Part 1
'Honey I'm home'

The rate at which she has been bringing guys home has been alarming. It’s almost once a month now. It’s getting out of hand.

It used to be maybe once per quarter. Around the same time as when the council rates came around, my wife would bring a guy home. Random guys. They wanted anything from a cup of coffee to sex to a simple use of our telephone. But they would all invariably not get whatever it was they came for.

Tonight’s fool is young. Maybe 21 or 23. He’s small, somewhat weaselly. If you asked me for another way to describe him, I would say that he has the look of a guy in a horror movie who talks too much, smiles way too often and dies far too early.

He is shocked to see me come in. Most of them get this way. My wife is holding a glass of champagne in her hand and welcomes me home with open arms. I give her a kiss while leering at the guy. This weasel. This first-to-die-horror-movie guy.

‘Honey’, I tell her, ‘I was hoping we didn’t have to do one tonight. I was hoping to just sit on the couch and watch Desperate Housewives’.

She assures me it’ll be quick tonight.

The weasel asks her who I am. I introduce myself.

I’m the husband, dickwad.

Dickwad. It’s been my favourite phrase (would you call it a phrase?) ever since Arnie used it in Total Recall. He just brings a whole new level of meaning to anything he says.

‘You’re married?!’

‘Oh like you didn’t know’, she says. ‘I didn’t even take off my ring, she says’.

‘But I thought…’ says the weasel.

‘He’ll just watch. Won’t you honey?’

I’m silent and peeling a banana. I don’t like this. Never have. Of course she never pretended to be anything other than what she is. I knew she was a witch when I married her. Knew she was one while we were still just dating. I love her. I really do. With all my heart. I don’t much care for the whole black arts thing. But it could have been worse. She could have been an accountant.

I just want to get on with it tonight. She asks him if he still wants to do this and he says yes. More often then not, they get weirded out and want to leave, so then I’d have to grab the baseball bat and club them over the head. This guy, though, is willing. And he seems groggy. She must have used the elixir of hallucinogenic stupor. That’s a good one.

Orange juice, a sprig of fennel and the bile of a pregnant turtle.

She leads him by the hand down the steps to our basement. He’s mumbling stuff I don’t understand and she keeps telling him yes. Yes. Yes. Sure. Soon. And so on.

I follow them down. She tells him to get on the altar but he’s too far gone to get himself up there. I help him up.

This is the stone altar that I got her for Christmas even though, of course, she doesn’t believe in Christmas. Her old one was wooden and it was starting to wobble a bit. So I got her this stone one. Doesn’t stain, the guy says. One wipe and all bodily fluids are gone. She loved it. Best damn present I ever gave her. Not like the time I got her a giant economy jar of eye of newt. I thought it would be a great present. Witches. Eye of newt. So I went all the way to this magic shop, whose owner was rumoured to be a 400-year-old vampyr (although I did see him in broad daylight unloading a box of six-fingered mummified hand candles off the back of a van, but that’s another story), and he got me a good deal on a three-litre jar. Anyway, when she got it, she gave me this very disappointed look and didn’t talk much to me for three days or so.

What? Is it because it’s an economy jar?!

That wasn’t it. Apparently, getting a witch eye of newt is like giving a serious classical pianist a Richard Clayderman CD.

He’s on his back on the altar and she’s taking off his clothes. I hate this part. Why does it have to involve nudity? My wife, a guy and nudity. He’s even more gone by now and is giggling. I’m just standing there watching. I yawn.

Dear, can you go up and bring me the statue of Baphomet?

Sure thing. And I get up the steps and go the display case. There are seven different statues for seven different deities in here. I’ve asked why she has to have seven deities in her display case. She says it’s because she has no room to fit eight.

I pick up Baphomet. It’s heavier than it looks. Stone, I think. It’s ugly. Kind of like a man-fish thing. As I’m walking, I’m carrying it some distance away in my outstretched arms as if it were a baby that needed a nappy change.

Downstairs, she’s already naked herself and I look at her. She’s hot. And it hits me every time. No matter how often I’ve seen her naked. I remember the first time I saw her naked I was thinking, ‘she’s hot.’ I’m having a brief moment with myself while I’m looking at her right now.

His hands start to grab at her. He’s still giggling. I really hate this part. Even worse than the last part. Every time. Why can’t she just tie their hands up? I’ve brought this up with her before but she would just gives me the ‘How the hell can you get jealous of a guy I’m about to sacrifice to a demon’ argument and I just end up shrugging my shoulders and turning on the TV. She’s right. How can I argue with that?

So now I’m holding up the statue above my head and she’s raised the beautiful gold-hilted and diamond-encrusted ceremonial dagger above her head and the weasel is still grabbing at her breasts. She lifts her head to look at the statue, then lowers the blade, sighs and drops both her shoulders.

‘What?’ I ask.

‘What have you got there?’

‘Baphomet?’

‘No. What does that look like?’

‘Baphomet?’

‘No. What does it look like?’

‘Er… a fish?’

‘Yes. A fish. Now do we remember which one looks like a fish?’

‘Baphomet?’

‘No. Try again?’

‘Um…’

‘It’s Dagon. You’re holding Dagon. I asked for Baphomet. I’m doing a head-pop spell. I need Baphomet.’

‘So which one is it?’

‘Try to remember.’

‘The fat guy with the big head?’

‘No. That’s Baal.’

‘The big guy with the fat head?’

‘No. Oh, for crying out loud!’

‘OK, OK, is it the goat guy with the breast?’

‘Yes, it’s the goat guy with the breasts! Can you at least pretend to take some interest in what’s important to me?’

‘Give me a break! I try, OK?’

‘You try? You mean like the time you got me the newt eyes?’

‘Will you let that go, already? Come on! I said I was sorry!’

‘Just bring me the damn idol!’

‘Hey! Dickwad! Stop touching my wife’s breasts!’

‘He can’t hear you! Now hurry up with the idol. The elixir of hallucinogenic stupor is wearing off. I’ll have to start the blood-letting without the statue.’

‘OK, OK!’

I turn around and march back up. I don’t like it when she uses that tone with me. I go back and put Fish-face back in the display case and get the androgynous goat with the titties. On the way back I am momentarily distracted by the television where Desperate Housewives is playing. Susan has tripped over something or other again like she does in every episode. And the plumber is laughing. I think he’s an FBI agent.

I then hear the screams from the basement. She’s made the first cut. Time to go back down, I guess. I’m not in the mood but I go anyway. All this for just a head-pop spell. I’ve seen this spell before. For her to be doing one must mean someone pissed her off at work today.

But anyone would know that a human sacrifice for a head-pop spell is overkill. So someone must have really really pissed her off at work today.

The spell is elegant in design. What it does is it plants a seed in the head of the target individual that, in time, will cause his or her head to spontaneously explode. The only problem is that the seed has an incubation period of 40 years. The last time she did it was to her boss. And he was 45 years old. So he would have to live to 85 for his head to explode. She has been telling him to eat healthy and exercise often ever since. Suffice to say, the spell was originally intended to be inflicted upon annoying kids and babies who refused to stop crying. The only reason people use it is because it is one of the simplest of the culling spells to do. A more potent, but less stable, and infinitely more complicated hybrid of this spell is called the head-obliterate spell. Here, the seed only has a 22-day incubation period but is unstable in that, if done wrongly, there’s a small (but present) chance that the spellcaster’s head would explode as well.

I’m downstairs again and she’s covered in splashes of blood now. All over her head and chest. I hate this bit too. At least as much as, if not more than, the other bits. The weasel is convulsing and blood is bubbling though his mouth and nose. It’s not a pretty sight. I hold Baphomet up and she starts the spell. It’s in Latin. She repeats the spell over and over until the sacrifice dies.

But he’s not dying yet. Ten minutes later and he still flops around

‘Are you sure you got his heart?’

‘Yes I’m sure.’

‘Well, it’s not that I’m telling you how to do your thing, but… um… well… they don’t usually convulse as much and they die faster than this.’

‘You think?’

‘Maybe you can give him another poke. With the dagger, I mean. Just to be sure.’

So she does. And I was right. The weasel dies a few moments after the extra stab. She stops the chanting and puts the dagger down.

‘Can I put it down now?’ I asked, referring to the idol statue.

‘Sure. Thanks hon. You can go back up now. I’ll just clean up here and I’ll let you know when I’m done.’

I go back up the steps and watch the ending of Desperate Housewives, except that I don’t really understand what’s going on. Mr Solis is arrested. Why is he being arrested?

‘I’m gonna take a shower now’, calls my wife from the echo of the bathroom.

The show is over and I’m still not too sure what happened. I turn the TV off and I go back down to the basement, grab my shovel and the black bag, and drag it out of the house to the backyard.

My neighbour, old Mr Spence, who, on account of our very low fences can see me from his back porch, waves hello. I stop walking, look to him, and smile.

‘Howdy neighbour.’

‘Howdy Mr Spence. Nice evening.’

‘Yes it is. Now is that a big bag of fertiliser you’re dragging there?’

‘Why yes it is, Mr Spence. It’s an economy pack. Just doing a spot of gardening on such a fine evening.’

‘Well happy gardening to you.’

‘And you have a good night Mr Spence.’

‘You too, young lad.’

I remain unmoved. Still smiling.

‘Well perhaps I best be getting in the house now. It’s getting chilly.’

‘Well goodnight Mr Spence.’

And Mr Spence walks into his house, leaving me to do my spot of gardening underneath a bright new moon and a fairly minor stellar alignment on the Pagan calendar.