She had taken the top of the turkey pan about twenty minutes earlier so the bird would brown a bit, but when Marsha bent down to check on it through the oven window, she gasped.
The turkey wasn’t there anymore.
Steve, her husband, was smiling at her from the oven’s interior.
Marsha tumbled back onto her rump and her head smacked against a cabinet. She hardly felt the impact.
Steve was in the oven.
Before she could ponder the obvious questions – how did he fit in there? Why wasn’t he cooked? Why did he look so damned happy, certainly happier than he ever acted at home? – his head grew smaller and more distant.
She realized that he wasn’t in the oven at all. She was watching a movie about Steve. The oven window had become a TV screen.
As the camera drew back, Marsha recognized the setting. Steve’s office. And from the decorations, she knew it was the annual office Christmas party.
The no-spouses-allowed-because-the-budget-is-tight-this-year office Christmas party.
But how could she be watching a movie of Steve’s party when it wasn’t until tomorrow? She’d even promised to cook a turkey for the crew, to save on expenses.
Another figure walked into the scene and now Marsha knew why Steve had been smiling.
Steve’s secretary Tyra closed the door behind her. Marsha heard the click of the lock. Steve took the younger woman into his arms, smothering her with kisses while one hand groped Tyra’s small, shapely backside.
Tyra pushed him away and said, “What about your wife?”
“I’m telling her tomorrow, baby. We’ll be together by New Year’s Eve,” Steve said.
Marsha jerked the oven door open only to find that Steve and his little slut had disappeared. The turkey, though, was done. She closed the over door again, but she only saw the silver pan and the browned bird.
Fighting back tears, Marsha put the turkey on a platter and took out her carving knife.
She knew what she had to do.
She had mentally prepared a wonderful speech full of pain and loss and betrayal, but as soon as Steve walked through the door and gave her his customary nod of greeting, she forgot the speech and rammed the carving knife into his stomach. He managed to gasp out, “What—” before he collapsed.
She stood over her husband and pulled the knife out. “Twenty-eight years. You think I put in all that time to let you leave me for that little tramp?”
“I don’t…please….” Blood bubbled from his lips. “…take…your pills...”
Marsha screamed. Steve blamed everything bad thing that happened on those goddamned pills.
She kneeled next to Steve before plunging the knife into his throat.
Blood sprayed across the beautiful Italian kitchen tile. It would be a bitch to clean up, but she couldn’t worry about that. She had a divorce to prevent.
Later, after Steve stopped moving, Marsha crawled over to the oven door and peered into the window.
A new movie was playing. She saw herself, in that very spot, with the oven door open and her head inside.
She looked back at Steve. He would never leave her now. That tramp Tyra would have to find a new Sugar Daddy. No one would ever come between Marsha and her husband. They would be together forever. She would see to it.
She turned the gas on and opened the oven door.
Copyright 2006 by Mark Justice
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