Right Under His Eyes

"But Sue Ann, you're my wife, you're not a single party girl anymore. Oh shit, there goes my ulcer again! Where's my Maalox?"

I found his medicine bottle on a shelf but did not see any rum nearby. I did see a little one-ounce bottle, like they have for drinks on airlines, and I poured its liquor into the Maalox and passed it over to Randy. He took a big slug. He grimaced at the taste.

"Jesus fuck, what did you put in this?" I gingerly handed him the little bottle.

"Holy shit Sue Ann, this isn't rum, it's a sample of FastFreeze! You've killed me, you bitch!"

"Oh god Randy, it was an accident! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

But he didn't hear me.

The FastFreeze went right into Randy's delicate stomach, his bleeding ulcer, his surging bloodstream. He toppled over. His eyes glazed. He shivered, and stopped breathing. His pupils glazed. I felt his pulse. Nothing. Oh shit.

I panicked. What to do, what to do?

Just one image flashed through my fevered mind, an old James Thurber cartoon. Two well-dressed couples stand in a mansion's library room. Another well-dressed woman crouches atop a bookshelf, looking down at the others. One gentleman says, "Here is my wife, and this is the former Mrs Palmer." The viewer must decide whether the crouching former Mrs Palmer is alive, glaring, and ready to pounce, or is just a well-done bit of taxidermy.

I quickly made my decision. I called for Maria and Hector. We pushed Randy's body into a hands-and-knees crouching position before he stiffened completely. We waited until he froze solid. Then we boosted him onto the wide mantle of the fireplace in the party room.

I wrapped up Randy's affairs the next day. I told the lab that he had finally abandoned the failed project. I told his family and his few remaining friends that he went on extended sabbatical to Moscow. I told the twins that Daddy had gone away for a while; then I sent them off to boarding school. I told Maria and Hector to never say anything to anybody. And I said nothing else to anyone, ever. That chapter was closed.

Life goes on pretty much as it did before, just without Randy, not that anybody really misses him. I still make good money as a Dial-A-Slut. I invest that money, and it pays well. I still party hearty. And all the partying here happens in the party room, with Randy's oh-so-realistic 'statue' sternly looking down on the action. Visitors giggle at him. Yes, my life is a full-time sex party.

And now it happens right under his eyes.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: This story is dedicated to the real Randy, who deserves better. This is a slight revision of the original UNDER HIS EYES, which received many nasty rabid anonymous comments from Loving Wives devotees. Feh.