Strange Counsel

Strange Counsel

"You must kill him," whispered the voice in Sheila's ear, "Before it's too late."

Sheila shut off the hairdryer. The warm, languid feeling of her just-completed bubble-bath was crazed like the windshield on a wrecked car by the shiver that crawled up her spine. "What?" She said to the empty bathroom.

There was, of course, no reply. She shivered, then resumed blow-drying her hair.

"He's cheating on you already," the windy whisper said. "He's going to kill you if you don't act fast."

Sheila let the still-running hairdryer dangle from shaking hands. "Who ... Who's saying this?"

"I will help you." The voice was definitely coming from the hairdryer. "I will show you how. Just listen to me. I'll keep you safe."

Sheila brought the "talking," hairdryer up to eye level. "This is ..." crazy, she was too scared to say. Sure, things had been a little ... strange ... lately, but...

"You have to kill him before he hurts you. Before he kills you," the hairdryer whispered. A slow poison would be best. I can show you--"

Sheila caught sight of her terrified green eyes in the steam-veiled mirror. She ignored her first instinct to hurl the hairdryer across the room, and very deliberately switched it off. "I won't listen to this," she said, hearing the shrill quaver in her voice. "I won't! Things will get back to normal. It'll get better! I won't listen to this!"

That was three days ago. Three bubble-baths before bedtime ago. Three uses of the hairdryer ago. Things were getting worse, not better.

Each night, she listened a little more. How did her hairdryer know all the intimate details? How did it know Louis was cheating on her, and with whom? How did it know how rocky her marriage had suddenly become? And yet ... it did know! Each night, the windy, whiny voice sighed truths she could not deny. Tonight, for the first time, she listened to its instructions. "I will help you kill him ..."

The front porch was dappled in cheery morning sunlight. Louis sat in his LazeeBoy, listening to the birds, the traffic rushing by, the children playing next door .. He felt awful. Spears of pain shot from his guts all the way to his backbone. The nausea was worse this morning than it had been the two mornings before. This wasn't the flu. Stress? He had so much to do at work--two reports due by the end of the day; two client conferences, a company-wide Zoom meeting later this morning .. and ... Janet would be there ...

And even worse, something was very wrong with Sheila! Lately, she was too ... too cheery? Too attentive? Too ... false. Sheila was hiding something.

He rose and staggered into the house to get ready for work. He angrily shoved Sheila's hairdryer out of the way to plug in his electric shaver. In the mirror, he noticed how pale and haggard he looked, despite his immaculate grooming. "What do I do about ... everything? About ... Sheila?"

They had been so happily in love. "You should just get it over with and get married," all their friends had said. "You're insufferable together, just get married and make it official!" So, they had. And it had been just like the guidebook for the American Dream said it should be--good new jobs, the perfect house, talk about babies and family and future--perfect! Until it wasn't anymore.

Louis pulled himself together by an act of sheer willpower. He kissed Sheila goodbye--was she a little too affectionate? Yes, Louis thought she was ... He unlocked his Lexus, pulled out of the driveway and into traffic. His guts churned and coiled into knots. Another dagger of pain pierced him from the crown of his head to the soles of his feet. He almost swerved into oncoming traffic and made a non-issue of the whole problem, but got himself together. Two reports, a Zoom meeting ... and Janet would be there...

"It's not working! It's not working!" Sheila whimpered. She was wrapped up in her fluffy blue towel, but the bubble bath offered no comfort anymore. "He's not... you know ..." dying. She couldn't say the word, even when talking to a hairdryer.

"It's okay," sighed the voice from her hairdryer as she fluffed up her long brown hair. "Keep up the doses. Make them a little stronger. It will all be alright, but you must hurry..."

Louis heard the blow dryer stop. He imagined Sheila rising sinuously out of her mountain of pink bubbles. He saw her in his mind's eye, wrapping herself in the giant fluffy blue terry cloth towel and reaching for the annoying pink machine on the counter, fluffing up her hair before she brushed it out. She was so damned beautiful, he thought. How could she be so beautiful and so treacherous? He was sure she was hiding something from him--and it was something huge. Asteroid-hitting-Earth huge. An extinction event. A dinosaur-killer. So beautiful. Such a bad hider of secrets.

But, just what secrets were they? Was she really cheating on him? How much did he know about how she spent her time while he was at work? Could he possibly have misjudged her, been so wrong about his beautiful new wife?

The rumble in his guts, accompanied by a faint twinge of pain, seemed to lend more credence to these terrifying thoughts. Could she really be trying to kill him? Why? Sweet, beautiful Sheila...

She glided into the bedroom, still wrapped up in the blue towel. He smiled despite the crazy voices in his head. His nausea and cramps were forgotten as she dropped the towel and slid into bed. He rolled toward her, and she toward him. He could not detect any pretense in her, but deep down, he knew it was there...

Louis lay on his back, hands locked behind his head, feigning sleep. He knew Sheila was also pretending to have dozed off. He didn't dare turn to her, as much as he desperately wanted to get this out in the open. Coward, he mentally lashed himself. Too scared of the train wreck? If you can't even talk to her, how are you ever going to ...

To kill her?

His mind raced around like a bug in a trap. That was the ugly truth, though, wasn't it? He was thinking about killing his sweet, beautiful new wife, before she ... Did what, exactly? Killed him? Was she poisoning him? Why? Once again, he had no answers for his mounting suspicions, but they would not rest.

Nothing in his life had prepared him to be a wife-murderer. Or, for that matter, a husband. From prep school to Ivy League college to upwardly mobile junior partner ... Which professor taught the class on how to kill your new bride? He hadn't seen that one in the course offerings...

So, where did you get advice on getting away with murder? Louis couldn't keep the twisted smile off his face, hidden in the darkened bedroom. "Dear Abby: My wife may be cheating on me and might be trying to kill me. How can I kill her first before it's too late? Signed, Paranoid yuppie." Bad plan.

He watched the clock tick away the hours, while he asked the same questions, got no answers, and raced around and around in the trap. Finally, sleep sucked him down like an undertow.

In the morning, the pain from his guts had spread into his head. His face felt like it was being run through a blender. He still had no answers to his question. With a growl, he shoved Sheila's hairdryer out of the way (AGAIN!) and plugged in his electric shaver.

 She had ham and eggs ready on the table when Louis came into the dining room. Sunlight flooded the room. She was even more cheery than the birds singing in the trees outside, Louis thought. Before long, though, all he could think about was the chaos in his stomach. The nausea crashed over him, and razor blades seemed to be tearing him apart. He almost called in sick, but pride (and fear? Yes, just a little fear at being home when Sheila ... did whatever she was doing...) got him behind the wheel. And Janet was waiting...

He lay in wait, tense in the darkened bedroom. The nightlight sculpted hills and valleys of shadow. He couldn't relax his rigid posture ... 

He could imagine her so clearly. Her dancer's body rising from the mountains of pink bubbles--a mermaid surfacing in a sea of coral, eyes still lost in the dreamy paradise world of the bath. Standing in the tub, droplets of pinkish water cascading like gentle rain. Lifting one leg to step ashore ...

Louis bolted upright when he heard the thump from the bathroom. The short, sharp shriek that followed almost made him cry out as well. When the nightlight went out a second later, he got tangled in the sheets and sprawled to the floor in the now-totally dark bedroom. Heart pounding, he fumbled himself free and ran into the bathroom...

Sheila was still twitching slightly. Steam rose from the bathtub. An acrid smell filled the bathroom, making Louis gag and wretch. She was crumpled, not graceful. No mermaid; no dancer. A look of shock distorted the lines of her pretty face. The hairdryer lay half-submerged like an enemy submarine. It settled to the bottom of the tub with a small, polite thud as the water drained away, leaving the bubbles to collapse like a pink shroud.

Louis turned to the steamy mirror. His pallor shocked him, even through the distorting ripples. "Oh my god, oh my god!" He said in a little girl's screamy voice. "Oh my god--what do I do now!?" He was powerless to keep his mind from completing the thought ... It worked. It worked! 

"Don't touch anything," said the smooth, masculine voice of his electric razor. "We'll get through this, I promise. Call 911 and tell them there's been a terrible accident."