Erotic fantasies of pea-green pyjamas
MY wife is wearing pyjamas.
Call me an old silly, but I have a bad feeling about this.
It’s not even a nightie. It’s pyjamas. Made of … flannelette, I think they call it. Pea-green flannelette. Take it from one who is now experienced, it is very difficult to build erotic fantasies around pea-green flannelette pyjamas. No, it’s impossible. I’ve tried.
They say to me… soup, and it’s all downhill from there.
She says it’s because of the cold (see this space last week) but that won’t wash. I’m sleeping in the same bed (at the moment anyway) and I haven’t worn a pair of pyjamas since I fell off a roof at the age of 17 and landed in hospital. They were hospital issue. Pink. Or maybe that was the blood. I don’t even own a pair of pyjamas. I didn’t know there were any in the house!
She must have bought them. Now ask yourself. Why would you go into a pyjamas shop and choose pea-green flannelette?
Because they’re tantalising? Because you want to be noticed and admired?
Because you want to disappear when you walk past the curtains, which are also green?
Why didn’t she buy red pyjamas? What’s wrong with me? I don’t want to sleep with a salad. I want to sleep with chilli sauce, or a mango!
I had a look in the mirror, which — because I don’t own any pyjamas — provided all the answers.
So it’s come to this. She’ll be suggesting separate beds next, then separate rooms. How did this happen? I’ve always been very… well, attentive, let’s say. Maybe that’s the problem. If you’re getting unwanted attention I guess pea-green flannelette pyjamas will do the trick.
I’m trying to see it from her point of view. I mean, if I’m sleeping with the salad, what’s she sleeping with?
I took another look in the mirror – a slice of cold pizza, I suspect.
I tried talking about it. We’ve always talked about things. But this is 2002. You can’t go demanding your conjugal rights, or dragging her off by her hair. And you can’t, you simply cannot, tear them out of their pea-green flannelette pyjamas in a spontaneous act of blind passion.
You can sulk though.
I sulked.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing.”
“Of course there is. There always is when you say nothing. What is it?”
“Nothing…”
Silence.
I said: “How are the pyjamas?”
“Ah. They’re lovely, thank you. Do you like the colour?”
“Well if you must know, and since you ask, I think they’re bloody awful. What’s got into you, anyway. You never used to wear pyjamas!”
“You used to keep me warm me when we went to bed….”
Ah…