Disclaimer: I claim no ownership of any of these characters except for the Kills and their families. Gaston Leroux, Andrew Lloyd-Webber, Joel Schumacher et al retain their copyrights. I just chew on them.
"Honey, I'm home!" he hollers. Always one for the classics, is my man.
"Dear!" I replied, "could you come into the laundry please?" Sweet as Pie. But this time I had really had enough.
Moments tick by. Tense moments. I can hear him thinking, the cogs in his wormy brain are grinding so audibly. "Did I mix whites with colours?" "Did I leave the iron turned on all night" "Did I leave my kills to drain up here instead of down in the – uh oh"
"Honey! My Beloved! Kitten! You know how I am when I get in…" he wheedles, clearly avoiding the daggers being hurled at him as he tiptoes around the laundry door.
"It's only overnight, and then you know I clean it up…"
Meek evasion turns, predictably, to passive aggression.
"And really, I don't see what the big deal is! It's not like you're in here, slaving over the tub for hours everyday. I seem to recollect you saying that as long as Meg got the dry-cleaning sorted you didn't care to ever set foot in here ever again!"
He sidles up, bloodshot eyeballs in my face. So very charming, my husband. Not the commando in charge of long-term plans though. I place my arms around his pretty neck and calmly extract the closest dagger from the wall where it is embedded behind his self-righteous head.
"Darling" I purr, bringing the blade to rest against his better cheek, "do it again and I'll carve you a new one" I smile. He loves it when I smile. "Not that you wouldn't appreciate that".
I step back, albeit cautiously – Meg will only put up with so many "innocuous" bloodstains on my clothing. He looks somewhat chastened but still I feel the point has not reached home.
"Listen, Erik, my love, I know we're both new at this domesticity trip, but if we are to get along, you must simply accept that I will not tolerate ex-parking inspectors or other deceased persons hanging from meat-hooks in every room with a tiled surface. You will simply not do this anymore, do you understand? I won't have it!"
"Then where!" he grumps
"There is a perfectly good storage cage downstairs in the carpark".
I step around him, leaving him to his various states of eye-rolling, seething and monstrous self-pity. I had a lovely new edition of Martha Stewart Living to enjoy after-all.
Kill Report #1: Larry – the ex-parking inspector
Age at Time of Death: 42
Time of Death: 3.04pm Tuesday – minutes after the clearway-rule became active
Means of Death: Strangulation by key-chain.
Deceased is survived by: De-facto spouse Mary-Alice (39) and pet iguana Snowflake (7).
Next Week on Psycho-killers and the Loving Lovers who Love them: Erik figures that having a "living bride" maybe wasn't such a hot idea after-all.
