The Princess And The Punching Bag

     I know all the many ways in which  I am annoying when I'm awake, but I never thought I could be even more annoying when I was sleeping. I seem to be a 'puncher', or at least that's what some men I have slept next to accuse me of.  I have no recollection of hitting anyone. I've already swung my punches by the time the victim wakes me. It's like a nightmare only the person next to me is having it for me.
    Luckily for me and even more luckily for the man I'm sleeping next to, these nocturnal knockouts happen only when I sleep in a different bed for the first time. I realized this after it happened the third time this year. The first 'incident' occurred with my best friend of 33 years and first ex-boyfriend Scott. I had begged him to meet me in Florida to visit my fat father who was in the hospital for the fourth time for some fat-related reason. My stepmother Cecil had just re-decorated the guest bedroom and was excited for Scott and I to be the first ones to sleep on the new top-of-the-line memory-foam mattress with 1000 thread count linens and 100% goose down pillows. " Tell me how you like it in the morning, boys. Sleep well," she told us as she closed the door for the night. Eight hours later, when she went into the bathroom in her bathrobe to take her morning shower, she pulled back the shower curtain and found Scott sleeping in the bathtub with 2 of the down pillows and a spare blanket folded in half as a makeshift mattress. Scott explained that I had been punching him so much that he couldn't stay in the bed and had to find somewhere to go, and he didn't know if Cecil wanted anyone to sleep on the brand new couch that she had just gotten a few days before.  
   I refused to believe that I could punch someone and not be aware of it, and accused Scott of exaggerating. Then it happened again with one of my dearest friends, Graham. We were visiting his family in England and stayed at his mother's house where we slept in two separate bedrooms, but when we got to a hotel in London, the room only had one queen-sized bed. It so happens that before going to bed that night we had had an argument, which Graham and I seldom have. We had both gone to sleep angry at each other, so when I unknowingly started punching him in the middle of the night, he punched me back. I woke up shocked until he made me realize that I punched him first. We ended up laughing about it but I wondered if my punching episode with Scott was somehow connected.
    It was only after the first time I slept in my boyfriend Alex's bed that I connected all the dots. It was a weekday night and we both had to work in the morning. The first time you sleep over at a potential boyfriend's place could be either a 'make or break' moment.  Punching him in the kidneys as he is peacefully sleeping on his stomach is not the best way to win over a man's heart.
   " Gary, I'm sorry but I can't sleep like this. I've got a a major deal happening tomorrow. I need to sleep. I'll give you cab money and we'll try this again another time."
    " I can't believe you're kicking me out."
    " I'm not kicking you out, I'm just paying you to leave." He kissed me and gave me a reassuring hug, then gave me $20. "Don't worry. I'm still crazy about you. It's going to take more than  few midnight beatings for me to loose interest. Just try to save them for the weekends."
   After that first night I was fine sleeping at his place. It's been six months since I punched him in bed. But now I'm going to be faced with my greatest challenge. Alex is taking me on a trip to Paris for three days then Athens for two days and  to Mykonos for 5 days after. Three places means three new beds, which means three chances of Alex coming home with a black eye from our first romantic trip.