Oh here we go again, she thought.
Indeed, She. She might be a bed and a so-called inanimate object, but she identified as She and had feelings and thoughts and opinions.
Oh, she definitely had opinions, lots of them. Sometimes so many that she could barely breathe for all the thoughts that were floating through her mind.
‘Too much time on her hands’, her maker would have said.
While on average, people seemed to be spending nearly eleven hours of their day in bed, of which nearly seven of them asleep, that still did not mean that her days were meaningfully occupied, pardon the pun.
Granted, there were times when her occupiers would be talking in their sleep, which was sometimes interesting and enlightening and at times even amusing. Sometimes her occupiers had bad dreams, which was far less pleasant and occasionally even painful for her, as they would be kicking her mercilessly during their nightmares.
Any kicks, bites, and other jibes she would get when her occupiers were in the throes of passion, were a different matter all together and, if she would be capable of that peculiar involuntary emotional humanoid response called blushing, she would do so profusely.
My, she could tell stories about some of the things she had seen, felt or heard, but such smut would never pass her lips.
No, some occupiers’ secrets were safe with her, purely because she would be too embarrassed to relive the memories.
Because of those occasional erotic escapades she witnessed, some might think that her life was therefore very exciting, but mainly she just stood in the corner of the small bedroom, either unoccupied or occupied by a sound sleeper, which was boring as hell.
Being an old small four-poster bed in the smallest bedroom of a Bed & Breakfast, ran by a middle-aged lady in the middle of nowhere, meant that she often was simply left all alone with her thoughts.
She lived for the days when small children occupied her bed. The more the merrier.
She particularly liked when their parents tried to sing them to sleep with that funny old song Ten in the Bed, which she knew by heart.
There were ten in the bed
and the little one said,
“Roll over, roll over.”
So they all rolled over and one fell out.
Please remember to tie a knot in your pyjamas, Single beds are only meant for …
Sometimes there would be just one child with all his cuddly toys and the parents would still sing that song and the child would toss out one stuffed animal after another until tired from all the giggling and rolling around, the child would fall sound asleep with a smile on his face.
But that was not what had happened last night in room 69 of Diggory’s B&B.
For the past few weeks, the owner’s nephew had occupied this room, as he was staying there to help his aunt, who was out sick with the flu.
The boy was a nice enough lad. Polite, handsome, if you liked that sort of clean cut holier-than-thou look.
She personally preferred a more roguishly handsome two-day stubble sort of look, but nobody really cared what she liked.
She had to admit anymore between her sheets, without having any say in the matter.
Some assumed that bed, mattress, and bedding were separate items, but a bed without a mattress would be like a human being without underwear.
Without underwear a person would feel naked. Similarly, a human would not go out just in their underwear, nor would they put on clothes without first putting on their under garments. Bed, mattress, and bedding were no different, they came as a package and no one would be able to occupy her without the mattress and bedding being in place.
And don’t mention the insane human idea of turning the mattress several times a year.
Why?
No one in their right mind would consider wearing their underwear back to front, would they?
Anyway, that was not what made last night weirder than usual.
Cedric, nephew to the poor elderly lady who owned Diggory’s B&B had come into the room with a slightly younger black-haired boy.
They clearly seemed to know each other, and seemed to fancy each other, but they made a big song and dance about there only being one bed and were really dragging out the whole ‘Will you sleep with me?’ drama to the extent that she had lost interest and started to sing the ‘Single bed song’ in her mind.
Please remember to tie a knot in your pyjamas, Single beds are only meant for One!
There was one in the bed
and the little one said,
“I’m lonely…” and sighed.
Just when she had mentally reached the end of the song and had completely given up on the idea that they would end up occupying her, they had shyly gotten between the sheets to … sleep, really?
‘Boring’, she thought, but the thought had entered her mind too soon.
After some tossing and turning, she heard Cedric say nervously, ‘Wands out, d’you reckon, Harry?’
Oh here we go again, she thought, not at all happy at the prospect.
It had been a long time since Cedric’s father, Amos, had performed magic in this bed.
She hadn’t mind him practicing ‘Lumos’, but ‘Incendio’ was a far less pleasant experience and the mattress still showed some scorch marks in one of the far corners.
Only the wands out, clearly had not been what she had expected and she witnessed an entirely different type of magic happening that night.
Quite sweet and tender, really. Hesitant at first and then there were actual fireworks, but the type that thankfully did not leave scorch marks.
It had made for one of the more memorable nights of her life and she hoped this wasn’t the last time these two would keep her occupied.