Chapter 56 - Thoughts of Home

Clean up, repack, and wait for the dawn is just what happened, sort of. Louisa was content enough to curl up on the bed and relax while stroking my hand until she fell asleep.

As she snored gently, I was forced to recall the night of our engagement - the first time. She dragged me up to her bed after eating a wretched takeaway fish and chip dinner. Joy Cronk and Peter had moved on to Newquay and the new takeaway shop owner, a young man named Noel Carpenter, had not quite mastered the simple method of frying cod or potatoes. Fortunately Louisa had the makings of a decent salad which augmented the so-called entrée.

After our requisite love making that night (I did not complain and I don't recall Louisa complaining either) she snored away while I spooned against her back. I had feared that our first actual sexual encounter would be another disaster on a par with our other dismal adventures. Yet Louisa was keen and I am happy to say that she seemed to be quite satisfied, or was an excellent actress. I would never tell her that compared to Edith Montgomery, Louisa was a quite agreeable partner. When with Edith I always felt like a gigolo, or worse, marching to her commands. Touch me here and touch me there… and so forth. Degrading.

But Louisa was not a demanding person, if fact she seemed to be content to follow my lead, until we got married that is. At that point it may be best to say that she seemed to be trying to set some sort of Olympic record if such a thing existed. Not that I was complaining.

Thoughts of the crooked path we had taken to get that far raced through my head while I gloried at the miracle that had brought the head teacher into my arms. It was a cry of desperation that made me blurt out my wedding proposal, yet it worked.

I wished that I could have erased the tortuous next year, yet here we were together despite it. Or perhaps was it because of it? Did we have to descend into the depths of despair to make the changes necessary so we could be together?

Louisa snored again and pulled my arm tightly to her chest, swinging a foot up my leg. "Martin…" she murmured.

"Hm?"

She did not answer, only snored heavily and squeezed my hand. I inhaled the fragrance of her hair, skin, and deodorant and closed my eyes. "Joan would be amazed," I whispered into the night. Chalk and cheese indeed! I tried to relax and let sleep creep up on me reveling at the warm body pressed to mine.

000

The mobile starting buzzing and I unwound myself from Louisa.

"Martin?"

"Morning."

"Is that a call?"

"Alarm."

"Oh, thank God." She yawned and stretched. "Did you sleep?"

I sighed. "Briefly."

"Busy night." She ran a hand down my chest as I lay there while her cool foot scraped up and down my leg.

"Louisa! You're not thinking…"

She guffawed. "No! Do you think I'm some sort of succubus? That it?" She rolled onto her side and hugged me. "Do you think that?"

"No, I…" I cleared my throat searching for words. "I have been… surprised, is all."

"Just surprised?" She recoiled with an astonished look. "Not pleased?" A look of major disappointment sprang to her face.

"No! No! I have been…" My mind went into full lockup, as I did not want to hurt her. "Been…"

Louisa peered up at me and chuckled. "You haven't complained though." A pointed fingernail scratched down my chest.

"Louisa… I…"

"Cat got your tongue, that it?"

I sighed. "No, I just don't want to get into a rubbish conversation is all. You know that I can't always say things…" I sighed again. "Things that sound… very civilized."

"Oh, I don't know. I think you can be quite… interesting in your own way."

"Interesting."

"Right."

"Course there are times that you can… be rather…"

"I'm rude, awkward, too… medical," I admitted.

She leaned over and kissed me. "We'll work on it. But you can be useful too."

The mobile alarm buzzed. "Time to get up."

"Yeah back to the grind. Back home." She yawned.

Home. Portwenn was home. "Yeah, home," I said and found myself smiling.