Chapter Bed
[The following chapter contains strong language. Reader caution is advised.]
Sunday 26th December 1999
Psst! It’s me, your sexy neighbourhood Lucy! Merry Christmas and all that! What did you get this year? I got in troooouuuuble! Just another day for a monster like me, though, am I right? I figured I’d spend Boxing Day away from home because it’s so much drama and I can’t handle that all the time. Besides, I wanted to visit my buddies! I checked in with Paige, and then I went and hung out with Rin and Nathan because, well, they’re awesome and I like snogging Nathan (I’d snog Rin too if she’d let me, I keep telling her, it’s just for funsies!).
Buuuuuut Nathan didn’t want to get in trouble with his parents by having me stay over, and Rin wouldn’t let me crash at hers either, so I figured I’d go back home and sleep in my own bed. I like it, and I actually kinda missed it after being at Adam’s place for so long, so I’m not complaining!
I snuck in past 11pm (I stole one of the spare keys on Christmas, learnt my lesson after having to throw stones at Alex’s window!), tip-toed up the stairs with my best stealth moves, carefully opened my bedroom door, and found a Kitty-cat sleeping in my bed! The cheek! I figured she’d be staying as Dakota’s with my brother and, well, Dakota! My bed is my bed!
There was only one thing to do!
Except I couldn’t bring myself to do it! Sure, she’s a sad little thing, but she looked so sweet sleeping there. I didn’t have the heart to drag her out and throw her out the door like Fred Flintstone.
There was only one other thing to do!
I put down my briefcase, changed into my cute PJs which I haven’t worn in months, tip-toed across the landing, sloooowly opened the door, stepped inside like a swan, sloooowly closed the door, and flicked on the light to find big brother Alex asleep (alone) in his bed with the covers all askew.
Then I ran and leapt onto his bed!
“BUGWAAAH!” he yelled out as he bolted upright, and then I died laughing.
Once he caught his breath:
“What the fuck…?!” all quiet because I guess he didn’t want to risk waking up Mum, Dad and Kitty who’d probably already been woken up anyway.
“My bed’s occupado, I’m taking yours,” I told him. “With or without you in it.”
“Fuck off,” he replied.
“Who’s Off and where am I fucking them?”
He threw his head back onto his pillow in exhaustion. I laughed some more. He just makes me laugh!
I pulled his covers open, but he snatched them back up before I could slither under.
“You’re not sleeping in here,” he growled at me. “Go sleep on the sofa or something.”
“No way Jose, I’ve gotta be out of here before Mum-Meister and The Dad Machine wake up!”
“That’s your own fault for being such a pain in the arse yesterday,” he countered, kicking out at me while I tried to crawl under his duvet from lower down instead.
“Just being me!” I said happily while grabbing his kicking foot and tickling it.
“Cuhuhut it-!” was all my poor, precious, ticklish big brother managed to say before breaking off into laughter. He tried to jerk his leg away from me, but I’d come prepared and held it fast with my non-tickling hand!
After a full minute of relentless tickling, I let go of his foot, and took the opportunity to clamber onto the bed and under the duvet while he recovered. Then, once he’d got his breath back, I pushed him out of the bed. He hit the floor with a wonderful thump.
“Lucy-!”
“That’s my name, don’t wear it out!” I chimed while snuggling into place.
“Get out of my bed!”
“You’re not sleeping in here. Go sleep on the sofa or something.”
“Hilarious,” he scowled all grumpily.
“I thought so too! We’re so in-sync!” I grinned, plopping my elbow on the pillow and resting my cheek in my hand.
“I’m not sleeping on the sofa-”
“Here’s the deal,” I kept grinning, “either you agree to me sleeping here and you can join me, or you keep saying no and you sleep… I dunno, with Kitty or Mum and Dad or on the stairs or something, cos the sofa’s apparently a no-go.”
I thiiiink Alex was too tired to put together a response, because all he did for a moment was rub his forehead with both hands. It kind of reminded me of an otter somehow. Wouldn’t it be cool to have a pet otter? You could keep it in a paddling pool or something!
“Why are you so hung up on all this monster stuff…?” he asked with a groan that morphed into a yawn like some kind of noise Power Ranger.
“I’m not ‘hung up’ on it, I’m, like… liberated by it!” I cheered, and stretched with joy. “It’s like I said before, it sort of clicks into place-”
“Except it’s not just something clicking into place, is it?” he said, looking at me crossly. “You’re acting into it, like there’s this vision of a ‘monster’ in your head and you’re acting like that. If you were always a monster, you shouldn’t be acting any differently.”
“You mean like how I always flirted with girls even before I realised I liked girls?” I asked sarcastically. “I figured it out and I changed my behaviour, same deal here.”
So said psychology-master Lucy “Me” Matthews.
“But everybody knows how being attracted to people works. And there’s no harm in it, unless you’re stalking or not taking ‘no’ for an answer.”
He sat on the side of the bed like he was going to read me a bedtime story.
“You’re using this as an excuse to act out.”
“No, I’m living how I’ve always wanted!” I smiled brightly.
“Then why did it take Melody saying you’re a monster for you to live like this…?”
“Cos I realised I don’t have to worry about normal-people decency!”
“You strip at a moment’s notice, when did you ever care about common decency…?”
Ooooh, idea!
“And anyway, it’s not ‘normal-people’ decency. It’s just decency. Okay, now the word’s starting to sound weird… What’re you doing?”
“Wow, it took you, like, twenty seconds to notice!” I laughed as I stopped shifting about, and then chucked my PJs and undies out of the bed.
Alex’s eyes bugged out at that.
“You are not naked in my bed…!”
“I totally am!” I nodded. “It’s so much more comfortable sleeping in the nude, y’know?”
“Just get out!” my silly brother snapped at me, standing up like when cats are angry at each other and do that back-arching thing.
“Shhh, I wanna try and get some sleep…” I purred back. “Why don’t you go over to Dakota’s and sleep there?”
“Because I shouldn’t have to! You came in and pushed me out of my bed!”
“Where is Dakota, anyway?”
“Ireland, visiting her mum, I told you yesterday!”
“Huh, yeah, rings a bell…”
I yawned after that. I guess I really was tired!
“Come on, snuggle with your cute little sis, I don’t bite family.”
“I’m not getting in bed with you when you’re naked. I don’t want you in my bed when you’re naked,” he listed, sounding exhausted. He rubbed his brow again.
“You’re gonna give in eventually,” I told him with a confident smile. “I’m just curious which option you choose. I kinda think you’ll go for the sofa, which would be funny!”
He huffed through his nose, and looked up to the ceiling, maybe asking God or Superman what to do.
“You have ten seconds to get out, or I’m dragging you out.”
“Why waste ten seconds when you know I’m not going anywhere?” I asked, cos that’s fair, right?
He looked back at me, all serious business except in his boxers and with a bed-head so it was hard to be that scared.
All of a sudden, he sprang forward and tried to pull the covers away! I was prepared for anything, of course, so I’d grabbed hold of them and we had a tug-of-war over them instead.
“Oh my god, you were gonna leave me totally naked! You freak!” I teased him while trying to keep the duvet in-place.
“You’re the one who stripped!” he argued, and he put his foot on the mattress to anchor himself.
“I’m still covered up, though! That’s what makes it so saucy!”
“Don’t act like you don’t walk around naked in front of me!”
“Well sure, but you’re always trying not to look… guess you’re just ashamed of the lust you have for me and you just couldn’t contain it anymore!”
“You know that’s not it, you weirdo!” he growled, before he suddenly moved off to the side instead. I think he thought the change in the direction he was pulling would throw me, and it kind of did, but I was still grabbing on so all he did was reveal my lower half.
I’ll give you a second to imagine that!
…
Okay? Sweet!
“Just get out…!”
“It’s not my fault your little friend is sleeping in my bed!” I pointed out. “She could’ve slept in here like she did last night! I mean, god knows how the three of you all slept in here-”
“She used the sleeping bag, Lucy!”
I watched the realisation hit him, like a cartoon character.
“You can use that!”
“Or you could use it!” I suggested instead.
“You don’t get priority over…”
He sighed, and stopped pulling, and I knew he was trying to lull me into loosening my grip so he could pull the covers away so I snatched them back up and he only just managed to grab a corner.
“Damn it!”
I laughed a victorious laugh while moving the covers back into place.
“Lucy, please…” Alex grumbled in frustration.
“Look, I had to sleep on the sofa the other night, it’s only fair I get to sleep in a bed tonight, right?” I appealed to his kind side.
“You slept in your own last night, and if you hadn’t spent the entire day out wherever the hell you went, you could’ve been sleeping in it right now. Ironically, you made your own bed.”
He tried not to smile at that, he must’ve been proud of it.
I sniffled sadly.
“Fine. I see how it is.”
I threw back the covers and got out of his bed, in all my naked glory (and it really is glorious). Alex looked away because his eyes are sensitive to glorious things.
“I’ll go and find somewhere else to sleep… maybe Paige will take me in…”
“Can you put your pyjamas back on first?!” Alex wailed, gesturing wildly in the direction of my discarded clothes.
“Nay, I be too depress-ed to don my sleep attire once more,” I continued, “I shall step out into the cold Winter night bare as a babe and search for shelter… cast out by my kin, who could not lend his bed to me!”
“Just take the sleeping bag!”
“He offered me but a bag, without comfort nor snuggles!”
“You’ll be comfortable enough, and I’m not snuggling with you! It’d be weird enough anyway without you being naked!”
“Forsooth!” I cried out, putting the back of my hand to my forehead in full theatrical flair. “The boy would not snuggle his dearest sister!”
The boy must’ve had enough because he went to the cupboard and grabbed out the sleeping bag.
“You can pretend I’m Dakota or Buffy the Vampire Slayer or something!” I suggested while he pulled the sleeping bag out of its… sleeve. He threw it over his shoulder and it landed in the middle of the room.
“I know you must be missing her – Dakota, not Buffy, obviously – so you can make do with me!”
“Tell me when I can turn around.”
He always knows how to deflate my fun…
I picked up the sleeping bag, rustled it about a bit, and got back in his bed. I didn’t say anything, just to see what he did.
“Are you done…?” he asked after about five minutes.
“Yep!”
He turned around, and sighed heavily, and I laughed again.
Maybe I shouldn’t have, because I think that might have tipped him over the edge. I noticed him clenching his fists and going all tense and suddenly I was a little bit worried.
Without saying anything, Alex marched forward, picking up the sleeping bag and finding the opening, and then he walked to the bed and threw the duvet off. It honestly took me by surprise, so he had the advantage, grabbing my ankles and shoving the sleeping bag over my feet. I tried to pull them back out but he was already sliding the bag up my legs. Looking back, I guess I screwed myself by letting him get my feet in there?
I brought my legs up but he’d already got the sleeping bag to my knees, and he leant forward to stop me kicking back out, slipping it past my knees. I tried hitting him with my hands but I think he’d properly snapped and didn’t care about that. He wrestled with me on the bed, steadily managing to tug the bag up the rest of my body while I playfully resisted until it was over my chest and under my arms. Then, he pulled the cord to tighten it, leaving me like some kind of weird caterpillar with arms, and smirked victoriously at me.
We stared at each for a few seconds, and then we both burst out laughing at how stupid and weird this whole thing was.
“Go on,” Alex said when we’d finally finished, “on the floor. I’ll get the spare pillows.”
“Fiiiiine… I guess I can pretend it’s like that time Paige and I both slept here years ago…” I said while wiggling my way off the bed.
“Oh yeah… almost forgot about that…” he mentioned. (Liar!) He got off the bed, got the covers and put them back on properly.
“Sleeping on the sofa, sleeping on the floor… you’re treating me like a pet dog…” I teased him while he went and grabbed the pillows from the cupboard. “We’ve got to stick together!”
“Siblings, or monsters…?” he asked. He threw the pillow and it plopped down onto me.
“Both!”
He turned the light off, and I could just about see him walk back across to his bed with the night-light coming through the curtains (I could tell he was being careful not to tread on me).
“I don’t get why you’re resisting it so much,” I told him, “there’s nothing wrong with being a monster.”
He got into his bed and yawned a bit.
“You say you don’t care about Melody’s big ideas about a revolution, but you’re still on the same train of thought as her. Talking like we’re some whole new species or something… like we aren’t human beings.”
“I never said that-”
“Even if we’re monsters, that doesn’t mean we just get to do what we want…” he trailed off with another yawn.
“One day, you’ll try doing what you want, and you’ll get how great it is,” I said as I settled into place. “We shouldn’t have to act normal if we’re not.”
Then I yawned… stupid infectious yawning…
“It’s not about acting normal. Just about being considerate, and kind… Now, let’s go to sleep…”
“Just cos you got the last word in, don’t think you won…” I pouted.
“Of course…” he chuckled.
After all that fun, it only took me a little while to fall asleep, but I kept thinking about what Alex said… I am what I am, it can’t be helped, but his whole “considerate and kind” thing was itching at me. I dunno. New Year’s resolution: figure out exactly what kind of monster I am.