When he had proposed by the bay about a year ago she had barely been able to articulate her answer; she merely grabbed the ring, stared at him in disbelief and started crying.
What a woman!
It was like something out of a movie and in that moment he felt like one of those handsome roosters that graced the wide screen television at home when he was having a Netflix binge. He ignored the fact that his preference for Netflix bingeing over exercise meant that as much as he felt like one of those handsome movie stars with their shredded torsos, he certainly didn’t look like one.
She didn’t seem to mind the lack of any muscle definition. In fact, she seemed to encourage it; she bought him a recliner chair and honed her skills in making all of his snacky favourites that she could keep her man happy. Most woman would have been madly planning the wedding, but not his woman. She would just look at him, hand him more food and say, “First we’ll sort you out.”
What a woman!
Then the COVID-19 lockdowns started and he got to work at home which was in absolute heaven because armed with his computer, he could stay in his recliner and tracksuit all day. He started to worry that she was becoming less attracted to him and his expanding waistline, but she would just tweak his cheek, slap his thigh and hand him a plate of cheesecake whenever he tried to voice his concerns.
Such devotion!
What a woman!
The lack of activity and increased intake of fatty food meant that his tracksuit soon became tight. Ironically, she began to shrink as she took advantage of the hour allocation to jog outside every day and soon she even began to take his hour of exercise, too. He made some joke about getting some exercise between the sheets which she dutifully laughed at but was something they both knew he could no longer manage. Still, their’s had always been a meeting of minds.
At least that is what he told himself.
One evening, she sat seemingly admiring her engagement ring before she absentmindedly offered him a plate of buffalo wings.
As he started to eat, she turned down the volume of the television and stood in front of it.
He gulped and stopped chewing for just a moment.
Twirling her engagement ring around her finger she asked, “Where did you buy this?”
He gulped again. “I can’t remember.”
He reached for the television control turn up the volume but he couldn’t reach her hand to do so.
“I think you do.” Her tone was quiet; menacing.
Again he gulped, as he shook his head vigorously.
“Shopping channel? Gold plate? $20 with a free neck cushion? I could have almost forgiven you being so cheap but cheap and lazy.” She shook her head and tutted him very, very slowly as she smooth her hands down her new svelte figure.
The neck cushion seemed to clench around the back of his skull and squeeze; beads of sweat started for form on his brow as he started to shake.
Concerned he seemed unmanly at this moment, he spluttered out from her saucy buffalo lips, “I’m not scared of you.”
She leaned in and whispered into his ear, “No. But you should be scared of the monkshood I put into the buffalo wings’ seasoning.”
Monkshood? His mind searched his memory banks for information gleaned from his murder mystery movie obsession from two years ago. “It’s virtually untraceable!”
She slowly stood up. “And mimics the symptoms of a heart attack. That’ll throw them off the scent, fatty. No one tried to fob me off with a cheap ring and lives to tell the tale.”
Without another word, she waved a coy goodbye and sashayed from the room.
What a woman.
piquant!