Just Off Center

It was about 4:00 this morning when I heard my wife yelling in her sleep. This happens every couple of weeks so I tend to not notice it until it starts getting really bad. She was shouting out "You fucker!" and "Fucking asshole!". I knew right away what was up. Nina tends to have dreams in which I get caught cheating on her. It's always some random scene where I am completely unapologetic and cruel, like telling her to chill out while still humping...whoever.

The dreams have been getting worse lately. It used to be she'd just roll around and moan a little before waking up and shaking it off. But now she's getting violent.

I woke up Monday of last week with a sore jaw. I don't know how I got it. I never had one from sleeping the wrong way before. And for two days my jaw was stiff to the point I couldn't open it more than half way. The stress on my jaw caused killer headaches too. Jokingly, I blamed Nina for throwing me a surprise left hook in her sleep. She denied it, of course. And while I couldn't prove that she had hit me, I also couldn't explain the sore jaw either.

So last night I tried waking Nina up when I heard her yelling as I always do. I rolled over, grabbed her side, and started gently rocking her while saying "Nina. Nina. Wake up." Without hesitation her right arm comes flailing from in front of her (she was facing away from me) around and toward me, the back of her hand popping me square in the nose, muttering "motherfucker" under her breath. It hurt and it's not exactly a welcome substitute for an alarm clock and a cup of coffee, but Nina still seemed to be asleep and having a nightmare so I still had to wake her up. I resumed rocking her, far more cautiously. With every move of hers my hand instantly recoiled. I resigned to just talking to her. After waking her up I told her it was just a dream. I didn't cheat on her. I'm not a motherfucker or a goddamned fucking asshole. She begrudgingly acknowledged this and I went back to sleep breathing through my mouth.

I haven't spoken to her about it yet this morning so I don't know what the dream was about. But I'm guessing it went something like this: Nina was cooking/cleaning/building an extension to the house when she walked into a room in our house/apartment/whatever to find me happily nailing away at whatever girl I'd been caught looking at in the past week. She gets upset. I tell her to chill/no big deal/join in/I don't love you anymore. She cries/screams/throws things. Then I wake her up and apologize.

I suppose the infidelity dreams are a step down from the past. Before I married her she used to dream about me stabbing her or throwing her off of a building or something. Really violent shit like that anyway. Her mother says that it was the same thing when she was growing up, but that she was the source of all her slumbering misery. Now I've taken the helm of the U.S.S. Do Something Terrible To Nina. But it's not always a bad dream with her, and she can say some really funny shit in her sleep. But today my face hurts, so I'll just wait until I hear the story. It's always interesting to find out who I'm fucking this week. I seem to really get around.