Inflatable Hugh

by Terry Ravenscroft

  Pugh felt like splitting Lorelei into quarters and doing her all over if it would only make her shut up yapping and get on with it, but he simply nodded his agreement. Lorelei set to work and a few minutes later Pugh, lanolined, anti-histamined, Calamined and thrushed, stood and waited for the various sprays and lotions to take effect.

  Lorelei, mindful of her warning that there might be a bad reaction if one or more of the assorted lotions happened to get mixed up with each other, had artfully allowed them to overlap at the approximate centre of the four quadrants of Pugh, namely his genital area, in the hope that she might cause a bit of damage there and pay him back for being so horrid to her.

  All the various treatments helped to abate the itching to some degree, especially in the genital area, which rather worryingly for Pugh had gone completely numb. Even so he still itched quite a bit and it was all he could do to stop himself from scratching. The best of the treatments turned out to be the Calamine lotion. Having established this Lorelei got Pugh to shower, in order to remove all the other anti-scratching aids.

  Having provided herself with a clean canvas on which to paint, Lorelei then set to work with the Calamine lotion. After she had covered Pugh from head to foot in the bright pink liquid she stood back to admire her handiwork.

  “You look just like an inflatable rubber man,” she said. “If there are such things.”

  Pugh was to wonder the same thing himself before very much longer.

  ****

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Yet another man to rue the appearance of an inflatable rubber woman in his life was George Grimshaw, for it was one such that was indirectly responsible for his being summarily dismissed from his job as a postman.

  About six months previously Grimshaw had been happily treading the streets in the course of his duties. Grimshaw loved his job, it kept him fit and got him out in the open air. He liked the simple, uncomplicated nature of a postman’s job. It wasn’t quite as uncomplicated as his wife had tried to make out - when he’d first got the job and mentioned to her that he had to attend a training course before being sent out on his first round she’d said “A training course to learn how to walk? I’ve been able to walk since I was one” - but it wasn’t so complicated as to occupy one’s mind overmuch. Just as long as you remembered little things like not putting your hand through the letter box along with the letter, especially when the space immediately behind the door might be occupied by a particularly vicious dog, your mind could go wherever it wanted to go; it was only your legs that the Royal Mail required.

  However Grimshaw’s job began to get much more complicated the day he noticed that a parcel he was about to deliver, to one of the more up-market houses on his route, had a corner ripped off. The postman, a naturally inquisitive man who made a habit of reading postcards sent from holidaymakers to their friends and loved ones, could not resist a peep inside. After making the hole a bit bigger he found that the parcel contained a sex toy. He didn’t realise it was a sex toy at first; it looked for all the world like a brightly-coloured plastic toy gun, something a little boy might use to shoot baddies when he was imagining he was Luke Skywalker or Indiana Jones. It was only on closer examination – and after turning the parcel upside down and shaking it, whereupon the contents fell out onto the pavement – that he realised it was a LoveHoney 7 Function Vibrating Cock Ring 2.0. (as it stated on the box).

  It was at this point that Grimshaw began to have grave doubts about his chosen profession. From being a man who simply delivered letters and parcels to people’s homes he now realised that he was also a courier of sex toys, an inadvertent provider of porn. He was outraged.

  Grimshaw had never enjoyed sex – he had only ever had it with his wife, who had always given a fair imitation of a log whilst grudgingly supplying it, and nowadays didn’t supply it at all. Deprived of enjoyable sex himself he didn’t like other people enjoying it, which they obviously did, for it was all over the place, you couldn’t move without being aware of it; in the papers - ‘Cheryl’s new lover’; on the telly - ‘There are scenes of a sexual nature’; in the pub - ‘What you looking so pleased with yourself about Dave, get your end away last night? Got a promise? Jesus look at the tits on that new barmaid, I could shag that!’ The whole world was at it.

  From that day on every parcel wrapped in plain brown paper had been treated by Grimshaw with a deep suspicion, looked at with narrowed eyes, poked at by his index finger, squeezed by his hands, held to his ear and rattled, all in an effort to determine the contents inside. Anything cylindrical and between six inches and a foot long was treated with particular distrust. Despite his deepest suspicions, and notwithstanding all the looking with narrowed eyes and poking and squeezing and rattling, Grimshaw could never be one hundred per cent sure that any of the suspect packages which emerged with monotonous regularity from the depths of his postbag actually contained sex toys. But one thing he was absolutely sure about was that if he ever did manage to discover a sex toy it certainly wouldn’t be going through the letter box or handed over the doorstep to the pervert who’d sent for it. It would be thrown without delay and without ceremony on the council tip. Two completely innocent rolling pins had already received this fate.

  Shortly after the incident with the LoveHoney 7 Function Vibrating Cock Ring 2.0. Grimshaw saw an advert in the local freebie newspaper - ‘Vigilantes Against Sex Toys, come and join us’. He had needed no further invitation. A little sceptical at first – he suspected from the invitation to ‘come and join us’ that Vigilantes Against Sex Toys might be a front for the Salvation Army who were having a recruiting drive – he had gone along to the next meeting. He arrived there to discover his fears were completely unfounded. There was no sign of any tambourines, far less a big drum or euphonium. And although the members of VAST were as zealous in their belief as even the staunchest followers of William Booth, their zeal manifested itself not in the dishing out of bowlfuls of soup and hope to the needy but to targeting purveyors of sex toys. Grimshaw was made up.

  After the meeting had ended and all the members of VAST had gone their separate ways, save for Willoughby, Grimshaw had discussed his dilemma with VAST’s chairman. The society’s leading light had promised to give the matter some thought. By the time the next meeting came round he had come up with an idea which he thought might go a long way to solving Grimshaw’s problem. VAST would purchase, for the exclusive use of Grimshaw whilst doing his postman’s round, an X-Ray machine. This apparatus would enable him to scan suspicious-looking packages and weed out and discard the ones that satisfied his suspicions. “And will fail to satisfy the perverts who had been expecting them,” Willoughby had said, in a rare attempt at humour.

  In the two months since Grimshaw had been provided with the X-ray machine he had weeded out and discarded no less than twelve such items, plus a baby’s novelty potty that looked suspiciously like the LoveHoney Sqweel Oral Sex Simulator he had weeded out the week before, along with another rolling pin which he had weeded out by mistake and couldn’t get back into the package.

  It was the fifteenth item he discovered that proved to be his undoing. It was Glorious Gloria, one of An Hour In Bed’s inflatable rubber women. There had been no need to open it, the X-ray machine had clearly revealed the contents. Grimshaw had continued on his round, Glorious Gloria stowed safely in his postbag, never to be stowed safely in the loft away from the prying eyes off Mrs Donaldson, whose husband had ordered the offending and offensive article.

  Before embarking on his part-time career as keeper of the public’s morals Grimshaw had considered the possibility that his activities might one day be discovered. He had come to the decision that it wasn’t likely. His reasoning was that customers, on failing to receive a sex toy they had ordered, were hardly likely to complain to the Royal Mail about it. The sheer embarrassment it would cause them would see to that.

  And he was probably right. But what he didn’t take into account was that a customer who failed to take delivery of a s
ex toy he’d ordered might complain to the suppliers from whom he’d ordered it. Which all the customers did.

  After a few such complaints an investigation was mounted by the Royal Mail authorities and suspicion fell on Grimshaw. An official from their head office special security team was detailed to tail the errant postman in order to prove or disprove their suspicions.

  On the third day of being tailed Grimshaw’s X-ray machine had revealed that the large parcel headed for one Dr Arthur Snood almost certainly contained an inflatable rubber woman. He couldn’t be absolutely sure; there was a chance it could be a pink blow up plastic pouffe.

  This had been the case a couple of weeks previously, as when both items were folded up flat they looked very similar (although perhaps a more observant person than Grimshaw might have noted that pouffes don’t usually wear G-strings). On that occasion, when he had taken the package to the tip and opened it up in order to confirm his suspicions, he had been disappointed to discover it contained nothing but the pouffe. However before he could re-package it a flock of gulls had swooped down on it, no doubt thinking it was food, and had pecked a thousand holes in it before discovering their mistake.

  Grimshaw, having learned his lesson, now chose a spot on the tip well away from where the gulls were currently foraging. He ripped away the brown paper and opened the cardboard box inside. Just as he suspected it contained an inflatable rubber woman, along with a card, tastefully tucked down the elastic waistband of her black lace thong. Written on the card in a graceful gold-coloured longhand script were the words ‘Glorious Gloria. With the compliments of An Hour In Bed. Enjoy.’

  On the three previous occasions Grimshaw had discovered sex dolls in his postbag he had simply dumped them on the tip. However this time, mindful of Farzad Khan’s s eldest son getting his hand stuck in the wankee-doodle-dandy, and fearful of what the Afghan’s offspring might get stuck in an inflatable rubber woman should he chance upon it, Grimshaw’s plan was to destroy it. He thought he might accomplish this by walking over to where the gulls were scavenging and simply tossing it to them so they could peck a thousand holes in it as they had the pouffe. However when he looked over to where they were flocking, some hundred yards or so away, he spotted a man nearby. Not wishing to draw attention to himself he was forced to revise his plan.

  To carry out his strategy he now took out his penknife with the idea of stabbing a few holes in the inflatable rubber woman, thus rendering it Farzad Khan’s-eldest-son-proof. Unfortunately his first stab scored a direct hit on Glorious Gloria’s valve. It was enough for her to suddenly start inflating. Thankfully, unlike the occasion when Arbuckle’s rubber woman had suddenly inflated, Glorious Gloria stopped inflating when she reached her normal size. Even so she presented a fearsome sight; a pink medley of arms, legs, breasts and buttocks, topped by a grotesque long blonde-haired head, her face set in a gruesome grin.

  Grimshaw shuddered at the sight of it. He pulled himself together. This wasn’t getting the baby bathed. Or Glorious Gloria dealt with. But what to do? He looked all around him to see if there was anyone about. Just the man by the gulls. But the man was on the move now, and heading towards him. Shit! He thought quickly. The best course of action seemed to be to continue with his original plan to stab holes in the inflatable rubber woman and make himself scarce before the man started asking awkward questions. However it didn’t help matters that he was still in his postman’s uniform and there was clear evidence that a parcel had been opened.

  With not a second to waste he set about puncturing Glorious Gloria. This proved to be easier said than done. Glorious Gloria was one of An Hour In Bed’s de-luxe range and as such was ‘made of specially toughened and puncture-proof rubber for year upon year of satisfyingly sexy nights’. Whether the puncture-proof rubber would have withstood the attentions of a tungsten carbide-tipped electric drill is debateable but it certainly proved to be tough enough to prevent Grimshaw’s Woolworth’s penknife penetrating it. Twelve times he plunged the penknife into Glorious Gloria and twelve times it bounced back off her toughened de-luxe hide.

  He looked around for something sharper. He spotted a discarded old metal car bumper bar a few yards away. It looked pretty solid, heavy, and with luck would have sharp edges. Surely if he threw that down on her with enough force it would pop her? He went to get it, but on the way struck gold. An old companion set, complete with a poker, had been thrown away. Just the thing. He noticed that the end of the poker, obviously having done a lot of poking, was worn to a point. Excellent. He made his way back to Glorious Gloria, dropped to his knees beside her, raised his arm high over his head and prepared to plunge the poker into to her.

  It was at that point that the weather decided to take a hand. A gentle breeze is often called ‘playful’, but as far as Grimshaw was concerned there was nothing playful about the gentle breeze that now suddenly appeared from nowhere and lifted Glorious Gloria off the ground. She was four feet above the rubbish tip and rising before the startled postman pulled himself together enough to make a grab for her. Having snatched hold of her he wrestled her to the ground, then lay on top of her to keep her from becoming airborne again while he thought things through. It was clear to him that once he let go of her she would probably be off on her travels again before he’d had the chance to pop her. While he was still thinking about how he could overcome this latest snag the man who had been making his way over from the gulls, Mr Jennison of the Royal Mail Security Team, arrived on the scene. He stopped at Grimshaw, looked down on him and coughed discreetly to gain his attention. Grimshaw turned to him, surprised and aghast.

  “And what do you think you’re up to?” said Jennison, arching his eyebrows.

  If Grimshaw had been given a week in which to think of a suitable answer he may possibly have arrived at something believable. At such short notice the only excuses he could come up with were that he had suspected a package in his mailbag had contained a bomb, whereupon he had opened it and discovered what he took to be a large quantity of pink plastic explosive disguised as an inflatable rubber woman, which he was now trying to de-fuse. Alternatively, he was practising for his forthcoming holiday on which, as a devout sun-worshipper, he intended to spend the whole two weeks lying on a lilo. He decided that neither excuse sounded convincing, so he said, rather lamely: “This isn’t as bad as it looks.”

  “Well it looks like you’ve been tampering with the Royal Mail,” said Jennison, “And that having tampered with it you are now shagging the arse off the contents of it; how much worse can it look?”

  Within the hour Grimshaw had been paid off and sacked.

  ****

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  “Balance of his mind disturbed?” said Dr Featherstone, doubtfully.

  Pugh attempted to laugh off the doctor’s doubts. It wasn’t doubts he was looking for, doubts didn’t get you out of the shit. “Well it’s obvious,” he said. “The man gave away ten million pounds; you’d have to be stark raving mad to do that.”

  Dr Featherstone shook his head. “Not really. Men have given away far larger amounts. Getty, Carnegie, more recently Bill Gates, a whole host of philanthropically-minded people.”

  “And did these philanthropically-minded people also have themselves buried in a woman’s fanny?”

  The doctor almost choked on the last of his roast widgeon with blackcurrant jus. “Pardon?”

  “Because my brother Aneurin did,” said Pugh, peeved. “And if that isn’t the action of somebody who’s as mad as a bloody hatter I don’t know what is.”

  Pugh had spent two days embalmed in the Calamine lotion whilst waiting for the itching to abate. By then it had set to a consistency of plaster of Paris. When he finally emerged from his suit of pink armour it was not without considerable pain. Refusing point blank to immerse himself in a hot bath or take a shower in order to break down and melt the Calamine, fearful that the hot water would set him off itching again, he had instructed Lorelei to chip it off with a blunt knife. As Pugh was by no
means short of body hair, which by this time the Calamine had taken an iron grip on, this was by no means a straightforward procedure. Pugh was particularly hirsute in the chest and groin area, and it was on these parts of his body that not insubstantial pieces of him came away along with the Calamine and the hair. By the time Lorelei had completed her work his chest had only slightly more hair than a billiard ball.

  After she had made several attempts at freeing the Calamine from his genitals, to screams of pain from Pugh, he had opted to leave things as they were down there and allow it to wear off in the fullness of time. Lorelei had told him that there was no way she was having sex with him while his penis was bigger and harder than usual, because it was quite big and hard enough as it already was. Pugh decided that they would cross that bridge when they came to it.

  The bridge was in danger of having to be crossed much sooner than he expected, when, on passing the time before bedtime by tuning in to his usual porn channel, he had obtained an erection. However his tumescence immediately caused small lumps of dried Calamine lotion to try to tear themselves from his genitals. The excruciating pain this brought with it rendered his penis instantly limp again and he abandoned all thoughts of sex and switched over to ‘Meet Vanessa Feltz’ so it wouldn’t happen again.

  Whilst entombed in the Calamine Pugh had had time to think, to contemplate the state of affairs he had been placed in viz a viz his inheritance, and to deliberate on how he could turn the situation to his advantage. Several avenues that might prove fruitful had suggested themselves. Trying to prove that his brother gave away the ten million pounds while the balance of his mind was disturbed was the second of the avenues he explored, hence the expensive lunch at The Waterside Inn at Bray with his psychiatrist, Dr Featherstone.