“Yes, Dear”
A humorous short story about the ultimate revenge
“Herbert? Herbert!”
Herb’s shoulders slumped. A faint sigh escaped his lips.
“Yes, Dear?”
“You’re holding the brush all wrong! That’s why the sealer’s dripping onto your hand. You have to hold it like this, see?” Helen-Mary swept the brush along the row of bricks and circled the mortar with deft, expert strokes.
“Yes, Dear.”
Helen-Mary was the expert on everything. And if it wasn’t her, it was her father, the ex-architect, or her mother, the amateur chef. Herb couldn’t even stir a stew bubbling on the stove without his mother-in-law peering over his shoulder and telling him the right way to do it.
“My father showed me how to seal bricks. He was an architect,” Helen-Mary reminded Herb. “But that never stopped him rolling up his sleeves and helping the builders with his projects.”
Herb rolled his eyes. “Yes, Dear.”
“It’s a jolly good job we’ve nearly finished the wall, Herbert. And to think we’ve done it all by ourselves! I told you it would be too expensive if we hired that larrikin down the road who calls himself a builder. I mean, have you seen his house? It’s an utter disgrace… falling down around his ears!”
“Yes, Dear.”
Helen-Mary always knew best. It was one of the reasons he married her — well, she married him. As the only two teachers at the tiny country school all those years ago, the entire town ran bets on them getting together.
Herb couldn’t remember feeling all that keen about dating Helen-Mary but, one night, she got him drunk and he woke up the next morning in her bed. Marrying her seemed the right thing to do at the time.
“Herbert? Herbert! Are you listening to me? I said I’ll finish sealing the bricks and you can sweep the floor and wash all those paintbrushes. I see you haven’t mixed the mortar yet for the last section of the wall.” Helen-Mary pursed her lips in the way that always made Herb’s heart sink like a lead balloon. He picked up a trowel and began measuring the sand.
“Yes, Dear.”
“Herbert? Herbert! How many times do I have to tell you? It’s three parts sand to one part cement, not the other way round!” Helen-Mary shook her head, her long grey curls swinging from side to side. “And don’t forget to use the correct amount of water to get the right consistency,” she warned, brandishing her paintbrush in his face.
“Yes, Dear.”
Herb tipped the sand and cement into the wheelbarrow, poured water over the top and stabbed the mixture with a shovel until he reached the perfect consistency.
Smooth and velvety, he thought, just like the skin on Minnie’s ass. He’d hardly been able to believe his luck when the blonde divorcée moved in next door and gave him the eye.
Helen-Mary gave a long-suffering sigh. “Have you transferred it to the mud board for the final mix yet Herbert? And don’t you dare forget to wash out the wheelbarrow. It took me the better part of a day to clean it the last time you tried to make mortar — Herbert? Herbert! What are you doing? Put that shovel down! Are you trying to kill me or something?”
“Yes, Dear.”
Sixty-three minutes later, Herb whistled as he smeared the last remnant of mortar and laid the final brick in the wall. Not a bad day’s work, even if he did say so himself.
Helen-Mary’s furious screeches from behind the wall echoed in his ears. “Herbert? Herbert! Get me out of here! You’ll be nothing without me, you useless, impotent, son-of-a-bitch!”
Herb smiled.
Minnie’s cries and moans of pleasure told a very different story.
“Yes, Dear.”
