The Other WomanA short story by ry moore

Was it the strangely sweet, familiar scent that caused her to turn? Myrna was unsure. It seemed as if there was something or someone in her room a few moments ago. How long that presence was there she had no idea, but something had caused her to awaken from her sleep.

She tried peering into the darkness but to no avail. Her eyelids, like her mind, were still groggy with sleep. She squeezed them shut for a few moments and listened. She could hear the cool night breeze playing with the curtain at her window; she could also hear the trailing echoes of conversational stanzas floating up and down the stairway that led from her living room below. On opening her eyes she remembered why she had gone to bed so early.

She searched the room without moving off the bed. She eyed every corner of the room ascertaining whether anything seemed different. She knew her bedroom as well as she knew the back of her hands; she would be able to tell if a button had been shifted from where she had left it. There! …. She smelt it again. It was sweet and tantalizing, and it lingered in the air like skywriting. Uhmmm …what was it?

Myrna’ mind flashed back to about four hours earlier when she had a “little” dispute with her husband. He had been too busy flirting with the new girl from his office, whom he had invited to their regular weekend house party. The girl was pretty and sophisticated. Myrna remembered the lump of jealousy that had risen in her heart when Brian introduced her as his research assistant. All night the Miss “R A” clung to him like his underwear; and Myrna had no intentions of being slighted.

Just as the dispute got out of control and the tears were rushing down her face, someone came and put an arm around her shoulder, and whispered softly: “Go on up and rest dear, Brian is not interested in her at all!” Myrna was too busy crying her heart out to notice the voice trying to explain away what seemed quite obvious. That pretty little thing was all over her man like an umbrella. How do you mean ‘not interested’? Ahhhh… That was how she recognized the scent!

Brian’s clothes had carried that same smell on numerous occasions, especially when he had to do business overseas. What did he say it was? Ave Negro …. Some kind of black bird! Myrna screamed out of sheer disbelief. Her husband’s other woman had sent her, the wife, to her room. Was she now lurking in the shadow of her half open door with criminal intent? Or was she just checking to see if the coast was clear. Myrna screamed again and ran crazily down the stairs …. Only to crash into the naked body of “the other woman”, who whispered harshly, “Didn’t I tell you to go to bed?”