Sweet Revenge: 200 Delicious Ways to Get Your Own Back

and she sank to the floor. Her eyes glazed over and dribble dropped from her slack mouth. How? How? How?
    'Dick's revenge was complete. Daisy never learned how he knew her innermost thoughts and spoke them aloud. To her it was total magic. She never again doubted his ability to read minds and his mystical perception. It was the fear that Dick could see into her mind that kept her from ever straying again and she became his devoted servant for the rest of their married life.'
    - with thanks to Robert Young, film director.
     

     
    'The late mother of an extremely close friend of ours decided she had had enough of her husband's philandering, but not of her husband. So she decided to call the bluff of his latest squeeze who, it seemed, was fairly determined to lead him to the altar. She telephoned the hapless harpie and invited her to tea at the Ritz. Tea and cakes arrived and the atmosphere was cool but dignified as the conversation turned to the matter in hand.
    'Yes, she did love him and wanted to marry him, said the mistress, and nothing would deter her. Our friend's mother smiled sweetly, said she completely understood and that she would drop off their two children with all their belongings at the weekend.
    'For some inexplicable reason the erring husband returned to the marital home pretty pronto where they all lived happily ever after.'
    - with thanks to Willie Christie, film director.
     

     
    It was a disgusting winter's evening and Dai Llewellyn was driving the gorgeous Gerda Schiller through the underpass at Hyde Park comer towards Tramp. As he drove, he mused over how he was going to break the bad news to Gerda - it was 'Dear John' time. At Tramp he suggested that they 'take it easy for six weeks'. He told her that he would drive her back to his flat: she could sleep there, he would sleep at his brother's place and, the following day, he would sort out somewhere for her to live.
    Good as his word, the next day he found a flat and returned home to get Gerda and her bags. As he opened the door it was clear that she had not packed. An empty whisky bottle lay ominously on the floor. Suddenly, she appeared, growling in her distinctive accent: 'Here is yours, baby,' and pointing a 12-bore at his chest. It was Dai's good fortune that she did not know about the safety catch.
    A week later, a picture of Dai appeared in a newspaper. He had been to a fancy dress party as the Midnight Cowboy, wearing cowboy gear on top and stockings and suspenders underneath, with a .45 Magnum replica gun in his holster. Someone had decided to report Dai to the Police Anti-Terrorist Squad who duly arrived on his doorstep with three or four squad cars. Only after several hours of serious interrogation were they satisfied that he was not a threat to public safety and that the gun was, indeed, a replica. 'There may be no connection between the two incidents,' said Dai, 'but the inspector in charge of the raid told me at a subsequent meeting that the informant had been female - with a pronounced foreign accent.'

     
     

Sexual Subterfuge

     
    Heav'n has no rage, like love to hatred turn'd,
    Nor Hell a fury, like a woman scorn'd.'
    William Congreve, Love for Love
     

Sexual Subterfuge
     
    'I was going out with a young lady. One Saturday night we were having a few drinks together in the pub. She went to the ladies and when she came back she accused me of chatting up the barmaid. Later, we returned to my flat in Putney.
    'When I woke up the following morning, I was distinctly uncomfortable in the nether regions. I couldn't think what was the matter. I looked around and my girlfriend was nowhere to be seen. Then I spied a note, beside which was a chilli pepper. The note informed me that she had rubbed the pepper on my willy and had stuck a little bit up my backside. I spent the whole of Sunday in the bath, trying to take the heat out of my punishment.'
    - with thanks to Peter Dean, actor.
     

     
    A couple lived together for a while until he replaced her with a younger model. The jilted lady was sad that they never had the catharsis of a final row, to which she attributes the following behaviour.
    Some time after he had moved out, her lover came back to her place to collect his things and there ensued that horrible sharing of the spoils: these are my CDs, those are your Orwells, you're welcome to those stinking shoes etc. While he was going through the bathroom cabinet she noticed his briefcase sitting,

     
    innocently, in the drawing