24/8/04, later on…

Clarisse wasn't very happy about me leaving raw meat in her purse, in fact she threw it at me and demanded I buy her a new one straight away, so I guess we're going shopping tomorrow…

Damn!

I hate shopping with her, she goes to all the high-class, high-priced shops, spends at least five grand in each, then afterwards she eats lunch at the most expensive restaurant she can find and I usually have to play the gentleman and pay the bill which is usually a whole week of pay.

Not looking forward to it…not looking forward to it at all…

25/8/04

As expected, the shop-a-thon went on for many hours, she spent well over twenty thousand, came home with a little less than ten items and I had to pay for lunch. Lunch didn't even taste that good and it especially wasn't worth the small fortune they charged for it. I wasn't even carrying enough money to pay, so I had to write a cheque and I hardly ever write cheques.

We could have just gone to the Tasty Fry and eaten a deliciously filling meal for the reasonable charge of twelve dollars for two! I think Clarisse takes after her mother in more ways than she thinks.

Onto a happier point, Clarisse said I behaved myself very well by not whinging all day so we spent a romantic evening together in the bath making love and speaking of times past. We ordered strawberries and chocolate, wine and candles as well as cherries and cream to enhance the romantic atmosphere. We lit scented candles all around the bathtub, turned the lights off and admired the way each others' skin looked bathed in the glow of the fire. Truly it was a magical evening.

29/8/04

How I love this blissful honeymoon.

Clarisse and I once again lay in the bathtub last night, surrounded by candles and musk-scented air. My arms lay lazily around her stomach, my hands caressing the soft soapy skin that covered her body. I was hardly paying attention to the words of love she was whispering in my ear, but I knew what she was saying came from the heart. The room was glowing a dark orange and our lips seemed to keep finding each other, neither one wanting it to end. I love these romantic evenings we've been spending together, it's been a nightly sort of ritual for the past few days.

I'm not looking forward to leaving this place, after all it has given me a great insight into my wife's feelings for me, but I'm starting to miss being home. I know it sounds strange to say that on my honeymoon, but I just had to say it. I miss my son, my grandchildren and indeed, my dog – not Clarisse's dog, just mine.

Charlotte called earlier on to see how we were doing, she was very apologetic for calling during our honeymoon, but she picked a good time to ring – late afternoon. She spoke of how well Mia is doing in her new role, she talked about this nice man she met at the local store, and she talked about some changes Mia has been proposing to parliament. Apparently she wants to kick out some of the old guys and bring in members of the female sex, something that has not been allowed in Genovia since the dawn of its birth. I'm not sure she'll get what she wants, however there is a slight chance now that Lord Palimore has declared his support for Queen Mia and is persuading the other members of parliament to support her as well. Charlotte told me that she will be applying for a position, which came as a shock to me, but not as big a shock as Lilly taking Charlotte's position should she get the job.

Anyway, enough about that, I'm going to end this here and then I'm going to spend the rest of the evening making love over and over again to my wife, then we're going to go to sleep, then one of us will wake the other and end up making love again. As I said before, bliss…

4/9/04

Alright, we spent a few more wonderful days here than planned, but we're leaving tomorrow. I'll have to pack my things. Funny…all I brought with me was a swimsuit and we haven't even been swimming…

5/9/04

Okay, we're still here.

When Clarisse was packing her stuff last night I sort of stood there watching her place piece by piece of clothing into her suitcase with a sad expression on her face.

"My darling is something wrong?"

Faking a smile she whispered, "I just don't quite want to leave yet, we're having so much fun."

Her hands stilled on the pile of clothes, "These past few days have made me so happy. I haven't been this happy ever since you proposed."

"You weren't happy when I proposed."

She smiled, "Not on the outside, but deep down I was jumping for joy."

"So the depths of your heart are still hidden. Wonderful."

I walked over and took her hands in mine, "Tell me something. Tell me something I don't know about you."

"Umm…I once cheated in a science test…well actually the teacher left the Periodic Table in full view of the class, but uh…hmm…"

Clarisse sort of trailed off when I rubbed her shoulders and kissed her neck, then there was a silence, a silence which I broke, "You know there's still a lot I don't know about you yet."

I flipped some of her packed clothes onto the floor and received a surprised look, "What are you doing?"

I took her waist and drew her closer, "I think we can stay another night."

So we did! And like all the other nights it was wonderful and made us not want to return even more.

Tomorrow we are definitely going home.

6/9/04

This has to be one of the most irritating days of my life.

First Clarisse asked if she could drive the car home.

I didn't want her to touch my silver beauty, so I told her I'd let her drive one of the cars back at the palace upon our arrival, but she wanted to drive then and there so we started arguing about it. She was yelling at me saying things like, "I paid a lot of money for that car, the least you could do is let me drive it."

And I replied by saying, "But darling, you haven't driven for so many years."

Then she would say, "I still remember how to drive – I'm not that ignorant."

Then I'd get another couple of sentences in, "I don't doubt that you can drive…it's just…despite its size, I love this car and if anything happens to it I'll be very upset."

Then she'd turn away from me and pretend to cry and I'd say, "Don't be like that."

And after all that, she'd ask again if she could drive home.

Round and round in circles, over and over again we'd have this same conversation.

Eventually I had to let her drive, stupid idea, I know, but she wouldn't hop in the car unless I let her.

Let's see, how can I sum up her driving…

Wonderful, smooth, expertise…no, I'd be lying if I said that.

Horrible, bumpy, no idea what the hell she was doing.

I think her starting off driving again in a manual was a very bad idea. Firstly, she stalled it. Then again. Then again, in fact she stalled it four times on our way out of the twenty metre driveway, then twice on the main road where cars were driving at 100kmph and had to break suddenly with little more than fifty metres stopping distance. When she finally did get above 30kmph she was shaking with fear because all the cars kept over-taking her. Her hands were stiff on the wheel and I told her to let me know when she wanted me to take over, but she didn't and I grew anxious. Every time she stalled at an intersection or a set of traffic lights, I almost cried thinking about the damage she was doing to the engine, I wanted to vomit so badly.

After an hour of driving, I asked her to pull over at the nearest service station. That was a very big mistake, because:

after I bought pills to numb a splitting headache I'd acquired from the stress of her driving, she still wanted to drive all the way home.

I jumped in the driver's seat before she could get back in, which made her get angry stop trusting me

c) because we made a big scene in a public place about who would be driving home.

Seriously!

It was all her fault. She started it by saying, "If you're driving, I'm calling the palace and getting them to come and pick me up."

"Don't be stupid, just get in the car."

"I'm not getting in the car with someone who disapproves of my driving."

"How could anyone NOT disapprove of your driving?"

That little comment made her angry and she started pacing towards the road away from me.

"Clarisse, you're making a scene. There are people around…well not many, but there are still people around. What do you think the press will have to say if they see us arguing in public?"

She abruptly stopped and faced me, "They'll think YOU'VE done something to upset me, which is the truth."

Turning towards the road, she held up her thumb and attempted to wave down a car, I grabbed her hand immediately and pulled her back towards the service station. She fought…poorly…to get me to release my grasp, but I was too strong for her and she ended up with what looked like Indian burns all over her arm.

She dropped all of her weight onto the ground and moved into a sitting position, her eyes obviously avoiding mine.

"I paid for that car," she sobbed.

"It was a gift!" I almost shouted.

I sat next to her and kissed her hand, she didn't seem pleased, "Look, I'll make you a deal. You drive to Pyrus, then I take over."

"No."

Clarisse took a deep breath and cleared her throat, "I just want Mia to see me behind the wheel when we get back. I want her, everyone, to know that I can still drive after all these years."

Taking in what she said, I also took a deep breath, "But you can't do it. Perhaps with a little practise yes, but at the moment you…well…you suck!"

"So teach me!"

"When we get back-"

"Now!"

I really didn't want to argue with her any further because someone was beginning to stare, so I agreed to let her drive. Big mistake. Big, big, big mistake.

Clarisse was driving a little better after the break we took, but ten minutes down the road everything went horribly wrong.

I wasn't paying too much attention to what she was doing because she had maintained an even pace of 50kmph, so I thought there was nothing to worry about.

I was wrong.

We were travelling along somewhat peacefully and suddenly out of nowhere – and I mean seriously nowhere – came a large, black, four-wheel-drive with no number plates. It looked as though it was going to overtake us, but instead of overtaking, it tried to run us off the road! I didn't know what the hell was going on, I remember it ramming into the driver's side door, pulling back and then ramming into it again before speeding off in front of us.

If I had been driving, I would have slammed on the brakes, turned around and then drove off in the other direction, but no, Clarisse just HAD to be the one behind the wheel. Despite my efforts to instruct her on how to deal with another motorist banging into the car, she kept driving and didn't listen to a word I said. I think she was overcome by the shock of being attacked and couldn't move her hands or feet. I looked over to her after the 4WD was out of sight and she was staring wide-eyed at the road ahead. The car was still moving, so I asked her to pull over, but she looked as if she hadn't heard me.

"Clarisse, pull over."

Still the car continued.

I knew the best thing to do was to grab the wheel and pull the handbrake, so I did and because it hadn't been taken out of gear, it stopped and stalled.

"What the hell was that!"

She didn't speak.

"Why didn't you brake? I told you to brake!"

Clarisse's breathing was heavy and her hands were still grasped firmly on the wheel.

"Why didn't you have enough common sense to brake and turn the other way?"

As I removed the keys from the ignition, I noticed she seemed a little distant, her eyes had not blinked the entire time and her body hadn't moved an inch. Shoving the keys in my pocket, I exited the car and after a brief pause…inspected the damage.

"AHHHHHHHHHHH!" I screamed, holding my head and dropping to my knees, "NOOOOOOO! MY CAR! MY BEAUTIFUL CAR!"

Okay, I'm going to have to control myself as I explain the damage, as well as take a deep, deep breath. Hmm…alright.

Dints. There were thousands of dints on the right hand side of the car, small dints, large dints, deep dints and light dints. My once shining silver beauty had turned into a crumbled wreck of metal, plastic and glass. The window was cracked, the panels well beyond repair, and what was left of the exterior was completely ruined.

I sat cross-legged on the side of the road staring at my car in dismay - I couldn't believe how much damage five seconds could do to a car.

Must have spent a good ten minutes staring at the side of my car before I decided to get up and see if it was drivable.

"Get out," I growled at Clarisse – she was still immobilised.

I fumbled with the crumbled door to try and open it, but it was like trying to pull a square block from a round circle. I went around the other side and unclipped her seatbelt.

"Move over, I have to see if we can get this thing home."

Her vacant expression told me that if I wanted her to move, I had to move her myself. So I did.

I (quite roughly) pulled her out of the driver's seat, sat her in the passenger seat, climbed over her, shut the door, then started the car. It didn't sound too bad, there was a rattling sound and a bit of a ticking noise, but I don't think too much damage was done to the engine.

When I released the handbrake I took off very slowly and stayed at 10kmph until I thought it was safe to go faster – it wasn't. As soon as we went over this tiny bump in the road, the back panel scratched the tyre and made a very offensive noise. I pulled over to the side of the road and climbed across Clarisse's lap to get out. Once upon a time in my youth I used to work as a panel beater, so I knew what I had to do, grab a hammer and bash the metal away from the tyre. Only problem with that is I didn't have a hammer. Instead I found an appropriate sized stick, stripped some metal off the car, tied it onto the stick with a pair of clarisse's stockings and started hammering away.

The "nature" hammer didn't work very well, but luckily someone passing by in their car noticed we were stranded on the side of the road and happened to have a hammer in their possession, which I exchanged him for my autograph since I'm now famous and my autograph is worth a bit of money. Within ten minutes I had bashed it enough to continue driving.

The panel still scraped against the tyre, but I drove slow enough to avoid it most of the time. Occasionally we would go over a bump that no matter how slow you drive over it, it still scrapes the tyre.

Anyway, enough about that.

Driving at a mere 10kmph was frustrating to me. I'm used to driving much faster than that because when I play limo driver to Clarisse, she makes me go about 20 km above the speed limit. Her excuse is that because of who she is she can weasel her way out of a ticket.

Halfway through the journey home, I realised that I had spent the whole time worrying about the condition of the car and worrying not a single bit as to how Clarisse might be feeling.

It hit me all of a sudden, like a bolt of thunder, "How are you doing? Are you alright? You look shaken up, do you want to stop somewhere and get a drink?"

Still, she wouldn't say anything.

"I'm sorry I sort of blamed you before, I know it wasn't really your fault."

I tried to lighten the mood, "Ha, funny way to end a honeymoon, eh?"

Her eyes stared in my direction and her mouth sort of hung open as if I'd just told a really bad joke. She turned back to the window and mouthed something that I couldn't hear.

"What did you say? Darling?"

Staring at the wedding ring on her finger she whispered, "I know that car."

"What car? The four wheel drive?"

"I know it."

My eyes widened, "You know it? Who was it?"

Clarisse shook her head and broke softly into tears, I decided to wait for her to calm down before questioning her again.

We arrived at the palace in about three times the amount of time it would have taken us to drive back if we weren't driving so slowly. When we drove through the gates everyone stared, the gardeners, the guards, the maids cleaning the windows…

I had never felt so embarrassed in all my life.

After I parked, I held Clarisse's hand, kissed her mouth for seven seconds, got out of the car and then helped her out.

Before we even had the chance to enter the palace, word had gotten around that we had an accident and as we walked arm in arm all the way up to our suite, we were given gob-smacked looks and everyone we passed asked us what had happened.

Neither one of us spoke a word before we entered the comfort of our suite.

As soon as we were alone I held her against me and rubbed her arms trying to warm her in order to make her comfortable so I could question her.

Lying her down on the bed, I felt somewhat guilty about asking her who was behind the wheel of that car, so I waited and waited, and decided I'll ask her tomorrow to avoid a possible argument tonight.

We've been home for quite a few hours, she's been sleeping for most of it and I've been staring out the window at the press who are trying to get through the gates to find out why the car is all battered.

As I said, it's been an irritating day and I want it to end, so I'm going to snuggle up next to my love and sleep.

Sorry for slow updates. Someone's always at my house that I have to entertain so I haven't much time for writing. Thanks for reviewing!