It sounded as though they were giving my eulogy.  Pretty words drifted through the cracked bedroom door on an air of forgotten dignity.

"We can't do this to her," he whispered, pulling on his socks and searching for the other among the tousled bedclothes.  My hand felt cold on the door and for a moment, I wondered if this was what it was like to be dead after all.  My heart had stopped beating and my lungs rallied against the air I so desperately needed.  "She's a good person. She's never hurt me."

They exchanged a few more complimentary words about the life they'd just shattered.  Somehow, I sucked in enough breath to keep my hand from trembling has I pushed open the door slowly.

They didn't even notice I was there.  He, wearing one sock, boxers he'd bought before he'd put on those last fifteen pounds, and a once-white undershirt with a hole by the bottom hem, searched for the remainder of his clothes.  She lay on the bed, looking anything but guilty, her exposed breasts sloping down into a flat tummy and perfectly rounded hips.  One leg was draped elegantly over another, and she skimmed her thigh with one perfectly-manicured finger.  I was looking at her from the side, well out of view of the mirror, and his back was turned to me.  Testing the waters, I stepped into the room, feeling transparent.  I felt my skirt swish against my bare legs.  I'd been hoping to surprise him by coming home early on his birthday.  Absently, I thumbed the wedding band, feeling as though it was burning my flesh.  I felt something close to eroticism as I crossed the room, someone else's mind controlling the movements of my body.

I slid my hands into her hair and she grasped for the blankets, a look of horror crossing her face.  I thought about pulling her off the bed by her hair, dragging her to the front door, and casting her onto the porch to freeze.  Naked and humiliated, she'd be forced to run along the busy street to wherever she had managed to hide her tricked out Hummer3 in God-awful custom fuschia paint.

I allowed myself to revel in my fantasy for a moment, picturing her grasping to cover herself with her tiny little hands.  Then slowly, I eased my hands from her hair, and crossed the room in front of my scared-frozen soon-to-be-ex-husband.  Pulling a suitcase out of the closet and his wallet off of the nightstand, I prepared him for the future, sliding out the lump of cash and all of his hidden credit cards, and dropping them into my stylish leather hobo bag.  Scanning the room, I opened his valet and took the cash he'd hidden there as well.

Tossing the suitcase at his feet, I closed my eyes and felt a rush of freedom filled me where I'd thought death would reign.  "Make sure you get everything by the time I get back, Love.  I would hate to find you here when I return."  My voice sounded foreign - sure, calm, reassuring.  I tested it again.  "And don't take anything you might regret later."

I turned to look in the mirror, fluffing my hair and spritzing a bit of perfume on the back of my neck.  I blotted my face with a tissue and freshened my eyeliner before turning back to them.  Smiling brightly, I stepped over the condom wrappers on the floor and ran a hand up his chest, his neck, finally resting on his cheek where a smudge of trashy pink lipstick was smeared from his mouth to his jaw.  Winking at him, I drew my hand back, slapping his cheek so hard I felt the shock of pain slither up my wrist, biting into the flesh of my arm, and settling in my shoulder.

I shook my chestnut curls away from my face and eyed them both one last time before heading to the hardware store.  Patting my hobo bag, I allowed myself the luxury of letting out a shaky breath, content in the knowledge that paybacks are a bitch.