An Unconventional Wife

The fact that Melissa Forethought spent her time planning murders did not trouble her conscience at all. It is simply nominal determinism in action she told herself every time she went out to buy a bottle of thallium, or some such, to apply to the chicken fricassee which she was cooking for whoever happened to be temporarily occupying the soon-to-be-vacated position of husband to Melissa Forethought. She was currently on her seventeenth, and had become something of an expert at spouse disposal.  

            Why husbands? Why not? thought Melissa Forethought. There’s a plentiful supply of men and maliciously planning their demise is as easy as cooking pasta. Interestingly, in her third marriage, when she was experimenting with cruelty-free methods of hastening her then husband’s demise, she had cooked some pasta in Tesco’s savers bleach. Clearly, this plan was as risible as it was doomed to failure, more idiocy than malice, but Melissa was quite delighted when dear young Jeremy suffered a hitherto undiscovered anaphylactic reaction to bleach which did for him in a very interesting blotchy/bloaty/clutch-at-his-throaty sort of way.

            It was a moment of epiphany for Melissa.

            Husbands four through to twelve (inclusive) had all been men chosen for their fatal anaphylactic intolerances. Husband eight had had a particularly rare but deadly reaction to latex and, on their wedding night, had succumbed to the inevitable with the words, “What the hell is happening to my…?!!!” after his brand new bride had, ahem, accidentally rolled on a non-latex-free prophylactic. He looked so disappointed, thought Melissa, who had been surprised at the rapidity of his demise. An anaphylactic prophylactic, she sighed to herself, so poetic. How she had laughed at this thought (once the ambulance crew had taken his corpse away to the morgue).

            There was nothing like an unconventional ethical blind-spot about what constituted a successful outcome to a marriage to give your life meaning, and Melissa Forethought’s heart went out to her brother, Super Psycho Villain Lack Of Forethought, who had had no such luck and was currently serving seven consecutive life sentences for a series of only partially successful somewhat badly planned crimes. Even serial killers love their little brothers.

(Malice Aforethought – the intention to kill, which distinguishes murder from unlawful killing.)