Читать книгу Rosie Dixon's Complete Confessions - Rosie Dixon - Страница 14

I must have been very tired because it is twenty to eleven before I wake up again. I hardly have time to thank Robert for his hospitality and the comfortable settee before I am racing back to the nurses home. Whatever happens I must get there before the door is locked. The thought of having to endure what Penny went through is too horrible to dwell on.

“Your friend still out?” G.B.H.’s ugly mug settles into an expectant leer as he leaps towards the door.

“She had an early night,” I say, savouring the look of misery that spreads across the dirty old devil’s face.

To my surprise, Penny is awake when I pant into our room. She looks me up and down and smiles. “Is that display of exhaustion solely as a result of climbing up the stairs?”

I smile sheepishly. “You probably won’t believe this but I fell asleep.”

“I find that very easy to believe. After the tonk-bonking I took from that white spade I felt pretty tired myself.”

I shake my head and start getting ready for bed. “You don’t understand, Penny. I fell asleep before anything happened. I must have been completely exhausted.”

Penny continues to smile and gazes pointedly at my panties. “Interesting. How come your knickers are on inside out?”

“What?”

“When you went out they said ‘Chase me Charley, I’m the last bus home’ or something like that. I noticed particularly. Now they say ‘YADSENDEW’.”

What is she talking about? “Yadsendew”? I don’t have any Chinese panties. I have the ones with the days of the week on them that Geoffrey gave me but— then it dawns on me: ‘yadsendew’ is Wednesday spelt backwards. Oh dear, I do have my panties on inside out. How could that have happened? I must have gone to the loo in my sleep—I mean, I must have gone to the toilet and forgotten all about it because I was so sleepy.

“Oh yes,” I say casually. “I expect it happened while I was spending a penny.”

Penny looked puzzled. “Do you usually take your knickers off when you spend a penny?”

“It depends on what kind of mood I’m in,” I say. “Sometimes I do, sometimes I don’t.”

Penny shakes her head. “Thank you, and goodnight. I’m going back to sleep. Goodnight.”

“Goodnight.”

Penny turns her back on me and burrows into the pillows and I finish undressing and get into bed. It is as I am switching off the lamp that an unpleasant thought occurs to me. Is it possible that I could have been tampered with while I was asleep? I hardly like to think about it but the opportunity was there for someone unscrupulous enough to take it. Robert seemed such a gentleman but he had made love to Penny the previous evening. Perhaps he thought I was the same kind of girl. We did not have a lot of time to talk to each other.

Anyhow, it can’t be helped and the main thing is that if anything happened it did so without my knowledge or consent. My virtue is still intact. Cheered by this thought, I fall into a deep and contented sleep.

In the following days we divide our time between ward service and attending lectures.

The lectures include such subjects as Anatomy, Hygiene, Nursing and Physiology and I soon realise that any State Registered Nurse must know as much about sewage and activated sludge as the average plumber. Certainly a knowledge of sewers would be a help when looking into the minds of some of the patients on Everard Hornbeam but I would have expected this to be covered under the heading of psychology. Our nursing lectures take the form of winding hundreds of miles of bandages round each other and Sister. Tutor goes spare when we successfully lash one of the class to a chair so that she cannot move.

Some of the girls take it very seriously but Penny breezes through as if she does not have a care in the world—which of course she hasn’t. She calls us “The Bistoury Kids” and when asked by Sister Tutor why she is late for a lecture says that she got stuck in the service lift. She is also completely nuts. When S.T.—this is Penny’s name for Sister Tutor and stands for—well, you can guess what it stands for—starts talking about cells, Penny says “Stone walls do not a prison make nor iron bars a minute living organism consisting of a nucleus and protoplasm enclosed in a stroma or envelope.” She is mad, I tell you. Stark raving mad. Despite all the technical knowledge I am being exposed to, I still spend my time on Everard Hornbeam preparing diabetic feeds and checking the linen cupboard. I have yet to pluck a patient from the brink of death in typical Doctor Eradlik fashion. Mr Arkwright continues to try and play “naughty nanas” with me and I make tactful inquiries concerning his longevity. I am told that he is as well as can be expected which does not help very much.

Taking Mr Arkwright’s pulse is always a problem unless you hold both wrists at once and this can prove confusing. I can also think of places other than his mouth in which I would like to stick a thermometer. Not that he is a bad old stick and it is nice to know that someone fancies you. I am very choked that Doctor Flash—I mean, Fishlock does not follow up our first meeting. He is probably frightened that I am going to fall asleep again. If only I had not been so tired. He does not keep in touch with Penny either and she says that he only makes a play for pros. I am a bit unhappy about this until I realise that she means probationers.

My favourite times on the ward are visiting hours, both because they provide a breathing space and because I like matching the crowds milling outside the wards to the patients they have come to visit. Sister Bradley hates visiting hours because they make her ward untidy. I feel that she would like to be dashing around with a tin of furniture polish removing each scuff mark as it occurs.

At five to six you can stand in the ward and see the faces pressed against the glass potholes in the closed doors like gold fish waiting for ants eggs. Sticky babies are being held up and tiny hands wave aimlessly.

“Stand by for the stampede” says Nurse Wilson, grimly.

“Spittoon mugs away, please, Mr Chapman,” says Nurse Martin sweetly.

“Will somebody please wipe this locker. It’s got orange juice all over it,” says Sister, severely. “Sit up straight, Mr Homer. You don’t want your daughter to think there’s something wrong with you, do you?”

“Bless the lord for sparing me for this day,” says Mr Buchanan who is being discharged on Monday. “It just proves that faith can move mountains.”

“So can Senokot,” says Staff Wood who is not big on sentiment.

“Have a wine gum, Nurse,” whispers Mr Evans. “They’re not habit forming.”

“You are naughty, Mr Evans. You know you’re not allowed sweets.” I do not have time to say any more before Sister looks at her watch and nods at Staff Wood. Staff Wood raises an eyebrow to Nurse Wilson and Nurse Wilson inclines her head towards Nurse Martin. Now comes Nurse Martin’s biggest moment of the day. “Open the doors, Nurse,” she says to me.

There is a ripple of excitement and I step forward and release the bolt. Nurse Wilson has suggested running a book on the first three patients to be touched by a relative but I think you would need a camera to separate them. They come through the door like the Grand National field and I am nearly squashed against the wall.

Mr Chapman is a thin old man whose skin is stretched over his bones like paper over the fuselage of a model aeroplane and I am surprised to see him approached by a big-busted beauty wearing a suit that looks as if it was borrowed from her kid sister.

I had thought that she must be the property of Jim North the ward wit. Jim is the youngest patient on the ward by ten years and spends his time combing his hair and making scandalous jokes. Nurse Wilson is rumoured to be bonkers about an Indian houseman called Singh and Jim is determined to squeeze every last ounce of amusement out of the situation. “Do you know what Nurse Wilson’s favourite song is?” He says. “‘Singh went the strings of my heart.’ She can’t help singhing it everywhere she goes. Do you get it? ‘Singhing it.’” Mr Chapman usually nods slowly and reaches for his head phones.

Jim once confided to me that he had an audition for Opportunity Knocks. “It was won by a soprano from Leeds with big tits” he says. “Opportunity Knockers, that’s what I called her.”

Mr Chapman’s visitor turns out to be his daughter who is a dancer. Nobody ever finds out what kind and when Nurse Martin suggests ballet, Staff Wood sniffs and says that she thinks it is bally unlikely. It is the first joke that any one can remember her making.

Jim North has to make do with his Mum and Dad and a younger sister who brings a bunch of grapes every time she comes and leaves with a bag full of pips. I don’t think Jim ever has one of them.

Sweet-toothed Mr Evans always has too many visitors round his bed and all of them are passing him boxes of Maltesers and bars of chocolate. Whether they do it because they love him or they want to kill him, I don’t know.

Mr Buchanan only has one visitor. An enormous woman who seems to surround him as she sits beside his bed and listens to him twittering on. “Funny how it’s going to be Guy Fawkes night, soon. I never thought I’d be spared to see another firework. I remember when I had that turn on the Summer Bank Holiday. I said to myself, Ernest, I said—”

“I’ll bring your suit in on Monday morning.” The woman’s voice does not contain a hint of enthusiasm. I think she believes, like the rest of us, that Mr Buchanan is going to live for ever.

Whether he does or not I never begin to find out because he is discharged on Monday as planned. He insists on shaking hands with everyone and winces at every squeeze. “Never thought I’d go out of here on my pins,” he says. “Still, I expect they need the beds. When you get to my age you can’t expect people to have a lot of time for you. It’s all youth these days, isn’t it? I just hope I won’t be back here too soon, getting under everyone’s feet.”

“So do I,” mutters Staff Wood. “He won’t last long if he gets under mine.” Staff Wood has very large feet and I know what she means.

My month’s probation is up almost before I have realised it and when I am told that Matron wants to see me, I wonder what she can want.

“Well, Nixon,” she says when I knock timidly and obey her bark to go in. “Reports I have received suggest that you are a willing gel. Not exactly one of the brightest stars in the infirmament—” she pauses and looks at me hopefully. What does she expect me to do? “—but no matter, there’s plenty of time. Sign here.”

She pushes a piece of paper towards me and I suddenly realise that I am on the permanent staff. Now it is a month’s notice on either side. I am so chuffed at having been accepted that I sign without seriously considering whether or not I want to continue.

“I believe you share a room with my niece,” says Matron as I turn to go out. “Delightfully high spirited gel.”

“Yes.” I nod briefly and go out. So that was how Penny got into Queen Adelaide’s. I did not think that daddy’s insistence could have been enough and I had often wondered what Penny said at her interview. “Delightfully high spirited gel”, yes, that just about sums it up.

“Don’t tell anyone else. They’ll lynch me,” begs Penny when I report my conversation with Matron. “It was stupid of the old bag to tell you. She must have had some ulterior motive. She probably wanted everyone to lynch me. I expect my father put her up to it. He’s been wanting to get rid of me for years. Oh, Sphincters! !”

Penny has been developing a strong line in medical exasperation and abuse. Sly, devious G.B.H. who scuttles in and out of his office like a hermit crab, she calls a Lateral Epicondyle while anyone who annoys her—e.g. most Sisters—is a Pyloric Sphincter.

“Don’t worry,” I tell her. “Your secret is safe with me. I’m only illegitimate myself.”

Penny has been a bit down in the dumps lately which I think is due to not seeing Mark. Apparently he went up to Scotland for the weekend and she is pretty certain that he has met someone else.

“Quantity is no substitute for quality,” she says. “Still, I suppose one must try and keep one’s end up—or, more realistically, somebody else’s end up.”

She is so coarse sometimes that I don’t know where to put my face.

I am not feeling very happy on the man front either because, although Doctor Fishlock winks at me like a lighthouse he makes no move to invite me out. I think that what Penny said about him is true. He obviously preys on young, innocent nurses. Thank goodness he did not get anywhere with me.

Geoffrey writes me a letter saying that he got to the semi-finals of the Buckhurst Hill Tennis Tournament and I am quite glad to hear his news. Of course, what he did with Natalie was unforgivable but one can’t bear a grudge for ever. I am on the point of writing back and suggesting that we meet up in town on one of my evenings off when Jake Fletcher comes in to my life.

I get a shock when I come on duty and see him sitting up in bed because he looks just like one of the doctors on Emergency Ward Ten —I used to love that when I was a kid. I later find out that he is an actor and was on the programme although he didn’t play any of the doctors. Quite what he did do he does not say, but there were so many characters in the series, weren’t there?

Jake has a great craggy face with bushy eyebrows and piercing blue eyes that are always glinting from behind half closed lids. He looks like one of those dishy men in the cigarette advertisements and I am not surprised to learn that he has starred in the Elsinore cigar ads on the telly, “Denmark’s favourite whiff.” He also swam ashore with the dog biscuits in his mouth in the “Doggies, say goodbye to soggies” commercial and dived through the sheet glass window in the “Because the lady was crackers about Quackers” ad. Quackers are “the duck flavoured cocktail snacks you can eat with a cup of tea and a wad” in case you had forgotten. It was during the shooting of the last film that the release mechanism on his belt did not work and the helicopter pulled him out of the window and off over the rooftops carrying a chimney stack.

As he himself says, he was lucky to get away with a couple of badly broken ribs and a strained groin. He is being kept in for observation as much as anything else and there are an awful lot of female eyes observing him.

I do what I can to make him more comfortable and I think he takes a fancy to me. “I hope you’ll come out with me when I get this plaster off,” he says one day when I am giving him a blanket bath.

“We’ll see,” I say, thinking that he has probably invited out all the nurses on the ward. “Can you turn over on your other side?”

“If my screams won’t disturb you too much. There, is that better?”

One of the things you can’t help noticing about the man is that he has the most enormous “thing”, tonk, love truncheon—whatever you like to call it. With most patients you can calm their embarrassment by saying “Don’t worry Mr Trubshawe, we’ve seen it all before” but with Jake this just would not be true. Even Staff Wood comments on it. “I didn’t think he was going to get it into the bottle,” she says.

“He told me he couldn’t get it out,” sniffs Nurse Wilson.

“Like a rock python,” says Nurse Martin wistfully.

“I didn’t know you were interested in snakes, Nurse,” says Staff Wood.

“I’m not,” sighs Nurse Martin and goes off to change a drip.

Jake himself is not shy about discussing his equipment.

“Watch out for the old purple headed bed snake,” he says. “He’s feeling a bit snappy today. Hasn’t been out for walkies for a long time.”

“Can you turn over on your side?” I say, trying to look over his shoulder into space while I perform the necessary manoeuvres at crutch level—mind you, there are a lot of men on the ward to whom I would be much less willing to give a blanket bath. I would not touch Mr Arkwright with a sponge on the end of a barge pole.

“It’s the curse of my life, actually,” sighs Jake. “I’d give anything to be like other men.”

“What, you mean, your—”

“Yes. It’s a terrible impediment.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” I say. “I think it’s rather nice. I mean—”

“You’re very kind but you don’t know the half of it.”

If that is true, I think to myself, the possibilities are enormous. For some strange reason a slight thrill of excitement runs through my body and I take immediate steps to bring myself under control.

“Ouch!”

“I’m sorry,” I say.

“I should hope so. You’re not squeezing the last fag end out of a tube of toothpaste, you know. Just because it’s brutally large it doesn’t mean it has no feelings.”

“Uuhm,” I say, giving a last pat with the towel—none too soon, either. Down in the forest something seems to be stirring.

“If you knew how my love life has suffered because of that thing.”

“Really,” I say.

“Women get so disappointed when they find that they can’t—that we can’t—that it’s impossible.”

“Because of the—”

“Size. That’s right,” Jake nods sadly. “It’s terrible, isn’t it? I remember a girl called Ondine. I was crazy about her. We were practically engaged. We went down to Henley for the weekend—there was nothing cheap or dirty about it.”

“Of course not,” I say.

“She took one look at it and ran out of the room screaming. We had to check out of the hotel immediately. I mean, they don’t like that kind of thing at Henley.”

“I’ve heard it’s very stuffy,” I say.

“She sobbed all the way back to London. I dropped her off at Putney Bridge and never saw her again.”

“How terrible,” I say.

“It happens to me all the time. Oh! Why? Why? Why did it have to be me?” He throws back his head and stares at the ceiling as if hoping to read the answer to his problem. Poor man.

“Calm yourself,” I say. “There must be some girls with whom you’re compatible.”

“A few,” he sighs. “I have enjoyed moments of breathtaking ecstasy—quite, quite, unbelievable. But they are few and far between. This ravenous brute dozing between my thighs usually sees to that.” He stretches out a hand and squeezes my arm: “You probably think it unforgivable of me to talk to you like this after I’ve asked you out. But we live in the seventies and I think that we have to face up to the implications of sexual freedom. Who knows what may happen when we get to know each other better? I think it only fair to tell you now that we will probably be denied a relationship in the richest, fullest meaning of the word.”

“Thank you,” I say sincerely. “Thank you.” There may be a few tears at the back of my eyes, I am not certain.

“I suppose, now I’ve said that, you probably don’t want to come out with me?”

“Jake,” I say firmly. “I’d be proud to come out with you.”

“You’re supposed to be giving a blanket bath, not gossiping,” snaps Staff Wood who has glided up behind us undetected. “Finish what you’re doing and help Nurse Martin with the teas.”

After that conversation I do not reply to Geoffrey’s letter. He suddenly seems a much smaller person than Jake. Deceiving me behind my back with my own sister. Jake was totally frank and honest with me about his problem.

I consider chatting the whole thing over with Penny and then decide against it. Her excitable nature is liable to inflate things out of all proportion. Jake’s problem is something I will have to handle by myself.

To my relief Jake improves rapidly and X-rays reveal that there are no complications.

“Have you heard the wonderful news?” he says to me one morning after I have come back on duty after a half day off. “I’m getting out on Thursday. That great, shaggy sawbones said I was going to be stronger than when I came in.”

“Oh, Doctor Quint,” I say—for this is indeed Blackbeard’s name.

Something in my tone must suggest that I rate Dr Quint a couple of heart beats behind Dr Barnard.

“What’s the matter with him—” says Jake suspiciously.

“Nothing,” I say. “He’s supposed to be one of the best doctors in the hospital.” It would be nice to be lying for ethical purposes but in fact Blackbeard does have a first class reputation. Even Sister Bradley approves and she would fault sunlight for picking out specs of duSt I wish I could like him but he is such a scruffy bloke. Even the patients on the Doctor Eradlik Show were smarter than that.

“Anyway, I’m out on Thursday, love. And on Friday I’d like you to have dinner with me. Can do?”

“I’d love to,” I say, looking round nervously to see who is listening. “I’ll be off a bit late, though.”

“No sweat. I’ll pick you up outside the nurses home. There’s a nice little trat I’d like to take you to.”

“I’m supposed to be back by eleven,” I say. “I mean, I don’t want to sound ungrateful but are we going to have time to eat as well? Anyway, what is ‘a trat’?”

“Don’t worry, beautiful. Jakey knows how to look after the Cinderella people.” He snaps his fingers a couple of times and I think how cool he is. All that and a—no I won’t think about it. That is not why I am going out with him, anyway. It does not even figure amongst the first five reasons. There’s his good looks, his charm, his star appeal, his, his— what shall I wear? Something sophisticated but not too revealing. I wonder if Penny has anything? I don’t think I’m going to feel sophisticated in anything I’ve worn before. Revealing maybe but only in the sense of being shown up. Of course, I could buy something, but on my nurse’s pay I would be pushed to open a budget account at Milletts.

In the end I borrow one of Penny’s long plaid skirts and team it up with a white lace blouse. Since all my white bras are in the wash I am faced with the difficult decision of wearing a black bra or nothing. Normally I would have plumped for any colour of bra rather than nothing but I recall how Natalie looked when she ‘borrowed’ my ‘coal black mammary’—as she called it—to wear under her see-through T-shirt and I decide that it is better to reveal myself in the natural rather than the supernatural. At half-past eight I am ready to repel boarders and at eighty-thirty-five I learn that Jake Fletcher is without—I mean, outside the building, not declustered. G.B.H. sucks in his breath sharply as I scuttle past him and I sense that my outfit has won one fan.

I don’t know much about cars but the heap of gleaming metal nestling against the kerb makes me glad that a couple of my fellow nurses are standing by admiringly as I slide into it. Jake kisses me on the cheek and we rocket away as if separated from the nurses home by an explosion. Jake is wearing those gloves that don’t have any back and as I watch the muscles rippling on his hairy wrists when he changes gear I come up in goose pimples.

“Is this yours?” I ask him.

“No, it’s the gear lever,” he says.

“I meant the car,” I say, moving my legs slightly.

“No. It belongs to a friend. I’m thinking of getting one, though. Do you like it?”

“It’s fantastic. What is it?”

“It’s a Citroen Maserati. I had to drive one in a little epic I made.”

I think hard and then it comes to me. “Clunk Click. You were the bloke who was flung through the windscreen?”

Jake looks slightly hurt. “It was Firelop tyres actually,” he says.

“I know. When the hands come out of the tyres and start grabbing the road. My Dad likes that one. You’ve been in them all, haven’t you? Have you ever done a proper film?”

An expression of pain darts across Jake’s face and he wrenches the wheel viciously as we drift round a corner. “Let’s talk about it later, sweetie,” he says. “I hope you’re going to like this place we’re going to.”

In fact I love the place. It is called the Bisto something, I think—probably because of the brown sauce they serve with everything. It has a very continental atmosphere and the menu is written on a piece of slate with most of it rubbed off. Jake orders a carafe of red wine which he says is very unpretentious and sticks match sticks in the candle wax which is dripping all over the table. I can see that there is something on his mind. “It’s the same old trouble,” he says.

“What is?”

“The movie business. You were talking about it earlier. You know what it’s like?”

“Of course,” I lie.

“You never get anywhere unless you sleep with the right people. And what chance have I got with this bloody great brute dangling between my legs?”

“Quite.” I wish he would not talk so loudly. The couple next to us have stopped their conversation about the Chinese art treasures and are listening to every word.

“I’ve had some disastrous experiences and all I’ve ended up with is bit parts.”

“I’d have thought that with your talent you’d have been ideal for large parts,” I say.

Jake looks at me strangely and it occurs to me that I may have said the wrong thing. “I mean, I think you could be very big if the right opening presented itself,” I gulp.

Jake wrinkles up his eyes and squeezes my hand. “You’re a very understanding girl,” he says. “Let’s have some more wine.”

He is so generous compared with Geoffrey. With Mr Wilkes you were lucky if you got a glass of wine and half a bottle on birthdays. He always said he could not indulge because he was in training. Training to be a miser, I used to think to myself.

I am not used to drinking and by the end of the meal I am feeling quite light headed. Jake seems to knock back a tremendous amount of alcohol but I expect this is because he is in the film business.

“How about coffee at my place?” he says, snapping his fingers for the bill.

“I’d love to,” I say. “But I can’t stay very long.”

“Don’t worry. I’d just like to show you where I live. I’ve enjoyed your hospitality, now I’d like you to sample some of mine.”

He pick up my hand and kisses the palm. It is a very sexy gesture and it is a pity that he knocks over the wine bottle. While the waitress clears up he gazes into my eyes and an expression of great sadness comes over his face. “What a shame,” he says slowly.

“Don’t worry there wasn’t much left in it,” I say trying to cheer him up.

“I wasn’t talking about the bottle,” he says—it is so sexy the way he grits his teeth when he gets serious—“I was talking about us. If I didn’t have this—this damned impediment our relationship wouldn’t be doomed before it’s even started.”

“You mustn’t jump to conclusions, Jake,” I tell him. “Nothing is impossible. You’ve had relations with other girls. Who knows, maybe—in the fullness of time—”

Jake looks at his watch. “You’re a marvellous girl, Rosie. You really know how to give a fellow a lift.”

I must do because the table suddenly starts rising in the air.

“I think we’d better go,” says Jake hurriedly. “You lead the way.”

I don’t usually look at the front of men’s trousers but a glance at Jake’s crotch gives me some idea of the size of his problem.

Of course, I feel embarrassed but at the same time strangely aroused. A mood not unlike excitement accompanies me to the car. Jake has been wonderfully restrained but I am asking myself whether it might not be a kind gesture to confront him with his problem. If I could persuade him that it was possible for us to have a relationship—when the right moment arrived, naturally—then he might not worry so much. Of course, a lot of my inhibitions have disappeared with the wine but I think that I am speaking from reason rather than emotion.

Jake’s flat is fantastic. Very bare and modern but dominated by a great open fireplace in front of which is a huge furry rug. I think it is made of sheepskins but Jake tells me that the hides are those of Peruvian llamas. At first I get a nasty feeling when I think of that nice young man the Chinese were so unpleasant to but then I remember that the llamas with two l’s are mountain goats. Silly me!

“I picked it up when I was shooting a movie,” says Jake as he puts the coffee on and helps himself to a large brandy.

“Inca Bars!” I say getting all excited. “You were the high priest, weren’t you? You spared the sacrifice when he gave you an Inca Bar—’crunchy, nutty goodness covered in sinful plain chocolate—the reason the Spaniards conquered Peru’.”

“You’ve seen them all, haven’t you?” Jake sounds almost bitter.

“I’m your biggest fan,” I say.

“Come and sit down.” It is only when he speaks that I realise there are no chairs. Just a couple of half-filled leather sacks by the fire. Big pouffes I suppose you would call them. Jake settles onto one of them and pulls me down beside him. It is all very romantic.

“Do you find this smokeless fuel gives off a good heat?” I say. Usually I am tongue-tied with boys on a first date but tonight the words just seem to flow.

“It’s all right.” Jake takes a big swig at his brandy and runs his fingers through my hair. “Don’t think I wouldn’t like to make love to you,” he says.

“You’re very nice,” I say, trying not to look at the front of his trousers.

“I’m not nice,” he says. “I’m just a man. If only I wasn’t the way I am.”

“That nearly rhymes,” I say.

Jake ignores me and looks deep into the fire. “It’s not just the straightforward physical aspect. Even if you could—if we could—oh God! I hate having to go on about it.”

“Don’t worry. I can take it,” I say.

Jake turns to me quickly. “You mean—?”

“Of course. I want to hear all about your problem. There’s no need to feel shy.”

Jake closes his eyes and shakes his head. “There’s the emotional factor,” he says slowly.

“The emotional factor?”

“I’ve been very worried by the reaction of some of the girls I have been able to make love to. Their response has been so, so overwhelming, so total that I have been disturbed for their mental equilibrium.”

“You mean, they liked it?”

“Liked it? They were in a state of ecstasy that defies description. I don’t want to sound conceited, because it’s nothing to do with me—this thing is bigger than I am.”

“Quite,” I say.

“But there was no controlling them. One girl said she felt like a rose garden bursting into flower. I felt awful when we split up because, in a way, the experience had spoilt her for anything else.”

“She probably remembered it every time she saw a rose,” I say, trying to look on the bright side.

“So there you see the extent of my problem,” says Jake. I shoot a fleeting glance at the wherefore of his Y-fronts but there is less activity than during an Egyptian productivity drive. “Not only the physical aspect but the question of what the experience might do to you emotionally—I mean, do to a girl emotionally. I coudn’t live with myself if I thought I’d driven someone out of their mind with ecstasy.”

He is such a thoughtful man, isn’t he? When I think of some of the crude, pushy fellas who have tried to maul their way into my panties, I am quite touched. Such honesty deserves a reward.

I am also the teeniest bit intrigued. I am not a flighty sort of girl but I am interested in sexual matters and in many ways Jake is like a patient with a problem. Maybe, if I could learn to live with his problem I would be able to help him. A nurse has no right to be a prude. I know Doctor Eradlik would approve.

“I can hear the percolator bubbling,” I say.

Jake draws himself up and smiles down at me. “Don’t go away now.”

“Don’t worry.” I watch him stalk across the room towards the kitchen and by the time he has disappeared I have arrived at a decision. Poor Jake is so screwed up that he is obviously never going to make the running. I must do something positive to stop his spending the rest of his life brooding about something that is not his fault. A little physical and emotional turmoil is not too high a price to pay to ease the lot of a fellow human being.

As soon as I hear the chink of coffee cups I start unpopping my blouse and kick off my shoes. Down comes my skirt and I peel off my panties and tights. Thank goodness the room is nice and warm. I have just slipped my naked body under the ilama skin rug when Jake comes into the room carrying a tray. I see his eyes widen as they travel from me to my discarded clothes and back again.

“What—”

“Don’t say anything, Jake,” I say. “Come and join me. Que sera, sera.” I never quite know what that means but I remember somebody in an old movie saying it in a similar situation.

“What about the coffee?” says Jake. He kicks over his brandy glass but luckily there is nothing in it.

“Afterwards.” I stretch out an arm and notice that the rug has slipped down to my waiSt What does it matter? In the shameless ecstasy that is to come nobody is going to care about a little nudity.

“But I don’t want to hurt you.”

“Don’t worry about me. Think about yourself for a change. I don’t mind.” I lie back on the carpet and close my eyes. Soon the great, brute animal mass of the thing will be straining inside me but I am ready for it. I grit my teeth in brave anticipation. No matter what tidal waves of lustful pleasure break through my body in long shivering spasms I will not complain.

I open my eyes and Jake has not moved. “Are you sure?” he says.

“Don’t look so worried, Jake,” I tell him. “Let it all hang out.” Perhaps I could have expressed it better but at the time I am only thinking of making Jake more relaxed. The poor man is obviously going through a period of great strain as his thoughtfulness makes him resist his natural inclinations.

“I can’t,” he says.

“Don’t be silly.” Now it is my turn to seize his hand and pull him down beside me. “I want you to do it.” I could add “for medical reasons” but of course I don’t. I have already decided that my virginity will not be threatened by an association with Jake because of the therapeutic implications of the act. It is both a practical experiment and an act of mercy.

Jake lies beside me and I drink in the smell of his aftershave lotion. Now I come to think of it I remember the advertisement he did for the stuff. Sitting naked on a white horse in the middle of a forest fire—well, it might have been mist, the reproduction was not very good. And talking of reproduction—I snuggle against Jake’s neck and send down some nervous but expectant fingers to inspect the action. Having seen his loin in repose I can imagine the terrifying hugeness of the beast when gorged and ready to spring.

“I think there was something in the wine,” groans Jake. His words coincide with my discovery of what appears to be one and a half pounds of uncooked sausages down the front of his trousers. Surely—no, it is not possible. It is not possible that it is not possible. In desperation I tug down his zip and close my fingers around what seems like a couple of feet of water-logged fire hose. I wiggle it about a bit but nothing happens. The fire is well and truly out. This is terrible! Not, of course, for any purely sexual reasons but because I will be denied the opportunity of helping someone with a problem.

“Do you think it would help to settle your stomach if you had another drop of brandy?” I say.

I wish I had not said that. I do hate to see a grown man cry.