The Daily Dormouse. (aka Bike, est. 2007) Part 3150 by Angharad Copyright© 2017 Angharad

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This is a work of fiction any mention of real people, places or institutions is purely coincidental and does not imply that they are as suggested in the story.
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“I’ve spoken with Mr Dunstan.” I said to Simon as we cuddled together in bed.

“Who’s he?”

“At Stanebury.”

“What, Dunstan, you mean?”

“That’s what I just said.”

“Ah, the problem is I’ve only ever known him as Dunstan, without any form of title.”

“Well not being a silver spooner, I’m quite happy to call anyone older than me politely.”

“I’ll bet he told you to call him Dunstan.”

“When we first met he did, but I told him I was uncomfortable doing so. He understood.”

Simon chuckled quietly, “You are just too nice for this world.”

“I don’t think so—did you know hedgehogs need ninety hectares to roam over to breed successfully?”

“What’s that got to do with Dunstan? And why did you speak to him?”

“I’m planning on taking the brood up there for a few days at Easter.”

“Menorca would have been warmer,” he gently chided. Then ‘ooffed’ as my elbow met his ribs.

“You’re mistress of Stanebury now, so you may go there whenever you wish.”

“Occasionally, I think I might like to live there.”

“If that’s to escape me, I’d suggest I’m infinitely more pleasant than the midges in high summer and the cold and wet in winter. Besides with modern communication systems, you could hardly be a hermit up there these days.”

How did he know that if I did live there I’d be an eccentric recluse? “Worse—there’s no dormice up there.”

“You could always study haggis.”

“Or orange pixies,” I said quietly and he roared with laughter.

“I think they’re only ever found in Edinburgh.”

“Probably, I suspect they’re a very endangered species because if they don’t get their own way they make threats and throw tantrums.”

“I’ve seen that behaviour somewhere else,” he said almost in a whisper and I felt myself grow hotter.

“I’ve haven’t done that for ages,” I said blushing even hotter.

“It wasn’t you I was thinking of.”

“Oh, one of the kids?”

“My sister.”

“Stella?”

“She’s the only one I have to date.”

“She hasn’t thrown a wobbly for ages.”

“Oh well, one is overdue then.”

“Perhaps she’s out grown them?”

“That would imply some form of maturation?”

“Yes I know.”

“This is Stella we’re discussing.”

“Yes.”

“Leopards and spots.”

“Ah except the human brain has enormous capacity to change in terms of behavioural plasticity, setting up new pathways and all sorts of things.”

“If I knew what you were talking about, I might agree,” he said gently rubbing my nipple.

“That’s nice,” I said feeling my tummy doing somersaults.

“It is,” he said.

Half an hour later I was standing in the bathroom wiping up his goo and having a little wash and he was fast asleep. I’d probably be sore tomorrow—we haven’t done it for a while; but there was no blood so it might just settle down—it was jumping like mad.

Once you admit to feeling something physical like an itch or a pain, your body does an all over check and finds varying degrees of similar things in all sorts of places, which allow you to almost fall asleep before itching or hurting and you’re back to full wakefulness. This happened for nearly an hour according to the bedside clock before tiredness took over and I zonked.

Two hours later I was whimpering as I felt my left calf cramp and the ridiculous pain that it causes. I almost fell out of bed as I scrambled to straighten my leg, which refused to comply and with a squeal, I fell into my wardrobe with a muffled clunk. Now I was stuck as my leg was still paining and I couldn’t get myself upright and out of the pile of clothes that had come off the hangers and landed on top of me.

A light came on and a sleepy voice said, “What the hell are you doing?”

“Help me up will you, I’ve got cramp.”

“I’ve heard of corks in the bed as a prevention but never lying in a wardrobe,” he said as he pulled me vertical again. I still couldn’t straighten my leg so he hoiked me up in his arms and unceremoniously dumped me on the bed before grabbing the offending leg and massaging the painful muscles. “Relax, dammit,” he said as I whimpered in pain. Finally, his effort worked and the pain stopped and I could straighten my leg normally.

“Thank you, darling,” I said as I got up from the bed.

“How did you get that?”

I shrugged.

He yawned and got back onto bed while I went for a wee—it had nearly scared something more solid out of me and sleep was about as close as Neptune ever gets. I pulled on a dressing gown and went downstairs, the snores from the bed suggested Simon had recovered from his interruption in somnolence.

Sitting quietly with my leg still quite tender from being treated as a tough steak, I sipped my tea. He hadn’t actually said he would come up to Stanebury with us which was a slight concern. It’s his ancestral home not mine and I wondered in my sleep-deprived state if the house actually didn’t like me because of my background—lower middle class and transgender.

Then I almost laughed at my nonsense, how can a house be an entity other than in terms of being a collection of stone and mortar? However, I remembered the two visits I’d had from the grey lady or whatever they called the ghost and I apparently passed muster on both occasions. Oh this was getting silly—there are no such things as ghosts, full stop—and houses are merely constructions of various materials all of which are inanimate, so a house cannot be a living entity, any atmosphere comes from the people living there or possibly from electromagnetic energies in the environment around or under it. Convinced I’d resolved the issue and it was my husband’s house, so it was my house as well and I was going to stay there for a week or so and it had better behave or I’ll have it knocked down and a block of flats built there.

“I dinna think sae, milady,” whispered a female voice as I climbed the stairs and I went all goosebumps. To say I fled back to bed would be an exaggeration, but I didn’t hang about and Simon’s body felt warm and comforting.

The next morning I had quite a rainbow of bruising on my left calf and it was quite tender. I certainly wouldn’t be riding my bike today, being sore in the leg and somewhere a bit higher. I wondered if anyone ever got cramp there as I sprayed the shower on my still tender naughty bits.

I stepped carefully back into the bedroom after drying myself and once clad in lingerie, blow-dried my hair and finished dressing. Simon had been gone an hour or so as the radio alarm came on and all that was on the news was bloody Brexit or that bloke in the White House. I could be glad to get to work back in my ivory tower.