The Other Woman (7 page)

Now that I was the object of Bradley’s affection, I began to groom him into the man I wanted him to be.

“Who are you?” I asked, my palms on either side of his face.

“Bradley…Murdoch?” he replied after a series of tiny shrugs.

I shook my head. “Say, I am Bradley Murdoch, attorney extraordinaire, future Prime Minister of Australia.”

His smile was shy, which I found endearing.

“Go on, say it,” I coaxed. “Who are you?” I looked deep into his blue eyes. “Own it baby. You have to. You have to appreciate Bradley Murdoch and what he stands for before anyone else can. Now say it.”

His head bobbed as my words of encouragement washed over him.

“Say it!”

“I am Bradley Murdoch, attorney extraordinaire and Future Prime Minister of Aust…aaaaahhhhh! Scarlett, c’mon!”

I smiled at his embarrassment. “Good. Now say it again with more gusto and I promise you, the next time, I will not only swallow, but I will gargle too.”

He puffed out his chest and said, “I am Bradley Murdoch, attorney extraordinaire and Future Prime Minister of AUSTRALIA!” He ripped off his pants and said, “Gargle!”

And gargle I did, to his delight.

I continued my close friendship with Rival so I could keep an eye on their relationship.

Covering all bases if you know what I mean. Seducers don’t leave anything to chance, remember? They take nothing for granted.

In spite of all the time Bradley spent away from their home, Rival, being the cretin that she was, did not suspect a thing. How she could not suspect her husband was having an affair after all the time he spent away from home, I have no idea.

Sometimes I would spend the morning with Bradley, fucking the daylights out of him

in my love den before he went to work, then meet up with her for a late lunch.

I never, ever discussed Rival with Bradley, because my
den
was a pleasure palace, free from thought, guilt, or responsibility, remember?

Anyway, Bradley was on the verge of leaving Rival for me, and I was going to move into her beautiful home. I could hardly wait. In preparation for the big move, I started to pack, give away stuff to the Salvation Army, and even shop around for new items for the big house in the elite suburb of Wahroonga.

There were a few things about the house I needed to change – there was a little koi pond on Bradley’s property – that had to go. It had straggly reeds that made the property look untidy. I preferred a manicured look.

And those three birdbaths – without a doubt, I would have to have them removed. The birds flocked around the house and shat everywhere.

The main bedroom would have to be redecorated. It was a virginal white. Boring.

I planned to bring in sensual colors, billowing curtains, some shaggy rugs, a few nude paintings, silk and satin linen – in short, it would be the sex chamber every married couple needed to keep their relationship spicy.

So excited was I, that I didn’t wait. I had secretly interviewed Neil Anchor, interior decorator extraordinaire. Neil had decorated, among other stars, Nicole Kidman’s penthouse, and phone-throwing Russell Crowe’s lavish beach house in Sydney.

Sure he was damn expensive, but he was worth every penny. I could just imagine dropping his name at dinner parties, coffee dates, drinks with friends. “Neil Anchor, the guy who decorated Nicole Kidman’s property? He’s been really busy with our house.”

If I should encounter a blank stare from any of them, I would enlighten them. “He did Russell Crowe’s beach house as well. Remember?”

And if I got another blank stare, I wouldn’t give a shit, as long as I had name-dropped. They may not say much, but they would be impressed, then grow mint green with envy. Trust me.

The thought of everyone around me feeling jealous as hell energized me.

My life was peachy. No, my life was a Rosy Orgasm.

****

But a slight hurdle. Bradley was dragging his feet, to my dismay.

“Why?” I asked. “What’s the delay? Why aren’t you saying anything to Rival about us? You said you would.”

“Well, Rival is a little…delicate, and I sorta worry about the kids, her…you know. I’m thinking maybe I should postpone leaving for another couple of…months?”

The fuck I know! Another couple of months? Like HELL!

“Okay, I understand, honey,” I said, in a voice I reserved for men with no nuts. “Guess we can wait a little.”

“Thank you for understanding, baby,” he said, and he planted a kiss on my pouting lips.

Then I grew quiet. (Loading my Uzi, remember?)

He peered at me. “What? What’s wrong?”

“It’s just that …well…see, I’m wondering if I’m in the way, and that maybe I should leave, and—”

“No! You’re not in the way, Scarlett.”

“—maybe I should stay away for a while, give you space to—”

“No, don’t stay away.” He bear-hugged me. “Don’t ever do that. I don’t want you to leave.”

I held his face in my hands. “Let’s compromise, baby. Two more months?”

His eyes dropped to the floor and his forehead lined, making him look older than his thirty-three years.

“Three?” he finally said in a thin voice.

I could wait just three more months to move into my new home, nothing more.

“Sure,” I said and sealed it with a kiss.

Three months later, Bradley, true to his word, was making plans to leave Rival, and I was giddy with happiness. I was going to be living large in a house that was worth more than two million dollars. Lady of the Manor – that would be my title, I decided. I would employ a cook, a nanny, a housekeeper…and gates – I planned to install some high, wrought-iron gates that would keep out unimportant people, but allow people passing by to peep into my property and envy us. Maybe I would even give my house a new name?

Scarlett’s
Sanctuary
. That had a nice ring to it.
Murdoch Manor.
That was even better, I thought with glee. After all, I would be a Murdoch. It was so exciting, I felt like dancing.

I loved it when the best laid plans were…best laid. But then again, all my plans were
carefully
laid.

That is why I had to stifle a banshee scream when Bradley dropped his bombshell.

“Rival can have the house and—”

“Give her the house?” My heart plummeted. “W…what do you mean, Bradley?”

“Baby, I want Rival to have the house so she’s not like,
uprooted
in any way. You know what I mean? She’s fragile and…like, I really want to make this whole transition as smooth as possible for her.”

I stared at Bradley as the words sank in.
Are you serious? Are you FUCKING SERIOUS?

He planned to give her
my
house? He planned to give her over two million dollars? I was in real estate. I knew that Burn’s Road, Wahroonga was an exclusive street, and that even the most dilapidated property, if you are lucky enough to find a dilapidated property in the area, could fetch more than a million dollars on the market.

Everything – the house, the postcode, the furniture – they were all part of my plans. I’d never seen another house around that looked like Bradley’s house. Rival had it built to specification, for fuck’s sake, and seldom did a house meet my seal of approval.

If we gave her the house (yes “we” is correct, it was time for me to become a “we”) we would have to start all over again. Buy another house for half that price in a dual-income suburb and employ the services of some interior decorator whose mantra would be “That won’t work.”

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

“Scarlett?” Bradley frowned at my silence.

Remember what I said about agreeing with your man for thirty seconds? Well, I put that little tip of mine into action.

“O…kay,” I said in a distracted voice as I ran my hand slowly over my throat and across my shoulder, my brows becoming one.

“What?”

“Like…baby, where do we live?”

“How about here?” he asked, his neck swiveling around like it was going to fall off his shoulders. “I love this place. Look forward to coming here.”

My silence caused his frown to return. “You don’t mind, do you?”

I mind, you dumb prick! I fucking mind very much!

“Eh…no…” I shook my head, trying my hardest to smooth out my forehead. “It’s just that it’s kinda small for two people.”

He kissed my lips. “I don’t care. We’ll buy a house one day. But at least we get to be together in the meantime.”

Someday? You fucking serious? Someday?

“Y…eah, okay.”

He released me. “You look…disappointed.”

No shit, you can tell?

“No, no. I just…like, I was so looking forward to getting out of this cramped—”

“We’ll get a larger one, then! Go find one. Let’s rent a larger apartment with a wrap-around balcony where we can fuck till the cows come home.” His added measure was to take my hand and place it on his limp dick.

I wanted to yank back my hand, stick my fingers into his eyes and say, I don’t want to live in a fucking apartment, you dumbass. I want a house.
Your
house, your
life
. I want your friends, your cars, your swanky parties, I want my twitter handle to be like Demi Moore’s (@mrsKutcher) – I would be @mrsMurdoch. I want every fucking thing she has and I want the world to see me have it and die with envy. Now you want me to marry you and live in a crummy apartment, the prize being a wrap-around balcony, while your wife lives it up in a fucking mansion? Are you out of your goddamn mind?

That’s what I really wanted to say. Wanted to shriek, scream. But I didn’t. “Sure,” I said with one of those smiles that shows no teeth.

For a few moments, his eyes searched my face, and I saw uncertainty. “Okay, how ’bout…” he stroked his chin, “how ’bout I talk to her about it? Maybe we can sell the house, and maybe…just maybe…she will want me to purchase her share of it? Pay her out, you know...”

Now you’re talking.

“But then, you have to understand that things will take a little longer.”

My inward smile vanished.

“Gotta give her time to come to grips with things, find a place of her own, something the kids will be comfortable with. Something close by. I may have to help her financially for a good couple of years. Know what I mean?”

He was right. I knew what he meant. As my head bobbed, I thought, Rival was too much trouble. I have to step in and take control.

I leaned over and kissed him. “Okay, hon.”

Then and there, I concocted another plan to get rid of Rival. A plan so insidious, you are going to be in awe of me. Totally. So pay careful attention.

“Cerocal and Lithium placebos,” I said to Norman as we lay on my living room floor in post-coital bliss. Let me rephrase that; as
he
lay in post-coital bliss.

Norman was as selfish as most men when it came to sex. He took without really giving. But I didn’t mind since he had just taken care of a seven-grand credit card bill I had trouble paying. (It was Bradley’s birthday, so I flew us both to Hamilton Island for the weekend and booked out the honeymoon suite.) It was a good deal – a blow job that paid seven grand. Try to better that deal.

“Please,” I said, cupping his nuts.

He shot me a curious stare. “Placebos?”

I nodded.

“But they’re empty pills and do nothing for…”

“Yeah, I know. They’re for a TAFE project.”

Norman knew I wasn’t studying at TAFE, but he said nothing. Probably reluctant to kill the vibe.

He knew me, knew I was fucked up. Somewhat. But he was equally fucked up. His demons got on really well with my demons, so we were a match made in hell.

Two days later, I had bubble packs of placebos that looked
exactly
like Cerocal and Lithium in my hand.

Of course, since I had been Rival’s close friend, I knew (made it my duty to know) some of her routines. I knew that she kept her medication in the bathroom medicine cupboard. I knew that she placed her pills in a plastic pill box that separated the days of the week in them. It further annotated a.m. and p.m. to aid idiots like her with memory problems.

Taking a placebo or a sugar pill instead of your normal medication is akin to
not
taking your medication. In Rival’s case, it would lead to a nervous breakdown and possibly land her in a mental institution. Or, fingers crossed, cause her to commit suicide. Cool, huh?

It is way better than murder, right? Cleaner, less messy.

A while ago, I had stolen Bradley’s house key from his key ring and duplicated it, allowing me to enter and leave his house whenever I chose to. Just to check up on things, nose around, and make sure the house remained the way it should for me.

For my plan, the key would come in handy. When Rival wasn’t around, I snuck in, replaced her medication with the placebos, and quietly left the house. All I had to do was sit back and wait. I did that with a glass of Verve Cliquot, a bowl of organic strawberries, and a satisfied smile.

A wrap-around balcony indeed. Over my dead, decomposing body.

****

“Rival’s not doing too well,” Bradley said, pulling off his tie and tossing it aside, worry lining his handsome face.

My heart leapt with excitement. “Oh, what’s wrong, baby?”

Please tell me she was committed to a mental hospital! Please! Please! Please!

“She’s not sleeping, she’s anxious, and just…” he let out a weary sigh, “displaying all the signs of being ill.” He tapped his temple. “She’s losing it.”

My whole being bristled with excitement. “Oh, the poor thing. Sorry to hear that.”

“Yeah…” He sat with his shoulders hunched, elbows on knees.

“Don’t worry, hon, I’ll pay her a visit, see if I can help.”

And I did.

Armed with a bottle of Tequila Gold, I waltzed over to Rival that Friday afternoon, dying to see how much of
it
she had lost.

I hadn’t seen her since I replaced her tablets with the placebos, and since my research into her illness told me that I could expect changes in her. I braced myself for them.

I was stunned at the dramatic changes I saw. The woman had lost at least ten kilos, her eyes were wide, bulging, a crazed expression in them. She chewed on fingernails she no longer had, and she flitted around the room like a blue-arse fly, making me dizzy in the process.

Her hair was messy with birds' nests in them, and her sweat pants and hooded top hung on her skeletal figure. Even though she was as thin as I was, a thrill at my handiwork shot through me.

She threw her bony arms around me when she saw me, then blurted, “I think Bradley’s having an affair, Scarlett.” Her voice was high, shrill.

“What? That’s just…ridiculous, Rival. Why would you say that?”

“He’s been…like…” she shook her head hard as if she was trying to focus, “Scarlett, he’s coming home late every evening.”

“Oh.”

“He showers the moment he gets home, he takes a shower
before
he goes to gym. I mean who takes a shower before they go to gym?” Her lucidness put a damper on my spirits.

“And on his birthday, he disappeared for the whole weekend. The entire weekend, Scarlett. I was worried. I kept calling him. He didn’t answer. Then he texted me twice. Said something about him having to attend an unexpected conference. Unexpected? A
conference
? Surely, that’s not possible?”

I lifted and dropped my shoulders. What could I possibly say?

“What’s your sex life like?” I asked more out of curiosity.

She looked at the floor and mumbled, “We barely have one.”

Barely
? That
was not the word I expected to hear. I expected her to say,
it’s non-existent.
Surely after me, he wouldn’t even
want
to sleep with her? But evidently that wasn’t the case. Bastard!

I needed more details. “How often…like when last…?”

“I feel like something is wrong, Scarlett,” she said, ignoring my pertinent question. “I just know.” Her eyes filled with tears. “I love Bradley so much. He’s my best friend. I rely on him so much.”

I wanted to shake the answer to my question out of her, but I had to exercise restraint.

“Could you be imagining it, Rival?”

She shook her head. “He’s curt and impatient with me, Scarlett, and it hurts so much. I was thinking of getting a private investigator—”

“Please don’t do that!” I said, almost jumping out of my chair.

She looked up at me, her eyebrows raised. Quickly, I lowered my tone and shook my head. “Bradley will freak if he finds out, Rival. Let
me
do it for you.”

“You will?”

“Yes, of course. We’re friends. That’s what friends do, silly.”

With a weak smile, she gave me a hug. “I think I need to see a doctor,” she muttered.

“Why?”

“I…I’m not doing so well. Something is wrong.” She closed her eyes and a fat tear rolled down her flushed cheeks. “With me. I’m struggling to cope with Bradley’s… and…and my…my…” She opened her eyes and looked at me. “I think about killing myself, Scarlett. I think I need help.”

I smiled inwardly. “Are you taking your medication?”

She nodded as a flood of tears ran down her pink cheeks.

A doctor might insist on a blood test, and that would show an absence of Cerocal and Lithium in her blood steam. He might conduct investigations, and all my hard work would go down the tubes.

“Okay,” I said. “My concern is if you are taking your medication and you go to the doctor, they could send you to Dunhill Mental Health for a long time. A
really
long time. Do you want that? To be admitted in Dunhill? I don’t.”

She vigorously rubbed her eyes with her knuckles. “No! I can’t be parted from my girls.”

“Okay, today is Thursday; how ’bout we arrange to see the doctor next Thursday? I will drive you there. Don’t mention it to Bradley. We’ll just handle it ourselves. In the meantime, let’s drown our sorrows in gold,” I said, pointing to the bottle of Tequila with gold flecks floating in it. Like we used to do in the past, okay?”

She smiled.

“You sit here and I will take care of things.”

“Okay,” she said in a meek voice. “Thank you for being my friend.” She hastened to give me a hug. “You’re a
good
friend.”

“You are welcome.”

During time spent with Rival, I had learned that years ago, she tried weed for the first time. That night the weed caused her to have a psychotic breakdown, and that was when she was diagnosed with mental illness. Because of her fragile mental state, drugs were a no-no.

If she took designer drugs like ecstasy, weed and cocaine, she would probably suffer a complete mental breakdown. Might even induce a heart attack.

With that in mind, I brought along a few ecstasy pills. (Clever, aren’t I?)

I poured her a shot of tequila, handed it to her and clinked glasses. “Cheers! Knock it back on the count of three?”

She smiled.

“One, two, three!” I cried and slammed my shot.

She downed hers, then gulped the beer chaser I handed her.

I managed to slip the crushed ecstasy tablet into her third drink.

She downed her drink, made a face, and smiled. “Let’s dance!”

I laughed. “See how well you are, now?”

“Yes!” she said, swaying to music that wasn’t playing. “You’re what I needed. A dose of Scarlett. Whoo! Hoo! Scar…
lett
!”

I smiled at my lover’s wife, who was bat-shit crazy. Poor Bradley, to think he had to put up with this for such a long time. But shit was going down, and Bradley’s freedom was around the corner.

Before I left the house, I thoroughly washed the drinking glasses, put them away, and went in search of her purse. I continued with my plans, humming as I worked.

(A detailed account of all this is going to be entered into my life manual. Bet you can’t wait to get your copy.)

****

My
series
of tiny but detailed tactics that I carefully formulated and set in motion came to fruition and resulted in such catastrophe, I could only beam.

It was as if Moses had parted the Red Sea and said,
Here you are Scarlett, go through, the house is all yours.

Not only did my rival have a breakdown, but (this is the beauty part of the plan) she had hers in a shopping mall. She abandoned her kids in a supermarket and drove off. Went home to sleep off her drugs. Ecstasy can keep you awake for days, then when you crash, it’s like you’re dead.

I heard (doesn’t this sound like juicy gossip?) that she couldn’t wake up when the cops arrived at her house.

They called Bradley at work. He was horrified, and rushed home to let in the cops. Naturally the cops suspected drugs, and when they searched Rival’s purse, they found two ecstasy pills buried deep in her bag.

And her blood test? Ecstasy in her bloodstream too!

Rival was slapped with a string of charges – child endangerment, DUI, and possession of a controlled substance.

You know what’s cooler than all of that? What was the cherry on top? Bradley’s fury.

After his shock wore off, he was blazing mad with Rival.

“All along I was worrying about her, thinking she was ill, struggling with the thought of abandoning HER?”

Luckily I was there to
placate
him with a massage.

“Honey, it must be hard for her with the children and…and…the…the…”

“That’s just it!” he spat. “She has no fucking pressure! Just the kids. No job to worry about, no money problems, nothing to stress her out, so what the fuck is her problem? I slave away at work so I can give my family everything they need to make them comfortable, but instead of her being grateful, she’s spending our hard-earned money on drugs! Anyone could have nabbed my kids when she left them alone. What the hell is wrong with her?”

But after his fury wore off, his conscience about his cheating was appeased by her negligent behavior, and that was my window of opportunity.

“My concern is that if you give her this house, she will sell it and squander the money on drugs. And then, Brad, what will become of your poor children? And when is she going to be released from Dunhill? I mean, is she even coming back? If she comes out, will she have to go back? Like in and out, in and out, until she’s okay? Then what about rehab? What about prison? Jail time?”

He turned to look at me, a thoughtful look in his eyes.

Thereafter, just like that, he squashed all thoughts about giving the house to Rival and together, we began to plot. It was wonderful to speak in ‘us’ and ‘we’ again. Delicious.

The best laid plans…

Roses.

****

My work was not over, though.

All Bradley and Rival’s friends
had
to be informed of Rival’s neglect, her secret drug habit, and her psychotic breakdown, so I took to Facebook:

Scarlett:
Our
prayers are with Bradley and his precious little girls.

You can thank me for the hundreds of comments/questions I received when I posted that sentence. Of course, I never gave an explanation,
never revealed that she did drugs. I just said that Rival was in a
safe
place, and that our prayers were with her and her family.