Bound to Happen by Mary Kay McComas

Beyond them was the fireplace. There was a cooking area on her right with a dinette table and three chairs set out in the middle of the floor. And on the far wall, facing her, was another table and the fourth chair to the dinette set. On this table rested a small personal computer with a pile of papers and several books, stacked according to size, beside it.
    “No bathroom, but he’s got a damn computer,” she muttered as she automatically looked to see the make of the instrument. Well acquainted with computers, she recognized it as a top-of-the-line battery-operated model and knew it to be expensive. At least his taste in high-tech equipment was good.
    To the left of the computer table on the same side of the room was a bed covered with a patchwork comforter, a large wooden chest of drawers, and a nail in the wall from which he’d hung a suit and three neatly pressed dress shirts on hangers. Actually, as her anger began to ebb away, the cabin began to look somewhat nicer. Joe Bonner, it appeared, was a neat and tidy person. There were book shelves and cabinets in every available space. All were packed neatly and to capacity. There were even pictures on the pine-paneled walls, scenes of the Old West not to Leslie’s liking, but then she didn’t have to live here long, did she?
    No, in a calmer state of mind and with Joe Bonner nowhere in sight, the cabin was quite homey. Well satisfied, she looked at her surroundings with an air of mild acceptance. In fact, as far as she could tell, there was only one little problem with it aside from the fact that there was no bathroom. There was only one room and one bed—both of which could lend themselves to some very sticky situations when dealing with a lunatic like Joe Bonner, she decided.
    For example, who was going to get the bed and who was going to sleep in the woodshed? Not king or even queen size, the bed was just an average bed. But to Leslie it looked like a small square of heaven. She approached it in a state of reverence and crawled into the middle of the mattress. Firm and soft at once, the bed accepted her weight and encouraged her to lie back and get comfortable.
    Nothing in her life had felt so good. She flung her arms out across the bed, her eyes closed automatically, and she exhaled a deep sigh of bliss. She became vaguely aware that Joe was stomping around on the porch outside the door. She wondered briefly if he’d be warm enough in the shed. Then, from far away she heard him call out to her. She answered but the response never reached her lips.
    “Oh, no you don’t,” he said, although his voice was muffled and distant. “Don’t even think about getting comfortable on my bed. You’re sleeping on the couch. It’s too short for me and …”
    Slowly, Leslie entered that time and space that was only half reality and half something else, that gap in consciousness between deep sleep and wakefulness that she usually lingered in and enjoyed. She tried to change positions but found her muscles stiff and cramped. Extending herself out in all directions, she stretched and twisted, lessening some of her discomfort and coming more fully awake. When she could move with relative ease, she rolled over and came face to face with Joe Bonner.
    He’d been awake for some time it was easy to see. He looked very alert and very displeased. He came up on one elbow and seemed oblivious to the effect his bare chest had on Leslie’s nervous system, as he looked down at her in earnest. “As I was saying, this bed is mine. From now on you sleep on the couch.”
    It may have been the way he said it, or it simply may have been the fact that it was indeed a new day and not an extension of the last two, or it may have been because Leslie was well rested and didn’t feel at all like an emotional basket case, but she took instant exception to his order.
    “You know,” she said, looking him calmly in the eye, ignoring the hair and the tight brown circles on his chest, “I’m