Amor Prohibetur

This entry marks the start of the third series of Amor Prohibetur stories.

*****

Krissy's Sleepwalking Problem

"Harold, I think Krissy is sleepwalking again." May said, one fateful morning over breakfast.

Absently, Harold glanced away from the kitchen, as if their nineteen year-old daughter were sleepwalking even then at eight o'clock in the morning. "Please don't say you caught her doing that."

"I didn't catch her." May shook her head. "All I know is that the door locks were all undone except for the one with the key."

Krissy started sleepwalking several years before, but it progressed into something worrisome when she was in her mid-teens. She had always been one of those kids who was up and moving around the house when she should have been asleep in bed. At first it had been nightmares that caused the girl to roam the house restlessly, but later it was tests at school or crushes over boys. Things got scary when a neighbor called and said Krissy was walking down the street at four in the morning. Harold had gone out there and found his daughter in her nightgown, fast asleep but with her legs in motion. That's when all the visits to the psychiatrist started up, and when the couple had put key locks on the doors and special latches on the windows.

"Did you lock everything up last night, or just the deadbolt?" May asked.

"Honestly, I don't remember." Harold frowned. "Did you find her in the living room?"

"No, she was in her bed." May shrugged. "I just thought it was odd that all the locks were open except for that last one."

"What about the windows? Did it look like any of the windows were tampered with?"

"The ones in the living room were okay."

Both Harold and May were heavy sleepers, or at least they had been until Krissy's dilemma started up. Whenever their daughter was sleepwalking, every little noise in the house prompted them to get up and investigate. When Krissy was okay, their sleeping routines were lulled and normalized until the problem started up again.

"Harold, you're going to have to watch her by yourself this time. I have that corporate meeting in Dallas to go to."

The pensive man sighed. "You'll be gone an entire week? Just like the last time?"

"It's the same as always." May downplayed her absence. "One of these days my company will branch out here and I won't have to go as far. There are only about five people who can manage a regional headquarters and I'm one of them."

"I just wish you were home more often, that's all."

Harold could have said more, but he let it go at that. There was always an underlying suspicion in the man's mind that his wife messed around when she was traveling.

"One of these days I will be." May smiled.

Harold hated not knowing if she were cheating or not. A lot of women in his office were married and cheating. He knew this because of how often they dropped hints to him about having lunch together or how often his male coworkers told him in confidence how they'd nailed one. Harold never liked the idea of loose women.

"I'm going to be late." He glanced at the clock, gulping down as much of his breakfast and coffee as he could in the next three minutes. He went to kiss his wife goodbye, except he shrank away from him.

"You've got omelet all over your face!" May laughed.

"Are you going to be here when I get home tonight?" Harold asked.

"No, I'm catching a taxi at three and my flight leaves at four. Just watch Krissy until I get back, okay?"

May got a greasy kiss anyway, before Harold hurriedly grabbed his keys and made for the door.

"She's cheating on you, man." Jimmy told him at work, when Harold mentioned how May would be out of town for an entire week. Those were the kinds of statements that would pester Harold all day.

"I don't have any proof of that." Harold admitted. "Maybe I'm just being paranoid."

Jimmy started naming names, of the women who he was sure were screwing around in the office despite being married. He named nearly half of the women that worked with them. "If I were you, I'd get me a piece of tail while your lady is away. You know who's been asking about you?"

"Who?"

"The new receptionist."

"What?" Harold chuckled. "She has to be like twenty years old!"

"I asked her out the other day..." Jimmy started.

The rumors didn't bother Harold so much because he liked knowing what cards were on the table, instead of trying to guess who was out messing around with whom. Besides, Jimmy was one of those guys who always had the juicy gossip on everyone. Jimmy was also a married man.

"She said no." Harold's buddy went on. "She said I wasn't her type. So I asked her what her type was, and she said somebody like Harold."

"She probably didn't mean it." Harold shook his head. "I'm sure she was just trying to brush you off."

"Hey, listen to me. A girl wouldn't say something like that unless she was interested. She knew I might tell you, because she sees us hanging out together all the time, right? Besides, that wasn't the only time. A couple of days ago, Tom Cruise brought half a dozen roses in. He was going to give them to one of the girls in the stock room, except she didn't want them. So Tom gave them to me, and I went around and handed one rose to the next six girls I ran into. I gave one to the receptionist, and I told her it was from her secret admirer. She asked me if her admirer was you."

Harold hated Tom Cruise. That was the best looking guy in the firm, who made all the girls drool over him. He was so good looking they'd taken to calling him after that handsome movie star, despite that his name wasn't even Tom.

"Are you listening to me?" Jimmy asked. "She asked me if the rose was from you."

"That girl is one year older than my daughter is."

"So?"

Harold changed the subject. "How the hell do you get to walk around all over the building and give roses to all the ladies?"

"Because I take chances, Harold, and you don't." Jimmy told him. "All you do is sit at your desk and worry about who your wife is hitting the sack with. Live a little, man!"

Harold frowned, because he knew Jimmy was right.

Krissy came in at nearly eleven that night. This peeved Harold off because he'd told her to come in before ten, which was the time he usually went to sleep. He was forced to stay up waiting for her so he could lock the house up. His daughter was evasive too, when the impatient dad asked her if she was going through any stress. Probably another crappy boyfriend giving her a hard time, Harold assumed, making sure Krissy was in her bed before he went off to his room.

Back when Krissy's sleepwalking first started, Harold had a guy come out to install a motion sensor in the living room. This sensor led to a soft beeper in his bedroom. They hardly ever used it because the stupid thing would keep beeping every five seconds if someone simply went into the kitchen for a drink of water. Since his wife was out of town, Harold went ahead and armed the thing.

The beep, beep, beep started up at two in the morning. Half asleep, Harold staggered over to the living room, where sure enough Krissy was sleepwalking and trying to get out. He'd long since gotten accustomed in how to handle her when she was in this state, so he gently but insistently walked her back to her room. The whole time he was telling his daughter that everything was okay and that she could go back to sleep again. Krissy seemed to know when she was near her bed, as she automatically lay down and covered her self up with her blankets. The young woman never woke up despite having walked all over the house. Harold hovered nearby, before leaving her placid form and doddering back into his own bed.

It wasn't easy for him to go back to sleep, but he finally managed to. Unfortunately, his daughter was roaming the house again at just past four. A second time, Harold had to go out there and corral her and put her back to bed. He had a tougher time going back to sleep after this second incident. When he left the house the following morning, he was edgy and crabby.

"Did you talk to your wife?" Jimmy asked, later that day at work.

"Yes, last night." Harold nodded.

"How did that go?"

Harold frowned. "We only talked for about ten minutes. I guess she was having drinks with a couple of girlfriends."

"Harold, come on now. You and I both know what women do when they're away from their husbands and having drinks at the bar. Are you in denial?"

"No, I'm not."

Jimmy droned on. "First they have their drinks, and then they start making eyes at the men. You know how the game goes, Harold."

"I'm not in denial." Harold insisted. "I just haven't seen any evidence that my wife is cheating on me."

He had entertained the notion once, of asking a guy like Jimmy to deliberately flirt with May, just to see how she'd respond to him. This same notion was coming up in his head again.

"Well, you know what I did a little while ago?" Jimmy hinted.

"You left your desk to go flirt with the ladies? What a surprise."

Jimmy grinned. "I told the new receptionist that you and I were looking for dates to take to dinner and a movie. I said I already had my date, but Mr. Harold was a little picky when it came to choosing his. She said she would not mind being your date."

"She didn't say that." Harold replied in disbelief. "Tell me she didn't say that?"

Jimmy was still grinning at him.

Harold shook his head. "She's way too young for me."

"Come on now, Harold. Now you're just being a jackass. You know how these young girls are. They think they have something going with these guys that are their age, and then the guys dump them and move on to the next girl. So what do these girls do but look for older men that are already attached? These young ladies want the wining and dining. They don't want to be sitting at home wondering if their boyfriend is going to call or not. Take a chance, Harold, just like your wife is doing in whatever city she's in now."

"Dallas." Harold said, absently.

That afternoon, Harold went by the receptionist's desk on his way out, instead of taking the other exit like he usually did. He struck up a conversation with the new girl, finding her happy to talk with him. For some reason he'd been doubting Jimmy's fanciful idea that the girl wanted to go out with an older guy like him. In truth, she was bouncy all of a sudden, and maybe Harold even caught her blushing once.

Harold had a big grin on his face as he walked out to his car.

Krissy came home at nine o'clock that night. She was clearly in a bad mood, as she went into her room and right away got into a heated argument with somebody on her phone. Harold was hoping he would have a good sleep, since he still felt drained from the previous night. Whomever Krissy was talking to on the phone was probably going to rob him of that chance by making her upset. He went as far as going to stand right outside his daughter's door to listen to her conversation. As far as he could tell, she was fighting with a guy over some rumor about him being seen with some other girl.

Crap, thought Harold. Krissy was all riled up. She'd go to sleep angry and end up sleepwalking again, as if she were heading out to go and see what this guy was doing at night. Even Krissy's dreams were full of suspicions.

Sure enough, his daughter was setting off the beeper at one in the morning. Harold got off his bed, wondering how many more times he'd be woken up. He staggered his way into the living room, not turning on any lights because he didn't want to jostle Krissy awake. And there she was, trying to get the deadbolt open but having no key to unlock it with. Gently, Harold steered her away from the living room.

It had been much easier to maneuver her around when she was little. Harold could simply pick her up and carry her back to bed, and that was that. Now that Krissy had grown into a woman, she was more difficult to deal with, and sometimes in her sleeping state she would resist being prodded. Right before she graduated high school, things had gotten even more complicated, as she'd taken to wearing long sleeping shirts and panties to bed. Most times, Harold would defer the duty to his wife, of escorting Krissy back into her room. Since May was not around, he would have to do it himself.

Harold wondered how many more times that night Krissy would wake him. Surely once more, maybe twice. Inwardly he groaned, as he knew he had a long night ahead of him, and could look forward to a long day at work on top of that. As he led his daughter down the dark hall, he had another idea. When Krissy was younger, May would sleep in her bed to comfort her, or bring her into Harold's bed. The feeling of her parents being that close would help Krissy relax and she would sleep peaceably for the rest of the night.

I wonder if that will still work, Harold thought. If it did, Krissy would sleep the whole night through and not cause her dad to feel so tired the next day. With a deep sigh, Harold led her into the master bedroom and to the side his wife usually rested on.

"You're going to lie down and think happy thoughts." Harold told his sleeping daughter. "You're not going to think about anything else except a good night's sleep. You're going to be very happy in the morning."

Hoping things would work, he got Krissy to lie down on the bed and covered her up. She was restless at first, tossing and turning and taking Harold's blankets until he finally went and got a spare from the closet. Every other minute, the father thought Krissy was going to get up and walk away, but he talked to her and coaxed her. Eventually, she grew restful and stopped moving so much. Thank goodness, Harold thought, as he could finally close his eyes and find his own peace.

Harold dreamed of going on a double date with Jimmy. His work buddy had a girl at his side, while Harold was walking along with that new receptionist. They went to dinner, and to a movie afterward. During the movie, Jimmy was already flirting and kissing his date, but it took Harold a little longer to loosen up like that. Eventually, Harold worked his way up to setting his arm around the receptionist's shoulders. She was smiling and laughing and goofing around the whole time. The young woman brought her arm over Harold's chest, and her leg over Harold's thigh. Harold caressed her arm first, and then her leg.

Suddenly, Harold understood that he was lying on his bed. He did have an arm and a leg on him, but they didn't belong to the receptionist at work. Instead, his daughter had come over all the way across the bed and was leaning on him now. Harold's hand was rubbing Krissy's bare thigh. Krissy's cheek was resting on her father's shoulder.

Oh, shit, Harold thought. He'd been feeling up that receptionist in his dream, and his daughter in real life. That wasn't good! Harold's first impulse was to push her away. On instinct, he turned toward the alarm clock, seeing that it wasn't even three in the morning yet. If he was too abrupt with Krissy, he might disrupt her sleep and then she'd start tossing and turning again. She might even sleepwalk back into the living room and screw up his sleep.

No, Harold thought, I have to be really careful here, otherwise I'll have another restless night. Since he still had his hand on Krissy's thigh, he decided to keep soothing it. If he did things that way, he could slowly push her leg away a little at a time. It might take a little while, but his plan was to get Krissy on the far side of the bed again. Harold ran his hand from her knee up to the fat part of her thigh. During one soft sweep, he went too far and was shocked to find Krissy didn't have any underwear on. No, that wasn't right. His daughter was wearing those short panties that only covered up about half her ass.

Not good, Harold thought, moving his arm back to her knee. In a careful, tedious effort, he pushed Krissy's legs and arms away and very slowly turned her body around. She was still pretty close to him, but unless he shoved her clear across the bed, that was the best that he could do. Harold tried to put it out of his head that he'd touched his daughter in such a delicate area, and luckily there were no further awkward incidents that night.

The next morning, Harold wondered what Krissy thought about ending up in the master bedroom. He didn't have the time to find out because he'd left the house before his daughter woke up. Hopefully, she wouldn't remember how she'd been draped over him, or how her father had accidentally touched her backside.

"What are you smiling about?" Jimmy asked, when he came over by Harold's desk.

"Oh, nothing."

"Bullshit, Harold. I know you, man. What's up?"

"All right, I'll tell you. I had a dream that we went on a double date. You and I were in it, and some other girl and that new receptionist."

"Sounds kinky. Did you and the new girl get it on?"

"Sort of. We were messing around in a movie theater. You were messing around with your date, too."

"I like your way of thinking, Harold." Jimmy grinned. "When is your wife coming back home?"

"Uh, four days from now."

"Let's do this double date before that. Remember, this is NSA."

"What's that?"

"No strings attached. It's like I told you. These younger girls want to go out and have a good time. No baggage, no commitment and no bullshit. You're not supposed to fall in love with them, Harold, or you'll screw the whole thing up."

"Right." Harold nodded. "I get that."

"How about tonight?"

"Tonight?" Harold replied. For some reason, he thought this was too soon. Then he realized he was procrastinating on his own destiny. "Yes, okay. Tonight works for me."

"I'm going to ask her, Harold. Don't wimp out on me later. You'll make me look bad and you'll end up looking even worse."

"Right. I won't wimp out, I promise."

Harold didn't make it home until 10:30 that night. He'd gone out with Jimmy and the two girls, to dinner and a movie afterward. The girls were both a little chatty, but they did flirt with the older guys and let themselves be held and pecked on the cheeks. Harold had the idea that maybe he would end up sleeping with the receptionist that night, but when he told Jimmy about that, Jimmy said not to push things. If they played their cards right, Jimmy explained, they might end up with a couple of long-term mistresses. Wow, that was something, Harold thought in surprise. He never imagined he was the kind of guy that could score himself a mistress.

His buoyant mood was dampened somewhat, when he discovered that Krissy was not home. She came in an hour after Harold did, smelling of alcohol and arguing with someone on her phone. Not again, the frowning dad thought, not more BS where he would be kept up all night. He was a little relieved when Krissy said she was taking her sleeping pills.

It didn't matter. His daughter was wandering in the living room at two o'clock. Harold got up and went to get her, in a crabby mood because he'd been having a nice dream about the new receptionist. As he gently led Krissy back to her room, he recalled how soundly she'd slept in his bed, so he took her in that direction instead. All Harold had to worry about now was mistaking his daughter for the receptionist, as he had the previous night. He could solve that problem by putting some of May's extra pillows between their bodies, so Krissy couldn't get at him like before.

Harold couldn't wait to talk to Jimmy the next day. On a rare occasion, he felt as jaunty as his work buddy usually did.

"Hey," Jimmy made his approach early in the morning. "The girls want to go out dancing tonight. I already said yes. I'm hoping you won't mind."

"That's fine with me." Harold smiled back. "I want to ask you something."

"Shoot."

"Last night, I didn't call my wife like I always call her." Harold explained. "You know, because I was hanging out with you. So she called me this morning to ask what happened to me. You know what I told her? I said, oh, I just went out to the bar with my buddy Jimmy. She got real quiet after that, like she was expecting me to say more, but that's all I said. If she ever asks you about this, you just say we went out for a few drinks and that's all we did."