Hallo All!!!

Tee hee okay I am a little hyper to day! Don't ask me why because I don't know I'm just embracing it! But I'm thinking I should stop drinking cup after cup of sugary tea just to keep me warm.

So this is the winner of my recent little foray into gameshow hosting! I now completely understand why Les Dennis needed to go into rehab, it was completely exhausting!

So all reviews and comments welcome, and with out further delay I present to you : The Winner! (Imagine lots of flashing lights, a few fireworks, maybe a pegasus or two.)

KeroaucinaHackney.


Sofa. Confused

Twelve shops.

Twelve different shops, with almost exactly the same products and yet we still hadn't bought anything. I was half overjoyed that we hadn't spent any money and half frustrated that I was going to have to spend another weekend doing this. But also I was dying to have some furniture, after spending two days sitting on cardboard boxes eating off my knees and sleeping on a blow up mattress, which had burst sometime in the middle of last night and I had woken up freezing and halfway across the carpet. Now I just need a couch to sit on, a table to eat at and a bed to sleep in. Three things! I didn't think so much effort would have to go into picking those three little things.

I could now kick myself for complaining this morning. Being dragged around umpteen shops, with the same smiley faced salespeople trying to be your best friend so that they could get a good commission. I just wanted them to give me a couch that was big enough to lay on, I didn't need to know their ideas on foam versus spring cushions. Believe it or not there is a philosophy on that.

Morgan was now talking to one of said fleas whom had dreams of being the next Richard Bronson. She was nattering away, talking about the advantages of fabric over leather and I wanted to slowly beat my head to death with one of the many catalogues that I was carrying. I watched as the salesperson tottered away to get something and Morgan turned to me.

"So what do you think of this?" her hand swept across a god awful white leather couch that looked like it would just as hard a slate bench.

"I think it is God awful."

Her eyes widened in indignation, "Hunter!" she demanded, "You are just being contradictory for the sake of it! What is wrong with it?"

"It looks like it would be as comfortable as a gravestone." I walked over and flopped down on it, wincing as I landed on the solid slab of god knows what, "and I was right." She tossed her hair over her shoulder, clenching her jaw to stop from yelling. She was now huffing.

Earlier her need to get everything perfect and just as we wanted it had been sweet and endearing. Everything had to be just so and cosy and homey. To be comfortable and be right in our little two up two down cottage. The minimalistic modern couch she was now considering definitely wasn't right. I had no idea what had made her even consider this, in the first couple of shops we had been into she had walked right past these. "Morgan", I reached out to grab her hand and pull her down next to me. I contained a smile when I saw wince with contact against this torture device, "Would you really want this couch to live with for the rest of your life?"

She rolled her eyes at me, telling me that I was being silly. "Well you aren't expressing any sort of opinion at all!" she thwacked my thigh, "So I have to go in and out of each one of these shops trying to decide what we are going to have in our home and I know that if I choose wrong now that you will complain when it gets there and it is uncomfy and it doesn't fit and then there are all the choices and I can't see any in the house but this is what houses are supposed to look like and I don't want our house to be all unfashionable so I'm confused and I don't know what you want because you haven't said anything about any piece of furniture in the past five hours!" Her voice was shrill and her fists were pounding a continuous rhythm on my thigh. I was staring at her as if she had just landed on my lap from the sky proclaiming that she had just had a good old chat with the goddess about honey cake recipes over tea.

How could someone's head possibly work like that, mine was extremely sore just listening to it never mind even trying to process it. "Morgan ..." I was trying to say something comforting but I really couldn't think of anything, "what?!"

She took a deep breath and I braced myself again for an onslaught of some more backwards, completely mind boggling logic. "I can't choose our furniture by myself." She spoke as if I was a particularly slow small child, "You won't give any opinions about anything, so I don't know if what I am choosing is right! If I don't choose right it will be all my fault and you will complain!"

"I wouldn't complain, well I would if you bought this couch but you won't, so it doesn't matter." I wrapped my arms around her waist, hoping that it was safe, trying to calm her down.

"But I wouldn't know what to choose! You don't say anything, don't you care about what is going into our house!" She fisted her hands in my shirt and shook me a little.

"I said that I liked that creamy coloured one in the third shop, I think, maybe." I told her, smoothing her hair.

"What one? The one with the wooden feet or the one with the changeable cover?" obviously there was no calming her down; her eyes were almost frantic with a pathological need to choose a couch.

I was drawing a blank; all I had in my head was a vague fuzzy picture of a cream shape that resembled a couch. "Uhm ..." Think, quickly.

She hit me on the shoulder, "You don't know do you! You can't even remember the couch that you thought would be perfect for us!" I got whacked on the head this time, "You really don't care do you!" her voice broke she was close to tears and I felt the fear that every man since the invention of time has felt. The black hole of despair that engulfs you when you have a woman crying and you have no idea about why or what to do to fix it, I was in deep, boiling hot water.

"Morgan, I don't care about whether our house has the couch with the wooden feet or the changeable covers, I just care that my house will be with you." I kissed her forehead.

"What do you mean you don't care? How can you say that! This is our home don't you want to make it perfect!" she jumped up from the horrible couch and stormed off out of the shop. I sat there open mouthed, with a headache and a feeling in the pit of my stomach that I had just done something completely and utterly wrong.

Buggeration.

******

How could he! This wasn't some silly little thing, it was our house! The home that we would live together in. Where we would come home to each other. Celebrate circles and bring up our children. The house in which we would grow old in. How could he not care what it looked like? Did it really not bother him that much, did it not mean anything to him. Was he planning on not being there much? My stomach twisted at the thought, had he been asked to start travelling again? Did the new Charter need him to go somewhere else? Somewhere far away from me. He wouldn't tell me until he had made a decision, thought it all through from every single angle. But he couldn't go away, he just couldn't! We were getting married in eight months; we had just bought the house!

I wanted to cry but struggled to hold it in until I had reached the car. I grabbed the handle, pulling to open the door, it didn't budge. I pulled is harder over and over "Dammit!" It was locked. And Hunter had keys. I wasn't turning around. I was going to stand here until he came and I wasn't going to cry! Then I was going to yell at him for not telling me about travelling again and about not caring what our house will look like. Then I would ignore him for as long as possible. I felt him approaching and turned to face him, crossing my arms. I was glaring at him, but he looked so sheepish and nervous that my anger faltered. A little.

"Morgan," His voice was completely hesitant and he reached out to fold me into his arms. I tried to resist but there is no where as comforting as being in Hunter's arms and I really needed to be there right now. "I don't know what to say." He whispered in my ear. His hand was running up and down my back my nerves relaxing at his every touch.

"When are you leaving?" I whispered into his shoulder, just wanting to know so I could make the most of him.

He stilled, his hands pulling up to my shoulders, firmly pulling me away from him to look at me his eyes completely filled with confusion, "What?"

"You're leaving again aren't you; the new charter has asked you to go away to Mantua or Constantinople and set up more offices, haven't they?" I clutched to him out of sheer stubbornness of the idea that holding him would keep him here.

His eyes widened at first then he rolled them and reached out to cup my face and pull me so close that I could see the faint outline of wrinkles around his eyes, he was working too much. His thumbs gently traced the outline of my face and I sighed and leaned into him. "Morgan," His voice was soft, heavy with sadness yet it soothed my nerves like melted butter. "I'm not going anywhere, alright." He said it slowly, pronouncing every single letter as if it was essential. I believed him, against my better judgement or not, I just had to believe that he was going to stay here. "Even if the New Charter forced and cajoled me into leaving, I. Am. Not. Going. Anywhere." His eyes were boring into me filled with sincerity and he just leaned in to kiss me on my nose. But I was still a little fraught and completely confused. I was well aware that my voice was so small, I was crushed that he wasn't interested in anything to do with it. I wanted us to do this together. I had imagined the two of us wandering around the shops, discussing this picture and that lamp and laughing and building our home together. Instead what I got was a sullen, taciturn Hunter trailing after me huffing and puffing. "So why don't you care about what our house looks like?" I was getting hysterical again.

"Morgan I do care about what our house looks like, I want it to be comfortable and home for us. But after five hours of the same couches and sales people who I really want to hurt, my brain is fried. I can't take anymore!" his eyes were pleading; he looked as if he was being punished for some cruel and usual crime.

I rolled my eyes, "Oh please, it really isn't that bad."

He nodded his head, "It honestly, really is. I can practically feel my brain cells just giving up and throwing themselves off my spinal cord."

"Stop being over dramatic." I whacked his shoulder and he started laughing. Which just made me mad, he wasn't allowed to find this funny, and this was very serious. "Shut up!" I whacked him again which only made him laugh harder. I kept on hitting him.

"Ouch, alright. Hey! Alright!" he pinned my arms to my side and I cursed the fact that he was stronger than me. He leaned over me, sniggering a little. I looked away petulantly. "Morgan..." he said softly in a voice that caused shivers to rush up my spine, stubbornly I stayed staring at the shiny blue BMW parked next to us. "Morgan..." he cajoled, this time his nose skimmed along my jaw then he continued kissing down my neck. I shivered again, the bastard. "Morgan ..."

I gave in. He was very hard to resist when he was doing that. "What?" I turned to look at him, pouting.

He grinned, "Nothing." He tilted my head upwards, cradling it in his hands. He kissed me very softly barley letting his lips touch mine. It wasn't enough. I grabbed his shirt, pulling myself closer to him. I could feel his laughter bubbling in him. "Shut up." I told him, he nodded and pulled me back to him, kissing me again. We clung together and I was trying not to get too carried away but it was very difficult when he was doing that. As usual it was Hunter, that was proper and rational and he pulled away. "Come on," he whispered, kissing my forehead, "Let's go and buy some furniture." I nodded, "But can we please not go back in there," he whined, "because everything in there looks like it just came from a 1970's brothel."

"Hunter," I hit him again, "Don't be mean, some of it was alright."

"Yeah, if you were planning on starring in an episode of Dallas maybe." He pulled me, next to the car door, unlocking it. He practically folded me into the car. "It wasn't that bad." I told him as he got into the driver's seat; he just looked at me incredulous. "Okay, it wasn't good," I conceded "but it wasn't as horrendous as you make it out to be."

He started the car and began to pull out of the car park, "I think you will find, love, that it was as bad as that. In fact if anything I am being too kind to it."

"Fine then, let's go somewhere else, but I don't want to hear any complaints! Or you will be going to without dinner."

"Yes, Ma'am."

********

I was in the kitchen, cleaning up my lunch dishes. I was supposed to be studying but I was having one of those days where I couldn't just sit down and read my textbooks. I was far too excited to do anything. The long discussed and debated couch was coming today and I was so desperate to have a comfy seat and not sit on the living room rug.

It was the last thing to be delivered and I was so glad that our house would finally be finished. It hard turned out perfectly, clean, fresh and homey. It was my small, drafty cottage that you had to wrap up in blankets and have the fire on constantly. Some of the windows stuck and others wouldn't stay closed and you had to battle with the boiler to get it to produce any hot water, but it was perfect and ours.

Hunter was in Dublin in the office and he wouldn't be back home until after tea time at least. So I would get to enjoy it all by myself for a little while. The door bell rang and I dropped my dishes in the sink, splashing soapy water all over the place. I ran to the front door tearing it open to reveal a burly balding man with a clip board. Hastily I signed my name; I hoped they didn't look too closely at it because I am sure that it was nothing more than a squiggle.

I stepped aside and let the delivery men bring in the couch. I directed them into the living room, hovering around bouncing up and down while they popped it down in front of the fireplace. I showed them out and thanked them quickly before the rushing back into the living room. I ripped off the plastic covering from my brand new shiny couch. It was cream and cottony, and it looked perfect in our minty green living room.

I ran out to the hall cupboard and pulled down the bag filled with cushions and a blanket that I had bought for the couch. I spent the next three hours arranging and rearranging, unable to leave it alone. Finally I was satisfied with cushion placement just as I felt Hunter come up the drive way. I almost fell over my feet in my hurry to get to the door. I reached it just as he opened it. He smiled when he realised my excited state, "So I'm guessing that it is here then." I nodded while I bounced into his arms, kissing him hello.

"Come see! Come see!" I grabbed his hand pulling him into the living room. He collapsed onto the couch wiggling a little getting comfy, while I hovered in front of him waiting for his verdict.

"You know," He said very seriously, "I think I preferred that white one." I felt the colour drain from my face; I was going to kill him. Then I saw the mischievous little glint in his eye and the grin that was threatening to break loose.

I launched at him, attacking him with a perfectly placed cushion "That is so not funny!"