A warm evening, but my husband is a genius.
“Look! I turned on the ceiling fan!”
See? Genius.
He is apparently not as convinced of my brilliance, because as he climbs into bed, he says, “Be careful of the fan.”
I pause, standing next to the bed, “Why do I need to be careful? I will be lying in bed beneath the fan. The fan is on the ceiling. What about this situation causes you to fear for my safety?”
“I don’t know. You do weird things sometimes. If you were to stand on the footboard, you might be decapitated.”
I climb into bed, “OK, who calls it a footboard? It’s the bottom of the bed.”
“The wooden part is called the footboard. Everybody knows that.”
“Nobody knows that,” I fluff my pillow and lie back, staring at the ceiling fan, “So what, exactly? You imagine that I will wake in the middle of the night and have to pee and instead of getting out of bed in the usual way, I will instead stand on the bed and then jump up and down to the bottom of the bed and then pause on the footboard and be killed by the ceiling fan?”
Mark laughs, “Kris, you do weird things sometimes.”
I watch the fan spin slowly, its wooden blades pushing lethargically through the humid air, “No way those blades are moving quickly enough to decapitate me. No way.”
“Probably not . . . but with you, it’s generally a good idea to err on the side of caution.”
“Really, babe? I seem like the sort of person who might be beheaded by a ceiling fan?”
“Assuming that such a person exists? I would say you might be that person, yes.”
“Ooooh . . . what if right now, I am inclined to get all dominating and I decide to stand naked above you on the bed and be all hands on hips and superhero-ish and bossy and I want you to get the full impact so I stand on the footboard in hopes that the ceiling fan will blow my hair back all sexy like in the movies and then just as I am about to superhero pounce on you . . . my head gets lopped off. That would suck. I can so see me doing something like that and then I would have no head.”
“See? This is why I warned you.”
Silence for a minute or so.
Me again, “OK, you realize that I now want nothing more than to stand naked at the foot of the bed and tempt fate.”
“Do it! I’m sure it will be fine.”
“Sassy you.”
“So you’re not going to dominate me?”
“Eh. It’s too hot.”
Mark distance-spoons me from behind . . . by which I mean that our bodies don’t touch. He runs his hand over my hair and down my neck, and then rests his hand in the hollow of my shoulder blade. The perfect amount of touching for a hot summer evening on which I am not inclined to have sex.
I love this part of the evening.
These last moments of conversation before sleep.
I race to fill the silence with the things I want him to know . . . stories of the girls at the lake and the dogs in the back yard and how I need to call my sister but I think she may be pissed at me because I have been all antisocial for a while now and how we need milk and how Maj and I rescued a blue jay tangled in fishing line and how Kallan beat me at Connect Four like ten times in a row and how I have eaten all of the blue Otter Pops and how I am planning on taking the girls to . . . “ACKACKACKACKACK . . . WHAT THE FUCK, BABE?”
He is startled, “What?”
“What do you mean, ‘What?’ You just tried to choke me!”
“What? No, I did not.”
“Yes, you so did. I was talking and then your hand just suddenly wrapped around my neck and squeezed. You scared the shit out of me! What the fuck?”
“I must have started to fall asleep. A muscle spasm.”
“Are you kidding me? You can’t choke people and then be all, ‘Oops. Sleep spasm.’ Fuck that.”
Mark laughs apologetically, “Sorry.”
“Sorry for what?”
“I am sorry I tried to kill you in my sleep. Really. I’m sorry.”
“So annoying. Good thing I have survived, because now I am here to point out the bigger offense.”
“Which is?”
“You fell asleep while I was talking! Why do you do that? I want to talk to you.”
“Well, let’s go through the checklist.”
“What?”
Mark is suddenly all list-making . . . “One. Is it dark?”
“Yes.”
“Am I horizontal?”
Sigh, “Yes.”
“Are we either having sex or are just about to have sex?”
Sigh, “No.”
“OK, then. That means I am sleeping and it is not a good time to talk.”
“Hmmph. That does not mean you get to choke me to death to make me stop talking.”
“That was an accident. My subconscious.”
“Annoying.”
Mark giggles, “OK, but I’m awake now.”
“So we can talk?”
Mark’s turn to sigh, “I was thinking we could have sex.”
I consider for a moment, “Can I talk during sex?”
“Don’t you always?”
“True. Alright, but I have to pee first.”
“OK, but be careful of the fan on your way. We may need your head.”
Snort!
