The Problem with Mice
Wednesday, 9 am
As Clarice Starling lifted her morning coffee to her lips for a much relished first sip, her husband stumbled in to the kitchen, disheveled and still in his dressing gown. She raised a questioning eyebrow; whilst Hannibal Lecter was not a morning person, when he did make it out of bed and into the kitchen, he was usually showered, dressed and ready to go.
"Rough night, dear?"
Lecter grunted at her. We certainly aren't ourselves this morning, are we? "Would you like coffee?" Another grunt. Starling sat silently at the table to see if her husband's mood would improve and she would be able to find its root cause. After Lecter downed his second coffee, he enquired, "You couldn't hear the gnawing sounds last night?"
"Your two in a row bit made me so tired I slept like a log." She smiled encouragingly at him.
"So you heard nothing." She shook her head. "Well it woke me up. Then it was all I could hear. I couldn't get back to sleep!"
"Why didn't you compartmentalize? You spent eight years in prison – I'm sure you have experienced worse." She picked up both coffee mugs and turned to the sink to wash them.
"A mouse is beneath me." Starling took a deep breath, and turned around to face Lecter again.
"Physically beneath you?" Starling paused, as if in deep thought. "I can't see any mice beneath you. But then I would prefer them beneath you under the house than beneath you under your feet." A glare from Lecter.
"You know what I mean! Don't mock me! If you are going to trivialize it, I won't talk to you about it at all!" Starling raised her hands in a placating manner, as if she was surrendering to his arguments.
"All right, I understand. Hannibal Lecter will not admit that a mouse would affect him. Okay… I'll buy some rat poison at the store today." She turned to face the sink again.
"No." Starling paused as she was washing the mugs, partially turning to look at Lecter. "No?"
"Poisoning is underhanded. I will fashion a trap."
"Hannibal, I'll just pick up some traps if you don't like poison. What's the big deal?"
"The big deal is it kept me up all night. That plus the fact that the general mouse trap hasn't been improved upon since the mid eighteen nineties. I will lend my genius to it and change the world." Starling rolled her eyes at Lecter and finished washing up.
Wednesday, 9 pm
"Honey, I'm home!" Starling swung the front door shut after spending a night out at dinner with her girlfriends. She walked into the dining room to find her husband sitting at the dinner table, in front of a plethora of homemade contraptions. "I see you have been busy…" She slowly walked towards him, her eyes flitting over each and every one of the traps he had made. It seemed that he had drawn inspiration from the torture devices in his 'Medieval Punishment' book. "Do you think they will work?"
"Of course they will work!" Came the snappy response.
Thursday, 3 am
Soft crunching sounds.
Lecter's eyes flew open, and he rolled onto his side, facing Starling. "Can you hear that?"
"Hu… wha?" Her voice was groggy. "Hannibal, what's wrong?"
"The gnawing sound. Can you hear the gnawing sound?"
"No, I'll buy some poison tomorrow. Go to back to sleep." With that, Starling rolled away from Lecter and shuffled back towards him so that he would cuddle up to her back the way she liked. He grudgingly nestled his body against hers. "Stop thinking about it. Go back to sleep." With that, she was back in dream land.
Lecter was not able to get to sleep quite so easily. He was wide awake, holding his wife, listening to the mice eat his house; it was all he could do to not get up and find the little bastards and run them through then and there. However, the fact that he had already disturbed Clarice once this night meant he would not disturb her again. He gritted his teeth and waited for the mice to stop their nocturnal activities.
Thursday, 6 am
"I missed you this morning." Starling said as she kissed Lecter on the way out the door. She had awoken in bed alone, which was a little bit unusual. It seemed that it was the week for unusual. She bustled through the house and was on her way out for her morning run, when she saw him staring moodily out the kitchen windows into the yard, and had made a mental note that he was once again in his dressing gown, eyes bloodshot, although it did look like he had managed to brush his hair this morning. Starling included the local corner store in her run. She purchased what she was looking for and finished her run. Huffing as she walked up to the front door, she felt the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She wasn't sure exactly what the feeling was, so she did not touch the door, but instead, walked around to the bay windows near the kitchen. She stood there, looking into her own home like an intruder, trying ascertain what it was exactly it was that was making her feel so uneasy. Lecter stood at the kitchen table facing her, still in his gown, head down, examining something in his hands. Besides this fact, and the fact that he did not appear to have noticed her, all appeared well. The moment she lifted her arm to knock on the glass, Lecter looked up and shouted "No, don't do that!" and rushed forward, crashing into the table. Starlings knuckles impacted on the glass and she was ejected backwards onto the grass, landing on her backside. Lecter came rushing out the door a few seconds later. "Clarice, can you hear me? Are you hurt?"
Starling, still stunned, shook her head. Lecter gently helped her to her feet, and into the house. "What happened?" She asked. Sheepishly, Lecter informed her that he had electrified the whole house. "What! Why?" No longer calm and thoroughly dismayed, Starling had very nearly shouted this at him.
"I was going to zap the mice… you know, give them the chair. But I cannot get them to sit in a chair, so the next best thing was the house." This was said in a very, very small voice.
"Gah! Hannibal I don't want to hear it! No electrifying the house!"
"Yes dear."
Thursday, 4.30 pm
"Hannibal, where are you? Are we still going out for dinner? I need to get…" Starling's mouth dropped open as she witnessed her husband round the corner wearing kahki slacks and a flannelette shirt, wet, muddy knees and covered in both dust and cobwebs.
"What?" He asked defensively."I needed to place the nooses before we went out tonight, while there was still natural light. There's no need to look at me like that. I'm done now; I could hardly wear anything that I wouldn't want filthy, would I?" Nooses? What the fuck? Starling narrowed her eyes at Hannibal and turned to prepare for their evening without saying a word.
Thursday, 9.30 pm
"What do you mean you're not in the mood?" Starling had been standing behind Lecter, who was seated on the couch, massaging his shoulders. She had leaned forwards to nibble on his ear, and when he did not respond as usual, she had asked if anything was the matter.
"A man isn't always in the mood you know!" He had snarled at her, before storming off to bed. She had retired a bit later, after relieving some tension in the shower, only to find Lecter asleep. At least he was pretending he was asleep. She had lived with him long enough to know when he was pretending to sleep and when he was actually asleep.
Friday, 1.30 am
"What are you doing?"
Lecter was facing the bedroom wall, ready to line up a punch into the wall. Starling had actually been woken when he left the bed ten minutes ago; she had lain still, watching him move about and put his ear to the wall, and as he was ascertaining exactly where he thought the noise was coming from, she had asked exactly what he was doing.
"I've killed for less, you know."
"Yes, and I'm not exactly sure what insanity has got hold of you; I know your murders did not involve damaging your own property for no apparent gain. Come back to bed. We can have the weekend away for you to settle down." Starling's tone was icy. After being blown off earlier that evening, she was still wound up, and was definitely not impressed with Lecter's antics.
Tuesday, 11.30 pm
"You are right, Clarice. I do feel much better after the weekend away." Lecter wasn't the only one feeling better. After an almost seven day hiatus on her love life, Starling had been more than happy with Lecter's triumphant return in the bedroom; they had lain in post coital clinch, sweaty and panting, and she had planted soft welcoming kisses on his face while he had recovered his breath.
Wednesday, 10:30 am
"Sleep well, dear?" Lecter enquired as his wife ambled into the kitchen and plunked herself down at the table. He slid a plate of bacon and eggs in front of her, and a mug of coffee off to the side. "Quite well, actually. No mice last night?" A mischievous smile danced across her lips, and her eyes glinted in the sunlight streaming into the kitchen.
"Hmmm… No, the mice did not bother me at all. Your weekend away must have done the trick. It seems that I'm so relaxed I can't hear them!" When her smile turned into a grin, he frowned at her. "Explain yourself."
"Poison. Simple as that. You forget where I grew up. There were mice everywhere. The only way you can get rid of them fast is to poison them, otherwise they just learn to get around the traps. I laid some down under the house before we left on Friday. I guess they ate it all over the weekend."
"You," Lecter said as he shifted her chair out from the table and gathered her up in his arms. "Are a very. Very. Naughty. Girl."
"What are you going to do? Punish me?" Her girlish giggles turned into muffled moans of contentment as he kissed her into submission.
The End.
Big thanks go to Duffie for the proof reading. It would only be mess without you!
Disclaimer – All characters belong to Thomas Harris; no profit was made, but hopefully some enjoyment was had.