He had one last attempt at jettisoning Wilma, during which he poked himself in his other eye with her other breast, then gave up the ghost. He would have to drive back to London with her in the passenger seat. He fervently hoped no one would see him, or her, especially her, but didn’t much fancy his chances. The only thing going for him was that darkness was falling. Perhaps if he got his foot down it would help? Maybe if he was going fast Willing Wilma would be seen as just a blur and anyone seeing her might not recognise her as an inflatable rubber woman. Apart from that if he put his foot down it would get him home quicker, give people less time to see her anyway. He started the car and put his foot down.
Ten minutes into the journey he began to itch. Two seconds later itch’s partner scratch joined the party. Pugh panicked. Christ, was Willing Wilma one of the contaminated rubber women? Had his skin become contaminated while he was trying to jettison her? Just thinking about it brought him out in a hot sweat. The hot sweat made him itch and scratch all the more. He had never itched so much in his life. He pulled in at the side of the road and scratched for England. Thankfully a few minutes later the itching began to subside, and with it the scratching. Five minutes later it stopped altogether. Pugh concluded that the attack must have been psychosomatic, that thinking about the contaminated inflatable rubber women must have brought it on. Fifteen minutes later, and with no further attacks of the itches, he was sure this had been the cause.
Two and a half hours later he was back home. Amazingly no one had noticed the inflatable rubber woman at his side, not even when he’d passed through the brightly lit streets of London. Once, when he’d pulled up at traffic lights, the owner of the car that pulled up alongside him had looked directly at Willing Wilma, but had expressed no interest whatsoever. Pugh had decided that he was either short-sighted or a pervert who regularly took his own inflatable woman for a drive round, and had thought no more about it.
***
CHAPTER TWELVE
“Bless me Father, for I think I may have sinned.”
Father Flannery smiled condescendingly. “To think about sin is as much a sin as the sin itself, my son.”
“I didn’t say I’d been thinking about sin,” Father O’Riley replied, a little testily from the other side of the confessional box. “I said I think I may have sinned.”
“You may have sinned?”
“I have done something I think might be a sin but I’m not sure if it is.”
Flannery nodded wisely and settled back to listen. “You’d better tell me about it.”
“I’ve had sex with an inflatable rubber woman.”
Flannery had no doubts whatsoever and wasted no time in telling his fellow cleric. “I think we can safely say you have sinned, Father O’ Riley.”
“But in what way, Father Flannery? Granted, as a Roman Catholic priest I have taken a vow of celibacy. Which means I must not have sex with women.” The priest paused, then added, his voice a mixture of doubt and hope, “But....?”
“But what?”
“Women, Father Flannery. I must not have sex with women. Women, with flesh and blood. And I didn’t have sex with a real flesh and blood woman, did I? Merely a lump of rubber. When you look at it in that way it’s little more than masturbating. In fact it was just like masturbating, despite what it said on the box about it being the ultimate carnal experience. And we all masturbate now and then don’t we.”
“Yes, of course, but....no, no we most certainly do not all masturbate now and then, Father O’Riley!” said Flannery, instantly feeling hot under the collar.
O’Riley smiled knowingly. “No, of course we don’t, Father Flannery.”
“And furthermore, might I say Father O’Riley, having sex with an inflatable rubber woman is a little bit more than masturbating. Condoms don’t have breasts and other womanly things, at least not any condoms I’ve ever come into contact with. Not that I’ve come into contact with any,” he added quickly. He shook his head. “I’m not even sure you should be masturbating in a condom. A condom is a method of birth control and I’m sure you don’t need me to tell you of the Catholic Church’s doctrine in regard to that. Ten Hail Mary’s and Ten Our Fathers.”
When he had made his judgement Father Flannery had not the slightest doubt that he’d come to the right decision; certainly from a theological and moral viewpoint. However later that evening, relaxing with a glass of red wine, he began to have doubts. Was having sex with an inflatable rubber woman the same as having sex with a real woman? In deed, if not in fact? It was something he had never thought about, had never had to think about. He thought about it now.
Father O’Riley’s admission had taken him completely by surprise. Had the enormity of it, the nature of it, caught him off balance, forced him into making a hasty decision? He dwelled on it for a minute or so before shrugging it off as so much nonsense. Of course it hadn’t. Of course having sex with an inflatable rubber woman was wrong, very wrong, what on earth was he thinking about, considering for even one moment that it wasn’t wrong.
He poured himself a second glass of wine, put aside the Harry Potter that the patient he had visited in the lunatic asylum had recommended, and settled down with the Bible to look for suitable questions for the next quiz night at The Grim Jogger.
It had been an excellent idea of his to volunteer to set the questions for the weekly quiz, following the death of the last setter from an aneurysm, which ironically had been the answer to one of the last questions he’d ever asked. The type of questions posed had been given a complete make-over, and while about half of them were still secular the remainder were now about religion in general and the Holy Bible in particular. Questions about the Good Book would be a perfect way to get the members of the quiz teams interested in reading it, and would be far more beneficial than all the usual questions about football and pop stars and television shows. True, the number of teams taking part in the quiz had dropped from an average of fifteen to an average of eight since he’d taken over setting the questions, but then not everyone liked answering questions on the Bible, he understood that. But equally true, there were lots of people out there who would enjoy answering questions on the Bible, given the opportunity, and they would be bound to come along to The Grim Jogger as soon as news of the new quiz format had got around.
A third truth was that there was a certain ignorance of biblical knowledge exhibited by those teams who still took part. For example when he had posed the question ‘Who was Moses?’ a third of the participants, possibly expecting a question about films, had answered ‘Charlton Heston’. But he was sure it was only because they were on a learning curve and it would be only a matter of time before they got used to the new format.
Remembering to forego questions about the Madonna – there had been the most unholy row about her at the last quiz night when one of the quizzers had tried to claim that the Holy Mother was an American pop star - he settled to his task. He had just set another question involving Moses: ‘Subtract the days Jesus spent on the cross from the days Moses spent in the wilderness and divide by the Commandment which mentions graven images’, and was working on another one about Samson. However he was finding it difficult to concentrate as doubts about whether having sex with an inflatable rubber woman was or wasn’t a sin began to enter his head again, the thought of graven images possibly having triggered it off. And the more he thought about it the more doubtful he became. For what harm was there in having intercourse with a sex doll? Really? It would be different if you had sex with a real woman, a flesh and blood woman as Father O’Riley had put it; that would be a different thing altogether, for the moment you had sex with a real woman you had obligations towards that woman, and that’s where the trouble started. But what obligations had you towards a piece of rubber? None. You couldn’t harm a piece of rubber.
By the time Flannery had finished his third glass of wine he was even more doubtful. Where in the Bible did it say that Roman Catholic priests shouldn’t have sex with inflatable rub
ber women? It didn’t. If it had he would have already set it as a question in the pub quiz. Where in the Bible did it even mention inflatable rubber women? Not in any book of the Bible he’d ever read, not in the New Testament, not in the Old; not even in Revelations, and what a revelation that would have been if they had been mentioned. But they hadn’t.
After drinking a fourth glass of wine he was so convinced he’d come to the wrong decision that he phoned Fr O’Riley to cut his penance down to three Hail Mary’s and two Our Fathers. It took quite a time for O’Riley to come to the phone as he was having sex with his inflatable rubber woman at the time, but eventually he came and he came. O’Riley thanked him very much but said he needn’t have bothered because he wasn’t going to recite the Hail Marys and the Our Fathers anyway as he thought Flannery had been wrong in his judgement. After a fifth glass of wine Flannery totally agreed with him. And by the time he’d finished the bottle he was on the internet looking for suppliers of inflatable rubber women.
That had been two weeks ago. The inflatable rubber woman, courtesy of An Hour In Bed, had arrived a week later. After taking Religious Rita out of the package his inclination had been to send her back immediately and ask for her to be replaced with Sexy Susie or one of the other sex dolls. Having sex with an inflatable rubber woman was one thing, having carnal knowledge of one dressed as a nun was quite another, and he wondered what on earth he must have been thinking about when he’d sent off for her. Possibly it was a nagging doubt that he still might have been wrong in his decision to go down the Fr O’Riley path, and doing it with a religious personage might make him just that bit less guilty of mortal sin. But that apart, he’d had plenty of time to think about it by now. His thoughts had convinced him that maybe it hadn’t been the best idea he’d ever had.
Acting on these thoughts, before darker thoughts returned to elbow the pure thoughts out of the way again, he parcelled up Religious Rita with the intention of sending her back first thing in the morning. However another bottle of Chateau Communion Wine that evening interfered with his plans. By the fourth glass he’d got back to thinking what possible harm there could be in having sex with an inflatable woman, after the fifth glass he’d unpackaged her again, and by the time he’d emptied the bottle he was in bed with Religious Rita, had had sex with her and was seriously thinking about having it again.
Having it again was the last thing he was thinking about after he awoke the following morning with her beside him; thinking about the first time he’d had it with her was bad enough. Mercifully he couldn’t see her face, but only because it was still covered by her habit, which he had hoisted up over her head the night before as he hadn’t liked the idea of her looking at him while he was having sex with her.
He was immediately overcome with a dreadful remorse. What in God’s name had he done! He had fallen by the wayside. Fallen just as surely as the fallen women he daily admonished and handed out Hail Marys and Our Fathers to when they came to him to confess their sins. Fallen just as surely as the fornicating men who had caused the fallen women to fall in the first place. Damn Religious Rita! Damn An Hour In Bed! He wished he’d never heard of them.
Suddenly he knew what he must do, what action he must take that would at least go some way to absolving himself from the terrible sin he’d visited upon himself. Atonement! He must make atonement. Sackcloth and ashes. Self-inflicted punishment would get him off the slippery slope and back onto the straight and narrow. A spell in purgatory, that was the remedy, that was the way out of the sinful pit he’d allowed himself to slide into.
But what form would his penance take? Not Hail Marys and Our Fathers. He’d be reciting Hail Marys and Our Fathers for ever more if he were to recite enough of them to purge himself of such a terrible sin. Not flagellation either, he’d tried that the last time he’d masturbated and had had to stop when he’d started enjoying it more than the masturbation. He would have to stigmatize himself. Nothing short of that would be enough to purge him. Maim himself, that would do the trick. He would wear a suit made of spikes like that priest in The Da Vinci Code. An action as extreme as that would be bound to cleanse him.
He sincerely hoped he wouldn’t enjoy it, like he had the flagellation, otherwise he didn’t know what he’d do.
****
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
On his return from the visit to An Hour In Bed Hugh Pugh, tired and weary from his journey, all the scratching, and his exertions in unsuccessfully jettisoning Willing Wilma from his car, had informed Lorelei that he was having an early night and had gone straight to bed. To Lorelei’s surprise he was snoring his head off when she followed him a few minutes later; usually when he mentioned an early night he had a pre-slumbers bout of torrid sex in mind.
At just turned three-o-clock in the morning Pugh suddenly awoke, sweating profusely. Every part of his body was itching like mad. It was just like the itching he’d experienced on the drive back to London but about ten times worse. He knew the cause of it immediately. He’d been contaminated by that blasted inflatable rubber woman. Whether or not the itching he’d had before had been psychosomatic or a precursor of the real itching to come he didn’t know. What he did know was that something would have to be done about it, and pretty quick, before he scratched himself away.
He sat up in bed, switched on the bedside light and roughly shook Lorelei awake. She turned to him, rubbed her eyes and looked sleepily at the clock.
“What have we got for itching?” Pugh asked, feverishly scratching his chest with one hand and his scrotum with the other.
“Christ Almighty, Pughie, it’s three-o-clock in the morning,” Lorelei complained.
“Never mind that, I’m scratching myself to death here,” said Pugh, scratching himself to death. “Have we got anything for it?”
“Itching?” Lorelei thought for a moment. “Well I’ve got some of that stuff the doctor gave me when I had thrush; that might help.”
Pugh changed the target areas of his scratching from his chest and his scrotum to the back of his neck and his feet, then quickly moved on to his buttocks and knees before switching back to his chest and scrotum, which had immediately started itching again the moment he’d stopped scratching them. Lorelei pulled a face and edged back a little from him as though she’d just found out he was a leper or a Big Issue seller. “Bloody hell, Pughie,” she said, “where you been?”
“Never mind that, get me that cunt cream and bloody quick about it.”
Muttering complainingly, Lorelei got out of bed and made her way to the bathroom. Still itching furiously, Pugh scratched on, his hands darting about all over his body, scratching here, scratching there, homing in on one part of his body then moving on to another part before he’d hardly had time to scratch the part he’d moved to.
Between scratches he managed to tear off his pyjamas. He caught a glimpse of himself in the large mirror on the wall which matched the ones on the other three walls and the ceiling. He gasped at the sight. The five reflected Pughs were covered from head to foot in red blotches. Angry purple wheals, where he’d scratched himself, stood out against the few parts of him that what were still pink, and he was bleeding in several places where his fingernails had dug into to his podgy flesh. The removal of his pyjamas had made the itches easier to get at; whether that was a good thing or not was debateable as scratching them might make matters worse than they already were.
Hadn’t he read somewhere that cold helped with itching? Maybe if he immersed himself in a bath of very cold water it would stop it? Some ice cubes in it would help. But he wouldn’t be able to immerse his head, if he immersed his head he would drown, and his head was itching as much as the rest of him was itching. How would he be able to scratch it if his hands were underwater? He decided that his head would just have to itch if it meant the rest of his body was itching a bit less, and was about to shout to Lorelei to tell her to start running a cold bath and check for ice cubes when she returned from the bathroom with the thrush ointment.
&nb
sp; “I’ve found one or two other things you can try as well,” she said, putting jars and tubes down on the dressing table top. Pugh was still scratching like there was no tomorrow but if there was a tomorrow he’d still be scratching when it arrived. “If you can stop scratching for long enough for me to put them on you,” she continued. She pointed to them in turn, a stallholder offering her wares. “I’ve got the stuff the doctor gave me for thrush, some lanoline - that’s good for itching I think - some anti-histamine ointment, and some Calamine lotion I got when I got sunburned that time on that fact-finding mission; it’s very good for itching as well, Calamine lotion, I remember from that time I had hives. Which one do you want to try?”
“All of them, put the bloody lot on,” said Pugh desperately.
Lorelei was unsure. “Oh I don’t think that’s a good idea, Pughie; I mean you never know what might happen, I mean they might react with each other or something.”
“I’ll react by giving you a belt round the earhole if you don’t stop fucking about and get something on me,” snarled Pugh, attacking an already bleeding part of his anatomy anew. “Ouch!”
Lorelei bridled. “You oughtn’t to be talking to me like that, Pughie. I am an ex-WAG you know.”
“You’ll be an ex-fucking girlfriend if you don’t move your arse and get on with it. So let’s have some action, shall we!”
Lorelei considered the situation for a moment. “I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll split you into quarters. I’ll do a quarter of you with the lanoline, a quarter with the anti-histamine, a quarter with the Calamine lotion and a quarter with the thrush stuff. Then whichever works best for you I’ll do you all over with it.”
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