Leonard opened the front door gently. He slid off his loafers, and dangled them between his fingers as he crept to the parlor. She wasn’t there, but her smell still was. Mabel spooked every room she’d ever been in.

Exhausted, he flopped upon the spongy sofa and stretched his lanky frame. It felt so good when his wife’s post-menopausal drone was off pestering someone else. Leonard discovered a half-eaten sandwich on a paper plate. Tuna fish, he scowled, taking a whiff. Mabel’s tuna fish.

The deferred quiet was interrupted by the phone.

“Hello...Oh, Lola, my darling, it is you!” Leonard cooed. He cradled the phone on his shoulder as he tugged the toe on his left sock, pulling off the gray, blue and green argyle. He studied his foot.

“I’ve memorized your beauty,” he declared. His nails were way too long. He rifled through the small table next to the sofa until he came across the shiny clippers.

“My touch longs to search your body, Lola, my radiant goddess,” he said sitting back down. Leonard noticed the nail on his big toe was thick and yellow. He feared it could do damage to his expensive hose.

“I ache to caress your bounteous bosoms and nuzzle the precious cleft between them,” he continued, snapping a huge chunk from his nail. The sharp projectile struck his wife’s tuna sandwich.

“And nestle my tongue between your slices of paradise.” Another bit of toenail shot through the air, lost in the tangled fibers of the shag carpet. Leonard examined his handiwork. He was impressed with his sculpting, and considered it a wonderful example of form and function.

“You are beauty and brains, darling Lola,” he proclaimed as he turned his attention to the remaining four toes on his right foot. He eyed the smallest one, it was gnarled and brown, like a snail, and would probably be the most troublesome of them all to cut. But that would have to wait.

“I will delay my own satisfaction as I get lost in your chestnut eyes and windswept hair,” he announced. The second nail ricocheted off Mabel’s cherished Hummel and settled in the candy dish. He imagined his wife chewing on that crispy nugget long after the other confections had melted in her mouth.

“Your porcelain features, those luscious cherry lips lingering on my manliness...,” he drawled. The next two nails snapped quickly, disappearing between the sofa cushions. Mabel would discover them eventually. Leonard fantasized about the two small daggers boring their way through his wife’s jellied cellulite, and smiled. But, alas, the toughest and smallest toenail still remained. He grabbed the dwarfed toe and twisted it about, until it faced the same direction as its four brothers.

“Someday we will be a family, Lola,” Leonard promised. He shoved the nail between the sharp mouth of the snips and squeezed. It resisted his first attempt. This would be more difficult than he had thought.

“I will not take ‘no’ for an answer, my love.” he murmured into the phone. He repositioned the clippers and imagined Mabel’s face upon the horny plate. He clenched his teeth, panting, as he pinched the grip.

“Hold me tight, Lola, never let me go-o-o-o,” he screamed, gasping. The soaring toenail spun, like a flying saucer searching for a place to land. He watched in horror as it circled the room, and in boomerang fashion, headed back home.

“Oh, my God, my God!” he panted, his mouth wide open, his eyes bulging. Leonard grabbed his throat as he felt the thorny brown shell blaze over his tongue, slashing the delicate membrane until the spiked tip speared his epiglottis.

Leonard tumbled to the floor, gagging; the phone lay by his head.

He could hear a woman’s labored breaths on the line and tried to cry out, but the pain was unbearable. Pink saliva bubbled from his mouth. Would he die there alone, by the spongy sofa? He heard a key in the front door. Mabel was home! She walked into the parlor. He inhaled that beautiful scent. When she spied her husband lying on the floor, Mabel roared.

“Leonard! Wake up, you’re on the floor!” her deep voice cracked as she bent by his side. Mabel picked up the phone and listened for a moment.

“Who is this? Lola? Is that you?” she asked inching her way between the sofa and her recumbent husband. Mabel sat on the cushion, rolled down her thigh-high support hose and studied her right foot.

“Is your husband home?” she asked.

The End