My turn to pull guard duty.  It wasn’t so bad, I was inside and it was Friday, so the guys would be downstairs most of the night to keep me company.  It wasn’t hard work, just signing in visitors and answering calls.  The worst part of the job was the boredom and the stool behind the high desk at the front door; no back support and seriously unforgiving on the back of the thighs so it was easier to stand or walk around.

            About 9:30pm I got a call and settled in at the desk to talk to my husband.  He was home - alone – always a dangerous thing for him.

            “Hey, baby.  I got a surprise for you.”

            Uh oh.  “Surprise like – I burned down the house, or surprise like – I bought you flowers?”

            “You’ll see when you get home.”

            “That doesn’t answer my question.”  This didn’t bode well.  With his history, every surprise was suspect.  I had a 50/50 chance he did something I wasn’t going to be able to fix.

            “Just tell me already.”

            “No.  It’s good, I promise.”

            We nattered on like this for another 10 minutes or so until I gave up, sometimes it was easier to let him win the argument.  After a few more minutes of talking, we disconnected leaving me the whole of my shift to wonder what he’d done now.  The night passed slowly, but soon dawn came and my relief took over.  Driving home I dreaded the surprise knowing it might have me up for a few more hours.  Hopefully we still had our furniture and the rent.

            Unlocking the door, I was greeted with the sight of my husband in his boxers.  He was passed out on the couch and a suspicious mewling came from the bathroom - that was a nasty little jolt to the system. 

            Christ!  I hoped like hell he hadn’t caught the thing that had been lurking in the woods behind the patio.  If he captured some possum or squirrel and put it in my bathroom I was gonna be pissed.

            Sitting next to him on the couch, I removed my boots but he didn’t even stir.  That was unusual for him.  He was a trained soldier involved in shit I didn’t even want to know about.  Usually I couldn’t fart without him taking notice.

            His head was thrown back exposing his neck and I noticed his pulse was very slow.  Straddling him, I decided to take a closer look.  He didn’t move.  Had he taken one too many pain pills left over from his surgery?  What the hell had he done to himself?  Moving closer I reached for an eyelid and that’s when he came awake.

            Screaming, he bonked my head with his and caught my wrist like I’d had a knife –hmm.  Interesting, I thought, just before the pain of the head-butt registered.

            “What the hell!”  I cried out, pulling my wrist away to rub my forehead.

            “Shit, baby!  Don’t ever do that again!”

            I glared at him.

            He gave me a sheepish grin and shrugged.  “Instinct,” he said as if that made a difference.

            Damn! I was gonna have a headache now and there went any chance I had of getting some sleep in the next few hours.  I pulled my leg over to get off him, but he grabbed my waist and pulled me towards him and kissed me quickly, then helped me right myself onto the couch.

            Unbuttoning my the top of my uniform I was annoyed when I noticed he stood watching me with a stupid grin on his face.  “What?”

            “Don’t you want to know what your surprise is?  He asked dancing backwards towards the bathroom door until the back of his knee hit the corner of the coffee table.  Ouch!  A grimace crossed his face and I knew he was in pain.  He’d only had surgery four days ago.  Putting up a hand he motioned me back to the couch.  “I’m O.K., I’m O.K., just wait there.”   He turned around smoothly and I realized he still moved gracefully for a wounded man which pissed me off for some reason - probably because I was forever a klutz.

            At the bathroom door he stooped, not quite bending his bad knee, then opened the door slowly but missed the streak of black and white fur that tore out into the living room heading straight for me.

            Screaming, I lifted my feet and watched as the thing disappeared beneath the couch.  “What was that!”

            “That’s your surprise.”

            “What the hell is it?”  I thought it might have been a cat, but after 24 hours of duty, I could have been mistaken.  I wasn’t exactly the brightest bulb in the marquee right now, not to mention the pain in my head had fully engulfed my frontal lobe.

            “ I got him for you.  You said you wanted a cat, so I got you one.”

            “A cat?”  I could feel a smile break out on my face despite the pounding inside my brain.

            “Yeah,” he shrugged.  He gave me his puppy-dog face, and my heart melted.

            Moving the coffee table, I got on my knees and stuck my head under the couch.  Sure enough, there was a little kitten crouched in the corner just out of reach.  I tried to grab him but after 5 minutes or so, I gave up.  I was tired, I had to sleep, cat or no cat.  Lifting myself off the floor I headed for the bedroom knowing the cat would come out when he wanted and not before.  “I’m going to sleep.”

            “But the cat.”

            “He’s not going anywhere.  He’ll come out when he’s ready.  What are you going to do?”  I asked, getting undressed.

            “I’ll sleep with you.”

            I sighed and shook my aching head.  “Not right now.  I’m so tired, all I want to do is sleep for a few days.”

            “No, we can do that later.  I didn’t get any sleep last night so I’m tired too.”

            “Why didn’t you sleep? Did you go out?”  I asked, not even trying to hide the anger in my voice.

            “No!”

            “Well, why didn’t you sleep?”

            “I tired.  I played my games until about 1am but when I went to bed, the cat wouldn’t let me.”

            “What?”  That small fur ball had kept the ever-ready soldier awake?

            “He kept trying to do stuff.”

            “What kind of stuff?”  The embarrassment I saw on his face was out of character, he never got embarrassed. 

             Climbing into bed he closed his eyes.  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

            “Did he piss in the bed?”  I asked pulling back my sheets to inspect my side of the bed.

            “No!”

            “Then what?”  I wasn’t going to let it go no matter how tired I was.  His embarrassment was something so elusive as to be almost impossible, and yet a small piece of black and white fur had him on defense, trying to avoid the conversation.

            He sighed.  “He kept trying to suck me.”

            “He what?”  I burst out laughing.

            Turning to his side he put his back to me until I placed a hand on his shoulder and forced him to look at me.

            Rolling his eyes he finally conceded.  “When I went to sleep, he kept crawling on me and biting my nipple.”

            I couldn’t help the laughter.

            “Don’t laugh – that’s so gross!”

            “Baby, he’s just a kitten, he hasn’t been away from his mothers nipple for very long.”

            “That’s just nasty.”  He said with a grimace.

            “He’s a cat, he doesn’t know any better.”

            “I’m not shaped like a cat, how the tell does he know where my nipples are?”

            “Instinct?”  I said as he glared, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t stop laughing.

            He slept with his back to me all night, even after I wiped away the tears and snot and settled into a restful sleep with something furry purring into my hair.

            Good Kitty.