Marriage

Be careful of what you disire

The year was 1950, and Cathy Finch was tired of being a secretary. Her ambition, sharp as the point of a freshly sharpened pencil, scraped against the dull reality of her life. She wanted money, true wealth, and she wanted it without the tiresome inconvenience of earning it herself.

This yearning led her, one rain-slicked Tuesday, to the dim, velvet-draped parlor of Madame Vorna. Natalia Nogulich, her voice a gravelly whisper like dry leaves skittering across concrete, peered at Cathy across a cluttered table, the scent of stale incense and something vaguely medicinal hanging heavy in the air.

"I see... a man," Vorna rasped, her eyes, like polished obsidian, fixed on Cathy. "A large man. Unkempt. Unpleasant. He holds the key to your future, child."

Cathy shivered, repulsed even by the thought. "Who is he?"

Vorna smiled, a faint, knowing twist of her lips. "Charlie Marno. You will marry him. And soon after he inherits a considerable sum, he will… depart. Swiftly. Leaving you with everything you desire." She paused, her gaze piercing. "But not in the way you expect."

Cathy dismissed the final cryptic warning. "Not in the way I expect" sounded like spiritualist mumbo-jumbo. All that mattered was the "considerable sum" and the promise of Charlie Marno's swift departure.

Charlie Marno. His name alone conjured a faint aroma of old sweat and fried food. He was a distant relative of her boss, a grotesquely overweight man whose suits always seemed to be three sizes too small and permanently stained. His jowls trembled with every word, his breathing was a perpetual wheeze, and his personal hygiene was, to put it mildly, an afterthought. Cathy had seen him once at the office Christmas party, lumbering towards the buffet like a starved bear, his greasy hair plastered to his scalp. The thought of touching him, let alone marrying him, sent shivers of revulsion down her spine.

But the promise of wealth dulled the edges of her disgust. She began to pursue him, feigning a sweet, innocent charm that Charlie, starved for attention, devoured like a second helping of pie. Within three months, they were married.

The wedding was a small, miserable affair. Charlie wore a suit that strained at every seam, and the cloying scent of his cheap cologne mixed nauseatingly with his natural odor. Cathy smiled thinly, her mind fixed on the future. Their home, a small, cluttered house that smelled perpetually of old newspapers and damp wool, became her purgatory. Charlie’s habits were even worse up close: the endless chewing, the belching, the way he left his nail clippings on the coffee table, the greasy rings his teacups left on every surface. Cathy counted the days.

Then, six months after the wedding, the news arrived. A long-lost uncle, a reclusive industrialist, had died and left Charlie a surprisingly vast fortune. Millions. Charlie goggled, his eyes wide with childlike glee. He celebrated by ordering enough takeout to feed a small army, devouring plate after plate of greasy ribs, fried chicken, and potato salad.

Cathy watched him, a cold, calculating glee rising within her. Vorna had been right. It was happening.

That night, as Charlie snored like a congested hog beside her, Cathy couldn't sleep. The smell of his heavy dinner was thick in the air. Suddenly, the snoring hitched, choked, and stopped. A guttural gasp, then silence. Cathy held her breath, waiting. No more sound.

With a heart thumping like a drum, she reached out a tentative hand. Charlie’s skin was cold. His face, still smeared with traces of barbecue sauce, was slack. He was gone.

A wave of delirious relief washed over Cathy. She had done it. She had endured the nightmare, and now her reward was here.

The funeral was brief. Cathy, a picture of somber, respectable grief, felt a lightness she hadn't known in years. His possessions were quickly cleared, the house aired out, the legalities handled. Soon, the money, a sum so enormous it made her head spin, was hers.

Her first act was to overhaul the house. New furniture, fresh paint, gleaming floors. She bought beautiful clothes, furs, jewels. She started to plan a grand European tour. Life was finally beginning.

But then, the smells started.

At first, it was faint, a phantom whiff of stale cigar smoke near the armchair Charlie used to favor. Cathy dismissed it as residual, an old house clinging to memories. Then it escalated. The cloying aroma of cheap cologne. The heavy, meaty scent of unwashed laundry. It was everywhere. She’d scrub the house until her hands bled, light dozens of perfumed candles, but the smells persisted, growing stronger, deeper, more personal.

She’d walk into the living room and detect the sickeningly familiar odor of Charlie’s favorite greasy fried chicken, even though she hadn't cooked it in months. She'd open a closet and be assaulted by the distinct reek of his unwashed shirts, a smell so particular it made her gag.

Then came the sounds. A faint, wet slurping from the kitchen late at night. The distinct creak of the floorboards outside her bedroom, the same ones that groaned under Charlie’s immense weight. A low, guttural grunt that seemed to echo from the walls themselves.

Cathy started to lose sleep. Her nerves frayed. She saw shadows shift in her peripheral vision�"large, hulking shapes that vanished when she turned to look. She imagined she could feel the faint tremor of the floor as if someone heavy was moving about.

The horror, however, truly began when she went to the bank to withdraw a large sum for her trip. The teller slid the crisp, new bills across the counter. Cathy reached for them, her fingers brushing the top bill.

A wave of nausea hit her so hard she almost retched. The bill felt… greasy. Warm. And it smelled. Oh god, it smelled. That specific, sickening aroma of stale sweat, cheap processed meat, and something else, something decaying and putrid. It was Charlie. His essence, his very being, clinging to the money.

She snatched her hand back, trembling. The teller looked at her, concerned. Cathy mumbled an excuse about feeling faint and fled.

Back home, she stared at the stacks of money in her vault. Bundles of hundred-dollar bills, crisp and green. But as she looked closer, she saw it. A faint sheen on the surface of some bills, like a film of grease. A subtle discoloration on others, a yellowish-brown stain that reminded her of old food spills. And the smell, the smell was unmistakable now, emanating from the piles of cash like a miasma.

She tried to touch a fifty-dollar bill. Her fingers recoiled instantly. It felt slick, warm, almost… viscous. And the smell was overwhelming, a concentrated essence of Charlie Marno.

She couldn't spend it. The thought of handing those bills to anyone, of having his festering essence infect her life, was unbearable. She had the money, yes. Millions of dollars. But every single dollar bill, every coin, every bond certificate, seemed to pulse with Charlie’s grotesque presence. They were not just money; they were a distillation of his filth, his gluttony, his very corpulence.

The house, too, was becoming him. The new paint peeled in greasy strips. The fresh carpets developed indelible stains shaped like enormous footprints. The reek was now permanent, overriding even the strongest disinfectants. Cathy was trapped in a mausoleum of Charlie Marno, surrounded by the physical manifestation of his disgusting life, which had now attached itself to her wealth.

Madame Vorna's words echoed in her mind, a mocking refrain: He will depart swiftly, leaving you with everything you desire. But not in the way you expect.

Cathy Finch, the gold digger, was rich beyond her wildest dreams. But her fortune was alive with the stench, the feel, the presence of her dead husband. She was surrounded by millions of Charlie Marnos, each bill a slimy, putrescent piece of the man she had so despised. The very thing she had wanted, the freedom and luxury that money promised, had become the ultimate, inescapable, disgusting prison. And in the quiet hours of the night, when the slurping sounds were loudest, she sometimes felt a phantom weight beside her in the bed, and knew, with bone-chilling certainty, that Charlie Marno was still very much there.