Curses Read Free

repeated over and over.
    ‘Off.’ Rhea hit the Stop button several times, and in sheer frustration she bashed the player.
    I want my due, I want my due, I want my due , the CD changed its tune.
    ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ Rhea pulled the plug and the machine shut down. ‘What is wrong with all our electrics today?’
    After plugging the player back into the wall socket, Rhea was finally able to extract the CD and wandered back into the main house to find something to clean it with. It certainly didn’t look dirty.
    Rhea was rather surprised by the warmth of the air she encountered in the lounge. ‘That’s odd.’
    When she returned to the studio with her cleaned CD in hand, the drop in temperature was no longer apparent. ‘God, I must be imagining things.’ She shrugged off the incident and got back to work.
    3. The Other Woman
     
    The sound of teeth chattering woke Rhea, who discovered it was her own jaw stammering ten to the dozen. Again the bedclothes had been flung from the bed. As before, Phillip was curled up and still fast asleep, but the distance he’d flung the covers this time was truly unbelievable — they were halfway across the room!
    ‘Phillip.’ She nudged him.
    ‘Natalie?’ he mumbled, still asleep.
    Rhea’s eyes were wide open now. ‘Who the hell is Natalie?’ She thumbed her husband hard.
    ‘What?’ He woke with a start. ‘What’s wrong?’
    ‘Who the hell is Natalie?’ Rhea repeated her query.
    ‘What?’ grumbled Phillip. ‘I don’t know any Natalie.’ He went to pull the covers back over himself and was surprised when Rhea referred him to a spot halfway across the bedroom floor. ‘Is this your strange notion of revenge?’
    ‘I didn’t do it,’ Rhea defended, as Phillip headed over to retrieve the covers, ‘and if you don’t know anyone by the name of Natalie, then why did you mumble that name when I tried to wake you just now?’
    ‘I have no idea,’ he replied in a rather short tone of voice. He didn’t appreciate being interrogated in the wee hours when he was half asleep and freezing cold. ‘Can we please discuss this in the morning?’ Phillip rolled away from Rhea, pulling the covers around him and settling back down to sleep.
    Rhea was in a huff by then and couldn’t go back to sleep. Why was he barking at her? She wasn’t the one uttering the name of another in her sleep.
    She tossed and turned on this for a while, then Rhea realised she was being silly. Phillip was NOT having an affair. And even if he was that kind of man, which he wasn’t, there weren’t any women in the immediate area that he could have an affair with! Not to mention that assembling his prototype was eating up every spare minute Phillip had. Why he kept flinging off the bed covers was a mystery, but certainly not one worth losing sleep over; thus, Rhea found herself drifting back off into dreamland.

     
    ‘I don’t know any Natalie, I’ve never known a Natalie, and I’m not interested in ever knowing a Natalie,’ Phillip stated for the record as he poured himself some coffee.
    ‘That’s the conclusion I reached,’ Rhea confessed, pulling out the cereal. The stove was still acting up and a repairman had yet to show up to fix it.
    ‘Oh, hon.’ Phillip placed his mug aside and took his wife in hand for a hug. ‘You’re the only woman I’ve ever wanted since the day we met, you know that.’
    ‘Well, I ought to.’ Rhea smiled to reassure him. ‘You sure pursued me long and patiently enough.’
    ‘Damn straight.’ Phillip kissed her. ‘I’m not about to blow all that hard work. You are my greatest investment and our marriage is far and away my greatest invention.’
    ‘Keep talking like that and you’re going to be late for work,’ Rhea warned, seductively.
    As Phillip opened Rhea’s wraparound to expose her naked body, he sighed: ‘I do love being my own boss.’
    In Rhea’s opinion, sex for breakfast was a fabulous way to start the day, and as the kitchen was