Chapter One

Chapter 1

Turning the page of the book infront of me, absorbing none of the words, my eyes following the lines but not focusing on them.

"Is it a good book?"
I jumped slightly at the unexpected interruption that dragged me back into reality. I slowly turned to face the man sitting to my left was my darling husband. His dark wavy hair swept back off his forehead, neatly parted at the centre , the style he had had in all the time I had known him. Although he did change the colour on a few occasions.

Slippers sat snugly upon his feet, the ones I had bought him three years earlier for Christmas. They bore more holes in than a nibbled cube of cheese that greedy mice had luckily savaged. The remote control in his right hand ,his index finger tapping it rhythmically. One of the many annoying habits he had.
He smiled lovingly at me which turned my stomach, showing the yellow tainted teeth behind his perfect parted lips. The lips I so often felt brushed against my own. I threw a twisted smile back in his direction, I could not bare to even look at him.

Fifteen years I had spent with this man, fifteen years of my own life wasted.

"Fantastic",I replied sarcastically through gritted teeth.
He smiled softly again and turned back to watching the television. A group of over paid men in shorts running around a football pitch. Dancing merrily around on the television screen chasing a ball. It infuriated me how he had to watch this meaningless sport. It wasn't as if he even supported any of the teams that were playing. So what was the point in watching it? He didn't care who won the game, so why waste a whole afternoon fixated on the screen?

Long gone were the lazy afternoons when we would spend all day tucked up together on the sofa , nibbling at earlobes and stroking each others half naked bodies. Making love back then was so satisfying, so pure and intense. Unable to keep our loving hands from touching and caressing every inch of bare flesh. Items of clothing strewn all over the bedroom floor. We christened every room of our first home together. The old kitchen table we had with the loose leg from all the action we had on top of it. I hated getting rid of that table, even though it was old and rotting away.

He would drive me wild, softly kissing the area from my shoulder to below my ear. Sending pulsating sensations rippling throughout my body. Working his way slowly down to my belly button with his tongue. Taking the time to show care and attention to my every sexual need. We had a very active and healthy sex life in the first few years. When did it become something so sinister and repulsive? Was it when I no longer loved him or was it the first time he raped me?

There were times he would just decide he wanted sex and although I refused, he would force himself upon me, penetrate me knowing I was wriggling beneath him to break free from his grasp, he just held me tighter.This was now what our sex life consisted of.

Screaming "NO" had no effect at all , nor did the tears running down my face as he thrusted himself violently inside me. In time I learned the best way of dealing with this, was to lie perfectly still and to think of something else other than what my husband was doing to me. I decorated the house from top to bottom many times in my mind.

I had spoken to him about this aspect of our relationship, but he told me I was his wife and he had needs, these needs I was expected to meet. Rape I learned was about power and humiliation. I knew that Sex was part of a loving relationship between consenting couples. When "rape" occurs, there is no relationship, just a perpetrator and a victim. He never saw me as a victim, just as his frigid wife.

I have no idea how many times my husband raped me, it could be a daily occurrence or a monthly occurrence but over the space of fifteen years it became normal, I learned to accept it ,as I learned to accept many things.

The mere thought of him touching me these days made my skin crawl, the sound of his voice made my stomach wrench into tight knots. His presence nauseated me. This man, the one I used to love with every breath of my being I now hated. I hated him with every bone in my body. The hatred only deepened with each passing day.

I was sure I was not the only woman ever to wish their partner dead at times, but times had turned into a daily thought.

I rose from the black reclining leather sofa, the one I bought after the knife incident a few months earlier. The knife had ripped through the cold cream leather as easily as slicing through an apple, the material shrieking in distress. I had loved the look of the cream suite next to the peach coloured painted walls, it matched the decor perfectly. Peaches and cream, a favourite desert of mine. Not forgetting that it had taken up a full months wage to cover the cost of it. I had chosen black this time, it was in the sale after all and all I could afford to replace the other one so quickly. What would the neighbours or guests we regularly had of thought, coming to sit down for a coffee and sitting on a ripped and torn suite? That would never do. It had to be replaced and quick. At least my left leg had survived the frenzied attack even when the sofa did not. Only a ten inch scar remained from that fateful day.

How he must have hated to get no response when he had destroyed the item I loved so much. You see I had learned long ago to show no emotion, that way he could no longer win ,no longer get satisfaction from knowing he had hurt me. I was getting clever. The game was so easy now it had become quite boring.

I think the incident had started when I refused to get straight up to make him a bacon sandwich. I had been so involved with watching my favourite soap opera that his cries for his sandwich had fallen of deaf ears. He stood up in a wild wage and stomped his way though into the kitchen.

He had shouted something about where could he find the little knife to open the plastic wrapper of the bacon pack I remember, but once again it fell on deaf ears.

"I shall use this one then," he wailed darting towards me with the large blade in his hand.
"What the fuck?" I jumped slightly at the sight of this mad man stood wielding the knife so wildly in front of me. He slid the blade into my left leg , my calf screamed out in excruciating pain. Then from nowhere with no word of a warning he began stabbing at the suite, right next to where I was still sitting, the strange thing was I never moved, I sat there content watching my soap opera oblivious to what he had just done.
"Happy now?" he asked me when he had finished his frenzied attack.
I just looked at him, smiled and turned back to watch the ending of the drama unfolding on the television set. He walked out of the house and I phoned for an ambulance. My husband collected me later that day from the hospital.

I stood in the kitchen staring out of the window, I could see his reflection. I shuddered.
"Would you like a coffee" I shouted.
"Yeah.Thanks Babe"
Babe? I ain't your babe I thought, I am nothing to you.

As I slowly stirred the mixture of hot water,coffee,milk and sugar together I wondered if rat poison or perhaps arsenic would take that long to take on the desired effect I wanted. I had looked up rat poison but found no scientific study. Arsenic, however, was odourless, colourless and tasteless. It wouldn't alter the taste of coffee to a great degree. My trusting husband would never question a slightly strange tasting coffee. He’d probably take a drink and wonder why the coffee tasted odd and I could always lie to him or pretend he's just imagining things. Would make a change it being him imagining things. But this would take too long ,time was not on my side.

In all the times I had thought about killing my husband, never did the thought that I would never get away with it ever cross my mind.
The fact that he would be out of my life forever was far more important, I would have to face whatever consequences came later.
What if I did get caught? What if I get put away for the rest of my life? I reasoned anything had to be better than being here with him.

The thoughts of is it right to kill another human being was not considered. If the only way to save your own life was by killing, I'd consider it acceptable, wouldn’t everyone? That's why I was killing him, to get my own life back. A matter of life or death. I choose life which sadly meant death for him.
After all, the most basic primal instinct of all life is to preserve one's own self first and foremost. Laws of Nature I'm afraid.

In fact I had also convinced myself once that it could be classed as Euthanasia. Killing him for his own good. He didn't know how to live in the real world. He had no idea how to do anything right. He had no loving family or anyone I could think of that would miss him when he was gone. He had a low paid career that he despised, he had no worldly possessions that meant anything to him. He lived to the same routine each and everyday. His life was far too boring for him to miss it.

But it was just so hard to decide how and when to do it. I knew why I was doing it, who could blame me? I had tried to reason with him, I had tried to sit down and talk though our problems like adults. I had begged, screamed even pleaded with him. He had tried anger management programmes and we had both had counselling, to no avail. I had left him, walked out of our marriage countless times. I always came back. He had always had that hold over me. I could never leave this man. I knew he would never leave me. He had had numerous affairs, some I knew about, some were not known, but it was always our bed he came back too. He needed me like you need to air to breath. Through me he lived. Without me he would die.

I couldn't exactly discuss this topic with anyone now could I? The fact that I wanted to kill my husband. I could not seek help and advice. They would think I was insane? Then it hit me. There it was, the perfect motif ,the perfect alibi. I was in fact insane. It wouldn't take a great effort at all to convince people I was actually insane now would it? All they would have to do was take one look at my medical file. I had a vast record of mental illness dating back to when I was twelve years old, when I had tried to take my own life. I had lost count of the number of times I had swallowed those little white tablets which turned me into a walking zombie, antidepressants. I was an expert on depression. Then there was the breakdown I had suffered only twelve months earlier. Perhaps I had never taken the prescribed medication and I was still unable to control my own mind.

I had long since stopped praying he would be killed in a horrific car accident , or be run over by a bus. That was never going to happen. I was more likely to win the National Lottery.

I had looked into other ways of killing him , in fact I had quite a good recollection now of how others had killed people, of course most of these people were now serving life sentences. But that didn't deter me in the slightest. Maybe I would get lucky.

I would play out different scenarios inside my head, looking at them in depth from lots of different angles. What if that happened or what if he was able to stop me. This limited what I would be able to do. He was much larger and therefore much stronger than me.

I could take a large kitchen knife perhaps the one I used to cut his joint of beef every Sunday, I could raise it high above my head and bring it down and sink the sharp, cold silver glistening blade deep into his chest. What if I missed his heart? Would that mean with an operation he would then survive? I would very likely miss his heart and while I may damage other parts of his chest and maybe another organ, stabbing someone in the front chest to reach their heart is best done with an under swung blow instead of an over swing I decided. Over swings will connect with the ribs and those were built to deflect blows with pointy objects like knives. Not to mention hitting the heart is a precise task and you are more likely to puncture a lung than injure the heart. I could just stab away at his body in a wild frenzied attack and leave him there bleeding to death. I could sit and have a nice hot cup of coffee and perhaps finish reading my book while he lay dying on the cold tiles of the kitchen flooring. But I was sure his dying gurgling noises of chocking on blood and his cries for help would just annoy me and distract me from my reading.

I could of course shoot him, but I had no idea how or where to get hold of a gun ,even if I could get one , knowing my luck I would miss anyway.

Poisoning wasn't a very good idea as already established with the coffee idea.

I had looked into the prospect of hiring someone else to do the job for me, but wasn't that taking the coward way out? Besides I didn't have the finances and to be honest wouldn't have known how to go about this properly. That would also take time and planning anyway. I wanted it to take place when I felt it right. The suspense and waiting would be too much to bear, I never was good at keeping secrets.

My favourite scenario was that of burning him alive. He would definitely feel pain that way wouldn't he? I would never be able to make him feel as much pain as he had inflicted upon me, but it was pain none the less. We would go to bed as any usual night and we'd make love as we usually did, much to my disgust. But it always tired him out, he never had had good stamina. He would then roll over onto his right side and fall fast asleep. Once asleep nothing could wake him ,not even a bomb going off and no I had no desired attempt to try to make explosives. I would then wait till I heard him snoring deeply, I would leave our bed go downstairs to the outhouse and fetch the can of petrol he kept next to he lawnmower. I would then return to the bedroom and as quick as a flash soak the bed in petrol, I loved the smell of petrol , I could not walk past a Petrol Station without filling my lungs with the beautiful smell. With one flick of a match the bed would go up in flames along with him.

But of course he could wake up, he could smell the petrol, he might not even get burned, he might even survive my plan even if he were to be badly hurt. Another idea to throw out of the window.

Sadly and through no fault of my own of course my precious husband lay stone cold dead on a mortuary slab a few weeks later, I even had to identify his body much to my disgust.