Sally And Steve And Shrooms

Sally is looking for ways to spice up her marriage. Could shrooms help?

Written for the 30 Days of Fright writing challenge, Day 24

There were traces of makeup on the collar of his suit jacket. Sally didn't wear makeup. She sniffed it. A trace of rich, musky perfume lay upon it like an indolent cat in a sunny spot. Suspicion sharpened her gaze, slipping into the cracks of her affection for Steve. He had spoken of tightening their belts. Making economies for things she wanted. Now he was staying out late. Sometimes he didn't even come home.

They'd been growing apart for some time now. Intimacy was on life support. He barely even spoke to her these days. He was either too busy or not in the mood. She had tried everything. Treatments to iron out the wrinkles that had gathered at the corners of her eyes and mouth. To tighten her sagging jawline. He didn't notice. She cooked his favorite meals and suggested things they could do together. He barely ate and wasn't interested.

Now this. He had asked her to take it to the dry cleaners.

She checked the pockets. A receipt for La Papillon. The list of extravagances offended her eyes and affronted her heart. He had bought a fancy dinner with oysters, steak, fish, and all the trimmings, followed by a wine she couldn't pronounce. She turned it over. A mobile number. She put the receipt in her vanity drawer.

Then she took it out.

Then she put it back.

Then she took it out and took a photo of both sides, then put it back.

Then she took it out and called the number.

“Hello?”

She dropped the call. The woman whose makeup had got in Steve's jacket collar? Probably. How far had this gone? And what could she do about it?

She sat down to consider this. Okay, what exactly do I want? And what can I do to get it?

Keep Steve at home.

(a) Against his will?

(b) Because he wants to.

Find out who this woman is and get rid of her.

(a) Against her will?

(b) Because she wants to.

Sally Morgan had never broken a law in her life. She rolled the words ‘against his will’ and ‘against her will’ around in her head like a joint. She had never smoked or taken drugs. The idea was alien. But, in the same way that a stubborn parasite burrows under the skin and stays, however much the host scratches, it remained. It grew. It mated with the possibility of being. It spawned desire, which began a relationship with speculation. A range of scenarios paraded through her mind. A brief search through the Internet produced some opportunities to learn how to get into Steve's phone. She started there.

The keylogger was easier to plant than she had realised; Steve wasn't all that bothered with cybersecurity as long as his laptop worked. That man watched so much porn! He had a subscription to several OnlyFans accounts, each of which had XXX beside names like Kandi Stix and Larissa Lamour. The explicit profile pictures left little to the imagination.

The guilt she felt about burgling his private emails passed like a burst balloon. It had grown with each one that she opened, then popped when she saw the one from Linda Horne. The photo of the woman suggestively running the tip of her tongue up the inner curve of a peeled banana slid unbidden into her mind. That was her rival? She had no chance.

(b) because he wants to.

She could try. Sally didn't really like

(a) against his will.

Too much could go wrong if she went down that road.

When Steve came home that night, he was drawn to the kitchen by the smell of cooking food.

“That smells good, Sally,” he said. “What is it?”

“Chateaubriand,” she replied, turning to face him. “It's all for me. I'll wash it down with a bottle of Pavillon Rouge du Château Margaux 2021.”

He stared at her.

Good. She had spent two hours putting on the makeup. The underwire was digging into her chest, the blouse was too tight, the miniskirt kept riding up, and she could barely balance in the stiletto heels.

“Why are you all dolled up like that?” he asked, suspicion creasing his pug-bearded face.

“I'm going out afterwards,” she replied matter-of-factly.

“What, like that?” he asked, outrage reddening his bare cheeks.

“I want to pull someone,” she told him sharply, “and since you're not interested…”

He looked lost. Defeated.

She picked up the fish slice near the head and ran her tongue up the side. A drop of meat juice dropped onto her skirt.

“Lick it off!” she commanded.

He shook his head. “This isn't you, Sally.”

“Then what am I?” she asked, disappointment raising her voice. She took the pan off the stove. “Do you want some of this?”

“I might as well,” he replied.

They ate together, divided by an awkward silence. The bottle went quickly.

“You might as well take that lot off,” said Steve.

“Are we going to…?”

“It really doesn't suit you.”

***

He stayed home for a week, as if to make sure that Sally's peccadillo was the only one. Steve still had no interest in her beyond ensuring she remained seated on the marital nest. He was on edge all the time, as if he felt he could be spending his time better but for the threat of his wife's infidelity.

What annoyed Sally the most about it was that he refused to discuss it.

There had to be a way to make him discuss it.

(a) Against his will?

(b) Because he wants to.

Well, he didn't want to, did he? That parasite idea nibbled at the edge of her consciousness. What if there was a way to make him want to?

The Internet will provide.

It did.

And Steve liked mushrooms.

Maybe not those mushrooms, but he didn't need to know which ones she was feeding him.

And she knew where to find some.

She put them, crushed in her marble pestle, into his soup, not hers.

It gave him a belly ache. At first she was disappointed, but after yawning repeatedly, he went to lie down on the sofa. She sat on the floor beside him, and asked him about work. That yielded a promising line of enquiry for later. She asked him about ‘that Sally.’

“I got home the other night to find her all tarted up, he complained. “I don't know what's going on with her. Our marriage is okay from my side but she's got some kind of mid-life thing going on. I didn’t know women did that.”

Interesting. He seemed genuinely upset.

“I come in, right, and she's got effin’ Chateaubriand in the pan and Chateau Margaux in a glass, and she's dressed like a… like a… prostitute. Then she licks the side of the fish slice like a dog. Some juice falls on her skirt and she says, ‘Lick it off!’ How am I supposed to respond to that? She's gone mad. Now I can't go out because I'm not sure what she'll do while I'm gone.”

Afraid to break the spell, Sally left it there.

“You've got Linda.”

“No, I don't,” he replied. “Not while Sally's acting up. And when she's settled, it might be too late. Linda wants a man who's there. I'm stuck at home with Crazy McNutface.”

Crazy McNutface.

Sally got up and left him to it. Whatever he thought marriage was, it shouldn't be this. She went for a walk to clear her head. Shrooms. There in the corner between the spruce trees. She picked and pocketed some to take home.

The next evening, she cooked them up and served them to Steve.

He complained of bellyache, but then began to sweat. The twitching and confusion that followed warned Sally that something had gone very wrong.

Finally, he settled down and went to sleep.

His phone rang.

Sally did nothing till she was sure Steve was asleep. It rang again. She clicked the green handset button.

“Hi Steve, it's Linda. Look, I don't care if your wife is crazy. I don't want to be the other woman. Pick one of us, Steve. You can't have us both.”

Sally dropped the call. Why did she want the marriage to continue? It wasn't love—it was habit. She had drugged her husband ho continue a habit. She winced at the realisation, and went to bed not knowing whether sleep would find her or not.

Morning found her creeping to the living room where she had left Steve. He was dead to the world. She shook him.

There was something sickening about the way he moved. He felt floppy. She tried to find a pulse. There was none. Her heart sank. Dread closed in on heavy, clunky feet.

What could she do?

Get more shrooms.

She left some in his pocket before she went to work. She would ‘find’ him later.