Originally posted March 04, 2007

Title: A Beautiful Lie
Author: Lady B
Fandom: none
Rating: R for mature themes
Word Count: 294 words
Warnings: implied character death
Summary: Muriel was a successful business woman and married to the man of her dreams. But there was a crack in the otherwise perfect façade.
Author's Note: For this week's Livejournal AWDT prompt: All fics must be titled “A Beautiful Lie”. When I saw this, something just clicked in my brain.
Disclaimer: This is an original work of fiction. Any similarities to any real life person is completely coincidental.

- - -

Muriel stared at her hands, neither looking left nor right of herself, seemingly lost in her own mind. She could faintly hear someone speaking over her head but she ignored this as she ignored everything else going on around her.

How could this have happened? What did I do wrong?

She had asked herself this same question over and over again.

- - -

She remembered the day she arrived home from work, early for once, happy that she'd successfully sold another home to another happy couple. She had stopped off at the store and picked up a couple of steaks and a bottle of wine for dinner. As she drove home, she went over in her mind her plans for her husband for the evening. She thought about the brand new bright red baby doll teddy she had hidden in the bottom of her underwear drawer, thinking that it would be the perfect night to use it.

Pulling into the drive, she noticed her husband's car and wondered why he was home early, then shrugged it off as another aspect of her continuing good luck for the day.

She put the groceries on the counter, removed her shoes and began searching the house for her wayward husband.

She found him in their bedroom, but she couldn't recall what happened after that.

When she came back to herself, there was blood on her hands and a knife at her feet.

- - -

Was it all just a lie? A beautiful lie? She thought to herself, tears threating her vision. Someone nudged her shoulder and she looked up. She gained her footing and the fog from her brain lifted for her to hear one word. And it was as if death had personally come to claim her soul.

“Guilty.”


-Fin