“Who is it, I said! Who’s there?” Snell tried to focus the beam in the general area whence he thought the sound had originated.
A young woman stepped out of the shadows. She was dressed as a nurse’s aide. She seemed embarrassed. Whitaker was too far down the corridor to see who it was. Nor did he care. He was intent alone on his mission.
Snell relaxed. She presented no physical challenge. Still, he was puzzled. Who was she? What had she dropped? And what was she doing there, in the shadows, on the main floor at this hour? All questions that had answers. And he would have them.
Snell focused the beam on her identification tag. “Ethel Laidlaw.” He noted that she was small-breasted. But young enough so that they were still fairly firm. Firm little breasts. One could make a case for them, too.
“So,” he said, “Ethel Laidlaw. What is Ethel Laidlaw doing here now?” Snell stood close to her, emphasizing the disparity in their sizes. He was so big while she was so small. He liked to impress people with his bulk.
“Oh, I’m so embarrassed.”
“Now, why’s that, little lady?” Snell’s male-chauvinist-pig tendencies were beginning to blossom again.
“Well, I just wanted to meet you. And when you were on my floor, you walked by so quickly . . .”
“Wanted to meet me, eh?” Snell leaned forward, putting one hand against the wall and, in a way, trapping her. “Whatever would you want to do that for?”
“Well . . . because you’re a hero. I mean . . . you rescued Sister Eileen the other night . . .”
“Well, little honey, you don’t have to hide in the shadows to meet me. I’m just like everybody else. Put my pants on one leg at a time. Take ’em off the same way.” Snell tried to insert extra meaning in the statement. “Why, I wouldn’t even known you were here if you hadn’t dropped something. What was it you dropped, anyway?”
“Oh . . .” Ethel hadn’t dropped anything; she didn’t know what had been dropped. “My pen . . . I dropped my pen.” She held it up to prove that, if nothing else, she did indeed have a pen.
“It didn’t sound like a pen.” But, what the hell; who cared? It might just be possible that Ethel Laidlaw was in need of God’s greatest gift to women. “But, never mind. Well, here I am. Now you’ve met me, what do you think?”
“Well, there’s this reputation you got.”
“Yeah? No kiddin’.”
“Well, people talk. You know.”
“Yeah? What’re they sayin’?”
“Oh, I couldn’t repeat it.” She blushed.
“You can tell me. I mean, my God, it’s my reputation.” Is it possible she’s a virgin, he wondered.
“Well, there’s talk . . .”
“Yeah . . .?”
“Something about . . . a maneuver . . .?”
Damn! I haven’t even been able to demonstrate it fully to anyone here yet. And already they’re talkin’ about it. “So, what have you heard about it?”
“Only that it’s . . . uh . . . unique.”
“Well, you know, it is. I only . . . uh . . . do it with very special people.”
“Oh.” Blush.
“Would . . . uh . . . you be . . . uh . . . interested?”
“Oh, Mr. Snell! Me?”
“George.”
“George.”
“Once we get it together, baby, you will never be formal again.”
“Oh, George!”
“Oh, Ethel!” Snell began fumbling, rather expertly, with the buttons of her uniform.
“Wait!”
“Wait?”
“Yes, wait! I have an idea.”
‘An idea? Ethel, this is no time for thinking.”
“Well, yes. As a matter of fact, it is, George.”
“Well, what?”
“Don’t you think we ought to find a bed?”
“A bed.”
“Don’t you need something like a bed for your . . . maneuver?”
“Now that you mention it . . .”
“The pastoral care department.”
“Pastoral care?”
“They’ve got an empty bed. In an empty room.”
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Let’s get there.”
Pastoral care was only a short distance down the hall. They got there in world-record time.
Snell returned his concentration to Ethel’s buttons.
As he reached bra depth, Ethel said urgently, “Wait!”
“Again!”
“I’ve got another idea.”
“Ethel, has anyone told you you think too much?”
“It’s just something to make it better.”
“Baby, nothing make it better than I do!”
“I think it might.”
Snell considered the possibility that this simple matter was getting entirely too cluttered. “Well, what is it?”
“I can’t say it.”
“You can’t—!” On the other hand, this might be interesting. If Ethel were, as he suspected, a virgin, she may have been harboring fantasies. Snell always fancied fantasies and indulged them whenever possible. “But, if you can’t . . .”
“Let me whisper it to you.”
“Okay.”
Snell lowered his massive head to Ethel’s rosebud mouth and listened.
“Yeah . . . okay . . .” A smile began to form. “Well, why not . . . why the hell not?”
Snell stepped back from Ethel and began to disrobe himself, slowly, sensuously. It was a male striptease. Ethel appeared to be enjoying it immensely. But she sat there watching him without removing a stitch of her own clothing.
At last, George stood stark-naked. “Baby, I’m ready!” There was no doubting that truth. “Let’s go!”
“No! No! The rest of it too!”
“Oh . . . God . . . okay.”
After all, her suggestion seemed to be working so far. George found that his striptease, while she remained completely clothed, was a real and rare stimulant. Why not go along with the rest of her fantasy?
Leaving his uniform—indeed, all his clothing—on the chair next to the bed, Snell retreated to the bathroom and turned on the shower. He’d never tried anything like this before. The plan called for him to return soaking wet. She would be clad in her underclothing, which he would rip from her body. He, a Beast from the Ocean’s depths, taking her—the Earth Woman.
And, of course added to all this, like a preternatural gift, would be . . . the maneuver.
He completed the shower, stepped out, and was about to dry himself when he recalled he was supposed to present himself fresh from the Ocean. Kinky. He liked that in a woman.
“Aha!” He bounded into the room in a mikadoesque stance. By anyone’s standards, he was ready.
“Aha! Ethel! Prepare to meet your fate . . . Ethel? Ethel?”
