Thursday 15 December 2016

Bath Salts

For audio click here 
Bath salts! 
Bath salts!
Bath salts!
They’d been together for three months and she’d never once taken a bath. She didn’t like baths, with or without condiments. 
They’d been together for three months and he knew full well that her skin was so sensitive to soaps and perfumes, that putting salts in her bath would leave her needing an ocean of calamine lotion. 
Jemma tried to remind herself that it was the thought that counted, but that just made it worse. Andy had put little or no thought into the present. 
Through the walls she could hear the jangling music, screeching cars and gunshots of the computer game Andy was playing. That’s what she had bought him, the latest Grand Theft Auto.  She bought him it because she knew he’d liked. She bought him it despite the fact she hated him playing on the damn Xbox all day and all night with grease stains on his jogging bottoms and Dorito crumbs on his football shirt. She’d bought him it despite the fact she hated the violent misogynistic game. And what did she get? Bath salts.
“Fucking die you wanker,” Andy shouted at some innocent digital bystander.
Good idea, Jemma thought. She picked up the frying pan from the stove and tested the weight. That’d do nicely, she thought and imagined the noise it would make as metal connected with skull. Then, she put it back down and continued making the tea. 
She went through to the living room and looked at her man sitting on the floor with the controller in his hand. She could just pour the scalding hot tea over him now. She could say she slipped and fell, he wouldn’t be able to say any different, he only had eyes for the screen. It wouldn’t kill him but…
“Here’s your tea love.” She put it down next to her but he didn’t look away from the television. 
She could see herself picking up that television and dropping it on his head. Killing two birds with one stone. Her fingers itched as she saw the sparks fly. 
Jemma, calm down, she said to herself. 
“I’m going to have a bath,” she said. Andy grunted in reply. 

Wow, just wow, the bath salts smoothed the water, made it silky to the touch. The smell melted away her bad mood and made everything okay with the world. And they were hypoallergenic so her skin didn’t explode. It was lovely. Jemma lay there until the water went cold around her. Then, she pulled the plug with her toe and watched the water drain away. Once she’d dried off and got dressed, she’d made up her mind. She closed the front door carefully behind her and started walking. She’d never look back. 

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