Grass stains – from that summer when they made love in the back garden under a soft summer shower
- Cum stains – SEE "Grass stains”; including, but not limited to
- their bedroom,
- the kitchen
- the living room couch
- armchair
- coffee table
- against the bookcase after they had seen that movie...
- the balcony outside her bedroom
- the garage
- the cars in the garage
- the boat, of course.
- Bleach stains where Mina hopefully had no idea what she was working with. (Rebecca prefers to convince herself that Mina hasn’t figured it out.)
Something about it – its quiet “spirit” centered them when they felt out of sorts. It became a symbol of their devotion to each other.
So many times, she’d used it to entice him into making love to her, like some women use sexy lingerie. When he wore it belted low, exposing his chest and neck, it brought out the cavewoman in Rebecca. Oh! And that time he used the belt to tie her hands to a tall bedpost in the guest suite while he drove her insane with burning lust using his mouth and hands all over her body, making her scream his name in ecstasy so many times.
Then the scent of it! Warm, earthy, spicy – with a hint of Matthijs’s natural manly musk. She had been too preoccupied to notice it that first time on the boat, but later, as it became part of their night wear, she loved being naked in his robe, feeling the fluffy fleece over her breasts and bottom. One of their favorite things in the world was finding each other naked under it; unwrapping the wearer like a precious gift, gleefully undoing the belt to get to the treat beneath. Or! Sometimes they didn’t even bother taking it off all the way – hence the shocking list of stains.
Poor belt. It looked like a sash now – completely unsewn, broken threads punctuating the hem like tick marks keeping score.
At this point, Rebecca had sat down again, hugging it to her chest; her imagination swimming with happy, often erotic memories of her husband’s robe; as much hers as his.
It was tired now; matted; not useful for much except the memories it revived. It didn’t smell like Matthijs anymore. Not even a lingering whiff of the vigorous sex they had enjoyed in it. Even the sleeves were coming unsewn at the shoulders from the times they both used to cuddle in it – one of their arms in a sleeve, the other tangled together between them.
There are other robes now. A pink one for her, a navy one for him. This beloved piece of fabric in her hands was weary and deserved to rest in peace. It held up as long as it could but now could do no more.
Rebecca took it upstairs. She laid it out on her bed and took a picture of it with her phone. Tonight, she would show the picture to Matthijs, and they would have fun remembering, perhaps even re-creating, some of their favorite robe memories.
It looks like rain outside ...