It's really creeping me out, man

She's doing it again, laughing in her sleep. And not the "har-de-har" sort of laugh that tickles you when something really funny happens. This is more of a diabolical "heh-heh-heh" laugh, the kind I used as a kid when I'd glue my little sister to the toilet seat.

My beloved is giving me goosebumps but I'm also intrigued, because she doesn't have a nefarious bone in her body. Not unless you count the times I pull some incontrovertibly stupid stunt that sucks out all of her patience. It's only those times, when she's so angry with me that the steam billowing from her ears actually perms her hair (and saves us a stylist's fee), that I can picture her maybe wanting to get nefarious in my specific direction. Otherwise, she's peachy.

So the next morning, as I try to prevent the kitten from wading through milk in my cereal bowl, I ask her what she was dreaming the night before. She gives me the same blank look I get when I ask her what she finds attractive about me. I explain that she keeps laughing wickedly in her sleep, and it's creeping me out.

"Really? Do I?" she asks, her brow furrowing. "I don't remember."

How can you forget a dream that's so vivid it makes you laugh like a supervillian? Personally, I tell her, I remember all of my dreams. Like the recurring nightmare where I'm cheese in a giant mousetrap. Or the one where I'm being chased by a herd of creditors with only 27 cents to my name and a body like a 10-ton weight. I even remember the ones about ... well, maybe I won't go there right now.

"No, you don't remember all of them," she insists, and says sometimes I yell in my sleep and try to run. No fooling. Apparently, I'll be in my usual sleep mode - limbs splayed everywhere, mouth wide open, sounding like a hyena, drool flowing freely - when suddenly I'll emit a terrified scream and my legs will start pumping wildly to escape, as if I had just seen the Olsen twins without make-up (or even with). According to her, the following mornings are usually the ones where I'll wake up oblivious to my nocturnal screamfest and remark how rested and refreshed I feel, and try to manage three whole sit-ups before I gasp for breath, instead of the usual one-and-a-half.

Now, I know she's not making that up, because long ago we pledged to always be truthful with one another, no matter how painful it is. Several times, however, I have taken advantage of a "Varying Degrees of the Truth" loophole I discovered early on, because the truth doesn't always set you free. In my case, it gets me banished to a makeshift bed in the back seat of our car.

"You're spooking me," I tell her. "You, and that deep, dark laugh."

"I am?" she says. "You mean I'm actually scaring the guy who swears horror movies never rattle him? The guy who thinks it's hilarioius to scare me? I don't believe it."

And yet, that makes me even curiouser about what could be causing it. (Yes, "curiouser" is too a word, as far as you know). So I stay awake that night, listening to that "hum-in-a, hum-in-a" noise she makes when she's finally out, and it doesn't take long before she's at it again: "Heh-heh-heh! Heh-HEH-heh-heh!"

The purely evil tone of that laugh makes me shudder. It's so blood-chilling, I don't want to imagine the torture and carnage she's inflicting in dreamland. She's probably wearing black, and long, pointy eyebrows and fingernails, backing her victim into a corner and testing the sharpness of her ax as that dreadful sound callously spills like moldy cheese from her mouth: "Heh-HEH-heh-heh!"

This isn't the first time her sleeping has weirded me out. Once, I came to bed after she had already gone, and she suddenly sat bolt upright with googly, glazed eyes popping like Rice Krispies.

"Did you find the forks?" she said, trance-like.

I don't know about you, but when someone bonded to me through matrimony springs up like a zombie and asks about sharp utensils, I get a little hinky.

"Wha - what are you talking about?" I said cautiously.

Her stare gave me the willies. "That's what you were looking for, isn't it?" she asked in an emotionless voice before tipping over and snoring like a buzzsaw.

I tell you, I kept one eye open that night.

Anyway, the morning after her latest night of deep-throated, vile laughter I tell her it has to stop. I tell her it's freaking me out, man, night after night, and I want to know what she's up to.

"I'm not up to anythiing," she says innocently, but before she turns away just the slightest hint of a smile crosses her face. She notices that I notice, and looks back. "Honest, I'm not."

I can just tell she's using the "Varying Degrees of the Truth" loophole.