l nearly walked through the Ant on my way from the bathroom to the bed, and neither of us were very happy about the near miss.

"Must you ignore everyone's personal boundaries? "

"Yeeeeeggghh! Stop doing that, you disgusting horrible dead wretch!"

Sinclair, all the way across the room, looked guilty and bent down to untie his other Kenneth Cole, as opposed to just yanking it off and tossing it in the general direction of the closet.

"You might think about what would happen to me if you got your silly self killed."

"Yeah, I should have realized what a terrible thing that would be, Ant. For you." I ran the six steps from the bathroom, jumping into the middle of the bed, so nothing hiding under it could grab my feet. "And I wasn't talking to you," I added to my husband, "but it's nice to see you treating your shoes with more respect. "

The Ant was looking in our direction with rabid suspicion. Which, since she'd been heavily Botox'd before her death, came across as slightly raised eyebrows and rapidly blinking eyes. "What are you two doing? You're not going to bed now?"

"We've been up all night, you pineapple-colored idiot." Pineapple referring to her hair, which was stiff and yellow. "Dawn's about an hour away."

"Well, in that time you could be - "

"Having nasty sex with my husband. Nasty," I added, ignoring Sinclair as he picked up a pillow, calmly pressed it over his face, and barked laughter into it. "With, um, probes and things. We like to role-play. I'm the alien, and he's the helpless probed human. Now get lost, because it's going to get messy in here."

Ah! It worked. She'd popped out while I was horrifying her with lurid descriptions of my imaginary sex life. I wish she'd just tell me what she wanted and go back to Hell already.

"Thank" - I searched for a word that wouldn't make Sinclair cringe - "goodness she's gone."

"Help, help, I'm being probed!" The pillow sailed at my head, and I knocked it away, trying not to grin. Beside me, Sinclair tried his best to look horrified. "If only I didn't feel a sick, wrong sexual attraction to these alien invaders. If only I had listened to my mother's warnings about loose alien women!"

"Pal, you are so not getting any tonight."

"If only," he continued dolefully, "they didn't keep telling me to turn my head and cough."

That was it; I lost it. I shrieked and laughed and kicked at the covers until the bed looked like what I told the Ant we'd be up to.

"That was slightly... hysterical."

"Hey, it's been a long night."

"Indeed it has, my darling alien intruder." Sinclair yanked the remaining sheets and blankets off the bed and threw them to the floor with a theatrical flourish. Then he pounced on me while sheets billowed all over the place.

He kissed me for a wonderfully long time, then pulled back and cocked an eyebrow. "Want to see my probe?"