“I can’t believe… In bed! I’m your husband! Impossible. ” Camry was very indignant. His inability to get out an entire sentence made this much obvious. His skin was becoming blotchy too, as though his anger must manifest itself in a physical way so as to insure that it would not simply collect and result in a sudden explosion. He was turning several shades of red at a very alarming rate. I found myself quite fond of the intermediary blushing pink, like the cliché sunset some hero or another is forever riding off into.

“There’s someone in my bed.” I said, pointing with the knife, just in case he hadn’t notice. I was feeling a little dazed.

Camry advanced on me like a very angry thunderstorm. With lightening. One that smites. I began to fear personal injury. “You slept with someone else!” he shouted.

“I didn’t sleep with him, I just slept with him. And I didn’t know I was doing it at the time!”

The intruder beneath my sheets chose this moment to sit up, bleary-eyed and stretching happily. He stopped mid-yawn and stared at us. It was at this point that I found I could back up no farther unless I suddenly developed an ability to walk through walls. This was not a happiness. I had quite forgotten about the knife in my hand and was feeling rather vulnerable and weak. That was unexplored territory. My courage was fleeing. I imagined it had a funny little cockney accent. “Flee! Run for your life! Flee!” it shrieked.

“She didn’t do anything!” Kai cried, leaping from the bed.

Camry backed off and suddenly I could breath again. He turned toward Kai. I admit being worried for my new friend even though I was rather peeved at him myself.

Kai, however, didn’t even flinch despite the impending danger. Men of honor are really insensible. “She didn’t do anything.” he repeated.

They glared at each other.

Ooooh, it’s like a showdown.

I heard quickly advancing footsteps and in seconds Meri’s inquisitive head poked through my door. “What’s going on?” she cried, fearful of being left out. Mio appeared behind her yawning and trying not to look too interested. She surveyed the scene. A bemused look, one that if I had the time and wits about me would have been knocked off in three seconds flat, spread across her face. “It would appear Mae is involved in some masochistic bedroom activities.” she said, in much the same way most people speak of the weather.

“But it’s only a knife.” I heard myself say. Somewhere inside my mind this explained things. Elsewhere, it was thought one of the more stupid things in the world.

Mio smirked. “I wasn’t referring to the knife.”

Some part of me questioned why no one seemed bothered by the knife.

After this exchange, Camry and Meri shifted their focus from Kai to me presumably because my dive into the deep end was becoming more of a double inverted twist than a simple cannonball.

“Secret agents do it in...” Meri began in a decidedly sultry tone, but she was cut off severely for reasons of being otherwise incapacitated. Namely, Camry had tackled her and they began grappling on the floor in a good old-fashioned brawl.

I took a step out of the way. This innocent step happened to be toward Kai. He panicked slightly, backed away and gazed at the knife with increasing alarm. “Why do you have that?” he asked. He gulped and cast around for an explanation for his conduct. “I just didn’t want to sleep on the floor. The bed is plenty big enough. I swear nothing else crossed my mind.”

Ahh, finally! Someone who is bothered by the knife. Good man.

“Why wouldn’t she have it?” Mio countered. “If what you say is true she woke up to find a stranger in her bed. It’s customary for people of our importance to sleep with something that might give comfort in such situations.”

I suppose a teddy bear just wouldn’t quite do. “I keep it beneath my mattress.” I offered.

“How sensible!” Mio exclaimed. “Less chance you’ll hurt yourself in your sleep. Myself, I have a chakram under my pillow.”

This clearly displayed her mad sleeping skill and superiority in general, though it must be hell on her sheets.

“I keep my misericorde around my neck. It’s more convenient.” This proclamation from Meri, who I really doubt slept with only one weapon. She too much enjoyed the ingenuity required for constructing traps. I turned to look at her that I might more effectively call her out on this obviously erroneous claim. She only smiled from her perch atop Camry who happened to be tied to a nearby chair. She had a small knife to his throat and a mischievous smile on her lips.

Ahh, sweet sanity. How sparse thou art.