Checkmate

She straightened her skirt and flattened it out with her palms. “Silk crushes so easily” she thought. But she was glad she had been dressed to kill. Her suspicions of a year had not been unfounded, Dev was having an affair. His furtive glance at her whenever he approached the Bitch was just added confirmation that she wasn’t even looking for. The way they shot glances at each other throughout the evening, so casual yet consuming, had made her look away each time, hurriedly, hungrily seeking some solace. But nobody had noticed. Her midnight blue full-length ensemble, with her hair piled high made her look like the elegant, contented wife of a senior partner of the firm, not like the jilted one in a broken home of love that had long curdled. And that had been necessary.

She looked around the house from the chaise longue she was on. A long, hard, last look. It was time to leave. She would miss this beautiful house and the happy stories it's walls had once told, of earlier days and cleaner slates. But this crazy game had gone on for too long. It had been the time to leave a year ago when she had caught him in one of his contemptible bluffs for the first time. The confrontation had blown into a full throttled fight just as she had expected. Bristling with frustration, she had thrown her shoe at him. The coarseness of that act baffled her to date. She was not like that. She always acted composedly and competently and handled intense situations so well. Like, now. Memories of that first fight made her think of her shoes, and whether she had packed them all. She had. And the comfortable yet dainty ones she had on now would be perfect for the long trip ahead. She looked down at them and then quickly drew her feet in. The pool of blood around his cracked skull had grown at an alarming rate, almost half way to the chaise. She had been so careful and it would all be ruined if she was stupid enough to get blood stains on her shoes. She got up, carefully stepping around the Persian rug. Yes, it was time to leave.