Lie on me!!
“Wait! Wait!” Rissa says, as I’m trying to depart her bedside. She clutches at me. “You can’t go yet.”
“Why not?”
“You have to lie on me!!”
“Because why?”
“Because then I can put my arm on my stomach and see if I can escape.”
(This is one of those things that happened by accident one night and is now apparently ‘the thing to do’ at bedtime.)
Rissa arranges her limbs – one arm out to the side and then one lying across her stomach. “Okay, I’m ready. Hit me!”
I collapse my considerable torso upon her tummy. Rissa wriggles like an ineffectual escape artist for several minutes – giggling madly, snorting and gasping with the effort to dislodge her hand. I get up.
“No!! No! Not yet!! I can do this! Let me try the other arm!!!”
“You’re insane.”
“Yes, but I’m uniquely insane.” She puts her other arm on her stomach. “Lie on me!!!”
We repeat the same procedure – she almost manages to extricate the hand at one point, in spite of my nearly double body weight upon her. She has worked herself into a near seizure doing so, which brings on another gale of giggles. Unable to resist, I find myself snorting, almost choking on laughter.
“You are a goof,” I say, kissing her goodnight.
“I know,” she says. She snuggles down under her duvet contentedly. “But I’m a satisfied goof.”
