Gareth and the head of Holofernes.

I found him in the kitchen. He was unusually quiet and the generally vampiric air around him was slowly, almost willfully diminishing. We pottered about each other, peaceably, as if the kettle were a roaring fire and the rest of the world a hateful thing. We spoke generally of our clients and small matters of housekeeping, but there was an air of fullness, an unusual sense that Gareth was neither happy nor unhappy to talk, as if the mission were already accomplished. In fact, as we stood behind our mugs, I felt from Gareth an air of satiation, of self- achievement that reminded me of Cranach's Judith, holding the severed head of Holofernes, and I began to wonder for the safety of my own neck. But putting aside my own preservation, I decided to attack and began to wonder at Gareth's own shenanigans. Where was the naked Neil? In the cupboard? Had I interrupted another session of buggery? And Helen?Does she know? What does she know? The rising insanity of my speculation was only appeased when, placing the mug on the table and heaving my most authoritative voice into the room, boomed: Helen's not depressed! We've been fucking for weeks! She's never been happier! Gareth took this with an impressive, almost mournful calm. And so I left the kitchen with a disdainful lowering of my eyes, a parting gesture, but with no sense of vindication, only my own incipient lunacy. I made a mental note to take Helen's entire nipple into my mouth, and to speak to her more often.