Deceived Feeling

by Maria Shanina


​For the second morning Anny was trying to get away from a traditional buy-buy kiss, but her husband was opening and closing the doors of the wardrobe so frantically that she had to stop pretending. Trying to look smiley and sleepy, Anny shuffled into the corridor where George was lacing his shoes. When George stood up, Anny shuddered. Strong sweaty smell struck her nostrils. George moved to her and closed his eyes, but Anny quickly kissed him on a cheek. A thought of tasting his smelly saliva made her guts burn. Looking uneasy, George moved to the door and went off to work. Not wasting a second, Anny rushed into the bathroom.
           
Feeling life again, she opened her laptop and typed I can not bear the smell of my husband into a search bar. She felt relieved as she was not the only woman whose husband made her sick. The Internet advisers were there to help. Change his perfume, bathe together, send him to the dentist, change his diet. All these ideas sounded right, but definitely could not work in Anny's case. Every hair, every millimeter of George's skin was exhaling poison.
           
But Anny was a good wife.
           
“Georgie, why don't we have a hot bath together? It's ready waiting.”
           
It was not difficult to seduce George for a bath. He quickly took off his office suit and jumped into bubbly flavorful water. Anny yelped.
           
“You hurt, honey?”
 
“It's water. Too hot. Sensitive skin, you know. I'll wait in bed.”
           
Anny took cover under a thick blanket. She pinched her hand, then squeezed the skin harder. She tried to reach the level of pain a soft touch of her husband had given her. No result.
           
In several minutes George found his wife sleeping. He wished her good dreams and with a minute hesitation added that the next day he was flying on a two-day trip to the capital. The rest of the night he was peacefully snoring, while Anny was secretly crying. She was addressing thankful tears to all the gods she could remember.
           
George always took an early flight to the capital and never woke Anny up when leaving on business. It was sunny outdoors when she opened her eyes to the warm September day. Anny took a shower, put on the coziest onesie and went into the kitchen. She was putting on the kettle when the breaking news startled her. Georgie's usual flight fell. Accident, they said. Nobody survived.
           
Now she knew what she'd felt. She had smelled the death. The feature death of her husband.
           
Another wave of nausea. The stink of death came back. Anny screamed, cried, broke the glass vase. She wanted to crush everything in the house. The damn TV-set first. She madly ripped the wire.
           
Her last thought was that her nostrils'd deceived her. A second ago it was not the death of George she inhaled. It was gas.