Please note: this story was provided by the author and published as is.
There was a box of Swiss chocolates resting on my doorstep, all wrapped up in a frilly, red ribbon. I carried them into the kitchen and pulled off the lid. Inside was a heart-shaped card that read: A tasty treat for the sweetest guy I know.
Just then, my wife shuffled through the door, groggy and still half-asleep. “What are those?” she asked as she passed the breakfast counter.
“You mean you didn’t send them?”
Suddenly alert, she stopped, reached over, and snatched the card away. A married man receiving an anonymous gift is pretty damning in and of itself, but the note was all the noose Melissa needed to hang me with.
“No, seriously. Who sent these?” she asked, her piercing brown eyes searching my face for any signs of guilt.
I shrugged. Then, after a brief pause, she stuffed the note into my chest and poured herself a coffee.
That apathy stung, honestly.
How the hell did we reach that point? How’d we go from ‘the couple so happy you can see all our teeth in every smiling photo’ to not giving a single crap about a love letter? Part of me wanted a giant brawl—for us to spit raw fury at each other. Hell, maybe Melissa could even try cutting off my wedding ring, finger and all. At least that would prove she still had feelings for me.
I tossed the chocolates into the trash. “Hey, it doesn’t matter who sent them, because the perfect woman’s already standing right here.” From a side angle, I threw my arms around her waist and leaned in for a kiss.
Melissa bit my bottom lip, hard enough to draw blood, before storming off upstairs.
You wanna know the really sad part? It was the most action I’d gotten since Queen Elizabeth was monarch…
It’s crazy how, in two short years, Mel and I slid from excited about trying for a baby to strangers living under the same roof. Maybe the blame rested solely on my shoulders? Maybe we only fell into that stagnant routine because of my ever-expanding gut. And hell, when did I last surprise her with roses?
The two of us worked in our home office that day, directly across from one another. Melissa worked as a solicitor for a prestigious legal firm, me an IT consultant at a humble software company.
Anytime our eyes met above the laptops, I tried to diffuse the uncomfortable silence by blowing her a kiss or offering a cheeky wink, but her mouth remained a grim straight line.
At midday, I pulled on my headset and joined a Teams call with my co-worker, Angela. She said she had an announcement and flicked on her camera, only to reveal the cutest kitten you ever saw, who was furiously trying to pry off his green collar. His fur was dark grey, except for the paws, which were whiter than snow. That’s where Angie got the idea for the name ‘Mittens’.
I joked about started an office betting pool on how long before the little critter fled Angie’s relentless mothering. Angela and I usually enjoyed a bit of banter—nothing flirty, only innocent teasing—but as the mechanical clacks of Melissa’s keyboard ceased, my voice tapered off.
The room was suddenly brimming with tension. Prominent veins throbbed across the forehead and neck the angry figure not making eye contact with me.
Wait, had the chocolates secretly bothered Melissa? Was there still a glimmer of hope for our relationship’s rotting carcass?
I cleared my throat, made my voice all serious, and asked my co-worker to pull-up some firewall logs.
That evening, Melissa only made dinner for herself, not me, and later in bed, she faced the mirrored closet door on the far side of the room.
Desperate for some romance, I clasped my hand around her stomach and tried drawing her warm body towards mine.
A drilling elbow to the ribs poured cold water over that idea…
For the next few weeks, cosying up to her felt like towelling myself off with stinging nettles. One night I joined her in the lounge to watch a TV show about yachts, but the second my butt hit the cushion, she stood and said, “I’m done, put on what you like.” Another time, I surprised her with Ed Sheeran tickets and reservations at her favourite Italian restaurant.
She went alone…
One Friday afternoon, at work, as Angela and I sat side-by-side parsing Kubernetes logs, my wonderful spouse stopped by for our weekly lunch date ten minutes early. Even at our relationships lowest point, neither of us ever dared skip a luncheon; they were a holy sacrament—the life support system for a terminally-ill marriage neither of us felt ready to pull the plug on. Yet.
Even though there was no affair, I instinctively pushed my chair away from Angela’s before greeting the wifey. It was all smiles and pleasantries between the two while I pulled on my jacket, but Melissa’s pursed lips made me queasy.
Quickly I ushered her out past reception and down the street into a nearby café, where an elderly couple at the table beside ours held hands while scanning their menus. I couldn’t help feel a bitter pang of jealousy.
The romance in my own relationship had run away, sure. But maybe, just maybe, I could claw it back…
The next morning, a bouquet of pink oriental lilies arrived by special delivery. The accompanying note read: Michael, I’m like a flower…and you’re the sunshine.
When I closed the door on the deliveryman Melissa was already standing behind me, her hands balled into tight fists. She asked was it another gift from my secret admirer. Air quotes accompanied the word ‘secret’.
I swore up and down I had zero idea who sent them, then we argued, our voices growing steadily louder and bolder, until, with a shit-eating grin, I said, “What’s that old legal expression, innocent until proven guilty?”
Melissa took three deep breaths before announcing she was ‘done’.
Tossing the flowers aside, I said, “What do you mean done?”
“You wanna have an affair, go right ahead.” The words came boiling out.
“I am NOT having an affair.”
For a moment we stood there, her warm, furious breaths spreading out across my face. Before I knew it I was getting pushed against the wall, fingernails scraping my back. At some point a side desk toppled over, and then a porcelain lamp shattered across the wooden floor. I’d never seen Melissa so…heated.
Many of her friends warned me about her temper. Years earlier, her then boyfriend sent his ex a flirty Facebook message, which resulted in Mel, repeatedly, headbutting the poor girl at a bridal shower, hard enough she spent two days in the ICU.
Well now that ‘personality quirk’ had resurfaced. And this intrigued me.
After our steamy encounter, Melissa pulled on her clothes, climbed into her BMW, and sped off. My bruised pelvic muscles were still spasming when she returned home, long after dark. She refused to say where she’d been.
The following morning, at the office, there was no sign of Angela. She finally answered her phone at midday and announced Mittens had vanished. After a frantic, ten-minute back and forth, she composed herself long enough to explain she’d found the kitty’s green collar—just the collar—on the welcome mat outside her apartment.
No big deal, the little critter hated that choker. He’d turn up sooner or later, right?
Over the next few days, the cold war between Melissa and I thawed. Slightly. Were we going at it like newlyweds? No. However, after shaking away some cobwebs, the passion came surging back, and the idea of divorce disappeared right off the map.
Had we finally turned a corner in our relationship? Were our romantic lives on the up-and-up once again?
Nope. Three weeks later, we’d slid back into our old routine. No passion, zero intimacy. The centre of our marital bed may as well have been cordoned off by police tape.
Maybe part of her still suspected I was having an affair, despite me repeatedly promising the contrary.
It wasn’t long before a third gift arrived: a male beauty and grooming kit. The note said, to cover up the musk after we work up a sweat.
“Work up a sweat?” my beloved screamed, outraged, as she smashed glass cologne jars around the house.
In my man cave, she dangled the final bottle directly above the second love of my life—an expensive, wonderful, top-of-the-line gaming rig. Second’s before she fried the circuit board, I seized Melissa’s arm and steered her into the wall, pinning her body in place with mine.
Quickly her tongue found my mouth. Everything after that is a bit of a blur.
Sometime later, she pulled on her clothes, climbed into her BMW, and drove off.
Those gifts acted like a romantic adrenaline shot. However, it never took long fizzling out. There had to be a grown-up way to jump-start our love life and keep the motor chugging along. Maybe an in-depth heart-to-heart? Or couples therapy?
Maybe the gesture didn’t need to be so grandiose. Maybe a simple speech would do, straight from the heart.
Later that evening, Angie’s parents called asking whether their daughter turned up for work. I explained she’d hadn’t, although since she’d missed a bunch of day since Mittens vanished, this didn’t raise any red flags. I promised I’d call them if I heard from her.
Melissa returned long after midnight and climbed into bed. I placed my head on her shoulder, my hands interlocking around her smooth stomach, and said, “I love you. Maybe I don’t say that enough, but it’s true. I know I haven’t been the best husband lately, and I’m sorry. I promise to do better. I’ll start going to the gym again. And I’ll surprise you with roses, like when we started dating. I’d never, ever dream of cheating on you. All I want is for things to go back to the way they were.”
In the mirrored closet, I watched her hands clamp over mine. We lay together, our chests going up and down in rhythmic heaves. And somehow, I knew everything would turn out alright.
Until the very next morning, when another gift arrived. This one caught me off guard. It was a little white box wrapped in a pink bow. I carried it into the kitchen.
“Another present from your admirer?” Melissa asked from behind her coffee mug, making zero effort to mask her excitement. “Go on. Open it.”
I said, “You sent this, didn’t you?”
She made a big, overexaggerated show of protesting her innocence. “You’re the one with the suitor, darling.”
Okay, I thought. I’ll play along. Hell, it might’ve even turned into a romantic treasure hunt…
I licked my lips. Slowly, my hands untied the bow and pulled opened the box. And the second I realized what was in there, I let go and retreated into the wall.
It was a severed finger coated in dry, crusty blood. That mornings Weetabix slid back up my throat as the detached digit fell onto the floor and rolled towards Melissa, stopping halfway between our feet.
“Oh,” she said, her voice all flat. “Is that a finger?”
The oxygen in the room grew thick and heavy. I looked from the perfectly composed lady standing opposite me to the blood-smeared appendage, back and forth. Was it even real? It couldn’t be real…
Melissa said, “Is something wrong? You liked the other presents.”
Between heavy gasps, I choked out a weak, “The other presents weren’t…body parts.”
“You’re right. Maybe this whole secret admirer business has gotten out of hand?”
Casual as you like, she tossed her empty cup into the sink and tried to stroll out of the room, but I cut in front of her—skirting the ‘gift’ along the way—and gripped her by the shoulders. “Melissa, what the fuck did you do?” “What do you mean, darling?”
“Where did you get that? Tell me right now or I’m calling the police.”
She grinned. “And saying what? You’re the one with the secret admirer, remember?”
Confused, terrified, I rushed outside and climbed into my Fiesta, then drove to a coffee shop and sat in the corner booth, trembling. There was only one person that finger could belong to and Angela still would not—could not?— answer her damn phone, so I checked in with her parents, carefully avoiding any explicit mention of the package. They still hadn’t heard from her.
This wasn’t happening, this couldn’t be happening. No way the woman I married could ever commit such a horrible act.
But then I thought back to that neutral reaction to the finger, not to mention the sour look she gave Angie in the office that day.
To think I actually wanted to have a child with that psycho…
Questions shoulder charged their way to the forefront of my mind. Should I notify the police? A finger arrived by post, of course I should! But what would I say?
My wife sent the finger, officer. No, I can’t prove it. What’s that? She says I’ve been having an affair? You think I killed my secret lover to protect my marriage? Why yes, my wife’s salary is more than double mine, why do you ask?
I felt more helpless than a poisoned fly in a spider’s web.
Clearly, Melissa’s feelings for me had come surging back as we rekindled, which resulted in her jealous nature rearing its ugly head, which resulted in…this.
I needed proof of what she’d done. Or better yet, a confession.
I spent the night in a cheap hotel room crawling with cockroaches. Then, bright and early the next morning, I returned home, roughly around the time Melissa started her day. In my trouser pocket, my phone was secretly recording.
I went through to the kitchen and took Mel by the hands. “Honey, I love you.”
“I love you too.”
I sighed. “Is there anything you need to tell me?”
“About what?”
“About…anything?”
“I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Melissa, there’s a detached finger in the bin.”
“Yeah, and don’t think I’ve forgotten. Whatever weird kinks you and your secret admirer are into, count me out.”
As if on cue, there came a knock at the door. A devilish grin flashed across Mel’s face. “Sounds like another package.”
My heart thudded wildly in my chest. Another delivery? What would it be this time? A severed tongue? A baby toe?
With dread in the pit of my stomach I opened the door to an irate delivery man who sneered about how long he’d been waiting. He asked me to sign for a package—one roughly the size of a microwave and heavy enough it might have harboured an entire human skull.
As I placed the box on the lounge table and stared at it fixedly, my wonderful spouse came and stood behind me.
“Go on. Open it.”
The muscles in my legs would not stop twanging, so I sat down and tore apart the cardboard. Inside lay another box, this one neatly gift wrapped.
Melissa chuckled, her cold claws massaging my shoulders. “Keep going.”
Inside that second container was a pile of rocks weighing the package down, along with a rectangular carton the size and shape of a ballpoint pen.
“Fooled you.” Practically giddy with excitement, she let her bony arms slide across my chest and pushed her lips right up against my ear. “Last one. I promise.”
Her clammy breaths raced along my spine, down toward the pit of my stomach where they sloshed about.
I untied the bow and lifted the top off the box. Inside, on a bed of brown crinkle-cut packaging paper, lay a folded note.
It read: Michael, I know things have been tense lately, but I want you to know I love you dearly, and there’s nobody I’d rather take this journey with. Your loving wife, Melissa.
My fingers plunged into the terrifying unknown and fished out a pregnancy test with two blue lines running across the oval screen.
Melissa unloaded a barrage of kisses along my face. “Surprise! You’re gonna be a Daddy.”
As she chattered away, already planning how best to decorate the nursery, a dry cramp seized my throat.
“I’m gonna go tell my mom,” she said, already disappearing into the next room.
I took a deep breath, slowly exhaled. What a disaster.
I only mailed myself those original gifts to make Melissa jealous. They were meant to reignite the spark. I never dreamed the situation might spiral this far out of control.
Now Angelas missing, probably dead. There’s a little bundle of joy on the way.
And I have absolutely no idea what to do…