Many is the Boss

A few minutes later he said, 'I'm going up.'

'Is it that bad?' she said. 'Do you want an antibiotic? There's some left from when Jen had whooping cough.'

He shook his head as he penguin-walked towards the door with a gait that Carol, who had a teenage son, called the hard-on shuffle.

'It's how he walks after I've walked in on him looking at porn,' she said. 'The poor sod is trying to act all normal. It's hilarious.'

Give it half an hour or so, thought Lydia. Bring him a cup of tea. Should I put another one in that? Maybe not. The others seem to be working fine...

She started watching a documentary about mallards, a species whose dominant males used homosexual rape as a weapon to keep the betas in their place.

Lust plays no part in these assaults, said the solemn voiceover, which are solely to do with power and prestige within the hierarchy.

Could ducks lust? Surely that was a human complaint. Lydia watched impassively as a young upstart was buggered crossways by a squawking conclave of elders. It was supposed to be an awful spectacle (all that was missing was Barber's Adagio on the soundtrack) but it was hard to take it seriously. Mallards were too funny, even as sexual predators.

She watched the programme until the end and checked the time on the TV as the credits rolled. It had been an hour since he went up. Time to see how her duck was faring.

He was curled up beneath the duvet, less a duck than a depressive hedgehog.

'Nick? You asleep?'

'Go away.' He scrunched into a tighter ball. 'I think I'm dying.'

'Oh, don't be a pillock. What's the matter?'

'I can always count on you Lyddie, can't I? A little sympathy, maybe? I'm not well, babe, not at all.'

She touched his forehead.

'You've not got a fever,' she said. 'Is it your stomach?'

'I feel shit. Shit all over.' His voice sounded teary.

'Oh, Nick...' She tried to sound sympathetic but it came out jocular, as if she was mock-outraged by his incorrigibility.

'What's it all for?' he said.

'What's what all for?'

'It's all nothing. Nothing. A fucking black hole.'

Lydia slipped an exploratory hand over the hump of his back and down into the hollow of his groin. Holy Jesus...it felt like a diabolical root vegetable.

'Don't!' He pushed her hand away. 'It hurts like fuck.'

She pressed her lips to his ear. 'I can make it better.'

'I've already jerked off twice,' he said. 'It's no use. I'm not even horny.'

The plaintiveness with which he mewled the word was that of a child who'd dropped his sherbert.

'You want me to call an ambulance?' She toed off her slippers before crawling under the duvet. 'Is this better?'

'No ambulance...Lyddie...'

'Shh.'

She spooned him and reached for his cock, creeped out but intrigued by the stiff as teak quality of its hardness. It reminded her of her mum's fluid-swollen calves in the weeks before her death from heart failure.

'How long have you had it?' she said.

'I was watching Revisitaaaa...don't...fucking...' He clawed at her hand, his whole body shuddering in repulsion.

'Alright. Jesus...I'll get some ice.'

'Don't go.'

'I'm going to the fridge.'

'Hurry...'

He was getting hysterical, rocking back and forth like a disturbed child.

'Nick.' She crouched alongside him and placed a palm upon his forehead. 'Calm down. It's going to be fine.'

He threw back the duvet theatrically. Family Guy boxers. There was something of a resemblance between Peter Griffin and the hideous lump protruding from the vent. Lydia felt an inappropriate tingling in her nipples.

'Calm,' she said.

She left the room and went downstairs to the freezer in the hall, the itch spreading downwards through her insides. Priapism...It sounded supernatural. Evil spirits possessing the cock. What would something like that feel like in you...?

No ice...She picked up a bag of peas, dropped it, took a fifth of vodka instead. Her arms dimpled as she touched it. Lauren's. She had no need to know about the use it was going to be put to. I owe the little bitch one anyway. Several.

She returned to the bedroom where Nick was pacing up and down next to the bed.

'What are you doing?' she said.

'Couldn't lie still.'

'All I could find was this.' She held up the bottle.

'Give it....' He grabbed it and clamped it against his groin, inhaling brokenly and in a rising register.

'Come here.'

She sat down on the bed and patted the space next to her. He joined her uncertainly.

'That's fucking heaven,' he said.

'See?' She rubbed his back, inclining her head towards his ear. 'I told you...Be a shame to waste it, though.'

Her hand inched downwards, sensing his dwindling resistance.

'But I'm sick...'

'You are sick, love. But let me try at least. Sexual healing. Haven't you heard the song?'

She hummed the chorus against the side of his neck, remembering those dubious porn nurses.

'The cock is so big,' she said, trying to sound Eastern European and ending up Mexican.

'What?'

She removed his bottle-wielding hand and replaced it with hers.

'Easy, love...'

'Like this...?'

He made a sound like the sodomized mallard from earlier. She upped the pace further, breathing steadily. He was trying to speak but nothing came out. His face was like that painting, the freak screaming on the bridge. Handjobs were supposed to be nice...The dissonance made her moist.

'What?' she said.

'Ack...'

She followed his eyes down and saw that he'd already come.

'Does it feel any better?' she said.

He grabbed the bottle and reapplied it, slumping forward heavily. She tousled his hair to clean off her hand. The poverty of the load made a mockery of the term.

'Isn't that better?' Her voice tailed upwards at the end as a shiver passed through her. 'Oh God, have I made it worse? Nick? I was only trying to help...'

'Just fuck off.'

The whimper seemed to come from his jap's eye. If anything he appeared to be getting harder...

'I'll get you a pill,' she said. 'It'll help you sleep...'

Jen was in the kitchen when she went down.

'What's up?'

'Nothing. Why?'

'You look all bothered.'

'Your Dad's not well. His, um, stomach.'

'Poisoned with ethical meat. The irony.'

'Shut up. It's not the meat.'

'Oh, I forgot to tell you, I met Lynn Warwick in The Breakers last night. Remember you were asking me about her? She was out with her Mum and Dad. Celebrating. She's pregnant...'

*

Lydia looked at Nick over the rim of her laptop screen. The pills and the packet of frozen peas she had gaffa-taped to his groin had knocked him out. There was nothing on Wikipedia about how long the effects would last. She clicked the link that read, Side-effects -- Priapism: In approximately 33% of the cases reported, surgical intervention was performed and, in a portion of these cases, permanent impairment of erectile function or impotence resulted. Now wouldn't that be a shame?

Celebrating. She's pregnant...

She typed Abortifacient into the search box...