Where could Louise have gone wrong?  Just because she’d piled weight on, after being diagnosed, didn’t alter the woman she was inside, did it?  Gary had been such an attentive suitor, and so loving.  Was that really only seven years ago now?  He’d been a worker at the pharmaceutical plant, which she owned, though at first he didn’t know that.

 She was a chemist herself, following in father’s footsteps, and he’d been a handyman.  Of course she’d been slimmer, then, but she still loved him with all her heart, as she had from the moment she laid eyes on him. She could see his handsome face, that feral smile playing on his lips which has so attracted her.

 It was sad to think that nature had so cruelly stepped in to limit their time together, not that he felt that way, she was certain.  Quite the opposite, if truth were told.  Still, whether he knew it or not, he belonged to her, and she never gave up on the things she loved, no matter what.

She looked admiringly at her reflection in the mirror.  There was no doubt that she was of that royal line, deified and revered by all in ancient Egypt. That’s why she’d changed her name by deed poll, Louise made her sound like a commoner.  Gary thought her too wrapped up in this dream to be aware of his transparent greed.  Her now dead father had been hugely wealthy, and left it all to her.

She couldn’t help but smile as she thought about her solution to the problem.  Her husband no longer loved her as she did him, if indeed he ever had. His obviously distaste for her eccentricity was tempered by his patience, and she did admire that, so he’d be getting his just reward.

 Gary was in the musty cellar, looking at the ominous pyramid that almost filled the otherwise empty room.  He shuddered at the thought of his wife’s crazy world, which he’d help reinforce by building this monstrosity.  He would have had her committed long since, but the promise of inheriting her wealth was too strong.