'Hey, that's enough! I've paid for Scheme 3, sub-section vii, addendum 19d, and that's it! No extras! I'm post-traumatically stressed, not a loony…'
'You were pre-traumatically stressed, Neptune. I think you've diddled the insurance company.'
Miss Lawrence's face took on a contorted, pained expression, as if she were giving birth to a prize watermelon. I had seen that performance before. She was thinking. With a grimace like a primeval swamp facing a dinosaur about to enjoy bath time, she spoke.
'How much more is addendum 19e, Nurse Benjamin?'
'A hundred dollars a day. In advance.'
Miss Lawrence produced a checkbook and started writing.
'Hey! You produced that checkbook from my bedside locker! It's mine!'
'So? You're the one needing treatment. You pay for it.'
I folded my arms over the bedclothes. 'I'm not signing that.'
'No need. Tell the difference?'
The dwarfish mal-busted insensitive swamp-cologned peanut-brained trollop had my signature off pat.
'Now I know where your new broomstick came from!'
'No need for a receipt, Nurse B. By the way, how well did the old boy know your mother, exactly?'
Nurse Benjamin grinned, slyly.
'I have a half-sister named Venus Harriet. The family resemblance is remarkable, actually. She's quite the little entrepreneur, runs a lemonade stall that's the envy of her classmates. And no wonder, as she filched a huge neon arrow from the local drive-in movie theater. You can see it for miles. Real chip off the old block. I do wish she could see her old man. She'd be just wild about Harry.' The nurse's eyes positively gleamed. There was only one thing to do. I gulped again.
The nurse and the houri stood beside my sick bed, the bed to which I had been confined by dastardly blackguards egged on by – another nurse. Yes, Norma had been wearing a nurse's uniform! For a while at least. Was this a conspiracy? Was the whole world against me? Or a substantial proportion of the auxiliary medical profession, at least?
Answer – yes.
I didn't like the way they were looking down at me, not one little bit. Nurse B was used to dealing with helpless patients, but for Miss L, this was a new sensation. I didn't need to follow the twitches across her contorted face to know that she was liking the sensation.
I steeled myself. Who was the boss in this relationship, anyway? Who wielded the heavy palm and the flogger? Who administered the punishments? When push came to shove, who was on top? Harry Neptune – that's who!
I drew myself up to as much of my height as I could manage from the prone position. I fixed my eyes on Miss Lawrence. I concentrated hard, recalling some key points from Hypnosis for Incompetent Buffoons by Ima Charlotte An, the renowned Asian mesmerist. Miss Lawrence raised one delicate little eyebrow.
'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.
