"Are you all right, Harry, darling? You look as if you're about to lay an egg!"
Determined to exert my will upon the insolent creature, I thrust my jaw forward and lowered my eyebrows as far as they would go in a last-ditch attempt to look truly forbidding. My eyes were but two sinister slits beneath a fearsome beetling brow as I watched Miss Lawrence's feet trace bashful circles upon the cold linoleum floor.
In my mind's eye, she quailed before me. Her feet shifted. She fidgeted with her rumpled cardigan. Her hair draped in rat's tails about her timid, fearful face. Her lips quivered. Her eyes fell and her shoulders slumped. A tear ran down her reddened cheek.
"Hah! Submit, you bint!"
I cranked my eyebrows back to their normal position in triumph, only to witness the two females hanging onto each other in mirth, bodies heaving with silent hysterics. Finally, they cracked and spluttered, giggling out loud. Jay's face was scarlet and I made a mental note to add another spanking to the ever-growing list in my little black book.
"Oh, you did look funny, Harry!"
"He looked just like a lappet-faced vulture, Miss Lawrence!"
The two harpies disintegrated into a fresh round of cackling.
Finally, after a Herculean effort at face straightening, Nurse Benjamin spoke.
"I think it's time for your bed bath, Mr. Neptune."
"I think that's a splendid idea. Mr. Neptune is getting a bit iffy."
"I am not!"
"Are too!"
"Not to infinity. Hah! Got you."
I smiled indulgently at the hapless lump in the high metal-framed bed. Harry had overdone the cologne in an attempt to conceal any potentially unsavory odors and the powerful scent of "Atoll Affair" was making my eyes water. I groped up the arm of my cardigan for a hanky and blew my nose with a loud toot. Nurse B frowned disapprovingly and shook a long and decisive finger at me.
"Germs!"
"Anything I've got I caught off Precious here. He's always sniffling. Shouldn't you be boiling up kettles of water or something?"
"Mr. Neptune isn't about to give birth!"
"I'm not so sure about that, Nurse. He's put on a few pounds lately…"
Harry glared at me and the mound of blankets retracted sharply to the sound of a sharp intake of breath.
"It's relaxed muscle. Just wait 'til I get back in the gym. What's your excuse, tubby?"
"Don't need one. Besides, voluptuous is back in style. I say, is that water cold?"
Curious, I watched Nurse Benjamin fill a plastic basin from a sink in one corner of the room. Briskly she squirted a long stream of anti-bacterial body wash into the water from a large container marked "Stink-Off" and swished the resulting mixture to a pale yellow foam. With visible satisfaction, she smartly snapped on a pair of latex gloves, then looked down at me with a glint in her eyes.
"Would you care to assist with Mr. Neptune's ablutions, Miss Lawrence? I think he's big enough for both of us."
"I'd love to, Nurse B. Mr. Neptune always insists I use the guest bathroom when I come to stay and I'm most curious about his toilet habits."
Harry looked horrified and he instinctively cupped his privates through the bedcovers.
"Is nothing sacred?! I am a private person! Except when I'm feeling exhibitionist, that is…"
Nurse B roared with laughter and shook her head, a mass of ebony curls spilling onto her shoulders in wild abandon. With one dramatic gesture, she swept the covers from Harry's semi-recumbent form. His hands dived down to repeat the protective gesture but, alas, he was a fraction too slow and Nurse B caught his wrists together in a vice-like grip.
"Up we go, big boy!"
Quick as a flash, the statuesque nurse had cuffed her patient's arms to the tubular metal bed-head. His eyes opened as wide as saucers and he roared in complaint. Nurse B grinned.
"Why, he bawls like a bull!"
"Has he, dear?"
"I don't know, Miss Lawrence. Perhaps we should take a look."
We collapsed in mirth. Nurse Benjamin grasped the hem of Harry's hospital gown and flipped it up. I pulled on a set of gloves and we bent over to examine the source of his modesty.
"I've seen worse, Nurse B."
"Oh, much worse! Why, I once dated a Harlem Globetrotter. Vast edifice of a chap, would have made big Mr. Neptune here look like one of the seven dwarves and that's saying something. Anyway, I was getting quite concerned about the potential contents of my boyfriend's boxer shorts, I can tell you! But I needn't have worried. When he finally plucked up courage to whip it out, it took me half an hour to find the poor little thing. With a magnifying glass. Mr. Neptune here is really quite average."
"Average? You dare to call my magnificent love-tool average?"
Harry looked so incensed that I wished we had a Polaroid camera to capture his outrage for posterity. I patted his plaster reassuringly.
"It's a wonderful willy, darling. A very tasty popsicle indeed."
"Hmmph! Now you think you can get round me with sweet talk! Keep going."
A wicked thought or three entered my head. I slipped off my cardigan and winked at Nurse B., who began to saturate a sponge in the bowl of frigid body-wash. Nurse B winked back and I started to sing.
"It's a wonderful wang, a delightful dong, six inches of heaven, a prize-winning prong!"
Nurse B joined in, with rich and fruity tones:
"A premium penis, a decadent dick!"
"It's the cock of a lifetime!"
We put our heads together and harmonized:
"A world-beating prick!"
Harry groaned.
"So give it a lick."
"What an excellent idea, Mr. Neptune. That may be just what the doctor ordered."
"Jesus Christ! That water is bloody freezing!!"
I turned to see Nurse B direct a steady stream of antiseptic froth at Harry's gonads. I swear the poor man's eyes crossed.
"Is there no hot in the tap?"
"The boiler custodian has taken industrial action. Never mind – cold showers are strengthening to the constitution!"
"If you don't die of heart failure first. And you might have slid a towel under my bum, Nurse B – I feel as if I've wet the flipping bed!"
"Poor darling."
Amused, I watched Nurse Benjamin sponge Harry's tackle. The initial chilly gush had sent Horatio (Hornblower, in honor of Harry's passion for all things nautical) scurrying for cover, but the brisk sponge massage appeared to have wakened him up again. He sprang to attention, all shiny and clean. Nurse B handed me a towel.
"You dry him off, Miss Lawrence. I feel a need to get into something a little less starchy…"
I gently patted Horatio, then bent to kiss his sweet, fresh helmet. Mmm. That tasted so good, I couldn't resist a little lick along his steadily swelling length. Harry moaned. Out of the corner of my eye, I glimpsed Nurse Benjamin taking off her nurse's uniform. Harry moaned a second time and an extra inch made contact with my tonsils.
I tugged at my shackles and they clanked. Nurse Benjamin had actually used real handcuffs to attach me to the bed head! I had one leg spare and that was it. The other was firmly and painfully pinioned by the traction apparatus. I supposed I could try to land a killing karate blow when Nurse B came back within range, but somehow I thought a round of karaoke might be more successful.
Jay opened her mouth wide – very wide – and started on her impression of a sucrose starved dieter presented with a stick of extra-sweet candy. The feeling was familiar and all the more welcome for that. I grabbed for her hair and my hands came up short after a two inch excursion.
"Ow! These things are digging into me! Get them – oh my gosh…"