I was in the sitting room on the sofa, wearing my blue pyjamas when I heard her key in the front door. I got up to meet her and help her off with her coat. There was no need to ask how her day had gone, the pallor of her skin, the dark rings under her eyes. Her eyes were normally bright, the whites clear and shining but there were little veins of red in them. I held her lovely face between my palms and kissed her.

“Welcome home. No need to ask what sort of day you’ve had. Have you eaten, do you need a drink?”

“No thanks, lover. All I want is a shower and bed.”

I took her hand and led her to the bedroom where I helped her off with her clothes and held her again. She was almost asleep in my arms. “Have your shower in the morning. Sleep now.”

Gratefully, she slipped under the duvet and I got into bed the other side and held her head to my breast and stroked her hair silently and within seconds she was deep asleep. She makes little snoring noises sometimes and they are, to my ears, cute. I kissed the top of her head and carefully disengaged from her to avoid disturbing her sleep. I don’t think I needed to be too careful, she was dead to the wide.

As always, the alarm went off at 6 am and she automatically reached out to turn it off. I reached across her and, as I cancelled the alarm, I said, “You have two days off. Go back to sleep.”

“Really?”

“Really.” Barely had the word escaped my lips than she was sleeping again. I kissed her and she seemed to burrow into me so I let her.

Normally I’d take her tea to wake her up but I let her sleep. And sleep. And sleep. It was about midday and I was still in my pyjamas (I hadn’t wanted to dress and disturb her – I’m not a total slut!) when she came into our kitchen.

“Morning, lover. Any tea?”

I stood up, gave her a hug and kiss and said I’d bring it to bed. She scratched her head. God, I love her when she looks what I call bed-raggled. Her hair all askew somehow manages to look just fucking perfect. I watched her naked arse as she walked back to the bedroom.

“Perv!” She lifted her right hand and wiggled her fingers as if to say, “I know you’re watching.” I took her tea and she drank it gratefully as I sat beside her in bed and drank mine. “I’d forgotten I have two days off. Thank fuck. What shall we do?”

“Absolutely fuck all is my suggestion.”

“You, my lovely Hippo, are a genius. I need a shower though. I feel like I have infected you with my filth.”

I kissed her. “All you needed last night was sleep. And you weren’t filthy. OK, you stank a bit, but I’m used to that.”

She slapped my arm. “Cheeky cow. Right, get your arse into that shower and hose me down. You might need an industrial cleaner.”

I whipped off my pyjamas and got the shower ready. She cleaned her teeth and I watched the fluidity of her body as she turned and joined in the walk-in. I kissed her again and began an assiduous washing. First her lovely, fairly short black hair that made her bright blue eyes more apparent. Her neck and back. Then her front, her fabulous tits that are a healthy 34c with nipples that look straight up at me. That took some time. Then I knelt behind her and washed her arse, her buttocks, her hips the backs of her legs. She turned and I started on her tummy, her hips again because, well, because why not? I nuzzled against the soft, black triangle and did, if I say so myself, a pretty good job on her cunt. I soaped, worked the soap everywhere and let the shower wash it away before doing a quality check with my tongue. Not too bad.

Standing, I kissed her again and this time we started to stroke each other’s cunt as we kissed. We loved making love in the shower and it was a sort of tacitly agreed ritual that the needier of us got the full ‘being looked after’ treatment. We never needed to negotiate who was the needier; we just knew. Our love making moved from shower, to towels and to bed where we made slow, quiet love. Contrasting with our often vigorous style of fucking, here we touched, held, kissed and stroked until eventually she had one of her lovely orgasms where her mouth opens wide but no sound comes out, her body tenses and then as a long, contented sigh escapes her lips, she relaxes.

She slept for a while and I got up and prepared something for our supper. In between tasks I would sneak in and look at her sleeping form and simply admire her. The way her hair sort of fanned out around her head, the noises obviously and the little movements, her fingers opening and closing, her head moving from side to side, her eyes under her eyelids.

She came out of the bedroom wearing my pyjamas which is something I simply love. What could be more intimate?

“What’s for supper? It smells fabulous.”

“It’s a fish thing. Plaice rolled around almonds and garlic and breadcrumbs and mushrooms with some Pernod.”

She ran her hand gently over my arse. “Lovely. The meal I mean, not your arse.”

“Go and sit down before I poke your eye out.” That led to the gentle slap I was expecting so that worked well.

We had an early night. I wasn’t tired but she was and she needed to sleep so we went to bed and, as often happens, she started to finger me gently and somehow although it was lovely, it was more a comfort thing and I wasn’t remotely surprised when she started snoring quietly with her finger still almost inside me. Connected as with an umbilicus to her I savoured the sensation until she rolled over and I lay there, revelling in my good fortune.

I checked, before I went to sleep, that her alarm clock wasn’t set. I woke up, the following morning, to the smell of bacon cooking. There she was, in the kitchen, wearing my pyjamas again.

She turned to look at me over her shoulder. “Put some clothes on. You’ll catch cold.”

“You’re wearing my clothes.”

“You have others. Put the black ones on, I like them.” So, of course, I did. When I got back she was setting our plates on the table and I took her face between my hands and looked at her. Her eyes were brighter, the dark rings beneath them less obvious. I kissed her.

“Get your hands off me. I want to eat.”

“You’ll get fat.”

“Not when I burn so many calories keeping you satisfied.” True.

And we burned a few calories during that day. We were more animated, a little more urgent and by the time we went to sleep I was exhausted and satisfied. She kissed me and I held her again and kissed her hair and stroked her face until she drifted off.

The alarm went at 6. I got up to make her tea while she showered and dressed. I’d washed and ironed her pale blue scrubs so she looked tidy ready for another day at the front. If there were a God I could pray to I’d have begged for her safety, her return and for her to be spared the sadness and grief her job exposed her to. As it was, all I could do was hope she and her colleagues were safe and that the morons who put us all at risk came to their senses and did what we have to do to get through all this shit.

“I’ll be fine.” She says that every morning before she goes to our local Hospital’s ICU and I try to believe it.

This was a tiny effort to express my thanks to all those key workers who risk the hazards of the virus for us. It’s not just medics and I’m not going to list them in case I miss out a group through ignorance or a simple memory slip. They dont,  any of them, get paid enough, appreciated enough, supported enough until we are forced to recognise their amazing efforts. It’s like we value our armed forces when something draws our attention to them but then we become complacent again when the memories fade. It may be human nature but we should try to be consistent and appreciate and care for them all.

I salute you all.