A Beauteous Flower Ch. 09

"Would you like something else?" Daniel asked innocently.

Madison looked at Daniel like he was crazy.

"Something else?"

Didn't he know she was angry that some other woman had just passed him some kind of note like in junior high?

"Yes, you can order something else if you like. It's no trouble."

Madison put her hands on her hips. It was bad enough she had to endure Daniel's weird friend and his strange antics and the bad ice cream when all she had wanted to do was get Daniel back home and spend the night naked. But now some strange woman had flirted with Daniel right in front of her and he must have liked it because he didn't stop it. It all made Madison feel peevish and before she could restrain herself, she vented.

"I can't just order something else!" she hissed at him in a voice barely above a whisper. "Look at all these people! They'll think I'm some kind of porker!"

Daniel's head tilted to the side, but his face betrayed nothing. His lack of reaction made Madison even more annoyed. It seemed Daniel didn't understand her dilemma. Madison huffed dramatically, looked away and folded her arms across her chest. What was on that note anyway? Why didn't he show it to her? Boss bitch Madison shifted into high gear.

"I'm sorry," said Daniel. "Here."

Madison looked back and Daniel offered her his ice cream. It looked like a chocolate flavor of some kind with whipped cream and a brownie on the bottom of the cup. To Madison it looked absolutely delicious, but she turned her nose up imperiously.

"Take me home!" snapped Madison. It was about time Daniel figured out who was boss.

Daniel withdrew the offered ice cream uncertainly and then turned to Burt.

"Ummm, have to go now, Burt."

Burt looked at Daniel with a question on his face but didn't ask it. Instead, he nodded thoughtfully as Daniel reached out a hand to Burt.

"Let me know if you need any help with the project. See you down the line?"

Burt smiled a great big toothy grin and shook Daniel's hand.

"Down the line. Out."

Madison marched indignantly toward the car, but not before she snatched the ice cream out of Daniel's hand. Daniel followed along behind her and opened her door for her while she shoveled a spoonful of chocolate goodness into her mouth. She settled into her seat imperiously, while Daniel closed the door and walked around to the driver's side.

"What the hell was that?" Madison demanded angrily as he settled into his seat.

Daniel paused with the seat belt pulled halfway across his lap. He looked studiously at Madison and that only made Madison angrier.

"Don't act innocent!" Madison raged. "I saw it!"

Daniel still didn't respond. He just sat there with the same look and Madison wondered how someone as smart as Daniel could possibly be that thick.

"I saw that woman hand you here phone number!" Madison enunciated at him as if he couldn't hear. "Right there in front of me! How dare she? How dare you!"

Daniel's eyes widened slightly, but in the face of Madison's rage he kept his composure.

"It was her address," Daniel explained in a quiet voice. "So Burt can bring her daughter, Caroline, a kitten."

Madison blinked. That explanation had never occurred to her angry mind and to be confronted with a perfectly rational explanation for Daniel's behavior put her off her stride of righteous indignation. However, it did little to cool her ire. She had lost valuable time with Daniel due to this cockeyed misadventure with Burt. She needed that invitation to move in with him soon, and this little frolic with Burt and his strange wizard robes had impaired that goal. True, it had been her idea to come here and meet Burt, but that was before she knew how strange he was and how abnormal this whole situation would be. Intellectually, Madison knew she should back off at this point, but then boss bitch Madison kicked in again at the thought of Adalina, Ivy's and Deva's derisive laughter. Madison decided she had better be right rather than show contrition which Daniel might interpret as weakness.

"This place sucks!" she spat. "Never bring me here again!"

Daniel nodded and put on his seat belt.

"And what the hell is with Burt? He goes out in public dressed in that get up?"

Daniel's eyes narrowed and he glanced at Madison. His eyes flashed momentarily then returned to the same dark equanimity Madison had come to expect. Madison had a quick thought that maybe she was about to go too far, but then the boss bitch Madison re-asserted herself and she pressed on.

"He looks like a dope!"

Daniel turned his eyes out the windshield and reached for the key to start the truck. Madison felt a little thrill of triumph mixed with a reed of uncertainty. She should stop now, but something drove her on.

"I don't know what the heck you see in that idiot. Don't bring him around me, whatever you do. I don't want to see him."

Daniel didn't answer or even flinch.

"Take me home!"

Daniel carefully backed out of their parking spot while he kept an eye out for pedestrians. Madison spied on Daniel out of the corner of her eye and felt an uncomfortable twist in her stomach. Had she gone too far? It was impossible to tell with Daniel. He didn't say much, and he never talked about how he felt. Maybe she should apologize?

Madison covered her discomfort with a spoon full of Daniel's ice cream. It tasted spectacular and Madison decided that after a decent amount of time she might reassess her position on this place for ice cream. Meanwhile, she decided that if Daniel had anything to say, he would have said it. Besides, Madison had been entirely justified in her anger and the ice cream tasted really good when it was flavored with victory.

A few quiet moments later Madison noticed that Daniel was heading away from his home towards the highway. Madison paused with a spoonful of ice cream halfway to her mouth. Maybe she had pushed it too far?

"Where are you going?"

"You said to take you home." Daniel gestured out of the windshield with his right hand. "Your apartment...."

Madison spun at Daniel in a fury.

"No, not there!" Madison interrupted indignantly. "To the house!"

Daniel glanced at her. His face was still neutral and unreadable.

"Well, I didn't...."

Madison snapped her eyes at him. In truth she felt a touch of nervousness under her petulance. She had just about unilaterally announced that they lived together, which was dangerous, but on second thought it piqued her ire that Daniel had not seemed to notice that most of her stuff had migrated to the lake house and that she spent the vast amount of her time with him. For the last two weeks she had only returned to the apartment to pick up more of her stuff. And in Madison's angry mind, it suddenly didn't matter if her declaration was unilateral after all. This was merely a statement of the obvious. How unobservant could Daniel be, anyway? Daniel glanced at her again. His face was still a mask, but the truck continued along towards the highway. Madison turned her body to face him directly.

"You're going the wrong way!" she insisted loudly.

Daniel glanced at her again and seemed to be about to say something. Madison bulged her eyes at him aggressively and, with a small nod, Daniel found a place to do a U turn.

"Alright then. We're going home."

Madison got a charge of triumph to go with her ice cream and the next spoonful tasted much sweeter. Daniel had just consented to live with her as she had hoped he would ever since she had seen the lake house. Mission accomplished. It was time for the next phase; renovation and redecoration. Madison already had a list of improvements and additions to make to the house to turn it into her ideal love nest and the first thing she was going to get was a big king-sized canopy bed for the bedroom. She washed that down with another spoonful of ice cream and settled in for the trip to her new home.

*****

The next day at breakfast, when Madison walked into the kitchen Daniel was poised over his red cell phone with a smile on his face.

"What's up?" she asked curiously.

Daniel looked up at her and then turned the phone so she could see it. It showed a video of Burt, massive and cheerful in his Wizard costume, as he knelt next to the little girl from the ice cream shop and handed her a tiny orange kitten. The little girl squealed with delight and beamed a thousand-watt smile as she clutched the kitten to her chest. Then she burst into happy tears and kissed Burt on the cheek as she chanted "thank you thank you thank you" over and over to him. Daniel smirked at the happy scene.

"He posted it on his YouTube channel," Daniel explained. "He's got friend that does pet adoptions."

Madison was vaguely impressed. She still didn't want Burt's weirdness around her and Daniel, but she could at least acknowledge that Burt had a good heart. Then she saw there were other videos available on Burt's page.

"What are those?"

Daniel smirked a bit at his phone.

"LARP videos. Mostly Burt makes complaint videos about people who don't follow the rules."

Daniel selected a video at random and Burt's face, red and contorted with anger, filled the screen as he ranted about someone's failure to follow some rule to properly initiate some kind of spell. Daniel stopped the video after a few seconds, but Madison had already confirmed to her previous opinion. She had a lot of work to do in this department.

Daniel needed a proper set of friends if he was to be her husband; friends they could see at glamorous parties and places, not friends who dressed up in costumes and argued about silly rules in silly games. Friends like Madison's friends. In fact, her friends should become their friends. Madison made a face and then walked over to the refrigerator to get a bagel. Their first day together as a live-in couple and Madison had just gotten a look at just how far boss bitch Madison had to go to whip this place and this man into shape. And the first thing item on the agenda was no more Burt for her, and, as soon as she could arrange it, no more Burt for Daniel either.

After that morning, it didn't take long for things at the lake house to settle into a nice rhythm between Madison and Daniel. Madison was a little surprised by some of the adjustments she had to make to live with a man, but with Daniel those adjustments weren't too difficult. Fortunately, Daniel had grown up with a sister, so he already knew the basics of bathroom and toilet etiquette. He needed work on his PMS and period etiquette, but that was an easy fix for Madison just as soon as her next term of Period Princess mode. After that, once Daniel silently surrendered his already tenuous hold on the walk-in closet, Madison felt she had established her territory and the hardest parts of Man Herding Daniel was over.

Still, Madison was cautious. She waited a week to be sure she was firmly entrenched, and then moved the last of her stuff to what she now considered "their" house in spite of the fact she paid for exactly none of it. Her apartment move out culminated with a celebratory free style dance session with Adalina, Ivy, Moira, Kelly, Deva and Madison gyrating to the heavy beat of "Shake That" by Eminem. After hugs and kisses and well wishes, Madison turned over her keys to the apartment to Ivy and prepared for the final departure from the parking lot.

"Get that bag, boss bitch," Ivy encouraged while Adalina and Deva both nodded their agreement. Moira and Kelly both congratulated her, but as she left the apartment for the last time she ran into a reserved Cassidy. Since the Greg Something-or-other misadventure, some of the high octane fairy energy had gone out of Cassidy.

"You OK?" Madison questioned as she hugged Cassidy goodbye.

Cassidy pulled back from the hug and looked at Madison for a moment. Worry creased her little forehead.

"Oh, it's nothing," Cassidy said dismissively. Then she looked Madison directly in the eye.

"Look, you don't know how lucky you are. To have a guy like Daniel, I mean. Do yourself a favor and don't listen to these girls, OK? Lose the boss bitch routine before you blow it. A guy like Daniel is worth way more than his bank statement. He's priceless."

Madison frowned. There was absolutely nothing wrong between her and Daniel as far as she knew. What could Cassidy mean? Cassidy saw Madison's confusion and put her hand on Madison's shoulder for emphasis.

"I mean it, Madison," she urged. "He's one in a million, just like Mrs. Selene said. If you blow this one, you'll regret it for the rest of your life."

Madison was still confused, but something in Cassidy's words rang true. She still didn't think there was anything wrong with her relationship with Daniel, but Cassidy was obviously sincere in her concern, and that was a nice thing.

"OK," Madison intoned. "I'll be careful."

Cassidy gave Madison a nod and went back to her apartment while Ivy and Adalina and the rest of the girls emerged from their apartment and danced Madison to her car for her final departure.

"Call me, bitches!" Madison called out the window as she drove out the parking lot for the final time. "I'll be up at the big house!"

After her final move in, life with Daniel began in earnest and Madison made a brief attempt to be homey in a wifey kind of way. She cooked... once... when Daniel didn't cook, and she made the bed every morning because Daniel got up at 5 AM and she got up around 9 AM... ish. She would have washed his clothes if Daniel hadn't gotten up at the crack of dawn every morning and washed his clothes... and hers. Honestly, by the time she got out of bed in the morning, Daniel had usually run five miles, fed Gandalf, showered, done the dishes, washed and dried the clothes in the hamper and probably folded them. However, Madison did put all the clothes away in the drawers they belonged in. Well at least she put her clothes away. She wasn't exactly sure where Daniel put his clothes, but she put them on the bed, and he took care of the rest.

Daniel also had the house cleaning covered already with a cleaning service that came in once a week. Madison's jealous bone flared at the image of a busty blond woman in a French maid costume, but that turned out to be a false alarm. The cleaning crew consisted of six elderly choir women from a local church who were out to earn a few bucks for their church choir. Daniel was their only client and, as such, Daniel way overpaid for their services. They called themselves "Ritual Cleansing" and they sang hymns while they cleaned. Sometimes Daniel would poke his head in the room and tell them how great it sounded, and they would get all giddy and giggly, but it was all platonic and harmless. They all appreciated Daniel's generosity and fussed over him like a flock of mother superiors. Secure in her position as Daniel's girlfriend, Madison decided that Ritual Cleansing could stay as long as they minded their "p"s and "q"s, whatever that meant. Besides, cooking and cleaning were never her thing, so if that took care of itself, Madison was fine with that arrangement.

Daniel did have a few odd behaviors that took Madison some time to get used to, and made a mental note to adjust as necessary. First of all, Daniel didn't talk much. He could sit quietly for hours without so much as a peep and he could walk in and out of a room in such a way that Madison would wonder if he had even been there at all. If he ever had a few spare minutes, he read. Books, magazines, papers, graphic novels, and anything else he could get his hands on. He had a different book on each floor of the house, and he never confused them. When he didn't have his nose in a book, Daniel plowed through volumes of crossword puzzles, except unlike Adalina and Ivy, Daniel did them in ink.

He didn't watch much television and, when he did watch it, it was always something Madison had never even heard of. He usually watched documentaries, nature programs, news, old movies or some kind of Science Fiction show. He watched channels that Madison had only ever flipped past and when Madison took the remote and dialed up "Big Brother" or "Dancing with the Stars", or "TMZ", Daniel would bury himself in a book.

Also, Daniel didn't go in for football or Sportscenter or many other sports for that matter. Every other guy Madison had dated would watch football all weekend if they could, but the only sports Daniel showed any interest in were Baseball, and Rugby and sometimes on one of his few lazy Sunday afternoons he would snooze through a NASCAR race. Actually, he only watched baseball when the Boston Red Sox played. Those games he watched religiously and if he couldn't see the game on television, he would listen to it on the radio. He never spoke about the games to anyone except his father, with whom he could spend hours in deep discussions about the games and the team. If he talked to anyone about the Rugby and NASCAR he watched, Madison wasn't aware of it.

Daniel had an odd set of hobbies too. He didn't use his computers to watch porn like other guys. Instead, he played video games online with Burt and they talked to each other with headphones while they gamed. He collected concert T-Shirts from bands that had broken up years ago and combed the internet for odd memorabilia from old science fiction shows and movies. Daniel also owned a small collection of firearms and, much to Madison's consternation, he hunted with them.

Madison hadn't actually seen a real gun before she moved in with Daniel and, in the final analysis, it wasn't the guns that bothered her. She rather enjoyed it when she went to the gun range with him, and he taught her how to shoot. It made her feel powerful, and a little safer out there in the woods by themselves and the way Daniel's arms wrapped around her from behind as he taught her how to hold each gun was a nice fringe benefit. It was a strangely enjoyable way to flirt, so the guns themselves weren't that bad. The hunting, however, was repugnant to Madison and it caused the very first serious spat between Madison and Daniel in their relationship.

One morning Madison awoke to the sound of the old pickup in the gravel driveway. She went to the balcony and saw Daniel, dressed in camouflage with black smears on his face, reach into the bed of the pickup and lift a large, black bird out of the truck bed by its feet. It had long tail feathers tipped in copper and a big red head, which flopped around as Daniel slung the bird over his shoulder and set out toward the wood pile. The iridescent feathers on the bird's chest glittered in the early spring daylight just as it dawned on Madison what that giant "boom" she heard echo through the woods meant. She emitted a horrified shriek through her hands which stopped Daniel in his tracks.

"Oh my God! Daniel... you shot an ostrich!" Madison squealed in horror. "You shot that poor baby ostrich!"

Daniel looked up at her curiously.

"It's a turkey," he replied matter of factly. "A wild turkey. It's turkey season."

Madison had seen turkeys in the supermarket, and they did not look like that. They were wrapped in plastic and pale skinned and didn't have feet or heads or any other parts to give away the fact that they had once been alive. And there was never any clue that someone had killed them.

"It was alive!" Madison bawled in distress. "It was alive, and you shot it and you killed it!"

Daniel bobbled his head but didn't say anything.

"That's awful!" Madison shrieked. "It's dead! Daniel, you made it die!"

Daniel almost smirked at that awkward pronouncement, but then Madison started to sob with grief, so he put the bird back in the truck and told her he would take the turkey to a local soup kitchen so they could cook it and feed it to the homeless. That didn't make Madison feel any better about it and when he got home Madison badgered Daniel into a promise that he would never bring home another dead animal.